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THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE 
 
 VOL. 1 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024329785 
 
THE 
 
 EMPRESS JOSEPHINE 
 
 tKJiPOLEON'S ENCHjJNTTiESS 
 
 By 
 PHILIP W. SERGEANT 
 
 Author of " The Last Empress of the French," etc 
 
 WITH 34 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Vol. 
 
 New York 
 DODD, MEAD & CO. 
 
 372 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1909 
 
PRINTED IN GKEAT BRITAIN 
 
 '^jQ^'^ ^ 
 
 / 
 
 Lo 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. JOSEPHINE'S FAMILY .... I 
 
 II. EARLY YEARS IN JMARTINIQUE . . . l6 
 
 III. THE VICOMTESSE DE BEAUHARNAIS . . 46 
 
 IV. THE BEGINNING OF INDEPENDENCE . . 73 
 V. THE SHADOW OF THE GUILLOTINE . . 100 
 
 VI. THE WIDOW BEAUHARNAIS . . . II4 
 
 VII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE .... I36 
 
 VIII. FROM THE RUE CHANTEREINE TO ITALY . 158 
 
 IX. MILAN AND MONTEBELLO .... I90 
 
 X. THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE .... 205 
 
 XI. napoleon's return FROM EGYPT . . 229 
 
 XII. JOSEPHINE AND BRUMAIRE . . . 348 
 
 XIII. THE CONSULESSE . . . . . 264 
 
 XIV. JOSEPHINE AND HER CHILDREN . . 288 
 XV. UNWELCOME HONOURS .... 3OO 
 
 XVI. AN ANXIOUS PERIOD .... 318 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 Josephine. {By Isabey) .... Photogravure Frontispiece 
 
 Facing page 
 
 HORTENSE DE BeAUHARNAIS 62 
 
 Josephine. (By Isabey) loo 
 
 Baeras . . . . . . . . . . .114 
 
 Madame Tallien ......... 132 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. (By Baron Gros) . . . .136 
 
 Joseph Bonaparte 142 
 
 MuRAT 200 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. (By Guerin) ..... 228 
 
 Eugene de Beauharnais 234 
 
 Caroline Bonaparte (Murat) 256 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul (By Appiani) . . 264 
 
 Lucien Bonaparte 270 
 
 Joseph Fouche Due d'Otranto 272 
 
 Queen Hortense 288 
 
 Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland 300 
 
 Marie Pauline, Princess Borghese 330 
 
THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 JOSEPHINE'S FAMILY 
 
 WRITING in 1887, after a trip to Fort-de- 
 France, formerly Fort-Royal, capital 
 of the West Indian island of Martinique, the 
 late Lafcadio Heam remarks that the town has 
 little of outward interest apart from the Savane, 
 the great green public square. But that, con- 
 tinues Hearn in his most enthusiastic strain, 
 would be worth the visit alone, even were it 
 not made romantic by the marble memory of 
 Josephine : 
 
 " I went to look at the white dream of her 
 there, a creation of master-sculptors. It seemed 
 to me absolutely lovely. Sea-winds have bitten 
 it ; tropical rains have streaked it ; some 
 microscopic growth has darkened the exquisite 
 
 ^ VOL. I I 
 
2 The Empress Josephine 
 
 hollow of the throat. And yet such is the 
 human charm of the figure that you almost fancy 
 you are gazing at a living presence. Perhaps the 
 profile is less artistically real — statuesque to 
 the point of betraying the chisel ; but when 
 you look straight up into the sweet Creole face, 
 you can believe she lives : all the wonderful 
 West Indian charm of the woman is there. She 
 is standing just in front of the Savane, robed in 
 the fashion of the First Empire, with gracious 
 arms and shoulders bare : one hand leans upon 
 a medallion bearing the eagle profile of Napoleon. 
 Seven tall palms stand in a circle around her, 
 lifting their comely heads into the blue glory of 
 the tropic day. Within their enchanted circle 
 you feel that you tread holy ground — the sacred 
 soil of artist and poet. Here the recollections 
 of memoir-writers vanish away ; the gossip 
 of history is hushed for you ; you no longer 
 care to know how rumour has it that she spoke 
 or smiled or wept : only the bewitchment of her 
 Uves under the thin, soft, swaying shadows of 
 those feminine palms. Over the violet space 
 of summer sea, through the vast splendour 
 of azure Ught, she is looking back to the 
 place of her birth, back to beautiful drowsy 
 
Romance and History 3 
 
 Trois-Ilets — and always with the same half- 
 dreaming, half-plaintive smile^ — -unutterably 
 touching." ' 
 
 It would surely be impossible to find any 
 passage in literature outside these few lines 
 from the early pen of Lafcadio Heam in 
 which a better suggestion is conveyed to us of 
 the Josephine of romance, as opposed to the 
 Josephine of history. And the Josephine of 
 romance may be said to bear to the actual 
 Josephine as we find her in history the same 
 relation that the statue so lovingly described 
 above bore to the real woman, the wife of the 
 First Consul and the Emperor, who never 
 appeared without her rouge and thick coating 
 of powder, who spent at least three hours in her 
 dressing-room every morning, and who felt so 
 keenly the necessity, if not of suffering, at any 
 rate of labouring hard, to be beautiful. Yet it 
 may be that, just as the living woman was able 
 to exercise upon those with whom she came in 
 contact a fascination which no statue of her 
 could inspire, so there is more absorbing interest 
 in the true Josephine, seen as she existed from 
 
 » Lafcadio Heam. "Two Years in the French West Indies," 
 pp. 65-6. 
 
4 The Empress Josephine 
 
 day to day, with her frivohty and her faults so 
 Uttle hidden, than in the merely lovely and 
 benevolent Empress of legend. Whatever legend 
 could do for the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 it could not invent for her a more curiously 
 picturesque career than was hers in fact : on the 
 contrary, in removing from its records so many 
 of the actual incidents as not harmonising with 
 the character which it was endeavouring to 
 present, it removed also a great deal of the 
 picturesqueness. 
 
 On June 23, 1763, there was bom at Trois- 
 Ilets, Martinique, the eldest child of Joseph- 
 Gaspard Tascher de la Pagerie, retired heu- 
 tenant of marine artillery, and of his wife, 
 formerly Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois. 
 To this child were given the names of Marie- 
 Joseph-Rose ; Marie from her father's mother, 
 Joseph from her father, and Rose from her 
 mother. The name of Josephine was unknown 
 until she met the young General Bonaparte in 
 1796. In her girlhood, up to the time when she 
 first sailed for France, she was generally called 
 by the pet-name of Yeyette, which sounds hke an 
 infantile mispronunciation or a negro corruption. 
 
The Taschcfs 5 
 
 At the time of Yeyette's birth her father 
 and mother were both under thirty years of age 
 and had been married a year and a half. Joseph- 
 Gaspard Tascher de la Pagerie was one of the 
 five children of a Frenchman who had emigrated 
 to the West Indies in 1726. The Taschers were 
 a family of provincial nobility in the Orleanais 
 district of France. Although claiming to trace 
 themselves back in history to the twelfth 
 century, they had achieved nothing to raise 
 them from a modest station in life. The estate 
 of La Pagerie was in the neighbourhood of 
 Blois, and the eldest branch of the family took 
 the name of Tascher de la Pagerie (or Lapagerie, 
 as it was often written) after establishing itself 
 there. Gaspard- Joseph, though the eldest son 
 of his father, went to the West Indies with little 
 in his pocket and without official rank, from 
 which it has been suggested that he was a ne'er- 
 do-well. Those whose political views made them 
 hostile|to the Empress Josephine's family pictured 
 its founder as picking up a bare living in the 
 service of various Martinique households. All 
 that is certain is that his emigration to the New 
 World did not make his fortune. His best 
 stroke was his marriage, eight years after he 
 
6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 reached Martinique, to a Mile, de la Chevalerie, 
 with whom he received as dowry some 
 property at Carbet, near Saint-Pierre, and 
 some also in the island of Saint-Lucia. His 
 debts accumulated, however, and he left his 
 Carbet estate, where his son Joseph-Gaspard 
 was born, and went to live at Fort-Royal. 
 At the age of seventeen Joseph-Gaspard was 
 sent to France as a rather elderly page in the 
 household of the Dauphine, returning to Martin- 
 ique three years later with the brevet rank of 
 sub-lieutenant of marine artillery. This was 
 the year in which warfare broke out between 
 France and England in American waters ; and 
 French needs in the West Indies brought about 
 an appointment which had momentous con- 
 sequences for the family of Tascher de la 
 Pagerie. 
 
 In the spring of 1757 the home of the Taschers 
 at Fort-Royal was inhabited by the father and 
 mother, with their son Joseph-Gaspard and their 
 three daughters, Marie-Euphemie-Desiree, Marie- 
 Paule, and Marie-Frangoise-Rose, aged twenty- 
 one, nineteen, and seventeen respectively. 
 Another son, Robert-Marguerite, was in France. 
 None of the children were married, and thefamily 
 
Fran9ois de Beauharnais, 7 
 
 was in poor circumstances, although the father 
 had succeeded in persuading the Martinique 
 authorities to register his letters of nobility, 
 which entitled him to certain reliefs and 
 privileges. The advent of the specially ap- 
 pointed Governor and Lieutenant-General of 
 the Antilles was doubtless looked forward to 
 with hope ; and Gaspard- Joseph Tascher was 
 successful in getting for his eldest daughter an 
 appointment as companion of some sort to the 
 Governor's wife. 
 
 Messire Frangois de Beauharnais, haul et 
 puissant seigneur, as he was styled in the Royal 
 appointment under which he came out to the 
 French West Indian possessions, was a wealthy 
 man of forty-two years of age when he arrived 
 at Martinique with his young wife and his one- 
 year-old child, named, like himself, Francois. 
 His family, like that of the Taschers, came 
 from the Orleanais (which may account for 
 Marie-Euphemie-Desiree obtaining her post at 
 Government House), but it had prospered better 
 than the Taschers, owing to the military achieve- 
 ments of several past Beauharnais. His conduct 
 while Governor shows him to have been a weak 
 and unprincipled man ; but he was possessed 
 
8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 of considerable influence at Court, as is proved 
 by the manner in which he managed to escape 
 much of the punishment due to his misdeeds, 
 and even to secure a pension for his supposed 
 services. 
 
 1 Before the arrival of Beauharnais, Joseph- 
 Gaspard Tascher had gained the substantive 
 rank of lieutenant for the share which he had 
 taken in protecting Fort-Royal against English 
 attacks. It was not, however, the military 
 abilities of Josephine's future father, but the 
 talents of his sister that were to bring about 
 the close connection between the Taschers and 
 Beauharnais. Marie-Euphemie-Desiree Tascher 
 was a remarkable woman, as will clearly appear 
 from her subsequent history, and as strong a 
 character as Fran9ois de Beauharnais was weak. 
 Her entry into Government House at Fort- 
 Royal decided the future lives of many persons. 
 She rapidly gained a complete ascendancy over 
 the Governor, while impressing his wife so 
 favourably that she remained on terms of friend- 
 ship with her for at least four years, in spite of 
 the talk to which the intimacy of Beauharnais 
 and the Creole girl inevitably gave rise. Per- 
 haps it was with a desire to disarm suspicion 
 
Mme. de Renaudin 9 
 
 that the Governor endeavoured to arrange a 
 marriage for Marie-Euphemie-Desiree with a 
 young man on his personal staff, Alexis Renaudin, 
 who belonged to one of the best Martinique 
 families. Renaudin's parents, however, ob- 
 jected to the match, both on account of the 
 Taschers' poor position and because the lady, 
 they said, abused her influence with M. and Mme. 
 de Beauharnais. Consequently it was not until 
 the father of Alexis died that the Governor was 
 able to bring about the marriage. The widow 
 yielded to pressure, and the wedding was 
 celebrated on April 22, 1759. 
 
 It was owing to his fatherly exertions on 
 behalf of his wife's companion that Beau- 
 harnais lost his post in the West Indies. The 
 English fleet had attacked the island of Guade- 
 loupe in January, and Beauharnais had received 
 sufficient reinforcements to go to the aid of 
 the French garrison early in March. Delaying 
 six weeks in order to assist at the Renaudin 
 marriage, he arrived at Guadeloupe in time 
 to learn that Nadau du Treil, who was in com- 
 mand on the island, had surrendered a day 
 previously. The rumour was spread about 
 that the delay had been caused by the wedding 
 
lo The Empress Josephine 
 
 at Saint-Pierre of the Governor's son. In 
 reality, of course, this son was only three years 
 old, and the wedding which lost Guadeloupe 
 was that of Renaudin and Mile. Tascher. 
 Beauharnais, however, paid for his neglect of 
 duty. Although he was able to put the blame 
 for the surrender of Guadeloupe upon Nadau 
 du Treil and his fellow officers, who were court- 
 martialled, degraded, and sent home to prison, 
 information as to the Governor's share in the 
 island's loss, if not as to its actual cause, 
 reached Paris, and in spite of his influence at 
 Court he was reheved of his command in the 
 West Indies. 
 
 Beauharnais did not return home at once. 
 His wife was expecting her second child, which 
 furnished a reasonable pretext for delay. On 
 May 26, 1760, she gave birth to her son Alex- 
 andre-Fran9ois-Marie, afterwards first husband 
 of Josephine. The infant's ondoiement, though 
 not his full baptism, took place on June 10 at 
 Saint-Pierre, his godmother being Mme. Re- 
 naudin. On the same day the latter sailed 
 for France, according to the local tradition 
 accepted by Aubenas, whom we may call the 
 official biographer of Josephine. M. Masson, 
 
Beauharnais's Disgrace 
 
 II 
 
 who is less concerned^than Aubenas to demon- 
 strate the virtuous character of Mme. Renaudin, 
 points out the lack of evidence of her presence 
 in Paris before 1761. In the April of that 
 year Beauhamais, with his wife and elder 
 child, sailed from Martinique on the frigate 
 Hebe. It is not a matter of very much im- 
 portance whether Mme. Renaudin went with 
 them. It is certain that since her marriage 
 she had wielded more influence than ever 
 over the Beauharnais, and her relations with 
 her husband were strained to breaking- 
 point. She never lived with Renaudin again 
 after leaving Martinique, although there 
 does not appear to have been any legal 
 separation. 
 
 When the Beauharnais set sail for France, 
 they left the infant Alexandre with his grand- 
 mother at Fort-Royal. Seven months later, 
 on November 9, 1761, the marriage took place 
 at Trois-Ilets of the parents of Alexandre's 
 future wife. The Beauharnais influence was 
 seemingly advantageous to Joseph-Gaspard 
 Tascher as well as to his sister ; for his bride 
 belonged to the des Vergers de Sannois, one 
 of the best island families, and brought him 
 
12 The Empress Josephine 
 
 some much-needed relief, the dowry including 
 an estate at Trois-Ilets, where he made his 
 home with his wife and her father and mother, 
 and where he was living at the time of his eldest 
 daughter's birth. 
 
 French writers, whether friendly or not to 
 the Empress Josephine, have been careful to 
 insist on the fact that she was a Frenchwoman 
 by birth, although narrowly escaping being 
 born when Martinique was in the possession 
 of England. The island had been surrendered 
 by Beauharnais's successor, Levassor de la 
 Touche, among those captured with the new 
 Governor being Joseph-Gaspard Tascher, who 
 was said to have distinguished himself by holding 
 out for nine hours against the English attack 
 on the battery under his command. But in 
 March 1763, news of the Treaty of Paris reached 
 the West Indies, and early in June the French 
 fleet commissioned to take back the lost pos- 
 sessions reached the islands. Martinique was 
 therefore once again French property when 
 Madame Joseph-Gaspard Tascher gave birth 
 to her daughter, baptised five weeks later 
 under the names of Marie-Joseph-Rose. 
 
 It may be noted here that the doubt which 
 
Josephine's Birth 13 
 
 was at one time thrown on the date of Jose- 
 phine's birth arose chiefly from the fact that 
 she herself made a false declaration at the 
 time of her marriage with Napoleon Bona- 
 parte^ when she stated her birthday to be 
 June 23, 1767. In the " Memorial de Sainte- 
 H61ene " the statement that Josephine " de- 
 ceived her husband by five or six years at least 
 and produced the baptismal certificate of a 
 younger sister, long since dead," is incorrect. 
 Josephine's " deceit " was to the extent of 
 four years only, and Napoleon connived at it, 
 adding eighteen months to his own age, so as to 
 make Josephine and himself almost the same 
 in years. Further, the date of June 23, 1767, 
 was not the birthday of either of the two younger 
 Tascher sisters. They were born at Trois-Ilets 
 in the course of the three following years — 
 Catherine-Desiree on December 11, 1764, and 
 Marie-Frangoise on September 3, 1766. 
 
 If Josephine herself was responsible for one 
 confusion about the date of her birth, she was 
 in no way to blame for other doubts cast upon 
 it. Had these doubts been justified, she would 
 have been actuaUy little more than a year 
 older than she represented herself to be in 
 
14 The Empress Josephine 
 
 March 1796. Researchers discovered in Mar- 
 tinique two documents which appeared to 
 make the Empress Josephine none other than 
 Marie-Frangoise, youngest daughter of Joseph- 
 Gaspard Tascher and his wife. A registration 
 was found of the death of Catherine-Ddsiree 
 on October 16, 1777, and also a certificate of 
 the burial of " Marie-Joseph-Rose " on No- 
 vember 5, 1791. The death of the second 
 daughter was never in dispute. But why was 
 the daughter who died in 1791 buried in her 
 sister's name, if she was not actually the girl 
 born in 1763 ? M. Masson hazards an ingenious 
 conjecture, which may be true, though there 
 is no evidence to support it. He mentions a 
 document, of doubtful authenticity, which re- 
 corded the birth of a female child to a De- 
 moiselle de Tascher on March 17, 1786 (when 
 Josephine was in France), and suggests that 
 Marie-Fran9oise, to shield herself, may have 
 given her married sister's names instead of 
 her own in the baptismal certificate, and that 
 these names were retained in her burial certi- 
 ficate five years later. 
 
 In connection with this illegitimate child of a 
 Demoiselle de Tascher, it is rather strange that 
 
Questions of Date if 
 
 the enemies of Josephine did not seize on 
 the fact that Decres, writing by Napoleon's 
 order in 1807, spoke of " the demoiselle of 
 eighteen years, whom Madame de la Pagerie 
 has taken in and adopted." Had this girl, 
 Marie-Benaquette Tascher de la Pagerie, been 
 really only eighteen years of age, she must 
 have been born about 1789, that is to say, 
 when Josephine was at Trois-Ilets during a 
 two years' stay with her family, after her 
 rupture with Alexandre de Beauharnais. There- 
 fore on the ground of date alone there would 
 have been no reason why Josephine, and not 
 Marie-Frangoise, should not have been the 
 mother. 
 
T 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY YEARS IN MARTINIQUE 
 
 HE early part of Josephine's life has no 
 place in history, for the reason that it 
 was never chronicled ; and this was the case 
 because there was nothing in it which seemed 
 worth chronicling until thirty years later. She 
 herself kept no records of her childish days, 
 and those writers who claimed to give any 
 description of them drew entirely on their 
 imagination. Aubenas alone had access to the 
 archives of the Tascher de la Pagerie famUy, 
 and on his selection from the letters and docu- 
 ments which he was allowed to see depends 
 what knowledge we have of the first fifteen 
 years of our heroine's existence. And hardly 
 before she is fourteen do we begin to get any 
 personal details even from the biography of 
 Aubenas. 
 
 Not long after the birth of his eldest daughter, 
 Joseph-Gaspard Tascher was fortunate enough 
 
 i6 
 
The Tascher Estate 17 
 
 to receive from the French Government, as a 
 reward for his services in the defence of Mar- 
 tinique against the Enghsh, a pension of four 
 hundred and fifty livres a year. Doubtless the 
 Beauharnais influence at Court helped to secure 
 this grant, which was small in comparison with 
 the pension of twelve thousand livres and the 
 title of marquis which Frangois de Beauharnais 
 obtained for himself in spite of his achievement 
 at Guadeloupe. The yearly four hundred and 
 fifty saved Tascher from complete ruin ; for 
 in August 1766 a great tempest, combined with 
 earthquake, devastated Martinique, throwing 
 down houses all over the island and wrecking 
 plantations, while the sea overflowed the coasts 
 and completed the damage. On the Taschers' 
 estate nothing was left standing except the 
 sugar-refinery, to which the owner with his 
 wife and two infant children fled for shelter 
 on August 13. In this building, altered so as 
 to make it habitable, the family continued to 
 live for the next twenty-five years ; and it 
 was here that Josephine spent her life between 
 the ages of three and ten. 
 
 The small town of Trois-Ilets lies on the 
 opposite side to Fort-Royal of the bay now 
 
 VOL. I 2 
 
1 8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 known as that of Fort-de-France, and takes 
 its name from three little islands rising out 
 of the sea in front of it. Aubenas visited 
 the place in the middle of last century, when 
 it was not very much changed since the days 
 of Josephine's childhood. The town of Trois- 
 Ilets then contained about fifty wooden houses 
 and a modest church, in which was the family 
 vault of the Taschers. The Three Islets had 
 only a few fishermen's huts upon them, about 
 which spread the nets drying in the sun. To 
 reach the estate it was necessary to keep the 
 town on one's left hand, and it took about a 
 quarter of an hour's walk to reach a high point 
 on the road whence the old buildings could be 
 seen. The detailed description of Aubenas is 
 worth quotation : 
 
 " Situated on a small eminence surrounded 
 by larger hills, once covered by rich plantations 
 and now for the most part given up to parasitic 
 weeds, the Sannois-La Pagerie homestead looks 
 the very abode of peace and forgetfulness. A 
 few steps only from the sea, although it is out 
 of sight and even out of hearing; separated 
 from the town of Trois-Ilets by the Morne 
 Gantheaume, which cuts off the view, one can 
 
The Homestead 19 
 
 only see around one an amphitheatre of verdure, 
 roofed by a sky whose exquisite transparency 
 is the wonder and despair of the painter. 
 From the extent of the buildings — the erections 
 still standing and the ruins which the eye can 
 make out under the grass — it is possible to 
 judge the former importance of the estate, one 
 of the largest in this once flourishing quarter 
 of the island. On arrival we come first on the 
 dwelling-house, originally constructed on a large 
 scale, as is proved by what remains of its out- 
 buildings ; but it has become since the storm 
 of 1766, and in anticipation of future disasters 
 of the same kind, a simple wooden house. In 
 front of this was a large court planted with 
 tamarinds and sand-box trees, of which a few 
 survive. 
 
 " Next comes the sugar-mill with its circle 
 of heavy pillars and its huge roof of red tiles of 
 native manufacture. About it were the sheds 
 containing the cane-refuse destined to heat 
 the refinery furnaces ; the flour-hut where the 
 negroes came to prepare their manioc ; the 
 hospital for the care of the slaves j and 
 the prison, rarely tenanted on the La Pagerie 
 estate. 
 
20 The Empress Josephine 
 
 ■ " Coming down a few paces from the mill, we 
 reach the refinery, a huge building forty metres 
 long by twenty broad, and divided into several 
 sections for the production of cane-sugar. 
 Alongside the refinery runs a second garden, 
 built up on a terrace. On looking at the monu- 
 mental soUdity of the refinery it is possible to 
 understand how it withstood the terrible storm. 
 During the years which followed, the building 
 was adapted to shelter the La Pagerie family. 
 A low gallery was added on the southern side 
 and rooms were fitted up in the upper part until 
 a new dwelling-house should be erected. A 
 little stream, a mere brook without a name, 
 though its waters were always pure, flowed 
 below the refinery after running through a rock- 
 hewn basin where, according to the Creole 
 custom, M. de Tascher's daughters took their 
 daily bath in the shade of the great mango-trees 
 which protected them from the heat of the sun 
 and from indiscreet eyes. Between this tank 
 and the refinery were the negroes' huts, built 
 in stages on the slope of the hill and sur- 
 rounded by banana, orange, and bread-fruit 
 trees." 
 
 In this home, although her father's circum- 
 
The First Ten Years 21 
 
 stances did not allow him to keep it up in any 
 great style, and although the hundred and fifty 
 negro slaves which his daughter's more enthu- 
 siastic biographers gave to him probably existed 
 only in their imaginations,^ Josephine doubt- 
 less spent an early childhood of great ease and 
 freedom. The chief charge of her was in the 
 hands of a mulatto woman. This was the 
 demoiselle Marion, muldtresse libra de Martinique, 
 who in an Imperial decree of 1807 received an 
 annual pension of twelve hundred francs from 
 the Emperor in recognition of the care which 
 she had bestowed upon " our weU-loved spouse, 
 the Empress of the French, Queen of Italy, 
 during her tenderest infancy." Under the 
 control of Marion it is easy to imagine that 
 Yeyette foimd Ufe not only easy but idle. 
 Aubenas, as the historian chosen by the family, 
 pictures her learning her early lessons at her 
 mother's side. But she knew little enough 
 when she left school, and her knowledge must 
 have been indeed scanty when she went thither 
 at the age of ten. It may be granted, however, 
 that on one point she had an excellent education 
 
 • M. Masson, " Josephine de Beauharnais," p. 35, suggests 
 fifteen or twenty negroes as the more probable figure. 
 
22 The Empress Josephine 
 
 at Trois-Ilets — in the love of nature which was 
 so marked a characteristic throughout her Ufe. 
 Amid the lovely surroundings of her home, in 
 its setting of evergreen wooded hills and West 
 Indian sky and sea, she did not fail to find an 
 influence which continued to her death, even 
 though it might appear to find outward ex- 
 pression principally in the extravagances of the 
 Malmaison garden. 
 
 It was in 1773 that Josephine was sent to 
 school at the convent of the Dames de la 
 Providence, Fort-Royal. Her grandmother 
 Tascher was still living at Fort-Royal, in com- 
 pany with her daughter Marie-Frangoise-Rose, 
 Josephine's " Aunt Rosette." Six years pre- 
 viously Madame Tascher had become a widow. 
 At the end of 1769 she had surrendered charge 
 of the little Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was 
 sent at last to his father in France. When, 
 therefore, Josephine came to Fort-Royal her 
 grandmother and aunt were living alone, and 
 it seems probable that she spent the greater 
 part of her next four years with them, out of 
 school hours. 
 
 The institution of the Dames de la Providence 
 was not the best school in Martinique, and 
 
A Scanty Education 23 
 
 Josephine did not acquire much wisdom there. 
 This was perhaps not altogether the fault of her 
 teachers, for she never showed any of the apti- 
 tude for learning which afterwards made her 
 children Hortense and Eugene the pride of the 
 schools to which they were put at Saint- 
 Germain. It was to the accomplishments of 
 music and dancing that Josephine devoted 
 herself with the greatest pleasure at the con- 
 vent. " A surprising taste for music ... a 
 very pretty voice," were the points on which 
 her father felt justified in dwelling when writing 
 about his eldest daughter to the Marquis de 
 Beauharnais in January 1778. 
 
 Josephine was fourteen years of age ^ when 
 she returned from Fort-Royal and the convent 
 of the Dames de la Providence to her father's 
 home. Into the two following years of her life 
 the more romantic — and unscrupulous — writers 
 who have interested themselves in her career 
 have endeavoured to introduce a love-story or 
 two, feeling no doubt the want of something to 
 
 ' It is usually said in the biographies of Josephine that she 
 remained at school until she was fifteen. But her father's 
 letter of January 9, 1778, to Madame Renaudin, speaks of his 
 eldest daughter " who has left the convent some time." Her 
 fifteenth birthday was not until the following June 23. 
 
24 The Empress Josephine 
 
 give an interest to the very few and bare out- 
 lines of the Empress's early life. The efforts 
 of these romancers hardly deserve notice. There 
 is only one piece of first-hand evidence, which 
 is to be found in the memoirs of General Tercier. 
 Now Tercier, although he claims that " Truth 
 was always his idol," scarcely inspires much 
 confidence when he describes his relations with 
 Josephine. Nor does he say very much. He 
 is speaking of the year 1778, when he was 
 twenty-six : 
 
 " Young, lively and ardent, I was present at 
 every fete and gathering of pleasant society. 
 Among those whom I met was Mademoiselle 
 Tascher de la Pagerie, the celebrated Empress 
 Josephine. I was on intimate terms with all her 
 family. I often spent several days in her mother's 
 house. She was young then, so was I. ..." ' 
 
 Subsequent writers appear to have paid par- 
 ticular attention to the dots with which the 
 passage closes. 
 
 A few pages later Tercier records : 
 
 " About this time [September 1779] the 
 vessel Le Fier, 50 guns, Commander Turpin, 
 left for France, carrying on board her who was 
 
 » Tercier, "M^moires," pp. 14, 15, 
 
Alleged Love Affairs 25 
 
 one day to be the Empress of the French. She 
 was eighteen years of age, although the ' Al- 
 manach Imperial ' always made her out nine 
 or ten years less than she actually was. I 
 accompanied her from Fort-Royal with her 
 family on board the ship. I was, as I have 
 said, very intimate with the family, which 
 escorted her in full force and put her into 
 the captain's hands, with one mulatto woman 
 to wait on her during the voyage." 
 
 Now Josephine was not eighteen, but sixteen, 
 when she left Martinique (though she was ad- 
 mittedly well grown for her age), and she did 
 not sail on the Fier, but on the He de France. 
 Moreover, her father and her aunt Rosette ac- 
 companied her to France. Tercier's intimacy 
 with the Taschers, therefore, does not seem to 
 have made him a very observant witness of 
 their doings. It is surely unsafe to buUd too 
 much on the evidence of this idolater of Truth, 
 even when he has recourse to modest dots. The 
 editor of the General's memoirs, M. C. de la 
 Chanoine, states that when Tercier was im- 
 prisoned in the Temple as a Royalist conspirator 
 in 1798-g, Josephine used her influence to have 
 him released and so, " by a delicate intervention, 
 
2 6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 not recorded in the memoirs, repaid the debt 
 owed by the heart of Mile, de la Pagerie." One 
 would not expect Tercier to omit such an in- 
 cident as Josephine's intervention had it ever 
 occurred, and M. de la Chanoine's assumption 
 appears gratuitous. 
 
 A wider celebrity has been gained by the 
 story of the early loves of Josephine and " l' An- 
 glais," although the latter, unlike General 
 Tercier, wrote nothing to perpetuate the legend. 
 The tradition, however, persisted that there was 
 a young Englishman in Martinique during 
 Josephine's girlhood, between whom and her 
 there was a strong attachment, and that in the 
 year 1814, when the Allies were in possession 
 of Paris, this Englishman, who had now risen 
 to the rank of General, wrote to the ex-Empress 
 reminding her of their early acquaintance. 
 Josephine invited him to dinner at Malmaison ; 
 but on the appointed day she was in her last 
 illness, and she died without ever having seen 
 him again. In the pretended memoirs of 
 Josephine by Mme. Lenormand the name of the 
 Englishman, or rather Scotsman, is given as 
 
 Williams de K , presumably in order to give 
 
 more semblance of reality to the tale ! 
 
Other Tales 27 
 
 There is one story of Josephine's Martinique 
 days which stands on a different footing from 
 the boastings of General Tercier or the fairy- 
 tales of Mme. Lenormand. This story appears 
 in many versions, and no doubt she herself told 
 it many times and added to its details as she 
 grew older. But that there was a foundation 
 of truth for it appears from a passage in the 
 memoirs of General Lamarque, whose good 
 faith there seems no reason to doubt. It will 
 suffice to quote Lamarque's words : 
 
 " In my childhood I met Josephine at the 
 house of an American lady, Mme. de Hostein, 
 with whom she had been brought up. She was 
 then the wife of Alexandre de Beauharnais, who 
 made himself prominent in the Constituent 
 Assembly by his grace, wit, and patriotic prin- 
 ciples. I saw her again several years later when 
 I was commissioned to carry to Paris the flags 
 taken from the Spaniards at the battle of Saint- 
 Martial and at the capture of Fontarabia. She 
 had come out of prison the night before, together 
 with the good Mme. Hostein, and we were dining 
 with the well-known General Santerre, who 
 during his captivity with these ladies had given 
 great care and attention to them. It was now 
 
28 The Empress Josephine 
 
 (thermidor 1794) that I heard told for the first 
 time the prediction made to her by a gipsy 
 woman that ' she would one day be Queen of 
 France, but that she would not die a queen.' 
 ' Robespierre nearly upset the prophecy,' she 
 said with a laugh. Josephine married Bona- 
 parte. He was commander-in-chief of the Army 
 of Italy, and the world resounded with his 
 name. Mme. Hostein said to me on her death- 
 bed, in a feeble voice : ' Well, dear friend, the 
 gipsy made a mistake about the country. It 
 is not Queen of France but Queen of Italy that 
 Josephine wiU be ! ' " ^ 
 
 It does not seem right, therefore, to reject the 
 story of the gipsy's prediction entirely, common 
 as such tales are in the histories of those who 
 rise from insignificance to a throne. But the 
 elaborate accounts of the meeting between the 
 Creole girl and the prophetess, with the em- 
 belUshments of the ladies who took the narrative 
 from the Empress and put it in their reminis- 
 cences, need not be accepted too seriously. We 
 may leave them and turn to the period when 
 actual documentary evidence begins to be 
 available. 
 
 • Lamarque, "Memoires," i. p. 405. 
 
A Marriage Scheme 29 
 
 On October 23, 1777, when Josephine was a 
 little over fourteen years of age, the Marquis de 
 Beauhamais in Paris dictated to his seventeen- 
 year-old son Alexandre a letter in which he 
 protested his constant attachment and friend- 
 ship to M. Joseph-Gaspard Tascher de la 
 Pagerie and proceeded to unfold before him a 
 scheme which he was satisfied would prove his 
 sincerity. It was in these words that he set 
 forth his idea : 
 
 " My children now enjoy an income of forty 
 thousand Hvres apiece. It lies in your power to 
 give me your daughter to share the fortune of 
 my chevalier. The respect and affection which 
 he feels for Madame Renaudin inspire him with 
 an ardent desire to be united to one of her nieces. 
 I am only acquiescing in the demand which he 
 makes of me, I assure you, when I demand your 
 second daughter, whose age is more siiited to his. 
 I could much have wished that your eldest 
 daughter had been a few years younger, when 
 she would certainly have had the preference, 
 since I have had quite as favourable a picture of 
 her. But I confess to you that my son, who is 
 only seventeen and a half, finds a young lady 
 of fifteen too close in years to himself. This 
 
30 The Empress Josephine 
 
 is one of those occasions on which a sensible 
 parent is bound to yield to the force of circum- 
 stances." 
 
 After alluding to Alexandre's qualifications 
 as a suitor, the Marquis assured his friend that 
 no dowry would be expected with his daughter, 
 whom he besought him to bring or send to 
 France as soon as possible. He wrote also 
 to Mme. Tascher, apologising to her likewise 
 for choice of the second before the eldest 
 daughter. 
 
 " It is not [he said] that I have not been told 
 most agreeable things about the eldest, but my 
 son finds her too old in comparison with him- 
 self. . . . My son is quite worthy of being your 
 son-in-law. Nature has endowed him with fine 
 and noble qualities, and his fortune is large 
 enough for him to share with the woman who 
 can make him happy. This is what I hope to 
 find in your daughter, of whom a charming 
 portrait has been drawn for me. Let her but 
 resemble you, madame, and I shall have no 
 doubt about my son's happiness ! " 
 
 If the courtly phrasing of the above letters 
 was the Marquis's and the penmanship Alex- 
 andre's, it is not difficult to see that the inspira- 
 
Mme. Renaudin in Command 31 
 
 tion was that of 'a third person. Mme. Renau- 
 din now ruled the life of the Marquis de Beau- 
 harnais more firmly than ever. Estranged 
 from her husband even in Martinique, after her 
 arrival in France she was not long in returning 
 to the shelter of the Beauharnais home. But 
 her friendship with the Marquise, hitherto so 
 unsuspicious, at last came to an end, and the 
 household was broken up. As might have been 
 expected, it was not Mme. Renaudin who de- 
 parted, but Mme. de Beauharnais. She went 
 to live with her mother until her death in 1767, 
 which left the former companion in undisputed 
 command of the situation and practical controller 
 of the Uves of the Marquis and his younger son. 
 
 The fact of Mme. Renaudin' s ascendancy over 
 them explains what would otherwise be difficult 
 to understand, namely the keen anxiety of both 
 father and son to obtain the hand of a young 
 girl whom they had never seen ; a young girl, 
 too, who had neither money nor exceptionally 
 good descent to recommend her. Catherine- 
 Desiree Tascher was not one of the Creole heir- 
 esses among whom the nobility of France were 
 wont to look for the means of regilding their 
 scutcheon, knowing that with the money they 
 
32 The Empress Josephine 
 
 might count also upon winning wives with a 
 grace and charm which could not be matched 
 at home among the daughters of rich manu- 
 facturers. Was not the Marquis careful to 
 impress upon M. Tascher that he expected no 
 dowry ? It was therefore for some other reason 
 that the alUance was sought, and Mme. Renaudin 
 alone can supply that reason. This clever 
 woman had dominated Beauharnais for twenty 
 years, to the great advantage of herself and her 
 family, and she had no intention of relaxing her 
 hold. The union of Alexandre with one of 
 her nieces would secure part of the Beauharnais 
 revenues for a Tascher, and to gain her end she 
 used every means of which she could think. 
 She impressed upon both father and son the 
 good points of her nieces, probably persuading 
 Alexandre to the match during a holiday spent 
 with her at Noisy-le-Grand, where, with the 
 fortune which she had accumulated since her 
 connection with the Marquis, she had taken a 
 country house for herself at a cost of thirty- 
 three thousand livres. 
 
 Mme. Renaudin probably did not expect any 
 opposition on the part of her brother ; but she 
 thought it advisable to point out to him the 
 
Alexandre de Beauharnais 33 
 
 desirability of Alexandre. "All that I could 
 tell you about him would be below his deserts," 
 she wrote. " A pleasing face, a charming 
 figure, intelligence, talent, knowledge, and 
 (what is beyond price) all the noble quahties of 
 soul and heart are united in him." Such a 
 character should indeed have grown up into the 
 lofty and patriotic Vicomte de Beauharnais of 
 the Josephine legend. There does not seem 
 much relation between a paragon of the kind 
 described and the actual Vicomte. But then 
 Alexandre was a devoted godson, and his god- 
 mother could not but be blind to his faults^ 
 especially when making a match for him. 
 
 Like her protector, Mme. Renaudin felt that 
 a slight might seem to be infhcted on Josephine 
 by the choice of her sister rather than herself 
 as the bride of Alexandre de Beauharnais, and 
 she wrote to her brother : " It is vexing that 
 your eldest daughter is not at least three years 
 younger than the chevalier. But this is not the 
 first time that the younger has been settled before 
 the elder, and we must suppose it to be the will 
 of Heaven, since the age of the second suits 
 better." 
 
 It certainly seems strange to the reader of 
 VOL. I 3 
 
34 The Empress Josephine 
 
 to-day that the reason for passing over Josephine 
 in favour of Catherine-Desiree should be the 
 age of the former — fourteen years and four 
 months on the day on which the Marquis de 
 Beauharnais and Mme. Renaudin wrote ; and, 
 were there any other real ground for doubting 
 the genuineness of the recognised date of 
 Josephine's birthday, the remarks contained in 
 the letters quoted above might be treated as 
 confirming the doubt. But they appear to 
 have estimated her age roughly as fifteen, or 
 not much more than two years less than Alex- 
 andre's. As for Catherine-Desiree, although she 
 was not thirteen at the time when they wrote, 
 still, before she could be married to Alexandre, 
 there must be time allowed for the letters to 
 reach Martinique, for her father to give his 
 consent, and for her to make the journey to 
 France. Perhaps also they contemplated a 
 period of education for the child in Paris, as 
 was proposed later in the case of Marie-Fran- 
 9oise. Moreover, early marriages were not 
 exceptional for Creole girls, usually very ad- 
 vanced for their age, as her father himself 
 described Josephine to be. 
 
 It was not for Catherine-Desiree Tascher that 
 
A Choice of Brides 35 
 
 the fate of marrying Alexandre de Beauharnais 
 was reserved. When the proposal for her hand 
 reached Trois-Ilets she had been dead some 
 time. In fact, she succumbed to fever a week 
 before the letters were even written, and her 
 father could only reply that the prospective 
 bride was no more. Not wishing, however, to 
 lose the chance of the honourable alliance offered 
 to him, he suggested to the Marquis that his 
 youngest, Manette (Marie-Fran9oise), being only 
 eleven and a half, was of an age as suitable to 
 Alexandre as Catherine-Desiree had been. " Her 
 goodness and cheerfulness of character," wrote 
 this accommodating father, " go with a face 
 which will be interesting, and I trust that when 
 a sound education is added she will be worthy 
 of the affection of you and your son." 
 
 M. Tascher's letter on the same day * to his 
 sister calls for more attention, since it gives us 
 at least a glimpse of Josephine. Would not 
 M. de Beauharnais and his son feel the same 
 sentiments towards his third daughter as 
 toward his second ? he asked. 
 
 " It is a sincere attachment to us which gave 
 
 1 Both are dated from St. Lucia, January 9, 1778. 
 
36 The 'Empress Josephine 
 
 rise to these sentiments, and it may inspire them 
 in one case as in the other. I must tell you 
 that Manette will be well off as regards looks. 
 She unites ingenuous gaiety to a sensible char- 
 acter : education will do the rest. ... I have 
 spoken to Manette of the journey to France. 
 After many difficulties and regrets about leaving 
 her mother she has at last consented, knowing 
 that she will find a second mother in her dear aunt. 
 I " The eldest, who has left the convent some 
 time and who has on several occasions asked me 
 to take her to France, will be a little affected, 
 I fancy, by the preference which I appear to 
 have given to her younger sister. She has a 
 very good skin, good eyes, good arms, and a 
 surprising taste for music. I gave her a teacher 
 for the guitar while she was at the convent, and 
 she made full use of this and has a very pretty 
 voice. It is a pity that she has not the advan- 
 tage of an education in France. If only I were 
 concerned, I would have brought you two girls 
 instead of one. But how can one part a mother 
 from two daughters at a moment when death 
 has robbed her of a third ? " 
 
 M. Tascher was not destined to be disap- 
 pointed. As he hoped, it was a child, not one 
 
A Mother's Intervention 37 
 
 particular cliild, that was asked of him. " Come 
 with one of your daughters or with two," 
 rephed Mme. Renaudin when she received his 
 letter. " Whatever you do will be pleasing to 
 us. We must have a child from you." 
 
 But, in spite of the double chance given to 
 the father to get rid of a daughter, he was now 
 confronted by a difficulty which he had not 
 foreseen. He had hoped to leave Trois-Ilets 
 in the spring of 1778, taking Manette with him. 
 At the last moment Manette withdrew her 
 " consent," supported, or rather instigated, by 
 her mother and grandmother, and was pros- 
 trated by a three months' attack of fever, which 
 was attributed naturally by the two ladies to 
 the violence which had been done to her 
 feelings by the attempt to tear her away from 
 her home. M. Tascher wrote apologetically in 
 June, the day after Josephine's fifteenth birth- 
 day, reminding his sister of the blind attach- 
 ment which Creole mothers were known to 
 feel for their children. With some hesitation 
 he proceeded to play his third card. Failing 
 the dead child and Manette, there still remained 
 Yeyette. 
 
 " If I had£proper means at the moment I 
 
38 The Empress Josephine 
 
 would leave and bring the elder, who is burning 
 with desire to see her dear aunt. They have 
 tried to put her on her guard too ; but as she 
 is more reasonable and has spent part of her 
 childhood with our mother and Rosette, she is 
 beyond reach of what has been said to her, 
 and I am sure of her great desire to know her 
 dear aunt and to deserve her kindness and that 
 of M. de Beauharnais. Two reasons have re- 
 strained me, however, I must confess : lack of 
 present means, and her fifteen years. This age 
 seems to me too close to that of the cavalier. 
 She is, moreover, very advanced for her years, 
 and during the past five or six months has 
 grown to look at least eighteen. Apart from 
 this, she is weU enough, of a very sweet dis- 
 position, playing the guitar a little, with a pretty 
 voice and a talent for music, in which she wiU 
 soon perfect herself, as well as for dancing. 
 But I fancy this will not meet your views, which 
 are of course to train up for yourself a young 
 person and to make her worthy of the object 
 who merits our affection as much for his personal 
 merit as for the gratitude which we owe to his 
 dear papa." ^ 
 
 ' Letter dated Fort-Royal, June 24, 1778. 
 
Josephine's Merits 39 
 
 If M. Tascher's letter was carelessly composed 
 and hardly worthy of being read by her whom 
 her godson proclaimed to be a rival of Mme. 
 de Sevigne,* the writer might at least have 
 pleaded in excuse his agitation arising from 
 Manette's defiance of his authority and from his 
 own " lack of present means," which prevented 
 him from taking Yeyette to France in place of 
 her younger sister. Nor did the efforts to aid 
 him of his sister and the Marquis enable him 
 to leave Martinique yet. Crossing the letter 
 to Mme. Renaudin came one from Beauharnais, 
 sending him an authorisation to publish the 
 banns of marriage in Martinique, the place for 
 the name of the bride being left blank. All 
 that the Marquis insisted upon was that one or 
 other of the girls should come to France as soon 
 as possible. He himself might die, he explained, 
 and his son's guardians might then compel 
 Alexandre to marry some one else — an argument 
 in which the anxiety of Mme. Renaudin may 
 easily be detected. Six weeks later the Marquis 
 wrote again, stating that Alexandre would prefer 
 the elder girl as his wife, so that the difficulty 
 caused by Manette's attachment to her mother 
 
 ' See p. 48. 
 
40 The Empress Josephine 
 
 was removed. " The day of your arrival with 
 your daughter," concluded the letter/ " will 
 be a truly happy day for us." 
 
 This is the first mention which there is in the 
 correspondence of Alexandre's desire to marry 
 Josephine. But, as a matter of fact, he had 
 expressed his preference for the elder of the two 
 surviving daughters as soon as he heard of 
 Catherine-Desiree's death. When Tascher's 
 letter announcing Manette's refusal to leave her 
 mother was forwarded by the Marquis to Alex- 
 andre, then with his regiment near Brest, he 
 replied in a note which deserves quotation for 
 its quaint wording : 
 
 " My dear papa," he wrote, " your packet has 
 just reached me. I have read all the letters in it, 
 and I take up my pen at once to answer you. 
 I can imagine the difficulties made by these 
 ladies about sending their daughter to France. 
 They say : ' If the marriage does not take place, 
 there is a journey in vain, and we shall much 
 regret then having separated her from us.' 
 However, one cannot answer for two people who 
 do not know one another pleasing one another, 
 and surely your intention is not to make me 
 
 ' September 9, 1778. 
 
Josephine Accepted 41 
 
 marry this young lady if she and I should feel 
 a mutual repugnance. I do not doubt, after 
 the description which has been given of her, that 
 she will please me. I hope to be so happy as to 
 inspire in her the feelings which I shall experi- 
 ence. There is every reason to conclude that 
 the marriage will be accomplished as we first 
 arranged it, if M. de la Pagerie will bring us 
 the elder of his two daughters. The affection 
 and desire which this young person shows to 
 make her aunt's acquaintance decides me in her 
 favour, and I am already most flattered at 
 having already in common with her the tender 
 feehng which she has for her." 
 
 The " young person's " fate was at length 
 decided. As far as the consent of the two 
 fathers and the bridegroom was concerned, all 
 was now clear for Josephine's marriage to 
 Alexandre de Beauharnais. M. Tascher had 
 the banns published in April 1779. Whatever 
 opposition his wife and mother may have made 
 was unavailing. But there was, nevertheless, 
 a very serious obstacle in the way. War be- 
 tween France and England had broken out again, 
 and to cross the Atlantic involved considerable 
 risk of capture. Hence, in spite of the urgent 
 
42 The Empress Josephine 
 
 appeals of Mme. Renaudin, who feared that 
 the Beauharnais family might interfere or that 
 Alexandre might grow cold through delay, it 
 was not until the autumn of 1779 that Josephine 
 set sail with her father and her aunt Rosette. 
 
 The vessel which conveyed the voyagers was 
 the lie de France, which formed part of a convoy 
 under the protection of the warship Pomone. 
 The passage of the Atlantic was very rough and 
 troublesome, but the English at least were 
 avoided, and on October 20 M. Tascher was able 
 to write to his expectant sister that he had 
 reached Brest, very ill, but bringing his elder 
 daughter with him. 
 
 Josephine was thus a little over sixteen years 
 of age when she landed in France, and the 
 negotiations had lasted almost two years which 
 ended in bringing her from Martinique as a 
 substitute for her two sisters. Some further 
 delay was still necessary, partly on account of 
 her father's weakness after the voyage and 
 partly in order to allow for the publication of 
 the banns in Paris and the drawing up of the 
 marriage settlements. In the meantime the 
 meeting took place between the future husband 
 and wife — their first meeting, unless they had 
 
The Arrival in France 43 
 
 seen each other before Alexandre left Fort- 
 Royal for France at the end of 1769, when he 
 was nine and Josephine six ; and of this the 
 correspondence gives no hint. On receipt of 
 Tascher's letter announcing his arrival, Alex- 
 andre had started off with Mme. Renaudin for 
 Brest, where the encounter took place. 
 
 It is unfortunate that no record survives, as 
 far as we know, of Josephine's first impressions 
 of France or of her bridegroom ; it is generally 
 the case throughout her history that we have the 
 letters to or about her, but not her own letters. 
 Alexandre's impressions of her are preserved 
 in a communication to his father, dated Oct. 28. 
 It is not the letter of an enthusiastic lover, 
 nor does it convey much idea of her personality 
 at this period. " MUe. de la Pagerie," he wrote, 
 " will perhaps appear to you less pretty than you 
 expected, but I think I can assure you that the 
 uprightness and sweetness of her character 
 surpass all that you can have been told about 
 it." Six days later he added a postscript to 
 a letter from Mme. Renaudin to the Marquis : 
 " The pleasure of being with MUe. de la Pagerie, 
 with her to whom the name of ' your daughter ' 
 sounds so sweet, is the only reason Jor my 
 
44 The Empress Josephine 
 
 silence. It would be hard for me to express 
 to you how great is her impatience to be pre- 
 sented to you ; and we flatter ourselves that you 
 feel some desire to embrace two children whose 
 happiness will consist in working for your 
 happiness." This is rather more affectionate 
 than the previous letter, but is still very correct. 
 Correctness of language and of attitude was the 
 constant ideal of Alexandre de Beauharnais. 
 He wished it also to be his wife's ; for he left 
 it on record some years later that on the very 
 first day of his meeting with Josephine he 
 " formed the plan of beginning her education 
 afresh and of making up by his zeal for the 
 neglect of the first fifteen years of her life." 
 A pleasant prospect for the idle young Creole 
 girl, whose mental development was so far 
 behind her bodily growth ! 
 
 The wedding of Alexandre de Beauharnais 
 and Marie- Joseph-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie 
 was celebrated on December 13, 1779, at the 
 parish church of Noisy-le-Grand ; very appro- 
 priately, seeing that it was here that was the 
 home of the organiser of the union, the god- 
 mother of the bridegroom and aunt of the 
 bride. The efforts of Mme. Renaudin to bind 
 
The BeauharnaiS'Tascher Wedding 45 
 
 together the Taschers and the Beauharnais 
 had at last been rewarded with a success patent 
 to all the world. The marriage was a guarantee 
 that part at least of Alexandre's wealth should 
 pass securely into the hands of her niece. On 
 the possessions of Alexandre's father she had 
 already a firm hold ; and it only remained 
 for her to give regularity to her position in 
 the Marquis's house by marrying him herself. 
 Then the work which she had begun as the 
 young Creole companion in the Governor's 
 house at Fort-Royal would be complete. But, 
 although she became a widow in 1785, she did 
 not marry the Marquis until 1796, when the 
 lapse of time might surely have seemed to 
 render such a step unnecessary. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE VICOMTESSE DE BEAUHARNAIS 
 
 AFTER the wedding at Noisy-le-Grand, Alex- 
 andre de Beauharnais and his wife went 
 to Uve in the Paris home of Alexandre's father, 
 situated in the gloomy rue Thevenot — a street 
 which must have been especially depressing to 
 the sixteen-year-old Creole girl, fresh from the 
 sunshine and warmth of Martinique. Of course 
 to the family biographer the situation appears 
 in bright hues. The household, declares Au- 
 benas,^ was happy from the start. 
 
 " With a husband of talent and spirit, 
 brilliant and feted ; a father-in-law full of 
 affection from the first moment and soon an 
 adorer of the sweetness of her character ; a 
 brother and sister-in-law who asked nothing 
 better than to become her friends ; an aunt 
 whom she loved all the better now that she 
 knew her, and a father gradually recovering the 
 
 ' " Histoire de I'Imperatrice Josephine," pp. 102-3. 
 46 
 
Early Married Days 47 
 
 health of which he had despaired, the young 
 Vicomtesse de Beauharnais might promise her- 
 self a charming existence, . . . The first year 
 passed away amid the enchantment of a world 
 both new and curious to her, in the admiration 
 of the marvels of Paris, the hope or the regret 
 of every Creole woman's imagination." 
 
 This is the ideal view of affairs ; in reality, 
 the prospect was by no means so brilliant for 
 Josephine. Financially the match was not 
 bad, since, if the income of forty thousand 
 livres which the Marquis had attributed to 
 his son in his first letter to M. Tascher was 
 uncertain, being partly derived from property 
 in distant and unsettled San Domingo, at 
 least it was considerably better than the income 
 upon which the Taschers had lived at Trois- 
 Ilets. Then the Marquis de Beauharnais was 
 certainly an affectionate father-in-law, apart 
 from his willingness to look on the world through 
 the eyes of Mme. Renaudin, who never failed 
 in her devotion to her own family. But, after 
 all, it depended upon her husband whether 
 Josephine was to be happy in her married 
 life ; and Alexandre, young as he was, was not 
 slow to show himself a particularly unpleasing 
 
48 The Empress Josephine 
 
 combination of Don Juan and a pedant. 
 Gallantry came to him by nature, pedantry by 
 his education under his tutor Patricol, an 
 excellently disposed man entirely led astray 
 by the theories of Rousseau and Raynal. En- 
 gaged by the Marquis de Beauhamais to teach 
 his sons, Patricol had left when the elder of 
 these entered the army and gone into the 
 employ of the Due de la Rochefoucauld as 
 tutor of his two nephews, the young Rohan- 
 Chabots. Alexandre was fourteen years of 
 age when this happened ; and, on the invita- 
 tion of the democratic Duke, he had followed 
 Patricol to Roche-Guyon, to be steeped still 
 further in the atmosphere of Rousseau. Under 
 Patricol's direction, he continued the worship 
 of Mme. Renaudin in which he had been trained 
 in his father's house. At this early age we 
 find him writing to his godmother beseeching 
 her to persevere in her letters to him, thereby 
 at once conferring upon him a great pleasure 
 and forming his style. " Mme. de Sevigne," 
 he assured her, " will no longer be necessary to 
 me. 
 
 At fifteen Alexandre entered the army, 
 assuming about the same time the title of Vi- 
 
Alexandre as a Husband 49 
 
 comte, to which his right was very shadowy. 
 Military Hfe did not undo the effects of his 
 past lessons, and, to tell the truth, he did not 
 exert himself after active service. In June 
 1779, indeed, he contemplated the happiness 
 of dating letters to his godmother " from 
 Portsmouth or Plymouth " ; but he continued 
 to write them, instead, in France. As in most 
 departments of life, Alexandre de Beauharnais 
 was in his soldiering theoretical rather than 
 practical. 
 
 To such a husband the mentally unformed 
 Josephine only appealed at first as a subject 
 for education, and after a short time appealed 
 not at all. Even Aubenas, with his anxiety to 
 see aU in the best possible light, cannot produce 
 too plausible an apology for the Vicomte. He 
 writes : ^ 
 
 " Alexandre loved his wife less than she 
 loved him. The circumstances of their mar- 
 riage contributed to this state of affairs. The 
 choice of a bride, made at a distance, almost 
 at haphazard, and only fixing on Josephine 
 after temporarily settling on her two sisters ; 
 the marriage of the young girl, hardly a month 
 
 » " Histoire," p. 109. 
 VOL. I 4 
 
50 The Empress Josephine 
 
 after the first meeting, chiefly out of affection 
 for a godmother and deference to a father ; 
 her unformed beauty, her rather heavy figure, 
 not yet suggesting its future consummate 
 elegance, her imperfect education — all this made 
 the position a peculiar one, and one whose fruits 
 were sure to be bitter. When actual possession 
 had cooled the youthful heat which Alexandre 
 had mistaken for passion, lukewarmness was 
 certain to follow soon." 
 
 Lukewarmness appears to have followed very 
 soon indeed. In the spring of 1780 the Vicomte 
 left his wife to rejoin his regiment. In August 
 we find him writing to her assuring her of the 
 pleasure he would have in seeing her again 
 in a month's time and swearing to her afresh 
 that he was and had been faithful to her, which 
 seems somewhat strange. Had Josephine any 
 ground for suspecting infidelity, or had she 
 for no reason exhibited extreme jealousy ? 
 It is difficult to discover any details about her 
 early married life. There is certainly no evi- 
 dence to justify the pictures of a brilliant 
 launch into society which it has pleased some 
 biographers to paint. If we trusted Imbert 
 de Saint-Amand, author of numerous works 
 
Lukewarm Affection 51 
 
 about Josephine from her first days to her 
 death at Malmaison, we should believe that the 
 Vicomte de Beauharnais " introduced his wife 
 to the best salons of Paris, where she met with 
 a gracious welcome, since she had already 
 acquired the gift of pleasing which distinguished 
 her throughout life." But there is nothing 
 to show that the Vicomte did anything of the 
 kind. He could certainly have taken his wife 
 to Court, had he wished ; but Aubenas is 
 obliged to admit that her name was not to be 
 foiind on the list of those presented. What 
 seems probable is that he considered her un- 
 fitted for the society in which he mixed until 
 she should have educated herself under his 
 direction ; and he grew tired of directing 
 before Josephine had time to learn. She per- 
 severed with her " accomplishments," taking 
 up the harp in place of the guitar on coming 
 to France, and devoting attention to dancing, 
 in which her husband was proficient. In other 
 respects, the burden which Alexandre wished 
 to lay upon her was too heavy, and it is easy 
 to imagine that the months which she spent 
 at the house in the rue Thevenot, with her 
 father-in-law, aunt, and ailing father, or at 
 
$2 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Noisy-le-Grand in the summer, under the eye 
 of Mme. Renaudin, were far from being as 
 enchanting as has been assumed by some. 
 
 The brilhant society in which she was supposed 
 to mix probably did not include any more 
 distinguished people than Alexandre's own re- 
 latives, the Vicomte Fran9ois and his wife, and 
 the Countess Fanny. Fran9ois He Beauharnais 
 the younger was in the opposite political camp 
 to his brother and was not on intimate terms 
 with him. The Countess, who had married 
 in extreme youth but was hving apart from the 
 uncle of Frangois and Alexandre, was one of 
 the Mouchard family which became prominent 
 later under the Second Empire, owing to the 
 patronage of the Empress Eugenie. She was 
 a woman of literary aspirations rather than 
 talents, and her novels, plays, and philosophic 
 poems were much admired by those whom it 
 paid to admire them, though the uncharitable 
 said that her lovers were responsible for her 
 prose and verse. Her visits to the rue Thevenot 
 doubtless introduced an occasional atmosphere 
 of polite culture, of a kind which can hardly 
 have appealed to the unlearned Josephine. 
 It is only from a few letters again, and none 
 
The Education of a Wife 53 
 
 of them from her own pen, that we are able 
 to get an insight into Josephine's Ufe at this 
 period. A characteristic communication from 
 Alexandre to Mme. Renaudin in November 
 1780 acknowledges two letters from Josephine 
 which she had forwarded to him. He " readily- 
 recognised the charm of her style in the first 
 of these letters," he remarked — from which it 
 appears that Mme. Renaudin supervised her 
 niece's writings to her husband. Alexandre 
 continues : 
 
 " You ask my advice as to the course to be 
 taken about my wife's letters. I will repeat 
 what I have already said. Were I sure that 
 she alone had handled the pen I should feel 
 more pleasure in hearing the flattering things 
 which she tells me, and should persuade myself 
 more easily that they came from her heart. 
 As for the phrasing, I do not care much about 
 its precision. Besides, to judge by her last 
 letter, she has made considerable progress and 
 need no longer blush to write to any one, least 
 of all to her husband. Try therefore to get 
 her to take counsel of nobody as to what she 
 shall write." 
 
 Still more interesting and illuminating is a 
 
54 The Empress Josephine 
 
 letter from Alexandre to Josephine herself in 
 the following May : ^ 
 
 " I found your two letters charming, ma chere 
 amie, particularly the first, since you do not 
 therein make any complaints against me, while 
 in the second you charge me with not showing 
 enough anxiety to tell you about my journey. 
 This undeserved reproach (seeing that I wrote 
 to you the day after my arrival) would affect 
 me if I were not persuaded that it was inspired 
 by friendship. ... I am delighted at the desire 
 which you manifest that I should instruct you. 
 Such a taste, which is always capable of being 
 gratified, is the source of an ever pure enjoyment 
 and has the precious advantage of leaving no 
 regret behind. If you persist in the resolution 
 which you have formed, the acquirements which 
 wiU be yours will raise you above others and, 
 adding knowledge to modesty, wiU make you 
 an accomplished woman," etc. etc. 
 
 There is something pathetic in the idea here 
 presented of Josephine, not yet eighteen years 
 of age, craving news of a husband whom she 
 
 < According to Aubenas. We should be tempted to refer 
 it to the May of the previous year after reading Patricol's 
 report opposite. 
 
The Widening Breach 55 
 
 must somehow have loved and getting instead 
 such compositions as the above. That she still 
 loved her husband appears from the hints of 
 jealousy and also from her desire, which so 
 pleased the pedant in Alexandre, to be instructed 
 by him ; since desire for instruction such as 
 Alexandre wished to impart never manifested 
 itself at any other period of Josephine's Ufe. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Vicomte de Beau- 
 harnais was more estranged from his wife than 
 could be gathered from the two letters quoted. 
 The proof of this is to be found in a long account 
 given by Patricol to Mme. Renaudin of a con- 
 versation which he had with his former pupil 
 during a visit by Alexandre to Roche-Guyon. 
 Mme. Renaudin had enlisted Patricol' s help to 
 repair the breach which she saw widening be- 
 tween her niece and her godson, and the ancient 
 tutor on June 5, 1781, thus reported Alexandre's 
 attitude.toward his wife : 
 
 " When I first saw Mile, de Lapagerie [Alex- 
 andre is represented as sayinrf, I thought that 
 I could live happily with her. #Kt that moment 
 I formed the plan of beginning her education 
 again and repairing by my zeal the neglect of 
 the first fifteen years of her life. Soon after our 
 
56 The Empress Josephine 
 
 marriage I discovered in her a lack of confidence 
 which astonished me, since I had done every- 
 thing to inspire her with that confidence ; and 
 I confess to you that this discovery rather cooled 
 my zeal for instructing her. It did not, how- 
 ever, extinguish it. I even tried to excuse her, 
 and I continued with my plan until at last I 
 perceived in her an indifference and an absence 
 of desire to instruct herself which convinced 
 me that I was wasting my time. I then 
 renounced my plan and left the education of 
 my wife to whosoever wished. Instead of re- 
 maining at home a greater part of my time with 
 an object who has nothing to say to me, I am 
 going out much more often than I intended, and 
 I am resuming in part the Ufe of my old bachelor 
 days. I beg you to beheve that it is not that 
 it does not cost my heart dear to renounce the 
 happiness promised me by my idea of a well- 
 ordered household. Although I have gone into 
 the world much since I enjoyed my freedom, 
 I stiU have not lost the taste for work. I am 
 quite ready to put the happiness of a home 
 and domestic peace before the disturbing plea- 
 sures of society. But it seemed to me, acting 
 thus, that if my wife truly felt friendship for 
 
Alexandre's Complaint 57 
 
 me, she would make efforts to attract me to her 
 and to acquire the qualities which I love and 
 which can keep a hold over me. WeUj what 
 has come to pass is the contrary of what I 
 expected ; and, instead of my seeing my wife 
 striving after instruction and accomplishments, 
 she has become jealous and has developed all 
 the qualities of that baneful passion. This is 
 how we stand to-day. It is her desire that in 
 society I should pay attention to her alone. 
 She wants to know what I say, do, write, etc., 
 and never thinks of learning the true methods 
 of attaining this end and of winning the con- 
 fidence which I only keep back with regret and 
 feel that I shall give her on the first sign which 
 she gives of her anxiety to become better edu- 
 cated and more lovable." 
 
 If we assume Patricol's report of Alexandre's 
 words to be true (and they certainly sound like 
 what he might have been expected to say), the 
 May letter to Josephine cannot have been sin- 
 cere in its expression of that amitie which with 
 him took the place of conjugal love ; for the 
 speech to Patricol manifests no sudden decision 
 to try the effect of neglect upon Josephine. 
 
 In sending his report to Mme. Renaudin 
 
5 8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Patricol expressed his regret that he could not 
 himself act as Josephine's tutor ; and he 
 recommended that she should devote her 
 attention to the study of literature, history, and 
 geography. But Josephine not only was obUged 
 to do without the instruction of her husband's 
 old teacher ; she found httle time to carry out 
 his advice as to study, even if she wished to do 
 so. She returned from her summer season at 
 Noisy expecting a child, and on September 3 
 she gave birth to a son, who received the names 
 of Eugene-Rose and who afterwards became 
 celebrated as Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy 
 of Italy. Alexandre came to Paris to be present 
 at the christening, and the family was in hopes 
 that the advent of a son would reconcile him 
 to his young wife. These hopes were disap- 
 pointed. Alexandre showed no signs of greater 
 kindness, and Mme. Renaudin, who was not 
 blind to the evil effects of his relapse into the 
 life of his old bachelor days, as the Vicomte 
 himself expressed it, advised him to pay a visit 
 to Italy. It was not hard for her to persuade 
 her godson of the educational advantages of 
 such a journey. He was charmed with the 
 idea of enlarging his mind — and of escaping from 
 
The First Child 59 
 
 the jealousy and lack of intellect shown by his 
 wife. Accordingly Josephine was left once 
 more in the rue Thevenot, with only the addi- 
 tional distraction of her new-born infant to 
 vary the monotony of her days. On the birth 
 of a grandson her father at length made up his 
 mind to return to Martinique. In his two 
 years' sojourn in France he had failed to obtain 
 a much-wished-for increase in his pension from 
 the Government. But, on the other hand, he 
 did obtain the Cross of Saint-Louis ; and from 
 his sister Mme. Renaudin, always ready to share 
 her gains with her family, a loan of twenty-six 
 thousand livres. 
 
 When the Vicomte de Beauhamais returned 
 from his doubtless improving trip to Italy at 
 the end of July 1782, he found that his wife 
 and child had removed with his father and Mme. 
 Renaudin to a new home in the rue Saint- 
 Charles, a rather less gloomy house than that in 
 the rue Thevenot. At first the advice of Mme. 
 Renaudin seemed to have worked well, for he 
 was described as enchanted to be with his wife 
 again, and he resumed cohabitation with her. 
 But it was soon apparent that his attitude 
 toward her was unchanged. He seized upon a 
 
6o The Empress Josephine 
 
 pretext to rejoin his regiment at Verdun. 
 Aubenas can find nothing better to say than 
 that " his absence, although justified by his 
 miUtary duties, none the less awakened in his 
 wife (prevented from following him by the 
 regxilations and by the care of her infant) new 
 attacks of jealousy, which she could not prevent 
 and which Alexandre did not try to assuage by 
 frequent visits." So far from attempting to 
 pay frequent visits to Paris, the Vicomte at the 
 end of September, only two months after his 
 return from Italy, volunteered to join an ex- 
 pedition starting across the Atlantic to relieve 
 Martinique from one of the periodical English 
 attacks. Before he left Brest he was informed 
 by a message from Josephine that she was again 
 with child by him, whereupon he was kind 
 enough to write a letter expressing his happiness 
 at the news — a letter of some considerable 
 importance, as it afterwards proved. 
 
 Once more, therefore, Josephine was deserted 
 by the husband of whom she had seen so Httle — 
 ten months in all, it has been computed — during 
 their three years of married life, and if her affec- 
 tion had succeeded in surviving the cruel tests 
 to which it had been put in that time, she can 
 
Alexandre goes Abroad 6i 
 
 have seen him depart with no Hght heart. The 
 jealousy which he made one of his complaints 
 against her was not unjustified. Even his 
 friendly critics were obliged to admit his exces- 
 sive gallantry toward the other sex (une grande 
 coquetterie avec les femmes is the expression used 
 by Aubenas) ; and if this was so in France, 
 where his family's sympathy with his wife 
 restrained him, what was to be looked for when 
 he was safely across the Atlantic ? 
 
 It was not long before the fears which Jose- 
 phine must have felt were reaUsed. On his 
 arrival in Martinique, Alexandre paid a visit 
 to Trois-Ilets, where he found his welcome from 
 the Tascher family less warm than he may have 
 expected. His mother-in-law, in particular, 
 took the opportunity to speak to him in a way 
 which he did not appreciate. Naturally she 
 had received from her husband, when he returned 
 from France, a description of the manner in 
 which her daughter had been neglected during 
 the first two years of marriage. 
 
 The ostensible reasons for which Alexandre de 
 Beauharnais had gone to the West Indies were 
 dissatisfaction with his rank as captain only 
 and desire for active mihtary service. Un- 
 
62 The Empress Josephine 
 
 fortunately for hirrij the political situation 
 changed soon after his arrival^ and instead of 
 war there was peace, under the preliminaries 
 of the Treaty of Versailles. His time therefore 
 hung heavily on his hands, and having nothing 
 better to do he commenced an mtrigue. The 
 object was a Martinique lady, some years his 
 senior, who had an unknown reason for hating 
 Josephine, and was weU enough acquainted 
 with her early history to be able to poison her 
 husband's mind against her. That she should 
 have been able to do so proves nothing against 
 Josephine. Beauharnais had never loved his 
 wife, had already been unfaithful, was bored 
 with her and had quarrelled with her family ; 
 and Josephine's enemy no doubt expressed 
 a passion for him which blinded him to the 
 maUce of her insinuations. He gladly believed 
 whatever monstrous stories were told to him. 
 The result of the base attack on the unfortu- 
 nate Josephine's character was soon apparent. 
 On April 10, 1783, she gave birth to a daughter, 
 Hortense-Eugenie, afterwards Queen of Holland 
 and mother of the Emperor Napoleon HI. The 
 news reached the Vicomte in Martinique. After 
 waiting over three weeks, he wrote to his wife 
 
HORTENSE DE BEAUHARNAIS. 
 After tlie painting bj' Prudhon. Plioio by Levy et ses Fils. 
 
 p. 62 
 
A Base Attack 63 
 
 as follows, dropping for once the strain of calm 
 and self-sufficient philosophy which was gener- 
 ally characteristic of his correspondence : 
 
 " If I had written to you in the first moment 
 of my anger, my pen would have burnt the 
 paper and you would have believed, on hearing 
 my invectives, that I had chosen a moment 
 of ill-temper or jealousy to write to you. But 
 I have now known for three weeks or more 
 what I am going to tell you. So, in spite of 
 my soul's despair, in spite of the rage which 
 suffocates me, I shall contain myself ; I shall 
 tell you coldly that you are in my eyes the 
 vilest of beings, that my stay in this country 
 has made known to me your abominable conduct 
 here, that I know the full details of your intrigue 
 
 with M. de Be , an officer in the Martinique 
 
 regiment, and that with M. d'H., who sailed on 
 the Cesar, that I am aware of the means you 
 took to satisfy yourself and the people whom 
 you employed to get your opportunities ; that 
 Brigitte was only given her freedom to bind 
 her to silence, and that Louis, now dead, was 
 also in the secret ; lastly, I know the contents 
 of your letters and I will bring with me one of the 
 presents which you gave. It is too late, there- 
 
64 The Empress Josephine 
 
 fore, for pretences, and, as nothing is unknown 
 to me, there remains only one attitude for you 
 to adopt, that of frankness. As for repentance, 
 I do not ask it of you, you are incapable of it. 
 A creature who could open her arms to her lover 
 after the preparations had been made for her 
 departure, when she knew she was destined to 
 another, has no soul, is lower than the worst of 
 hussies. Having been bold enough to reckon 
 on the slumbers of her mother and her grand- 
 mother, it is not surprising that you [sic] knew 
 how to deceive your father also at San Domingo. 
 I do them all justice and blame no one but you. 
 You alone could abuse a whole family and bring 
 scandal and ignominy into a strange family 
 which you were unworthy to enter. After so 
 many crimes and atrocious acts, what can one 
 think of the storms and the wrangles that arose 
 in our household ? What of this last child, 
 born eight months and a few days after my 
 return from Italy ? I am forced to accept it, 
 but, I swear by the Heaven which enlightens 
 me, it is another's, strange blood flows in its 
 veins. It shall never know my shame and, I 
 take my oath again, it shall never discover 
 either by its education or by its treatment that 
 
Alexandre's Letter 65 
 
 it owes its being to an adulterer. But you 
 recognise that I must avoid such a misfortune 
 in future. Make your arrangements, therefore. 
 Never, never will I put myself in the position of 
 being abused again ; and, since you are such 
 a woman as to impose on the world if we lived 
 under the same roof again, be good enough to 
 betake yourself to a convent as soon as you 
 receive my letter. This is my last word, and 
 nothing in this universe can make me go back 
 upon it. I will come to see you on my arrival 
 in Paris, once only. I wish to have a talk with 
 you and to return something to you. But I 
 repeat to you : no tears, no protestations. I 
 am forearmed against all your attempts, and all 
 my care will be devoted to arming myself still 
 further against your base oaths, as contemptible 
 as they are false. In spite of all the invectives 
 that your fury will pour out against me, you 
 know me, madam, you recognise that I am kind 
 and feeling, and I know that in your inmost 
 heart you will do me justice. You will persist 
 in denial because from your earliest years you 
 made falsehood a habit, but you will be none 
 the less convinced, internally, that you have only 
 got what you deserve. You probably are not 
 VOL. I 5 
 
66 The Empress Josephine 
 
 aware of the way in which I managed to unveil 
 all these horrors, and I shall only tell it to my 
 father and your aunt. It will be enough for you 
 to realise that men are very indiscreet, most 
 especially when they have cause for complaint. 
 Besides, you wrote ; besides, you gave up 
 
 M. de Be 's letters to his successor ; and 
 
 then you employed persons of colour, whose 
 indiscretion one can buy with money. So look 
 upon the shame with which you and I, as well 
 as your children, are about to be covered, as 
 a punishment from Heaven which you have 
 deserved ; it ought to gain for me your pity 
 and that of all honourable hearts. 
 
 " Good-bye, madam ; I am writing to you 
 in duplicate, and the two letters will be the last 
 which you will receive from your desperate and 
 unhappy husband. 
 
 " P.S. — I leave to-day for San Domingo, and I 
 reckon on being in Paris in September or October, 
 if my health does not break down under the fatigue 
 of a journey in conjunction with so terrible a 
 state of affairs. I imagine that after this letter 
 I shall not find you in my house, and I must warn 
 you that you would discover in me a tyrant if 
 you did not follow my bidding precisely." 
 
Hor tense's Birth 67 
 
 The man who wrote the above letter, which 
 it has seemed worth while to quote in full, was 
 the same who had before leaving France ex- 
 pressed his happiness at knowing for certain that 
 his wife was a second time with child. More- 
 over, he could not well have forgotten that he 
 had returned to Paris at the end of July 1782, 
 and that the child was born on April 10 in the 
 following year. What amount of sincerity there 
 was in the charge with regard to the paternity 
 of Hortense is obvious. As for the other 
 accusations in his abominable letter, he could 
 not well tell Josephine that he had derived his 
 information from his present mistress. But 
 probably he felt no compunction in hiding this 
 fact from one who " from her earliest years had 
 made falsehood a habit." 
 
 In August Alexandre de Beauharnais left 
 Martinique, but not without hearing from Trois- 
 Ilets. He had not concealed from his father- 
 in-law with what feelings toward Josephine 
 he was going home. Tascher wrote angrily to 
 him, offering to take his daughter back, and 
 bitterly attacking his conduct in Martinique. 
 " So this is the result of your journey," he said, 
 " and of the fine campaign which you were 
 
68 The Empress Josephine 
 
 counting on making against the enemies of the 
 State. You got as far as making war on your 
 wife's good name and the peace of her family." 
 For once Joseph-Gaspard Tascher appears in 
 a vigorous attitude, even if it is only on paper. 
 
 Beauharnais arrived in France early in October, 
 having sent Josephine's traducer ahead of him 
 to Paris. The letter of accusation had reached 
 Josephine at Noisy-le-Grand, during her usual 
 summer visit, and she had remained in her 
 aunt's house to await events. Mme. Renaudin 
 and the old Marquis had both sent messages to 
 meet the husband on his landing, urging him 
 to be reconciled. But Alexandre was in no 
 mood for reconciliation. He merely wrote to 
 Josephine expressing his astonishment that she 
 had not yet retired to a convent and assuring 
 her of the inflexibility of his resolution. 
 
 " Could we live together after what I have 
 learnt ? " he asked. " You would be made as 
 unhappy as I by the constant thought of your 
 misdeeds, which you would know to be familiar 
 to me. And, though you would be incapable 
 of remorse, would not the idea that your husband 
 had obtained the right to despise you be at 
 least humiliating to your self-respect ? . . . I 
 
Alexandre's Return 69 
 
 see no reason, if you wish to return to America, 
 against allowing you to adopt this alternative, 
 and you may choose between the return to your 
 family and a convent in Paris." 
 
 After stating that he would Uke to see the little 
 Eugene, if he were sent to Paris, Alexandre added 
 that nothing which his wife could do would cause 
 him to alter his opinion. He feared, perhaps, 
 that the desire to see Eugene might be inter- 
 preted as a sign of relenting ; and he concluded : 
 
 " For the last six months I have spent all my 
 time in hardening myself on this point. Submit 
 yourself therefore, like me, to a painful course, 
 to a separation which will hurt your children 
 most of all, and be assured, madam, that of the 
 two of us you are not the one most to be pitied." 
 
 We know nothing of any replies which 
 Josephine may have made to her husband's 
 letters. On receipt of the last she hurried to 
 Paris, in spite of his commands. To avoid the 
 possibiUty of meeting her, the Vicomte had 
 not gone to his own home, or rather his father's, 
 in the rue Saint-Charles, but to two hired houses 
 in succession, where he received with unwavering 
 sternness all efforts in the direction of compro- 
 mise from his father, his godmother, and many 
 
70 The Empress Josephine 
 
 well-meaning friends of the family. At the 
 same time he took proceedings to secure a 
 separation. At length in December, seeing 
 that all attempts to improve the situation were 
 in vain, Mme. Renaudin made a decided step 
 on her niece's behalf. It was customary for 
 ladies in Josephine's position to take refuge in 
 a convent while judicial proceedings were pend- 
 ing. At the abbey of Panthemont in the rue de 
 Grenelle-Saint-Germain at the time were several 
 others in a similar plight. Hither the aunt and 
 niece went to lodge while a counter-case against 
 the Vicomte de Beauharnais was being prepared. 
 There was no difficulty in making out a very 
 strong case. Alexandre's neglect of Josephine 
 had been notorious. They had now been 
 married for four years, during which time he 
 had spent ten months with her. Previous to 
 the Martinique visit he had been neglectful, 
 indifferent, and actually unfaithful. His con- 
 duct in Martinique had been worse than ever, 
 and his two letters of July 13 and October 20, 
 1783, were put in as evidence against him. He 
 had no defence, apart from what he might affect 
 to believe of the stories of his wife's girlhood at 
 Trois-Ilets. With regard to Hortense's legiti- 
 
The Separation 71 
 
 macy, he had already, as has been seen, destroyed 
 his own argument by his expression of pleasure 
 at the prospect of a second child before he left 
 France for the West Indies. Furthermore, his 
 family was entirely against him, including his 
 father, his brother Frangois, and his aunt Fanny 
 de Beauharnais, who had herself retained the 
 friendship of the Beauharnais clan, although 
 separated from her elderly husband Comte 
 Claude. 
 
 There was nothing for Alexandre to do but 
 to yield to the inevitable. He consented to 
 meet his wife at the lawyer's office in Paris 
 on March 3, 1785, and there he withdrew his 
 accusations against her and consented to a 
 separation on terms very advantageous to her. 
 Josephine's victory was completej and the 
 Vicomte made no effort to save the situation 
 for himself. The only stipulation at all in 
 his favour in the arrangement now made was 
 that Eugene should pass to his father's custody 
 after reaching the age of five years. In the 
 meanwhile the father was to pay for his mainte- 
 nance as he was to pay for that of Hortense 
 throughout. He was to allow Josephine five 
 thousand livres a year, while she was to receive 
 
72 The Empress Josephine 
 
 also the interest on her dowry and might live 
 wherever she pleased. Except by obtaining 
 an absolute divorce from her husband, Josephine 
 could not have triumphed more thoroughly 
 over the unworthy Vicomte, who undoubtedly 
 paid heavily for listening to the slanders of 
 his Martinique mistress and to his own desires 
 to get rid of a wife whom he could not " edu- 
 cate " according to his ideas. 
 
 The subsequent history of the married Ufe 
 of Alexandre and Josephine de Beauharnais, 
 down to their practical reconciliation, almost 
 on the foot of the scaffold, is very curious. 
 Writers interested in upholding the family 
 credit of the Beauharnais and the Taschers 
 have naturally tried to minimise the complete- 
 ness of the estrangement. But the evidence 
 is all against their contentions. As far as 
 Josephine is concerned, it is unnecessary to 
 attempt to show that she overlooked the offences 
 committed against her by her husband. She 
 had been terribly wronged, and her own con- 
 duct in the bonds of this unhappy union was 
 in no way to blame, unless her inability to 
 assimilate Alexandre's theories of education 
 must be considered a fault. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 HITHERTO Josephine's life had not been 
 eventful. Brought up in lazy ignorance 
 until the age of ten ; sent for four years to 
 an indifferent convent school, where she learnt 
 little but music and dancing ; then spending 
 two more years at her father's island home, 
 where she may have had a few childish love 
 affairs ; she had been married at sixteen to a 
 pompous young blackguard, who after a slight 
 effort to train her according to his ideas studi- 
 ously neglected her and grasped at the first 
 opportunity which he thought he saw of putting 
 her out of his way. Of real education she had 
 none, and of social polish hardly any except 
 what she received from intercourse with her 
 father-in-law and her aunt, and from the 
 occasional meetings with her husband's aunt. 
 Up to the period of her separation she had 
 
 73 
 
74 The Empress Josephine 
 
 drifted through life or had been driven by 
 others, inert, helpless, and scarcely articulate. 
 No more unhkely candidate for a throne could 
 weU be imagined, few more improbable as- 
 pirants to a prominent place in the history 
 of an exceptionably interesting period of time. 
 Part of her insignificance is, of course, due to 
 the fact that we can only see her through the 
 medium of a few letters written by those who 
 directed her fate up to the age of twenty-one, 
 that we never hear her own words or receive 
 any of her personal impressions of what went 
 on around her. But it cannot be denied that 
 during her first twenty-one years of life she 
 gave singularly little promise of deserving the 
 attention of biographers. 
 
 It was at the abbey of Panthemont, during 
 her temporary retirement to await the result 
 of the proceedings for a legal separation from 
 her husband, that Josephine first learnt how 
 to hold herself in society and to disguise the 
 deficiencies of her education by reliance on her 
 natural abilities ; that she first learnt, in fact, 
 to be herself as she afterwards became known 
 to the world — the Vicomtesse de Beauharnais 
 who captured the heart of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
An Introduction to Society 75 
 
 Her stay at the abbey brought her in contact 
 with a section at least of the society to which 
 her husband had not cared to introduce her. 
 In this convent were to be met members of the 
 upper classes who had, like her, trouble with 
 their husbands ; orphans of good family who 
 had no home to which to go ; and unmarried 
 ladies whose means did not enable them to live 
 as well in the outside world, or who liked the 
 reUgious air of the place combined with the 
 liberty which other convents did not allow. 
 Panthemont was a superior kind of " home 
 for gentlewomen " of not too reduced circum- 
 stances, perfectly respectable and almost aristo- 
 cratic in tone. Here, with her aimt to guide 
 her in the choice of her acquaintances, Josephine 
 spent a profitable year and a quarter, gaining 
 an insight into the manners of society and 
 making friendships which were destined to 
 prove very useful to her afterwards. 
 
 In the August following her emergence from 
 Panthemont, Josephine joined the Marquis de 
 Beauharnais and the recently widowed Mme. 
 Renaudin at Fontainebleau. Here the Marquis 
 had taken a country-house, having given up 
 the Paris residence and the establishment at 
 
7^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 Noisy-le-Grand. His pension from the Govern- 
 ment had lately been cut down to a quarter 
 of its size, and he had also lost revenues in San 
 Domingo, where Josephine's father had shown 
 little ability in the management of his friend's 
 estates. Both he and Mme. Renaudin were in 
 iU health and welcomed the idea of a peaceful 
 existence at Fontainebleau. Society, however, 
 was not whoUy lacking, if that society was 
 drawn chiefly from the bourgeoisie ; the Com- 
 tesse Fanny de Beauharnais had a house close 
 at hand, to give a tone to it ; and there were 
 dances, theatricals, and a hunt to supply Jose- 
 phine with amusement. With the care of her 
 two children in addition, she found life fuller 
 than it had hitherto been for her. The separa- 
 tion had undoubtedly brought with it an im- 
 provement in her lot. Moreover, there was 
 no question of open hostihty between herself 
 and Alexandre. There was, rather, a softening 
 of the bitterness which had existed, on one 
 side at least, before husband and wife parted. 
 Gradually there came to be a weekly inter- 
 change of letters, in which they gave each other 
 news of their children ; for in September 1786 
 the five-year-old Eugene went to his father, in 
 
The Family Position 77 
 
 accordance with the arrangement of the previous 
 year. 
 
 This quiet country Hfe might have continued 
 for some considerable time had it not been for 
 the increase of the financial troubles of the 
 family. Not only had the Marquis a dwindling 
 income, but Mme. Renaudin had lost by her 
 husband's death, while Alexandre had become 
 involved in money difficulties and was behind- 
 hand in his payments to his wife. From 
 Martinique moneys came in very slowly through 
 the hands of Joseph-Gaspard Tascher. There 
 exists an interesting letter from Josephine 
 to her father partly dealing with this question 
 — one of the very few of the early letters from 
 Josephine which have survived. Writing on 
 May 20, 1787, she says : 
 
 " I have received, my dear papa, the bill of 
 exchange for 2,789 livres which you entrusted 
 to my uncle. Accept my entire thanks. It 
 makes me hope that you are seriously trying 
 to send me soon more considerable sums. This 
 will be all the more pleasant for me, since they 
 wiU bring peace to our minds and prevent us 
 from making ruinous sacrifices to fulfil our 
 obligations. You know me well enough, my 
 
78 The Empress Josephine 
 
 dear papa, to be quite sure that but for a press- 
 ing need of money I should speak to you of 
 nothing but my fondest affection for you." 
 
 She goes on to talk of the little Hortense and 
 of Eugene in a passage which deserves quota- 
 tion, as the first example of the affectionate 
 simplicity with which she, who has by some 
 been denied the name of a loving mother, 
 always spoke of her children : 
 
 " I am occupied at the moment in looking 
 after my daughter, whom M. de Beauharnais 
 wished to be inoculated. I thought I ought 
 not to opppse his request in this deHcate situa- 
 tion : up to the present I have nothing to 
 reproach myself about, since the child is as 
 well as could be desired. She is my consolation ; 
 she is charming in face and in character ; she 
 already speaks often of her grandpapa and 
 grandmamma La Pagerie. She does not forget 
 her aunt Manette, and asks me : ' Mamma, shall 
 I see them soon ? ' Such is her prattle at the 
 moment. Eugene has been for four months 
 at a school in Paris. He is wonderfully well ; 
 he could not be inoculated because of his seven- 
 year-old teeth, which are coming early, you see." 
 
 This letter, which is signed " La Pagerie de 
 
A Sudden Journey 79 
 
 Beauharnais," after the fashion of the time, 
 shows Josephine in a kindly, artless light, as 
 indeed she almost invariably appeared in her 
 correspondence throughout life. 
 
 The " more considerable sums " for which 
 Josephine hoped did not come over from Mar- 
 tinique, and in 1788 she determined to go on 
 a visit to her parents. Is it necessary to imagine 
 a dishonourable reason for her departure from 
 Fontainebleau ? It has been suggested that 
 she had intrigues there which made it advisable, 
 for the sake of her reputation, to leave. It is 
 impossible to disprove the charge, but, on the 
 other hand, there is nothing more than a mere 
 guess upon which to base it. M. Masson writes, 
 in his " Josephine de Beauharnais " : " In the 
 absence of any documents one is reduced to 
 conjecture ; and the necessity for this mys- 
 terious and sudden joixrney, given the ideas 
 which can be formed about Josephine's psy- 
 chology, can only be looked for in one of two 
 causes : love or debts." In fact, she had either 
 made herself conspicuous in a love affair or 
 she feared legal proceedings against her for 
 debt, and in either case she was compelled to 
 leave Fontainebleau. Such is M. Masson's 
 
8o The Empress Josephine 
 
 verdict. Josephine might, however, be given 
 the benefit of the doubt — a privilege which is 
 seldom hers. It is true that a journey from 
 France to Martinique, with her daughter of 
 five, seems a rash proceeding if all she wanted 
 was money from her father. But Tascher was 
 both ill and financially involved himself, and 
 desperate measures may have seemed necessary 
 to Josephine. He and his wife, too, had often 
 invited their daughter to come to them after 
 the separation from Alexandre and may well 
 have urged her more strongly of late. Jose- 
 phine was not totally destitute of natural 
 feeling, as might be imagined from the fact 
 that only a discreditable reason has generally 
 been sought for her journey in 1788. 
 
 Whatever her motive, Josephine was anxious 
 to quit France at the earliest possible moment. 
 On her arrival at Havre she lodged at a small 
 house kept by two married people in humble 
 circumstances, by name Dubuc, whose address 
 had been given to her by M. de Rougemont, 
 a banker friend. A Government-owned vessel 
 was proposed to her as her means of reaching 
 Martinique ; but such was her impatience that, 
 hearing that this vessel was not sailing for 
 
TroiS'IIets Revisited 8 1 
 
 two weeks and that there was another, privately 
 owned, starting at once, she managed to secure 
 a passage on this for herself and Hortense. 
 The only reminiscence which we find of this 
 period is in the Memoirs of Mile. Cochelet, 
 who was afterwards attached to the household 
 of Queen Hortense and visited Havre with her 
 in September 1814. They found the home of 
 the Dubucs, now a very old couple, whom 
 Hortense Ukened to Philemon and Baucis. 
 Mme. Dubuc remembered well the visit of 
 Josephine and her child, and how eager the 
 former had been to sail. She recalled, too, a 
 great storm which had overtaken the ship aS 
 it left Havre harbour, and how much the 
 captain (a native of Havre, stiU living in 1814) 
 had been struck by Josephine's courage — a 
 statement which rather surprises us when we 
 recollect that Josephine was a bad traveller 
 and always complained of migraine, even on 
 a land journey. 
 
 The two years of Josephine's hfe following 
 her departure from Havre in June 1788 are 
 without a record and must certainly have 
 been very duU for her. The family at Trois- 
 Ilets was badly off. Her father's health con- 
 VOL. I 6 
 
82 The Empress Josephine 
 
 tinued very poor. Her sister Marie-Franfoise, 
 who, had she not been so young ten years 
 ago, might have had the evil fate of marrying 
 the Vicomte de Beauharnais, was also aiUng — 
 in consequence, it was said, of an unfortunate 
 love affair, perhaps the same which had re- 
 sulted in the birth of her illegitimate daughter, 
 afterwards known as Marie-Benaquette. Both 
 father and daughter died before long, Joseph- 
 Gaspard Tascher in November 1790, and Marie- 
 Frangoise a year later. Josephine, however, left 
 Trois-Ilets before either death had taken place, 
 sailing for France again in September 1790. 
 
 Her departure from Martinique was almost 
 as sudden as had been her setting out, and the 
 occasion for it is no better known. Friends 
 of the family attributed it to the reception of 
 the news of her husband's rapid advance to 
 the front rank in the Assembly. According to 
 them, Josephine's early love for Alexandre de 
 Beauharnais had never been extinguished, and 
 she was anxious to rejoin him as soon as he 
 was in a position for her to do so. Some even 
 go so far as to make Alexandre summon her 
 to him — a step which our acquaintance with 
 his character hardly renders probable. Nor 
 
Return to France 83 
 
 was there any reunion between husband and 
 wife, as such writers as Imbert de Saint-Amand, 
 for instance, have imagined, after Josephine's 
 return with her daughter to Paris. Still, it is 
 likely that the return was partly influenced by 
 intelligence of Alexandre's success. 
 
 Whatever the attraction in France, there 
 were assuredly sufficient reasons to drive 
 Josephine from Martinique. Debt and disease 
 gripped the Taschers at Trois-Ilets, and social 
 intercourse for them can hardly have existed. 
 The whole island was in a state of turmoil 
 through race feuds between the whites and 
 blacks, and the spirit of revolution had already 
 penetrated from France to her West Indian 
 colonies. Fort-Royal was in the hands of 
 rebels, and the French fleet had been driven 
 by the captured guns to leave the harbour. 
 The commander, who was a friend of the 
 Beauhamais, offered to give Josephine a passage 
 across the Atlantic. She accepted and arrived 
 on board the frigate Sensible in so great a state 
 of distress that clothing was actually provided 
 for her and Hortense on the voyage. Sym- 
 pathy, however, was readily extended to them, 
 and we hear of the child being shod with a pair 
 
84 The Empress Josephine 
 
 of shoes manufactured from a sailor's old 
 slippers, while she delighted all by giving them 
 a negro-dance upon the bridge. 
 
 Such was Josephine's last farewell to her 
 birthplace. Her father died bankrupt two 
 months later, her sister followed, and only 
 Mme. Tascher de la Pagerie was left to guard 
 what remained of the family estate, in the 
 company of her illegitimate grand-daughter. 
 
 In November Josephine set foot in France 
 once more. She proceeded without loss of 
 time to Paris to await news from her husband 
 as to what she should do. The changes during 
 her absence had been great. Alexandre de 
 Beauhamais, seeing little prospect of rapid 
 promotion in a military career, had devoted 
 himself to politics. His choice seemed a wise 
 one. Attaching himself, like his protector, 
 the Due de la Rochefoucauld, to the Liberal 
 Aristocrats' party, in the opening days of the 
 Revolution he made good progress. His de- 
 mocratic declarations brought him a name, 
 and he was made first a member of the Pro- 
 vincial Assembly of the Orleans district, and 
 then deputy for Blois in the Etats-G6neraux. In 
 November 1789 he was prominent enough to 
 
Alexandre in Politics 85 
 
 be chosen as one of the three secretaries of the 
 Constituent Assembly, on the MiUtary Com- 
 mittee of which he also served. When his 
 wife reached Paris, the fluently philosophising 
 Liberal Aristocrat was well on his way to the 
 Presidency of the Assembly, which he was to 
 attain after Mirabeau's death in the following 
 April. 
 
 M. Masson has been at some pains to destroy 
 the legend of the complete reconciliation be- 
 tween Josephine and Alexandre de Beauharnais, 
 a legend of which there were even two versions. 
 " According to one, Alexandre was waiting 
 impatiently for his wife and was ready to do 
 anything to expiate his faults. According to 
 the other, he was not informed of her return, 
 but obliging friends intervened and he con- 
 sented to see his daughter and his wife ; at 
 the sight of Hortense dressed like a young 
 American child he came to himself, recognised 
 his offspring, and aU went well." ^ In reality, 
 M. Masson points out, there was no reunion. 
 Husband and wife continued to live apart, 
 and the terms of the act of separation were 
 strictly observed. They had, however, friends 
 
 ' " Josephine de Beauharnais," 177-8. 
 
86 The Empress Josephine 
 
 in common and met in society, speaking to 
 one another when they did so and discussing 
 their children's education, a subject naturally 
 very congenial to the Vicomte. 
 
 This limited acquaintance, which hardly 
 deserves even Alexandre's favourite term amitie, 
 is very different from the picture drawn by 
 Imbert de Saint-Amand, for instance. That 
 amiable courtier writes that " Josephine ex- 
 perienced one of the greatest joys of her life 
 in seeing her husband come back to the tender 
 sentiments of the first days of their marriage, 
 and she settled down with him in Paris, in the 
 mansion which he then occupied in the rue de 
 rUniversite, facing the rue de Poitiers." ^ As 
 a matter of fact, while Alexandre lived in the 
 rue des Petits-Augustins, it was only Josephine 
 and Hortense who lived in the rue de I'Uni- 
 versite. In the summer after her return to 
 France she was joined by her son Eugene and 
 went with the two children to stop with the 
 old Marquis de Beauharnais and Mme. Renaudin 
 at Fontainebleau, where they still resided. 
 
 Here the continued advance of Alexandre 
 brought with it an increase of respect for his 
 
 ' " La Jeunesse de I'lmp^ratrice Josephine," 27. 
 
The Revolution 87 
 
 family. Only three days after his election as 
 President of the Assembly the task fell to him 
 of annoimcing that the King and the Royal 
 family had been " carried away by the enemies 
 of the common weal." For the moment Alex- 
 andre himself almost stepped into the King's 
 place, and it is recorded that when the boy 
 Eugene walked about Fontainebleau he was 
 greeted with cries of " Here comes the 
 Dauphin ! " Alexandre's appreciation of his 
 position may be seen in a passage from a letter 
 which he sent to his father on June 27. " 
 am exhausted with fatigue," he wrote, " but 
 I find the necessary strength in my courage 
 and in the hope that, deserving by my zeal a 
 part of the praises which are showered on me, 
 I may be able to be of service to the common 
 weal and to the maintenance of the peace of 
 the kingdom." The philosopher had no doubts 
 about his performance of his duty, but looked 
 upon himself as the patriot duly rewarded by 
 the attainment of the highest honours. 
 
 When the summer came to an end, Josephine 
 left Fontainebleau ; and her return to Paris 
 may be regarded as her first real launching 
 into society. She included among her friends 
 
88 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Fanny de Beauharnais, Mme. de Genlis, Char- 
 lotte Robespierre, the Prince of Salm-Kyrbourg 
 and his sister, Princess Amalie of Hohenzollern- 
 Sigmaringen. The last-named, in particular, 
 became very intimate with her, and in her 
 house Josephine and Alexandre must often 
 have met. She also renewed many acquaint- 
 ances which she had made at Panthemont. 
 But there is no proof of the existence of a 
 Beauharnais salon such as that with which the 
 family biographers would credit Josephine. In 
 the first place she can hardly have had any 
 funds on which to maintain a salon, her father's 
 death having caused a further decrease in the 
 moneys coming from Martinique. Nor could 
 she expect aid from her husband, impoverished 
 as he was through the troubles in San Domingo. 
 Moreover, in September the Constituent As- 
 sembly came to an end, and Alexandre, after 
 three months in a post in the provinces, was 
 ordered to rejoin his regiment. He obeyed the 
 order slowly, after writing to the Marquis de 
 Beauharnais to ask for his fatherly blessing in 
 the year just about to open, so full of new dangers 
 for his son. In this letter Alexandre did not 
 mention either Josephine or the children, which 
 
General Beauharnais 89 
 
 is perhaps a small piece of evidence against the 
 theories of those who claim that there had been 
 a full reconciliation between husband and wife. 
 The career of the Vicomte de Beauharnais 
 was approaching its end ; but he was destined 
 before his fall to add some military honours to 
 those which he had won in the civil sphere. 
 For no very successful share in the operations 
 on the Rhine and in the north of France he 
 rose successively to be adjutant-general, briga- 
 dier-general, and chief of the staff at Stras- 
 bourg. Perhaps it was to his letters that his 
 promotion was due, for he continued to pour 
 out in communications to the new Assembly 
 his reflections on all that passed aroimd him, 
 couched in his familiar style, talking ever of 
 Liberty and of his devotion to his country. In 
 May 1793 he was made Commander-in-Chief of 
 the Army of the Rhine, and a month later he 
 was offered the Ministry of War. This he 
 decUned in a long letter declaring that to a man 
 of his principles command was nothing, the 
 honour of defending his country everything. 
 The Government acquiesced and confirmed him 
 in his post on the Rhine. But his enemies, who 
 hated him as a ci-devant aristocrat, however 
 
90 The Empress Josephine 
 
 much he might boast of his sans-culotterie, were 
 always on the watch, and in July his failure, 
 though at the head of sixty thousand men, to 
 relieve Mayence gave them an opportunity. 
 Alexandre saw his danger and wrote to Paris, 
 resigning his post. Belonging to the proscribed 
 caste, he said, he felt it his duty to remove from 
 the minds of his fellow-citizens all reasons 
 for uneasiness which might arise with regard to 
 him in this time of crisis. He continued to 
 urge the acceptance of his resignation, and finally 
 abandoned his post and returned to Strasbourg, 
 although fighting was in progress at the front. 
 He pleaded illness, his enemies talked of an 
 infatuation for the daughter of a commissariat 
 officer at Strasbourg. In three days' time he 
 returned to the front, where he received a letter 
 from Paris accepting his resignation and order- 
 ing him to leave at six hours' notice. 
 
 Alexandre retired to his estate at Ferte- 
 Beauharnais, stiU preaching patriotism and 
 speaking of his prayers for the happiness of his 
 feUow-citizens. The fellow-citizens showed no 
 gratitude, for on March 2, 1793, the Committee 
 of Public Safety ordered his arrest and the seizure 
 of his papers. On April 19, followed the arrest 
 
Alexandre's Fall 91 
 
 of Josephine, who was described in the warrant 
 as " la nommee Beauharnais, femme du ci-devant 
 general, rue Dominique 953." 
 
 Since the autumn of 1791 Josephine had 
 divided her time between the house in the rue 
 Saint-Dominique (otherwise the rue de I'Univer- 
 site), Fontainebleau, and the village of Croissy, 
 whither she was first taken by Mme. Hosten 
 Lamotte, a Creole of Saint-Lucia, who shared 
 with her the expenses of her Paris house. Her 
 stay at Croissy was of importance to her (apart 
 from the fact that now for the first time she 
 saw, and fell in love with, the neighbouring 
 chateau of Malmaison), since it was here that 
 she met Pierre-Frangois Real, destined after- 
 wards to become a warm partisan of General 
 Bonaparte in Italy and ultimately the Em- 
 peror's chief of police, but at present noted for 
 his rather independent RepubUcanism. This 
 man introduced Josephine at Croissy to TaUien, 
 whose friendship was soon to prove so useful 
 to her. Perhaps also through his acquaintance 
 with the wife, R6al was induced to oppose the 
 attack on Alexandre de Beauharnais, though he 
 was unsuccessful in saving him from his fate. 
 The fall of the throne in August 1792, how- 
 
9 2 The Empress Josephine 
 
 ever much it strengthened her husband's posi- 
 tion, naturally alarmed Josephine, and she 
 hastened to send away her two children with 
 the Princess Amalie to Saint-Martin in Artois, 
 where the Prince of Salm-Kyrbourg had a 
 country house. Eugene was quickly recalled 
 by his father, who disapproved of Josephine's 
 plan, and was placed at the National College at 
 Strasbourg. During the residence of her chil- 
 dren with the Princess, the earliest extant letter 
 from her mother to Hortense was written. As 
 example of Josephine's correspondence with her 
 daughter this document is interesting. 
 
 " Your letter," she wrote, " gave me much 
 pleasure, my dear Hortense ; I quite appreciate 
 the sorrow which you show at being separated 
 from your mamma. But, my child, it is not 
 for long ; I hope that the Princess wiU return 
 in the spring, or I will come and fetch you. Oh ! 
 how clever you will be when you return ; how 
 well the Princess will speak of my little chil- 
 dren ! I have no need to bid you love her well. 
 I see by your letter that you are very grateful 
 to her for all her goodness to you and your 
 brother. Prove it to her often, my dear ; this 
 is the way to please me. 
 
Josephine in the Revolution 93 
 
 " I feel much pain at being separated from 
 you and am not yet consoled for it ; I love my 
 little Hortense with aU my heart. Embrace 
 Eugene for me. 
 
 " Farewell, my child, my Hortense ; I em- 
 brace you with all my heart, and I love you just 
 the same. 
 
 " Your fond mother, 
 
 " Josephine de Beauharnais." 
 
 Having removed her children to a place of 
 safety, Josephine went to Paris as usual for the 
 winter season, and the list of her acquaintances 
 in society grew larger and larger. The faculty 
 which she was developing for accommodating 
 herself to very varied surroundings proved most 
 useful to her. She managed to be on good terms 
 alike with those in power, with whom her 
 position as wife of Beauharnais no doubt had 
 weight, and with those to whom her own in- 
 cUnations attracted her, both such of the nobility 
 who still dared live in Paris and those who made 
 the pursuit of frivolous pleasures their chief 
 end, whatever the circumstances of the time. 
 Dangers were threatening on all sides, but 
 Josephine manifested at least no outward alarm 
 
94 The Empress Josephine 
 
 on her own behalf. Still, it would be interesting 
 to know what ground M. Masson has for stating ^ 
 that beside Uving a double or treble life in 
 society, she wandered also into less respectable 
 circles. " This is the only explanation which 
 can be given," he says, " of her tranquil con- 
 fidence in the midst of the perils about her." 
 It may be an explanation, but where is the 
 evidence ? Her subsequent conduct may seem 
 to render it likely that she was not particular 
 in the choice of her associates. But at present 
 she must have been discreet in her lapses, if 
 there were lapses, or there would surely be more 
 than the vague calumnies of her enemies in later 
 years on which to base a charge against her. 
 
 Neither her extensive acquaintances, how- 
 ever, nor her adaptability to circumstances 
 preserved Josephine from danger long. The 
 Law of Suspects of September 1793 required all 
 good citizens to prove their civisme. It was 
 necessary also to have a domicile outside Paris 
 to obtain a certificate. Josephine decided to 
 take up her residence at Croissy. Here she was 
 joined by Hortense and by Eugene, whose school 
 at Strasbourg had closed, leaving him homeless. 
 
 ' "Josephine de Beauharnais," 215. 
 
The Citizeness 95 
 
 Further proofs of good citizenship seemed 
 advisable, so Hortense was apprenticed to a 
 dressmaker and Eugene to the carpenter Cochard 
 at Croissy. 
 
 Fortified, as she hoped, by her display of 
 civisme, and with a duly signed certificate, 
 Josephine returned to the rue Saint-Dominique 
 in January, and began a campaign of solicitation 
 of the influential on behalf of those in whom 
 she was interested. This became one of her 
 greatest hobbies throughout the rest of her life 
 and did perhaps more than anything else to 
 gain for her the title of la bonne Josephine. 
 But her early attempts were hardly fortunate. 
 One letter calls for quotation in full, as an 
 example both of Josephine's " Republican " 
 style and of her outwardly expressed opinion of 
 her husband, though nominally it was a petition 
 on behalf of her sister-in-law, who had been 
 imprisoned in Sainte-Pelagie. Francois de 
 Beauhamais, the uncompromising monarchist, 
 nicknamed " No-Amendment Beauhamais " 
 owing to his opposition to all proposals and 
 modifications of proposals made in the Assembly 
 to Umit the King's power, had joined the emigres 
 in 1792, and his wife was naturally suspect. 
 
9^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 Josephine, although never on intimate terms 
 with her sister-in-law, took upon herself to write 
 to Vadier, President of the Committee of Public 
 Safety, in the following strain : 
 
 " Paris, 28 nivdse, Year II. of the French Republic, 
 one and indivisible. 
 
 ' ' Liberty. Equality . 
 
 " Lapagerie-Beauharnais to Vadier, represen- 
 tative of the people, 
 
 " Greeting, esteem, confidence, fraternity. 
 
 " Since it is impossible to see you, I hope that 
 you wiU consent to read the memorandum which 
 I attach. Your colleague has told me about 
 your severity, but at the same time he has told 
 me about your pure and virtuous patriotism, 
 and how, in spite of your suspicions concerning 
 the citizenship of the ex-nobles, you always take 
 an interest in the unhappy victims of a mistake. 
 
 " I am sure that on reading the memorandum 
 your humanity and sense of justice will lead 
 you to take into consideration the position of 
 a wife in every way unhappy, but only because 
 she belonged to an enemy of the Republic, to 
 Beauhamais the elder, whom you knew and who 
 in the Constituent Assembly was in opposition 
 
Josephine as a Republican 97 
 
 to Alexandre, your colleague and my husband. 
 I should feel much regret, Citizen Representa- 
 tive, if you were to confound in your mind 
 Alexandre and Beauharnais the elder. I put 
 myself in your place. You are right in suspect- 
 ing the patriotism of the ex-nobles, but it is in 
 the realms of possibihty that among them are 
 to be found ardent friends of Liberty and 
 Equahty. Alexandre has never strayed from 
 these principles. He has constantly marched 
 straight ahead. Were he not a RepubUcan, he 
 would have neither my esteem nor my friendship. 
 I am an American, and in his family only know 
 him, and if I were allowed to see you, you would 
 abandon your suspicions. My household is a 
 Republican household ; before the Revolution 
 my children were not different from the Sans- 
 culottes, and I hope that they will prove worthy 
 of the Republic. 
 
 " I write to you frankly, I write as a Sans- 
 culotte Montagnarde. I only lament your severity 
 because it has debarred me from seeing you and 
 having a little talk with you. I ask of you 
 neither favour nor concession, but I claim your 
 good feeling and humanity on behalf of an 
 unhappy citizeness. If I have been deceived 
 
 VOL. I 7 
 
98 The Empress Josephine 
 
 in the picture drawn for me of her situation and 
 if she was suspect and appeared to you so, I 
 beg you to pay no attention to what I say to 
 you, for I, like you, am inexorable. But do 
 not confuse your old colleague with another. 
 Be assured that he is worthy of your esteem. 
 
 " In spite of your refusal, I applaud your 
 severity as far as I am concerned, but I cannot 
 applaud your suspicions about my husband. 
 You see that your colleague has repeated to me 
 all that you told him : he had doubts, like you, 
 but, seeing that I only lived among Republicans, 
 he ceased to doubt. You would be as just, you 
 would cease to doubt, if you had consented to 
 see me. 
 
 " Farewell, estimable citizen, you have my 
 entire confidence. 
 
 " Lapagerie Beauharnais. 
 
 " 46-rue Saint-Dominique, faubourg Saint-Germain." 
 
 The effect which this remarkable appeal had 
 upon old Vadier, widely known as " Sixty 
 Years of Virtue," may be gathered from the 
 facts that he was the first to sign the order for 
 the arrest of Alexandre de Beauharnais and that 
 he was the man who insisted so strongly on the 
 existence of the " conspiracies " in prison for 
 
Arrest and Imprisonment 99 
 
 complicity in which Alexandre was executed 
 six months later. 
 
 From the tone of her letter to Vadier it is 
 clear that Josephine had wind of danger men- 
 acing her husband ; and it was but ten weeks 
 after she had written it that Alexandre was 
 taken to Les Carmes. In another six weeks 
 Josephine herself followed him. An anonymous 
 accusation denounced " the ci-devant Vicom- 
 tesse de Beauharnais, who has many secret 
 means of information in the ministerial offices," 
 and on April ig an order was made out for the 
 arrest of her and her fellow householder, Mme. 
 Host en. Two days later two members of the 
 Revolutionary Committee called at 46 rue 
 Saint-Dominique and demanded that Josephine 
 should produce all her papers and correspond- 
 ence. After an examination of these they certi- 
 fied that they had found nothing inimical to the 
 interests of the Republic, " but on the contrary 
 a number of patriotic letters which can only be 
 to the credit of this citizeness." In a cupboard, 
 however, they discovered a collection of letters 
 of the citizen Beauharnais, which they sealed 
 up for reference. And Josephine and Mme. 
 Hosten were taken to Les Carmes. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE GUILLOTINE 
 
 IN the squalid and gloomy prison of Les 
 Cannes, the former convent in the rue 
 Vaugiraud, Josephine spent one hundred and 
 eight days, from April 21 to August 6, 1794 or, 
 according to the revolutionary calendar, the 
 2 floreal to the 19 thermidor, an II. In Les 
 Carmes there was collected a herd of seven 
 hundred people, men, women, and even children, 
 of all classes and conditions, from the Prince of 
 Salm-Kyrbourg to followers of the humblest 
 professions. Within the walls all was dirty, 
 damp, and dark. The cells were iU lighted and 
 heavily barred and led into black passages, 
 whereby the wretched prisoners at stated times 
 in the day went to their meals in the ancient 
 refectory, first the men, and then the women ; 
 the former bare-necked and bare-legged, un- 
 shaved and unkempt, the latter clad in a single 
 
JOSEPHINE. 
 From a photo by W. A. Man^ell & Co. After the painting; by fsabey.' 
 
Lcs Carmes loi 
 
 robe of cotton stuff. Josephine was lodged 
 in a cell on the first floor, seven and a half by 
 thirty feet in size, with a vaulted roof and an 
 iron-barred window looking out on what was 
 once the convent garden. It was a cell of most 
 dismal associations,' for on the wall were the 
 outlines of three swords in blood, made by the 
 Septembrists of 1792 after they had massacred 
 Dulau, Archbishop of Aries, and his fellow- 
 prisoners. The " chamber of the swords," as it 
 was called, was the most grim of all the cells in 
 the whole grim building. 
 
 Solitary confinement, however, was not part 
 of the prison system at Les Carmes, rather 
 from lack of space than from considerations of 
 humanity. Josephine shared her room with the 
 Duchesse d'Aiguillon, afterwards Mme. Louis de 
 Girardin. Moreover, there was a certain amount 
 of intercourse between the inmates of the various 
 cells. Josephine and Alexandre de Beauharnais 
 saw one another often enough to effect at last 
 some kind of a reconciliation. From the letters 
 which the two wrote from prison to their 
 children this is clear, and in one Josephine 
 actually tells Hortense of her expectation of 
 meeting her husband in three hours' time. 
 
I02 The Empress Josephine 
 
 They appear to have met other captives, too, 
 for their enemies told of Josephine's relations 
 in Les Carmes with General Hoche, arrested 
 eight days before her, and of Alexandre's with 
 a young lady called Delphine de Custine. 
 
 Husband and wife were not forbidden to write 
 to their children ; and, on their side, Eugene 
 and Hortense, now aged twelve and eleven 
 respectively, worked their hardest on behalf of 
 their parents. According to the story, they were 
 able to introduce into the prison Josephine's 
 pet pug Fortune, who was used after this to 
 convey to and fro private messages tucked 
 under his collar. They also addressed petitions 
 in May and June to the Convention and the 
 Committee of PubHc Safety. Their plea to the 
 Convention on Josephine's behalf is a strange 
 document : 
 
 " Two innocent children beg of you, citizen 
 representatives, the freedom of their fond 
 mother, of their mother against whom no re- 
 proach can be brought except the misfortune 
 of entering a class to which she has proved that 
 she considers herself a stranger, since she has 
 never mixed except with the best of patriots and 
 the most excellent Montagnards. After she had 
 
The Children's Appeal 103 
 
 asked for her permit to submit herself to the 
 law of the 26 germinal, she was arrested without 
 being able to guess the reason. Citizen repre- 
 sentatives, you will not suffer the oppression of 
 innocence, patriotism, and virtue. Restore life, 
 citizen representatives, to two unhappy children. 
 Their age is not meant for sorrow."' 
 
 Who inspired this appeal, with its protestation 
 of Josephine's contempt for the nobility, for 
 which in reality she exhibited such warm feelings 
 throughout her life ? It cannot have been the 
 two children themselves who composed the 
 petition. Probably they wrote it at the dicta- 
 tion of Calmelet, a business man employed 
 by Josephine in many confidential affairs 
 and handsomely rewarded by her in later 
 years. 
 
 Such poor efforts could not save Josephine. 
 Neither the citizen representatives nor the 
 Committee of Public Safety were open to appeals 
 to their tender feelings, for they had none. If 
 there was the slightest evidence against an 
 ex-noble, he or she was doomed, and among the 
 Beauharnais papers, if not in Josephine's per- 
 sonal correspondence, there can hardly fail to 
 have been something which might be twisted so 
 
I04 The Empress Josephine 
 
 as to compromise her. According to a common 
 story, Josephine was one of the people saved 
 by the erratic humanitarian La Bussiere, who 
 preserved a number of prisoners' Hves, destroy- 
 ing their dossiers by the simple method of chew- 
 ing them up. Josephine herself appears to have 
 believed this story, for she made a point of 
 attending a benefit to La Bussiere at the Porte 
 Saint-Martin Theatre in 1803 and of contribut- 
 ing to a fund on his behalf. 
 
 The captives in Les Carmes had little hope of 
 escaping death, however. When the question 
 of clearing the over-crowded prison arose. 
 Sixty- Years-of-Virtue, Josephine's " estimable 
 citizen " Vadier, called for drastic measures. 
 His wishes prevailed. Some fifty prisoners 
 were accused of plotting to escape, among them 
 being Alexandre de Beauharnais. All but three 
 were condemned to death, and on July 23 the 
 guillotine ended the life of Josephine's first 
 husband. He left behind him a letter addressed 
 to his wife, but evidently intended also for the 
 pubhcation which it actually received in the 
 journals of the day. As a last monument of 
 the style of Beauharnais that letter is given I 
 here : 
 
Alexandre's Condemnation 105 
 
 " All appearances from the kind of cross- 
 examination to which a sufficiently large number 
 of prisoners were to-day subjected show that 
 I am the victim of the villainous calumnies of 
 several aristocrats, so-called patriots from this 
 establishment. The presumption that this in- 
 fernal plot will follow me as far as the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal leaves me no hope of seeing you 
 again, my friend, or of embracing my dear 
 children. I wiU not talk of my regrets. My 
 loving affection for them, the brotherly attach- 
 ment which binds me to you, can leave you in 
 no doubt as to feelings with which, in this re- 
 spect, I shall take leave of life. 
 
 " I equally regret my separation from a 
 country which I love, for which I would have 
 given my life a thousand times, and the fact 
 that not only can I serve her no longer but also 
 she will think me a bad citizen as she sees me 
 torn from her breast. This agonising thought 
 cannot but cause me to recommend to your care 
 my memory. Strive to rehabilitate it by 
 proving that a whole life devotp^4o the service 
 of one's country and to the triumph of Liberty 
 and Equality must, in the people's eyes, refute 
 the words of hateful calumniators, especially 
 
io6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 as they are picked from among the suspects. 
 This task must be postponed, for during the 
 storms of a revolution a great nation struggUng 
 to shatter its chains must gird itself about with 
 a righteous mistrustfulness and fear rather to 
 overlook the guilty than to strike at the innocent. 
 
 " I shall die with a calm which fails not, 
 however, to be touched by the tenderest affec- 
 tions ; but with a courage characteristic of a free 
 man, with a pure conscience, and an honourable 
 spirit, whose most passionate prayers are for 
 the welfare of the Republic. 
 
 " Good-bye, my friend ; find consolation in 
 my children, console them by instructing them, 
 and above all by teaching them that it is by 
 means of virtue and the quality of a citizen 
 that they must efface the memory of my fate 
 and recall my services and my titles to the 
 gratitude of the nation. Good-bye, you know 
 those whom I love. Be their consoler and by 
 your care prolong my life in their hearts. Good- 
 bye ; for the last time in my life I press you 
 and my dear children to my breast. 
 
 " Alexandre B." 
 
 It is amusing to read the remarks of Imbert 
 
The Fear of Death 107 
 
 de Saint- Amand ' upon the death of the Vicomte 
 de Beauharnais — 
 
 " this man who had sacrificed everything for 
 the RepubUc, this patriot with a true Spartan's 
 language and conduct, Alexandre de Beau- 
 harnais, the grand seigneur, who on the night 
 of August 4, 1789, had so cheerfully renounced 
 his title of Vicomte and his privileges of birth, 
 this man of the old regime who devoted himself 
 with such enthusiasm to the new ideas, this 
 general who commanded so bravely the Re- 
 pubUcan armies, this aristocrat who made 
 himself a name as a Sans-culotte and a Mon- 
 tagnard." 
 
 ', The remark " as lying as an obituary " surely 
 seems appropriate here ! 
 
 The news of Alexandre's execution was not 
 immediately conveyed to his wife. When she 
 heard of it, she broke down completely, whether 
 through grief or in expectation of her own 
 speedy death. One story, preserved by MUe. 
 Ducrest,^ maintains that her execution was 
 indeed contemplated and that the gaoler entered 
 her cell and told her that he was about to 
 
 * " La Jeunesse de I'lmperatrice Josephine," p. 48. 
 2 " M^moires," chap, xxxiii. 
 
io8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 remove her bed of sacking to give to another 
 prisoner. " What ! " asked her room-mate, the 
 Duchesse d'Aiguillon, " is Mme. de Beauharnais 
 to have a new bed ? " " No ; she will have 
 no need of one/' was the answer. But so ill 
 was Josephine that a Polish doctor who was 
 called in only gave her a week more to live. 
 In consequence she was not brought before 
 the Tribunal on the lo thermidor as intended. 
 And on the 9 thermidor Robespierre fell. Had 
 he fallen a few days earlier the Vicomte de 
 Beauharnais would have been saved as well as 
 his wife. 
 
 Josephine's own accoimt of how the news 
 of the 9 thermidor reached Les Carmes is given 
 by Mile. Ducrest ; and it may be noted that 
 it does not support the story of Josephine's 
 serious illness. This is the account : 
 
 " Mme. d'Aiguillon feeling rather ill, I led 
 her to the window, which I opened to give her 
 a Uttle air. I noticed a woman of the people 
 who made a number of signs which we could 
 not understand. She kept on clutching her 
 dress, but we did not know what she meant. 
 Seeing that she stiU continued, I called out to 
 her : ' Robe ? ' She signalled, Yes. Then she 
 
Saved 109 
 
 picked up a stone and put it in her skirt, which 
 she showed to us again, holding the stone in 
 the other hand. ' Pierre ? ' I called to her. 
 Great was her pleasure at finding that we 
 understood her. Then putting her robe and 
 the stone together, she made the sign several 
 times quickly of cutting off her head and began 
 straight away to dance and clap. This strange 
 pantomime produced in us a feeling impossible 
 to express, for we ventured to think that she 
 was giving us news of the death of Robespierre. 
 At this moment, when we were thus between 
 fear and hope, we heard a great noise in the 
 corridor and the voice of the turnkey caUing 
 to his dog, as he kicked him : ' Get along, 
 Robespierre ! ' A few minutes later we saw 
 coming in our companions in misfortune, who 
 told us the details of the great event. It was 
 the 9 thermidor." 
 
 The removal of Robespierre brought relief 
 from the fear of immediate death, but it was 
 not foUowed at once by the release of the cap- 
 tives in Les Carmes. It was ten days later 
 before Josephine was set free, and she was 
 among the earUest to leave the prison. Her 
 fortune was applauded by her companions, it 
 
no The Empress Josephine 
 
 was said, and she quitted them amid blessings 
 from all. Yet, curiously, we are also told 
 that she was conspicuous at Les Carmes for 
 the utter abandonment of her grief. She had 
 already cut her hair short in preparation for 
 the scaffold, and her loud lamentations caused 
 the other women to blush for her, deploring, 
 while pitjdng, her lack of courage. But, as 
 M. Masson observes, Josephine's attitude was 
 more genuine than that of the rest, whose 
 calm courage was less influential in putting an 
 end to the Reign of Terror than was her womanly 
 grief. Had more been like her, the heart of 
 Paris would have relented sooner. 
 
 The credit for obtaining Josephine's release 
 has been variously attributed. The common 
 story is that it was due to the Marquise de 
 Fontenay, afterwards known as Mme. Talhen, 
 whom many have made Josephine's prison 
 companion. But Teresia de Fontenay was at 
 the Petite-Force, not at Les Carmes. She may 
 have known Josephine ; and she left her prison 
 a week before Josephine left hers, so that it is 
 not impossible that she might have worked on 
 her behalf. But there is no apparent reason 
 why she should have done so. On the other 
 
Release from Les Cartnes 1 1 1 
 
 handj in the Memoirs of Eugene de Beauhamais 
 it is stated that Tallien himself helped Josephine 
 to freedom. He had met her at Croissy through 
 the introduction of Real, as we have seen, and 
 after her restoration to liberty was evidently 
 on very friendly terms with her. Moreover, it 
 was much more likely that he, rather than his 
 future wife, should have the power to help 
 her now. 
 
 On August 6, 1794, Josephine was a free 
 woman once again, after more than one hundred 
 agonising days with the fear of the guillotine 
 constantly before her. She emerged in poverty 
 and a widow, but with the satisfaction that 
 she had her life and her children left, and that, 
 before his death, the husband whom she had 
 once loved sufficiently to be jealous about him 
 had been reconciled to her. It seems im- 
 possible to deny that she must have had f eeHngs 
 of regard remaining for the Vicomte de Beau- 
 hamais, for she certainly showed in some ways 
 a respect for his memory which his conduct 
 toward her hardly deserved. She was not by 
 any means an inconsolable widow — that was 
 not in her temperament — but that she took 
 pains in the rehabilitation of his name is beyond 
 
112 The Empress Josephine 
 
 doubts^There is extant a letter written by her 
 to Debry, member of the Convention, thanking 
 him on behalf of herself and her children for his 
 allusion on 12 fructidor to the death of Beau- 
 harnais. 
 
 " The first solace which we have felt in our 
 misfortune," she said, " has been to hear that 
 you did justice in the midst of the Convention 
 to a virtuous Republican who fell a victim to 
 aristocracy. You have a heart able to appre- 
 ciate the gratitude of his widow and children. 
 We honour you for this, and, to enlighten you 
 still further concerning him whom we mourn, 
 we send you a copy of his last letter. You 
 will see that as he approached the end of a 
 Hfe entirely devoted to the Revolution, and at 
 a moment when men have no more interest 
 in hiding their real sentiments, it was a pleasure 
 to him to expound stiU further the ardent love 
 of country which never ceased to animate him." 
 
 StUl more striking as a testimonial to the 
 forgivingness of her nature is the step which 
 Josephine took six years later, when she inter- 
 ested herself in a girl of thirteen years of age 
 whose only recorded name is Marie-Adelaide. 
 This was an illegitimate daughter of Alexandre 
 
Care for Alexandre's Memory 1 1 3 
 
 de Beauhamais. Her mother is unknown, but 
 it is suggested that she was Josephine's traducer 
 in Martinique, whom Beauhamais had brought 
 back to France in 1783. If this was actually 
 the case, Josephine's return of good for the evil 
 which her husband had done her was remark- 
 able. She put the child under the guardian- 
 ship of Calmelet, and when she was seventeen 
 gave her, with a trousseau and a handsome 
 dowry, in marriage to a Captain Lecomte. 
 Pardon for the offences of Alexandre de Beau- 
 hamais could hardly have gone further. 
 
 VOL. I 
 
CHAPTERj^VI 
 
 THE WIDOW BEAUHARNAIS 
 
 ''T^HE period upon which Josephine entered 
 J- after her release from Les Carmes is one 
 which adds no credit to her reputation, al- 
 though it is the period in which she accomplished 
 that which has given her her place in history, 
 the feat of capturing the affections of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. Her unconscious preparation for 
 the conquest of the heart of a genius was of a 
 kind which would scarcely seem to promise 
 success. The utmost efforts of friendly bio- 
 graphers cannot save her name, even by the 
 complete ignoring of all evidence unfavourable 
 to her manner of hfe during the years 1794-6. 
 The best that can be said is that this life, while 
 very different from what her eulogists would 
 have us believe it to have been,^ was not so 
 
 ' Aubenas, for instance, claims that during the fifteen 
 months following the 9 thermidor Josephine's existence was 
 passed " in a very restrained society composed of the friends 
 
 114 
 
BARRAS. 
 
 From a Utliograpli by Delpeche. 
 
A Discreditable Period 115 
 
 bad as personal enemies, anti-Imperialists, and 
 professional scandal-mongers would make it 
 out to be. Happily for her, some of her worst 
 enemies, such as Barras, defeated their own 
 ends by the very blackness of the picture which 
 they painted of her. She was not the most 
 notorious figure in the reign of license which 
 followed the end of the Terror. But she was 
 not, either, one of those who remained incon- 
 spicuous by the respectability of their lives. 
 
 Josephine's good name had been attacked by 
 a few rumours even before her imprisonment. 
 They were scarcely more precise, however, than 
 the insinuations sure, in an epoch of malicious 
 gossip, to be made against a young woman 
 living apart from her husband. Nor can the 
 association with her aunt have tended to 
 her advantage, whatever the charms of Mme. 
 Renaudin's mind and pen. It seems only just 
 to date Josephine's abandonment of moral pro- 
 priety from the time when she left Les Carmes, 
 almost resourceless and with two fatherless 
 children on her hands. In her distress she 
 
 whom the Revolution had left her and those whom prison had 
 given her." Restraint is a quality of which the traces are 
 hard to discover. 
 
1 1 6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 turned to the easiest means at the disposal of a 
 fascinating woman to protect herself against 
 poverty. 
 
 Gossip assigned to her '^General Hoche as her 
 first lover and would make out that she com- 
 menced an intrigue with him within the very 
 walls of Les Carmes. It is difficult to see how 
 her relations with him could possibly be close 
 inside the prison. There is a tale of her signal- 
 ling from her cell to his, by means of a mirror, 
 the number of executions, which, if true, would 
 be an ingenious device rather than a criminal 
 intrigue. Hoche was only four weeks at Les 
 Carmes with Josephine. Arrested eight days 
 before her, he was transferred to the Conciergerie 
 on May i6. He was released two days before 
 her, and on August i6 was appointed Comman- 
 der-in-Chief of the Army centred at Cherbourg. 
 Although he did not take up his post until the 
 first week in September, it is nevertheless clear 
 that the time in which he and Josephine were 
 supposed to have illicit relations was indeed 
 short. Furthermore, he had only been married 
 in the previous February, and report made him 
 much in love with his young wife. It is doubtful 
 whether very much importance would be at- 
 
General Hoche 117 
 
 taclied to the story of Josephine's connection 
 with him were it not for the assertions of Barras. 
 Now it cannot be said that a reading of the 
 Memoirs of this infamous man disposes us to 
 consider his statements trustworthy evidence/ 
 ■W^at Barras says would, indeed, hardly be 
 worth repeating, except as an example of what 
 a man of his character could write with an eye 
 to publication. Speaking of the victim of his 
 malice at the time when she first met Bonaparte, 
 he says : " 
 
 1 M. George Duruy, editor of the "M6moires de Barras" 
 (1895), Says in his General Introduction, p. xxix : " It will be 
 enough to cast one's eyes over the article in the Biographie 
 [Michaud] and the two letters from Josephine to Barras pub- 
 lished by the Commission which undertook the task of hunting 
 through the papers of the Emperor Napoleon III. after Septem- 
 ber 4, 1 870, to convince oneself that, whatever insinuations the 
 Memoirs of Barras contain, they reveal nothing that has not 
 long ago been made public." M. Duruy adds that it is un- 
 happOy only too certain that Josephine let herself be carried 
 away by weakness " until a deep feeling (and one probably 
 new to her) purified her from these ' vices of the age ' and con- 
 verted the too readily consoled widow of Alexandre de Beau- 
 harnais into the irreproachable consort of the First Consul and 
 the Emperor. The fact that the coquettish and frivolous 
 friend of Mme. Tallien could not, without leaving some of her 
 good name behind, go through an epoch like that of the 
 Directory, when public morals had sunk so low and feminine 
 virtue had inevitably been exposed to the influence of the 
 universal corruption — this fact, whether one likes it or not, 
 is a part of history." 
 
 > "M6moires," II. chap. iv. 
 
ii8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 " Mme. Bonaparte was reputed to have some 
 influence with me, Some beUeved that she had 
 been my mistress ; others that she still was. 
 What is certain is that she had been the patient 
 mistress, in the sight of the whole world, of 
 General Hoche e di tutti quanti. It is not on 
 that account to be said that she did not love 
 General Hoche more than the others. This can 
 readily be believed. He was our best soldier 
 and one of our handsomest men, more a Hercules 
 than an Apollo in build. Whether or not it 
 was from ambition rather than love — since she 
 deceived him as she deceived the rest — Mme. 
 Beauharnais pushed h^r pretensions to Hoche 
 so far as to wish him to procure a divorce in 
 order to marry her. ... He had repulsed with 
 horror this suggestion of a divorce, saying in no 
 uncertain tone to Mme. Beauharnais that a man 
 might temporarily go so far as to take a slut as 
 his mistress, but he would not therefore make 
 her his lawful wife." 
 
 Barras continues that, long before Hoche's 
 discussion of the matter with him, the General 
 had discovered that " Mme. Beauharnais did 
 not even respect the sentiment with which she 
 was most penetrated " ; and he pretends to 
 
Barras's Allegations 1 1 9 
 
 quote a letter in which Hoche writes : " As for 
 Rose " (i.e. Josephine), " she must cease from 
 troubling me henceforth. I relinquish all claims 
 upon her in favour of Vanakre, my ostler " — 
 to whom Barras alleges that Josephine gave a 
 portrait of herself in a gold locket attached to 
 a gold chain. 
 
 Finally Barras states that Hoche said to him : 
 "It is owing to my having been in prison with 
 her before the g thermidor that I knew her so 
 intimately. This would be unpardonable in a 
 man restored to freedom." 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that Barras 
 would scruple to invent conversations with 
 Hoche in support of his aspersions on Josephine, 
 his memoirs betrajdng numerous traces of similar 
 procedure, especially where Napoleon is con- 
 cerned. But the belief in the temporary 
 connection with Hoche does not rest on the 
 assertions of Barras alone. The story was widely 
 spread. Not unnaturally, positive evidence is 
 not forthcoming. No significance surely is to 
 be attached to the fact that Hoche put Eugene 
 Beauhamais upon his staff ; for Hoche had served 
 with the Vicomte on the Rhine and may well 
 have been on friendly terms with the Beauharnais 
 
120 The Empress Josephine 
 
 family already, as he evidently was later, when 
 he wrote a letter to the old Marquis in July 
 1796, in which he spoke of being " unwilling to 
 leave Paris without embracing his dear Eugene." 
 Hoche's reputation, it may be added, was not 
 bad, for the period, although Arnault describes 
 him as having " a face which a man of gallant 
 life might envy." 
 
 We may leave for the moment, however, the 
 subject of Josephine's moral conduct (to which 
 it will be necessary to go back when we come 
 to the period of her intimacy with Barras him- 
 self), and turn to her general circumstances in the 
 latter part of the year 1794. She found herself 
 in financial straits far worse than she had 
 hitherto experienced. The Vicomte's property 
 had been confiscated and her own resources were 
 temporarily at an end. Even if her mother 
 had had money to send her, not only was the 
 sea in English hands, but Martinique itself had 
 fallen, Fort-Royal being captured in February 
 and the Governor (Rochambeau) capitulating 
 soon afterwards. Josephine's uncle, the Baron 
 de Tascher, had surrendered with his chief and 
 had retired to his estate, while his sister-in-law 
 stiU struggled against debt at Trois-Ilets. 
 
Financial Straits 121 
 
 Josephine does not appear to have been able for 
 some time to acquaint her mother with her 
 painful position, for the first letter discovered 
 by Aubenas is one dated November 20, 1794. 
 In this she announced that she had been a widow 
 for four months, but did not ask for money. 
 According to Aubenas, Josephine was now 
 dependent on charity, and naturally he repudi- 
 ates the idea that she had recourse to lovers. 
 That she borrowed largely is established. Her 
 principal known creditors were Marie Lanoy, 
 her former femme de chambre, and her family ; 
 and a Dunkerque merchant named Emmery, 
 who had probably had dealings in sugar with 
 the Taschers. Emmery was mayor of his town 
 and in a good position, for he agreed to advance 
 quite large sums to Josephine. An excellent 
 testimonial to his kindness to her is to be found 
 in her letter to her mother on New Year's Day 
 1795, wherein she wrote : 
 
 " You have doubtless heard of the misfortunes 
 which have befallen me, leaving me and my 
 children with no means of subsistence except 
 your charity alone. I am a widow, deprived 
 of my husband's fortune, as are his children. 
 You see, my dear mamma, what need I have 
 
122 The Empress Josephine 
 
 to come to you. Without the care of my good 
 friend Emmery, I do not know what I should 
 have done. I am too certain of your affection 
 to have the least doubt about the anxiety which 
 you will show to procure me the means of living 
 and of showing my gratitude by paying back 
 what I owe to M. Emmery." 
 
 She begged that whatever Mme. Tascher could 
 raise for her, even by disposing of capital, 
 should be sent to Hamburg or London bankers, 
 who could transmit to Dunkerque. Mme. 
 Tascher sent some money, but evidently not 
 very much, for Josephine continued to write 
 for further funds to enable her to meet her 
 obligations. The law of the 8 pluviose afforded 
 her some relief, since it allowed her to recover 
 the property, furniture, clothes, etc., which 
 had been hers and her children's before her 
 imprisonment. She returned, therefore, to a 
 semblance of her former state in the rue de 
 I'Universite. 
 
 Possibly, if she had now attempted to econo- 
 mise, Josephine might have put her affairs 
 straight. But it is no exaggeration to say that 
 from the moment when she left Les Carmes to 
 the day of her death she was never for a moment 
 
Borrowings 123 
 
 free of debt, enormous though the sums were 
 with which she was later furnished. At the 
 present moment it was very easy for her to live 
 beyond her means. Out of the money which 
 Marie Lanoy lent her she hired a carriage, and a 
 good proportion of Emmery's loans was spent on 
 dress, flowers, and the like, although the price 
 of everything, necessaries or luxuries, was 
 extremely high and the value of money very 
 low. Only in the matter of food do we hear of 
 any attempt to cut down expenses. She dined 
 out regularly. Provisions were dear, like every- 
 thing else in 1795, and guests were expected to 
 supply their own bread. The tale is well known 
 how at the house of Mme. de Moulins, where 
 a place was always laid for her, Josephine alone 
 was allowed to come without bread. She was 
 probably herself responsible for this reminiscence 
 of her poverty, for she was fond in later life of 
 telling how she had once been indebted for her 
 daily bread. 
 
 Her departures from Paris were occasioned 
 by her need for money.' In July we find her 
 
 ■^ The whole story o£ Josephine's financial difficulties in 
 1795 is an intricate one. Those who are interested in it may 
 be referred toM. Masson's "Josephine de Beauhamais," chap, 
 xvii., where he goes into the matter very fully. He says 
 
124 The Empress Josephine 
 
 at Fontainebleau, where she persuaded Mme. 
 Renaudin to advance her, in the name of her 
 children, fifty thousand hvres in paper-money, 
 unfortunately only worth about one thousand 
 five hundred in cash. Part of this money she 
 was obliged to pay out almost immediately as 
 her contribution to the forced loan of the Year 
 IV. Then in the autumn ^ we see her in Ham- 
 burg, on a visit to the banker Matthiessen, who 
 
 (p. 256) : " It can be gathered how precarious and difficult 
 was Josephine's position during the greater part of the Year 
 III. It was not until prairial [end of April] that she saw a 
 glimmer of light, nor until messidov [July] that she obtained 
 help from her aunt ; and how small was that help — the louis 
 d'or of 24 livres was then worth 808 livres in paper-money. 
 It was only at the end of the year, in the second month of the 
 Year IV., that she drew on her mother for 25,000 livres. 
 But of these 25,000 livres how much did she owe to Emmery ? 
 Since 1792 she had lived on her borrowings. ' You can judge 
 from this," she wrote to her ihother from Hamburg, ' that I am 
 indebted to him for considerable sums.' And this was not her 
 only debt. She owed to every one and on all sides. But this 
 was her element and did not prevent her from living." 
 
 It is only fair to add that seven years later she lent Emmery 
 and his partner 200,000 francs and refused to take any interest. 
 
 ' Aubenas makes her visit Hamburg toward the end of 
 October, and gives the date of her letter to her mother as 
 October 30. But according to the short note on p. 143, 
 Josephine was in Paris on October 28 and invited Napoleon 
 to lunch with her on the 29th. Presumably Aubenas would 
 dismiss such notes as apocryphal ; but we have no means 
 of checking his date for the Hamburg letter, which if correct 
 would prove the note attributed to Josephine on p. 143 a 
 forgery. 
 
A Visit to Hamburg 125 
 
 had married a niece of Mme. de Genlis and was 
 well disposed toward the French. She had 
 asked her mother, as has been mentioned, to 
 remit to Hamburg or London, for greater safety. 
 She now drew on Mme. Tascher, by Emmery's 
 advice, three bills, amomiting in all to twenty- 
 five thousand livres. 
 
 Between her necessary expenses, such as the 
 contribution to the forced loan, and her outlay 
 on the luxuries always dear to her, Josephine 
 had no difficulty in getting rid of the sums 
 which she managed to raise from various 
 sources.^ But it cannot be said that she 
 entirely wasted her time, if we take into con- 
 sideration the social acquaintances which she 
 made. They were decidedly useful, if not 
 from the point of view of character desirable. 
 It was in the latter part of 1794 that she became 
 intimate with the lady known as Mme. TaUien, 
 though it is possible that she may have met 
 her before they both nearly fell victims to the 
 
 ' Aubenas's comment seems worth quotation : " So it was 
 to her friends at Dunkerque and Hamburg, to her mother, and 
 not to others, that in her honourable misery the brave mother 
 of a family addressed herself" ("Histoire de rimp6ratrice 
 Josephine," 266). Aubenas does not go into the question 
 how Josephine spent her money. 
 
126 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Terror. The former Teresia Cabarrus was 
 twelve years Josephine's junior and her superior 
 in beauty, but had many points of hkeness to 
 her, both being elegant women, fond of luxury 
 and reckless in expenditure, not too brilUant 
 in intellect, nor at all scrupulous as to the 
 way in which they kept themselves afloat in 
 the very troubled seas of the Revolution. 
 Teresia was not a native of France any more 
 than Josephine. Born at Saragossa, she had 
 divided her childhood between Madrid and 
 Carabanchel (afterwards the home of the Coun- 
 tess of Montijo and her daughter, the Empress 
 Eugenie), and had gone to Paris to finish her 
 education. The old Marquis de Fontenay had 
 fallen in love with her and married her, but 
 the Revolution had torn her from him, and 
 only her fascination of TaUien had saved her 
 life. She was not contented with being only 
 Mme. TaUien, and rumour credited her with 
 many liaisons beside that with Barras. One 
 of her friends was Perregaux, at whose house 
 the Comte de Gervinus records meeting her in 
 June 1795, the other guests including TaUien, 
 Mme. de Beauharnais, and a number of financial 
 people whom it was doubtless a great advantage 
 
Friendship with Mme. TalHcn 127 
 
 for those whose expenditure exceeded their 
 incomes to know. 
 
 The acquaintance with Mme. Tallien was of 
 immense service to Josephine. Mme. TaUien 
 appears to have been remarkably free from 
 jealousy, for she not only allowed TaUien to 
 interest himself in the restitution to Josephine 
 of Alexandre de Beauharnais's property, but 
 also introduced her to Barras, President of the 
 Convention and member both of the Committee 
 of Five and the Committee of Pubhc Safety. 
 At what date the introduction took place is 
 uncertain, but they were intimate in the middle 
 of 1795. Facts are against Aubenas's " brave 
 mother of a family." In August she gave up 
 her home in the rue de I'Universite and hired 
 a mansion in the rue Chantereine at an annual 
 rental of 10,000 francs in paper-money. No. 6 
 rue Chantereine, the property of Julie Carreau, 
 wife of Talma, was not a large house, but it 
 had a stable and a small garden attached to it 
 and required three or four servants to look 
 after it. More furniture was also necessary, and 
 Josephine never furnished on a humble scale. 
 If she had not already been heavily in debt, 
 we might suppose that she used the money 
 
128 The Empress Josephine 
 
 which she borrowed from her aunt in Jiily to 
 rent and furnish her new house. But this 
 money was wanted elsewhere. Moreover, at 
 the same time she decided to send Hortense 
 to school with the fashionable Mme. Campan 
 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Eugene to the 
 neighbouring College Irlandais. Thus she was 
 involving herself in large additional expenditure 
 (and part of it at least cash expenditure) at a 
 time when her personal resources were parti- 
 cularly scanty. Every one beheved her to be 
 getting the money from Barras ; and there 
 appears no reason to doubt that this was so. 
 
 Barras returned from a mission to the north 
 just before Josephine took her new house, and 
 was already master of affairs in Paris, though 
 he did not actually become a Director until 
 November i. In the absence of abler men, 
 he had sufficient strength to seize for a time 
 the place which was waiting for some one to 
 take it. He had just the character to which 
 the moment offered its opportunity. As A. V. 
 Arnault writes : " The call for courage and 
 audacity gave him his chance, which he could 
 not get before, when he was lost amid a crowd 
 of people who could talk but could not act." 
 
Barras 129 
 
 Barras at least was resolute and not destitute 
 of personal bravery, as he had proved in his 
 early career in India and at Toulon. He had, 
 moreover, a good address and good looks. 
 That he was unscrupulous did not mark him 
 off from the other men of his day. His social 
 preferences did not stand in his way ; in fact, 
 his tastes were easy to gratify and personally 
 advantageous to him. Among men he drew 
 the line against no one, whatever his record or 
 his reputation, so long as he promised to be 
 of service. Among women he would associate 
 only with the well bred and elegant — and, 
 naturally, the beautiful and yielding. The 
 Revolution provided him with both needy men 
 ready to do his bidding and reduced ladies 
 willing to gratify his desires. He rewarded 
 both not so much by direct payment as by 
 helping them to pay themselves through the 
 introductions which he was able to give them. 
 Liking so well the accompaniments of power, 
 the pomp and the luxury, he was not unwiUing 
 that his creatures should share them. This 
 was the extent to which generosity was de- 
 veloped in a character incapable of true apprecia- 
 tion of the worth of others. Really estimable 
 VOL. I 9 
 
13° The Empress Josephine 
 
 traits are not to be looked for in Barras. His 
 Memoirs show him entirely detestable, a self- 
 satisfied, slanderous, l5dng libertine, flourishing 
 in corruption. 
 
 The relations between Barras and Josephine 
 were perfectly open, though hardly such a 
 notorious scandal as her enemies make out. 
 Still it was unfashionable to conceal intrigues 
 of the kind, especially in private Ufe. Josephine 
 still had a house at Croissy in the summer of 
 1795, the rent of which Barras claims that he 
 paid for her. Her entertainment of her lover 
 there is recorded by the Chanceher Pasquier 
 in his " Histoire de mon Temps." Pasquier, 
 too, had a summer residence at Croissy. 
 
 " We had as a neighbour Mme. de Beau- 
 harnais," he writes. " Her house was next 
 ours. She came there but seldom, once a week, 
 to receive Barras, with the numerous company 
 which he brought in his train. From morning 
 onward we used to see baskets of provisions 
 arriving. Then mounted police began to pass 
 along the road from Nanterre to Croissy, for 
 the young Director ^ most often came on horse- 
 back. Mme. Beauhamais' house, as is usually 
 
 • Pasquier is premature in his bestowal of this title. 
 
The Intrigue with Barras 131 
 
 the custom among Creoles, had a certain 
 ostentatious luxury, while in the midst of 
 superfluities the greatest necessaries would be 
 wanting. Fowl, game, rare fruits were piled up 
 in the kitchen. It was the period of the utmost 
 scarcity, and at the same time dishes, glasses, 
 and plates were lacking, which they would 
 come to borrow from our humble household." 
 
 Barras himself took a country house at 
 Chaillot. That Josephine presided here is 
 proved by the existence of a note of invitation 
 to dinner there in her name, mentioning that 
 citizens Barras and TaUien would be present. 
 This note is dated the 24 pluviose an IV. 
 (February 13, 1796) — less than a month before 
 Josephine's marriage to Napoleon. 
 
 The most frequent, if less intimate, meetings, 
 however, between Barras and Josephine were 
 at the Luxembourg after Barras's rise to the 
 post of Director. The Luxembourg, recently 
 changed from a palace to a prison, became again 
 the palatial home of the Directory, though 
 when it was first reoccupied there was not a 
 single piece of furniture in the building, and 
 the Directors were obUged to borrow a table 
 from the hall-porter, on which to write their 
 
13^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 message to the Councils. A kind of Court 
 began rapidly to gather at the Luxembourg, 
 Barras being, if not the king, at least the leader 
 of fashion, followed at a considerable distance 
 by Camot, who alone of the other Directors 
 had any social pretensions. Paris had altered 
 greatly after the end of the Terror, and the 
 Luxembourg now set the example for Paris. 
 In the words of Arnault, " gallantry had come 
 back, and Woman, who had been dispossessed 
 of her empire under the Convention, began to 
 resiune her sway once more." Woman was 
 especially prominent at the salons of Barras, 
 where were to be seen among others Mme. 
 TalUen, Mme. Recamier, the Duchesse d'Aiguil- 
 lon, and Josephine. The assemblies also 
 gathered together a most motley crowd of late 
 Terrorists, ex-aristocrats, incroyables, Jacobins, 
 and even returning emigres, all mixed up to- 
 gether like the guests at a fancy-dress ball. 
 Every one seemed anxious to forget everything 
 except pleasure, of which there was certainly 
 much owing to Paris. No time was lost in 
 making up the arrears, and the round of un- 
 restrained gaieties was unbroken by any con- 
 sideration of the general scarcity. 
 
MADAME TALLIEN. 
 
 From an engraving after a painting by J. Masquerier. 
 
Paris after the Terror 133 
 
 In such an environment Josephine, now at 
 thirty-two developed into a fascinating woman 
 of the world, very different from the awkward 
 colonial girl of seventeen or eighteen who had 
 wearied Alexandre de Beauharnais, found no 
 difficulty in living a life of luxurious debt, 
 helped by the friendship of the chief of the 
 Directors. Aubenas, it is scarcely surprising 
 to see, rejects all stories of her share in the 
 assembUes and fetes which charmed and scan- 
 daUsed Paris after the Terror, and says that 
 she is made to take part in them on the strength 
 of apocryphal letters, unsupported by any 
 serious and impartial contemporary witness. 
 Previously to her meeting with Bonaparte he 
 makes her pass a whole year in mourning for 
 her husband. Here Aubenas is, unfortunately, 
 unconvincing. So far from spending her time 
 in mourning for the late Vicomte, Josephine 
 sought consolation only too soon. This must 
 be allowed, even if we credit her with no other 
 lover than Barras, which is contrary to all the 
 gossip of the day. But nothing can explain 
 Barras away, and her misfortune in knowing 
 him, though it doubtless appeared to her at 
 the time a piece of excellent fortune, must 
 
134 The Empress Josephine 
 
 leave a permanent stain on her record. In his 
 later venom (caused, it would seem, by the 
 fact that she became Napoleon's wife, for no 
 personal grievance against her can be found), 
 Barras bespatters her without compunction. 
 We have already seen some of his remarks 
 about Josephine. In the same chapter of his 
 Memoirs he compares in his gallant fashion 
 the women with whom he engaged in intrigues 
 and says : 
 
 " I must point out a distinction which the 
 acquaintances of Mme. TaUien and Mme. Beau- 
 hamais agreed in making between them, namely 
 that the liaisons of Mme. Tallien were for 
 her genuine pleasure. ... As for Mme. Beau- 
 harnais, it was the general belief that her 
 relations even with the men whom she most 
 appreciated were not as generous as those of 
 Mme. Tallien. Even though the physical 
 motive appeared to be with Mme. Beauharnais 
 the origin of her relations, her libertinism sprang 
 merely from the mind, while her heart played 
 no part in the pleasure of her body ; in a word, 
 never loving save from motives of interest, the 
 licentious Creole never lost sight of business, 
 although those possessing her might fancy she 
 
The Real Degradation 135 
 
 was conquered by them and was giving herself 
 freely." 
 
 This would be a terrible indictment, were it 
 not Barras who makes it. Unhappily, whatever 
 poor value one may set on the judgment which 
 Barras puts into the mouths of " the acquaint- 
 ances of Mme. Tallien and Mme. Beauharnais," 
 one can have but one opinion about a point 
 which does not suggest itself to Barras, the utter 
 degradation for Josephine in her association 
 with such a man. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 
 
 FROM the autumn of 1795 the history of 
 Josephine becomes more precise, and 
 gossip, so difficult to estimate at its proper 
 worth, gives place more and more to real evi- 
 dence. The cause of this change is that now 
 at length her path crosses that of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, in the thirty-third year of her age 
 and the twenty-sixth of his. It was time indeed 
 that the widow Beauharnais should meet some 
 one able to take her fate into his hands and 
 remove her from the life of disreputable 
 luxury to which her levity of character and 
 the pressure of her debts threatened to bind 
 her fast. 
 
 At the time when Josephine first saw the man 
 who was to make her an Empress, she had just 
 moved into her new house at 6 rue Chantereine, 
 her ability to pay the rent of which was attri- 
 buted to the fact that she was mistress, or one 
 
 136 
 
■>- 
 
 'J> >- -",' "^^ 
 
 -^' /Hi 
 
 W^ 
 
 
 iNAl'Ol E0.\ KUNAPAKTE. 
 Irou, ilie pen drau ing by Baron Gios in the I.c 
 
The First Meeting 137 
 
 of the mistresses, of the leading man in France. 
 She was well known in the foremost society of 
 the day, where she owed her introduction to 
 Barras and the Talliens. She included among 
 her friends Mme. Recamier ; the former Duchesse 
 d'Aiguillon, who had temporarily resumed her 
 maiden name of de NavaiUes ; Mmes. de Kreny 
 and de Chateau-Renard, as well as others of 
 less respectable reputation ; ^ and among men, 
 beside the revolutionary leaders, a number of 
 the old nobility, such as Caulaincourt, Montes- 
 quieu, Nivernais, and Segur, formerly French 
 Ambassador to Catherine the Great. She still 
 maintained relations with the older members 
 of her own family, and she kept a brave front 
 toward the world of Paris, not apt to be over- 
 censorious as to a woman's means of livelihood 
 in those days. 
 
 The date and circumstances of the first meeting 
 of Josephine and Napoleon are given in a story 
 which has become famous — how at the time of 
 the general disarmament of Paris, consequent 
 on the hostile attitude of forty-three out of 
 the forty-eight sections of the city toward the 
 
 1 " Some of the demi-monde," says M. Masson, " whom 
 the astonished little Corsican took for the real monde." 
 
138 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Convention's decrees, the Government's agents 
 "ailed at Josephine's house and attempted to 
 remove the late Vicomte's sword ; how they 
 were resisted by Eugene and agreed to let him 
 appeal to the general in command ; how Eugene 
 hastened into Bonaparte's presence ; how Bona- 
 parte was touched at the boy's request and 
 allowed him to keep the sword ; and how Jose- 
 phine called to thank the General next day and 
 immediately conquered his heart. Barras, who 
 dismisses the story of the sword as an historiette 
 touchante invented by Napoleon, says that no 
 arms were taken from the young Beauhamais 
 or from his mother's house, since she belonged 
 to " our party " ; and he claims to have re- 
 marked to Eugene, who accompanied his mother 
 to the Luxembourg at the time when the dis- 
 armament of the 2 vendemiaire was proceeding : 
 " Your house is not one of those where there is 
 any idea of taking such a step, Eugene. Besides, 
 your father's sword is certainly that of a good 
 Republican." Barras adds the characteristic 
 comment : " The young man might have been 
 touched at this remembrance. I was, most 
 genuinely, Mme. Beauhamais probably least 
 of all, since Alexandre's widow had not by any 
 
Various Versions 139 
 
 means shown herself inconsolable for the loss 
 of so excellent a citizen." ^ 
 
 Napoleon's own version of what occurred may 
 be seen in the " Memorial de Sainte-H61ene " : 
 
 " It was during his command at Paris that 
 Napoleon made the acquaintance of Mme. de 
 Beauharnais. The general disarmament of the 
 sections had been carried out. There appeared 
 at headquarters a young man from ten to twelve 
 years of age, who came to beg the commander- 
 in-chief to return to him the sword of his father, 
 formerly general in the Republican service. 
 This young man was Eugene de Beauharnais, 
 
 ' In an autograph note added to M. Duruy's edition of the 
 Memoirs of Barras, but not found in the earlier edition of 
 Barras's literary executor, Saint-Albin, the following account 
 is to be found, which bears some resemblance to the ordinary 
 version of the sword story : " One of my aides-de-camp told 
 me that there was a lady asking for Bonaparte. This lady 
 held by the hand a young man of fourteen to fifteen years of age. 
 I soon recognised Mme. de Beauharnais with her son Eugene. 
 Arms had been taken from her house by error on the day of 
 the troubles, and she had been clever enough to say, through 
 her son, that they belonged to her husband, the late General 
 Beauharnais. . . . She came to me next day as if to refer 
 to me the petition which she had already made — and which 
 had already been granted — for the restoration of the arms. 
 Jier real object was to make her way into my society, where 
 she knew that Mme. TaUien had taken first place since the 
 9 thermidor." Barras is not a consistent liar, for this account 
 does not at all tally with the statements in his Memoirs as 
 edited by Saint-Albin. 
 
14° The Empress Josephine 
 
 afterwards Viceroy of Italy. Napoleon, touched 
 by the nature of this request and by his youthful 
 grace, granted his request. Eugene began to 
 weep at the sight of his father's sword. The 
 General was affected and showed him so much 
 kindness that Mme. de Beauharnais felt obliged 
 to call next day to express her gratitude. 
 Napoleon hastened to return her visit. Every 
 one knows the extreme grace of the Empress 
 Josephine and her sweet and attractive manners. 
 The acquaintance soon became intimate, and 
 they married without delay." ^ 
 
 In spite of the sneers of Barras, there does not 
 seem sufficient reason for rejecting the date of 
 the 22 vendemiaire (October 14, 1795) as that 
 of Josephine's introduction to Napoleon. She 
 had been in possession of the rue Chantereine 
 house twelve days, and he had made his mark in 
 Paris nine days earlier. The rising General at 
 once became one of the most frequent visitors. 
 
 ' "M6morial," ii. 216. The account which Napoleon gave 
 to Barry O'Meara is practically identical, but concludes : 
 ■" I felt so much affected by his conduct that I noticed and 
 praised him much. A few days afterwards his mother came 
 to return me a visit of thanks. I was much struck with her 
 appearance, and still more with her esprit. This first im- 
 pression was daily strengthened, and marriage was not long 
 in following." 
 
Napoleon at the rue Chantereine 141 
 
 There are no records of the first hours of friend- 
 ship, but M. Masson in his " Napoleon et les 
 Femmes," chapter iii., attempts an amusing 
 reconstruction of the scene which met the young 
 General's eyes when he entered the rather 
 meagrely furnished abode of the lady who was 
 so soon to have him at her feet. Evidences 
 of former elegance there certainly were, but 
 many things were woefully lacking. Napoleon, 
 however, did not come to see the house but its 
 mistress, and with her he found nothing amiss. 
 He does not exaggerate when he says that 
 " the acquaintance soon became intimate." No 
 further proof is required than the note written 
 by Josephine and dated the 6 hrumaire (October 
 28), fourteen days after the first meeting. In 
 spite of its brevity, this note can leave no doubt 
 in the reader's mind as to Josephine's feelings 
 for Napoleon, or at least as to the opinion which 
 she wished him to have about those feelings. 
 She wrote : 
 
 " You come no longer to see a friend who 
 loves you. You have altogether deserted her. 
 You do wrong, for she is tenderly attached to 
 you. Come to-morrow, septidi, to lunch with 
 me. I want to see you and talk with you about 
 
142 The Empress Josephine 
 
 your affairs. Good-night, my friend, I embrace 
 you. 
 
 " Veuve Beauharnais." 
 
 The " widow Beauharnais " seems to have 
 had no reason to reproach her friend again for 
 staying away from her. Unfortunately a letter 
 from him to her is undated, so that we cannot 
 judge precisely the pace at which their intimacy 
 proceeded. The letter seems to belong to the 
 coinmencement of the actual liaison. 
 
 " I awoke full of you," Napoleon wrote. 
 " Your portrait and the intoxicating evening 
 yesterday left no rest for my senses. Sweet and 
 incomparable Josephine, what strange effect do 
 you produce on my heart ? Are you angry, 
 do I see you sad, are you troubled . . . my 
 spirit is crushed with grief and there is no rest 
 for your friend. But is there any more for me 
 when I abandon myself to the profound emotion 
 which overwhelms me and drink in from your lips 
 and your heart a fire which devours me ? It 
 was this night that I discovered how different 
 are your portrait and you. You are going at 
 mid-day. I shall see you in three hours' time. 
 In the meantime, mio dolce amor, a million 
 
JOSEPH liONAl'ARTE 
 From an engraving after a painting by Vicart, 
 
A Rapid Intimacy 143 
 
 kisses ; but do not give any to me. for yours 
 devour my blood." 
 
 It looks as if the reference in the words " you 
 are going at mid-day " may be to Josephine's 
 visit to Hamburg mentioned in Chapter VI., in 
 which case Napoleon's letter was written at 
 some time between Josephine's note of the 
 6 hrumaire and her departure to Hamburg.^ 
 
 From the above letters it is clear that love was 
 very early mentioned between Napoleon and 
 Josephine.^ When they first spoke of marriage 
 is less certain. Bourrienne cannot be con- 
 sidered a very trustworthy witness. His account 
 of the first occasion on which he heard of 
 Josephine is that some time after vendemiaire 
 (when he joined Napoleon in Paris) he and 
 Napoleon were dining at a restaurant, when 
 the General pointed out to him a young lady 
 sitting nearly opposite them. What did he 
 
 ' See p. 124 and footnote (i). But it is impossible to re- 
 concile Aubenas's date for Josephine's letter to her mother 
 from Hamburg — ^October 30 — and that of her note to Napoleon, 
 since we must allow for the time taken to reach Hamburg 
 from Paris at this epoch. 
 
 2 The first mention of the name of Josephine, by the way, 
 is in the undated letter from Napoleon. He seems to have 
 been the first to give it to her. The Bonapartes were fond 
 of altering names at their caprice. 
 
144 The Empress Josephine 
 
 think of her ? asked Napoleon. Bourrienne's 
 answer seemed to please him^ and he proceeded 
 to talk much about her and her family and her 
 amiable qualities. He would probably marry 
 her, he said, being convinced that the union 
 would make him happy. 
 
 Another letter written by Napoleon, also 
 unhappily undated, except by the hour " g 
 o'clock in the morning," brings the idea of 
 marriage nearer, though the word is not men- 
 tioned ; 
 
 " I left you carrying with me a painful feeling. 
 I went to bed in great anger. It seemed to me 
 that the esteem due to my character ought to 
 remove from your mind the last thought which 
 influenced you yesterday night. If it held sway 
 over your heart, you would be most unjust, 
 madame, and I most unhappy. So you thought 
 that I did not love you for yourself ! ! ! For 
 what, then ? Ah, madame, how greatly I must 
 have changed ! Could so base a feeling be born 
 in so pure a heart ? I am still astonished at 
 it, but less so than at the feeling which, when 
 I awoke, cast at me your feet, without any 
 maUce against you or any power of will. . . . 
 But you, mio dolce amor, have you slept 
 
Napoleon's Passion 145 
 
 well ? Have you thought even twice of me ? 
 I give you three kisses : one on your heart, 
 one on your mouth, and one on your eyes." 
 
 The exclamation " So you thought that I 
 did not love you for yourself " leaves one curious 
 about the scene of the night before Napoleon's 
 letter. It is hardly possible that Josephine 
 can have reproached Napoleon seriously with 
 loving her for her money, for the supposed 
 twenty-five thousand Uvres which she claimed 
 as her income, but which were assuredly not 
 substantial enough to meet her already vast 
 liabilities. Her perpetual financial embarrass- 
 ment could scarcely be so well concealed from 
 him that he could be accused of having imagined 
 her desirable on account of her wealth. It is 
 conceivable that she may have charged him 
 with wishing to marry her through ambition, 
 since this was a motive to which he gave some 
 colom: himself. At the end of the passage just 
 referred to in Bourrienne's Memoirs, the writer 
 says : "I gathered from his conversation that 
 his union with the young widow would probably 
 aid him in attaining the objects of his ambition. 
 His ever-growing intimacy with her whom he 
 loved brought him in contact with the most 
 
 VOL. I TO 
 
146 The Empress Josephine 
 
 influential people of the day and made it easier 
 for him to get his pretensions recognised." 
 Napoleon may have talked thus to Bourrienne in 
 order to disguise the warmth of his passion for 
 Josephine ; but others also at the time of his 
 marriage imputed to him a mingling of ambition 
 with his love. 
 
 In connection with the possibility of Jose- 
 phine's monetary difficulties being kept from 
 Napoleon, another question suggests itself. 
 How could he be ignorant of her relations with 
 Barras ? M. Masson seems to think that he 
 was quite unaware of them and adduces the 
 story told by Barras himself. One day Jose- 
 phine was being escorted home from the Luxem- 
 bourg by an aide-de-camp of the Director when 
 she found Napoleon waiting for her. She made 
 a tearful attempt at an explanation, teUing him 
 that Barras had previously made love to her, 
 had taken up Mme. Tallien with the idea of 
 rousing her jealousy, had offered to abandon 
 Mme. Tallien for her, and finally had made an 
 attempt on her that very day, whereon she had 
 fainted. Napoleon was for going at once to 
 demand satisfaction from the Director, but 
 Josephine began to excuse him, saying, " His 
 
A Blind Lover 147 
 
 manners axe rather rough, but he is very kind 
 and useful ; a friend and nothing more." 
 
 This tale resembles many in the Memoirs of 
 Barras : the malice is obvious, but not the truth, 
 and it proves nothing. Napoleon's infatuation 
 for Josephine, however, was so great — as his 
 letters before and after his marriage show — 
 that it is permissible to credit his blindness 
 to the scandal which it was impossible to con- 
 ceal from ordinary eyes. 
 
 Whatever the trouble which inspired the letter 
 of " 9 o'clock in the morning," it caused no 
 break in the relations between Josephine and 
 her lover. He was swept along in her train 
 through the society which frequented the 
 Luxembourg and the houses of Mme. TaUien 
 and other stars of the period — a society of re- 
 viving courtesy in which the brusque-mannered 
 Corsican must have felt himself strangely out 
 of place. Dearer than his association with her 
 in the circles of the Directory were his visits 
 to the rue Chantereine, when her " extreme 
 grace and sweet and attractive manners " 
 might be displayed for him alone. The end was 
 not long in coming, and to the outside world it 
 may well have seemed sudden . On February 13, 
 
148 The Empress Josephine 
 
 1796, Josephine was inviting guests to a dinner 
 over which she presided in Barras's house in the 
 rue Basse-Saint-Pierre, Chaillot. On February 24 
 she agreed to marry Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 On the night of March 9 he knocked up the 
 mayor, who had aheady gone to bed, in his 
 quarters in the second arrondissement of Paris ; 
 and at ten o'clock the marriage was performed. 
 The ceremony was purely civil, and no members 
 of either family were present. Josephine's 
 witnesses were her lawyer Calmelet and Tallien ; 
 Napoleon's, Barras and the youthful Captain 
 Lemarrus, the aide-de-camp who had first 
 brought Eugene Beauharnais to his general. 
 As has already been seen, in order to bring their 
 ages closer together, the bride in signing the 
 register took four years from her thirty-two 
 while the groom added a year and a half to 
 his twenty-five. 
 
 There is very little to give a clue to Josephine's 
 true feelings toward the man she was marrying. 
 There is one letter said to have been written by 
 her to some woman friend ; Aubenas rejects it 
 on account of its style, but admits that its 
 sentiments are such as might be expected. It 
 contains the following passage : 
 
Josephine's Second Marriage 149 
 
 " You have seen General Bonaparte at my 
 
 house. It is he who desires to be a father 
 
 to the orphan children of Alexandre de Beau- 
 
 hamais and a husband to his widow. ' Do 
 
 you love him ? ' will be your question. Well — 
 
 no ! ' You have an antipathy to him, then ? ' 
 
 No : but I am in a state of lukewarmness which 
 
 displeases me and is considered by the devotee 
 
 the worst state of all in matters of religion." 
 
 Then there is a record kept by Segur of a 
 
 conversation which he had with her in 1804, 
 
 when he told her of the difficulty with which 
 
 he first persuaded himself, an old Royalist, to 
 
 enter the First Consular household. Josephine 
 
 confided in return " her inner struggles and long 
 
 repugnances at the end of 1795, in spite of her 
 
 incUnation for Bonaparte, before she could make 
 
 up her mind to marry one whom she herself 
 
 called ' General Vendemiaires' " 
 
 In view of Josephine's genuinely RoyaUst 
 sympathies (however much disguised in her 
 sans-culotterie of 1794), there is nothing blame- 
 worthy in the scruples which she confessed to 
 Segur. But the letter quoted above, if genuine, 
 shows her in a much less favourable Ught. It 
 can scarcely surprise us, seeing how she acted 
 
150 The Empress Josephine 
 
 after his departure for Italy. But it certainly 
 shows that she did not " love for himself " the 
 man against whom she had unjustly brought a 
 complaint of similar interestedness. Although 
 the strength of his passion no doubt influenced 
 her, she cannot escape the suspicion of accepting 
 him because he was twenty-five and had already 
 a great future prophesied ; while she was thirty- 
 two, was beginning to fade, had large debts 
 and two children, and her prospects of a good 
 marriage were scanty if she refused the love- 
 bhnded Corsican. 
 
 For the most part her family and friends 
 approved of the match or offered no opposi- 
 tion to it. Perhaps some of the ex-aristocrats 
 looked doubtfully on " General Vendemiaire." 
 But others knew of the General's expectations. 
 Her aunt, Mme. Renaudin, and the old Marquis 
 de Beauharnais, who were themselves getting 
 married after thirty-eight years' acquaintance, 
 favoured the second marriage of her whom 
 they had seen to suffer so much in her first. 
 The Beauharnais children, perhaps, were less 
 inclined than any to be friendly, especially 
 Hortense. She first met her mother's lover at 
 the dinner at the Luxembourg in January 1796, 
 
Napoleon and his Wife's Circle 151 
 
 in commemoration of the King's death. Al- 
 though not yet fourteen, she was among the 
 guests on the strength of her mother's acquaint- 
 ance with Barras and his fellow Directors. 
 Among the others present were the TaUiens and 
 Bonaparte. Hortense sat between her mother 
 and the General, who talked vivaciously all the 
 time to Josephine, leaning forward across the 
 child and causing her to draw back. " He spoke 
 with ardour and seemed to take sole notice of 
 my mother/' says Hortense, recalling the scene. 
 Her first impressions of her step-father were 
 certainly not agreeable, and Mme. Campan 
 records that, when the news reached her later 
 that her mother was to become Mme. Bonaparte, 
 she wept. Both she and Eugene were proud of 
 their father's name and had not been allowed 
 by Josephine to realise how worthless a man 
 he had been. They therefore resented the 
 second marriage, much as Napoleon strove to 
 show that he loved the children of his Jose- 
 phine. Eugene appears to have conquered his 
 early feelings towards Napoleon first, while 
 in Hortense a degree of fear persisted longer. 
 One person in Josephine's circle exhibited 
 a suspicion of her future husband which was 
 
152 The Empress Josephine 
 
 pardonable^ perhaps even praiseworthy on pro- 
 fessional grounds ; namely, her notary Ragui- 
 deau. Meneval's version of the story, doubt- 
 less taken from the mouths of Josephine and 
 Napoleon, seems preferable to others. A few 
 days before the wedding Josephine sent for 
 Raguideau, who arrived in the morning, while 
 she was still in bed. She had been holding 
 a levee, however, and there were some people 
 in the room, all of whom retired except one young 
 man, who went and stood in a window-recess, 
 where the notary did not see him. Josephine 
 explained her wishes about the marriage-con- 
 tract and then asked him what people were 
 saying. Raguideau told her that the idea of 
 her marriage with so young a man, with a career 
 to make, amid the dangers of war, was not 
 altogether welcomed. He stated that this 
 was his opinion too, and that, while the General 
 was no doubt estimable, he had " nothing but 
 his cloak and his sword." Josephine thanked 
 him and then called with a laugh to the young 
 man in the window, who was of course Napoleon. 
 " General," she asked, " have you heard what 
 M. Raguideau has just been saying ? " " Yes, 
 he has spoken like an honourable man. I hope 
 
The Cloak and Sword 153 
 
 that he will continue to look after our affairs, 
 for he has incUned me to put my trust in him." 
 This speech rather disconcerted Raguideau, 
 who had been ignorant of his audience. But 
 he did not suffer for his advice, being rewarded 
 later by the Emperor with a subordinate post 
 in the Government. 
 
 Meneval, after telUng the story, scouts the 
 addition to it which it has pleased others to 
 make, how that on the day of his coronation 
 Napoleon summoned Raguideau to him and, 
 showing him his mantle and the sword whose 
 hilt was adorned with the celebrated Regent 
 diamond, said : " Raguideau, here is my cloak 
 and here my sword ! " ' 
 
 If there was no serious objection to the Bona- 
 parte-Beauharnais wedding on the side of the 
 bride's friends, it was very different on the side 
 of the bridegroom's. But Napoleon forestalled 
 aU opposition by keeping his family entirely 
 in the dark. He did not ask his mother's con- 
 sent nor write to his elder brother Joseph. He 
 
 > M6neval, "Memoires,"i. 204. If Raguideau actually men- 
 tioned the cape and sword, he was singularly near the truth, 
 for in the marriage-contract the husband " declares that he 
 owns neither lands nor goods beyond his personal wardrobe 
 and his military accoutrements." 
 
154 The Empress Josephine 
 
 hurried Lucien off to join the Army of the North 
 and even found an excuse for sending Louis out 
 of Paris. He felt that it would be useless to try 
 to win over the Bonaparte clan before his 
 marriage, but, like all lovers, he trusted in being 
 able to do so afterwards, aided by the beauty 
 and grace of the lady of his choice. He had 
 little time at his disposal for their conversion 
 after March g, but with that marvellous power 
 which he always showed of conducting his 
 private affairs in the midst of the most 
 arduous public duties, he took the first steps 
 before he assumed command of the Army of 
 Italy. 
 
 This command in Italy, which took the newly 
 married General from Paris two days after his 
 wedding, was, according to some of his enemies, 
 the bait which made Josephine so attractive to 
 him. She could influence Barras ; and was 
 not Barras a large part of the Government ? 
 Perhaps Josephine herself believed the story, 
 though it made Napoleon's tribute to her per- 
 sonal fascinations less great ; at any rate, when 
 it was revived after Napoleon's return from 
 Italy, she did not take the trouble to deny it. 
 In the alleged letter of Josephine to a woman 
 
The Italian Command 155 
 
 friend, to which reference was made above, the 
 words occur : 
 
 " Barras says that if I marry the General he 
 will get him the chief command of the Army of 
 Italy. Yesterday Bonaparte, speaking to me 
 of this favour, which already causes murmurs 
 among his brother officers, although it is not 
 yet granted, said : ' Do they think that I have 
 need of protection in order to make my way ? 
 They wiU all be only too glad for me to give 
 them my protection. My sword is at my side, 
 and with it I shall go far.' " 
 
 The doubt as to the authenticity of this letter 
 makes it impossible to draw any conclusion 
 from it. Barras himself was anxious to have 
 the story believed, since it brought him credit 
 for perspicacity with regard to Napoleon's 
 genius, while at the same time it redounded little 
 to the credit of either Napoleon or Josephine. 
 Barras's claim, however, is entirely denied by 
 his colleague Camot ; ^ and between Camot and 
 
 ' Camot says, in his defence of himself against the deputy 
 Bailleul : " It is not true that it was Barras who proposed 
 Bonaparte for the command of the Army of Italy ; it was I 
 . . . and it was only among his most intimate friends that 
 Barras boasted of being the author of the suggestion to the 
 Directory. Had Bonaparte failed, I should have been the 
 
156 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Barras there is no doubt who is the more 
 trustworthy. 
 
 Of course Barras was in a position to give 
 early information to Josephine of the promotion 
 which he pretended to have secured for her 
 lover. On February 21, 1796, he congratulated 
 her at the Luxembourg on General Bonaparte's 
 nomination, which was to be made next day. 
 Two days later she and Napoleon were engaged, 
 and in another thirteen they were married, with 
 Barras prominent among the witnesses. 
 
 The honeymoon, if it may be called so, lasted 
 two days, during part of which, the legend goes, 
 Napoleon was obliged to shut himself up in a 
 room with his maps, calling out through the 
 locked door that love must be adjourned until 
 after victory. On March 11 he wrote a letter 
 to Letourneur, President of the Directory : 
 
 " I have requested citizen Barras to inform 
 
 one to be blamed, since I had proposed a young man without 
 experience, an intriguer, and had evidently betrayed my 
 country. The others had nothing to do with war ; it was on 
 me that all the responsibility must fall. Bonaparte was 
 victorious ; so it was Barras who got him nominated ; it was 
 to him that thanks were due ; he was his protector, his defender 
 against my attacks. I was jealous of Bonaparte, I thwarted 
 him in all his plans, persecuted him, blackened his character. 
 refused him all help, and evidently wished to ruin him." 
 
A TwO'Days' Honeymoon 157 
 
 the Executive Directory of my marriage with 
 the citizeness Tascher Beauharnais. The trust 
 in me which the Directory has shown in all 
 matters makes it my duty to inform it of all my 
 actions. This is a new bond to unite me to 
 my country. It is one pledge the more of my 
 firm resolve to look for no safety except in the 
 Republic." 
 
 Having written thus. Napoleon bade good- 
 bye to his wife and started for the south. Ac- 
 cording to Barras, he had the simplicity to 
 commend her to his care. If this be true, no 
 further proof can be wanted of Napoleon's 
 ignorance, astonishing though it may seem, of 
 the relation in which Josephine had stood to 
 the Director. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FROM THE RUE CHANTEREINE TO ITALY 
 
 FROM the point of Napoleon's departure 
 for Italy, Josephine began to receive a 
 series of the most remarkable love-letters ever 
 penned. Mme. de Remusat says in her Memoirs 
 that these letters " furnished a piquant contrast 
 to the elegant and studied grace of those from 
 M. de Beauharnais." Any one who has read 
 the examples of Alexandre de Beauharnais's 
 epistolatory style quoted in the earlier chapters 
 of this book will agree with Mme. de Remusat 
 about the piquancy of the contrast, but will 
 probably have a different opinion as to the 
 appropriate description of the Vicomte's letters 
 to his wife. 
 
 Napoleon lost no time in beginning his cor- 
 respondence. After leaving Paris he stopped 
 first at Chatillon on the Seine, the home of the 
 father of Marmont, one of his friends at Brienne. 
 From here he sent Josephine a power of attorney 
 
 iS8 
 
The Letters from Italy 159 
 
 to handle some moneys coming in to him. Con- 
 tinuing his journey, he wrote from Chanceaux 
 on March 14, teUing her what he had done at 
 Chatillon. He went on : 
 
 " Every moment separates me further from 
 you, my adorable one, and every moment I find 
 in myself less strength to bear the separation. 
 You are the constant object of my thoughts ; 
 my imagination exhausts itself in guessing what 
 you are doing. If I see you sad, my heart is 
 torn and my grief increases. If you are gay and 
 playful with your friends, I reproach you for 
 forgetting so soon the painful separation of three 
 days ago. So you are frivolous, and therefore 
 you are stirred by no deep feeling ! As you see, 
 I am not easy to content. . . . Ah, do not be gay, 
 be a little melancholy, and above aU may your 
 soul be as free from trouble as your body from 
 sickness ! You know what the good Ossian 
 says about this. 
 
 " Write to me, my loving friend, and write 
 a really long letter, and receive the thousand 
 and one kisses of a most tender and true love." 
 
 This letter, whose passion makes it at times 
 incoherent, the young bridgroom addressed by 
 a most curious error to " The Citizeness Beau- 
 
i6o The Empress Josephine 
 
 harnais, 6 rue Chantereine ! " Could anything 
 more clearly betray his agitation of mind ? But 
 his actions were calm and sensible enough, and 
 he found time, amid all the preparations for 
 taking up his command, to approach the leading 
 members of his family on behalf of his wife. 
 He made a stay of two days at Marseilles for 
 the purpose of seeing his mother, who was still 
 living there with her daughters, and the fruit of 
 this visit was a letter from Mme. Letizia Bona- 
 parte to her daughter-in-law. It was March 23 
 when Napoleon left Marseilles, and his mother 
 did not write her letter until nine days later, 
 when she had already, it seems, received a 
 communication from Josephine. As she was a 
 bad French scholar and could scarcely write 
 more than her own name, it is probable that she 
 had the document drafted for her by Joseph 
 at Genoa. The letter, so formal in its tone, was 
 hardly calculated to inspire Josephine with a 
 great idea of the writer's anxiety to welcome 
 her into her family. It ran as follows : 
 
 " I have received your letter, madame, which 
 could but increase the estimate which I had 
 formed of you. My son had informed me of 
 
Josephine and the Bonapartcs i6i 
 
 his happy marriage, and from that moment you 
 had not only my esteem but my approval. To 
 my happiness there is only lacking the satis- 
 faction of seeing you. Be sure that I feel for 
 you all a mother's tenderness and that I cherish 
 you equally with my own children. My son 
 gave me to hope, and your letter confirms this, 
 that you would pass through Marseilles on your 
 way to join him. I rejoice, madame, at the 
 pleasure which your stay here will give me. 
 My daughters join me in anticipating the happy 
 moment of your journey. Meanwhile, be per- 
 suaded that my children, following my example, 
 promise you the same friendship and tenderness 
 as they have for their brother. Believe, madame, 
 in the attachment and affection of 
 
 " L-ETiziA Buonaparte Mere." 
 
 The letter from Josephine to which this was 
 an answer is, like the great bulk of her letters, 
 missing. 
 
 Next to Mme. Letizia, Joseph Bonaparte was 
 the most important among Josephine's new 
 relatives. His first letter followed a few days 
 after his mother's. In the meantime Napoleon, 
 who had reached Nice on March 27, had re- 
 
 VOL. I II 
 
1 62 The Empress Josephine 
 
 quested his brother, then engaged in commerce 
 at Genoa, to meet him at Albenga, whence he 
 wrote to Josephine that Joseph was " burning 
 with anxiety to meet her." Joseph's own 
 letter of April 7 was, however, not very ardent 
 in its language. 
 
 " Madame," he wrote, " I heard with the 
 keenest interest of your marriage with my 
 brother. The friendship which binds me to 
 him does not allow me to deny the happiness 
 which you wiU bring him. I am sure of it as 
 he is, from the idea which I have formed of 
 you. Pray believe in the fraternal sentiments 
 of your brother-in-law." 
 
 The heads of the Bonaparte clan, therefore, 
 had made the required overtures to the stranger 
 whom its coming leader had introduced into it. 
 It remained to be seen how they would fulfil 
 their promises of affection to her when they 
 had met her face to face. At the present 
 moment the only members of the family who 
 were likely to know anything of the late widow 
 Beauharnais were the three younger sons, 
 Lucien and Louis, who had been in Paris at 
 the time of Napoleon's liaison, and Jerome, 
 who after the 13 vendSmiaire had been sent to 
 
Josephine's Position 163 
 
 the school where Josephine had placed Eugene. 
 It is hardly likely that much information from 
 them had reached Letizia and Joseph Bona- 
 parte. 
 
 Josephine was therefore left in Paris, after 
 two days only of her second essay in married 
 life, free to spend her time according to her 
 pleasure. From her husband she was in receipt 
 of sufficient money to maintain her position in 
 the house in the rue Chantereine, if not to cope 
 with the debts of which Napoleon probably 
 knew httle or nothing as yet — the debts 
 which her own alleged income of twenty-five 
 thousand livres, coupled with her borrowings 
 from Emmery and Marie Lanoy, had been 
 quite inadequate to meet. Her two children 
 were both at school at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 
 near Paris. Eugene was at the CoU^ge Irian- 
 dais, which had been started by Patrick Mac- 
 Dermot, former tutor to Mme. Campan's son ; 
 Hortense at Mme. Campan's own select academy, 
 where the principal educated so many future 
 princesses and ladies of title in the manners 
 and accomplishments of the old regime. 
 
 For the moment the new Mme. Bonaparte 
 had no encumbrances, and she was not slow 
 
164 The Empress Josephine 
 
 to show her appreciation of her Hfe in these 
 circumstances and her reluctance to quit it. 
 She moved in the same circles as before her 
 second marriage, with the added advantage of 
 an assured rank as wife of the commander in 
 Italy. None of her old friends were cast aside. 
 She and Mme. Tallien were inseparable. So 
 they are described by Arnault, who returned 
 to Paris from Marseilles in April 1796, and was 
 introduced by the two ladies to the salon of 
 Barras. In his amusing " Souvenirs d'un Sexa- 
 genaire " he has much to say about this period. 
 He had been absent from the capital for five 
 months and was much astonished by the 
 changes which he saw. The gaiety of Paris 
 reminded him of the rejoicings after a funeral 
 in some countries. " Every day there was a 
 fete. The public gardens were never empty. 
 Concert-halls and baU-rooms, like the play- 
 houses, were too small for the crowds thirsting 
 for the pleasures of which they had been so 
 long deprived." A curious feature of the 
 times was the " Victim Party," a class of 
 entertainment given by some of the ex-nobles 
 to celebrate the losses in their families during 
 the Terror, at which the guests appeared with 
 
Parisian Gaiety 165 
 
 their hair cut short, coiffis d la victime, as if 
 before the guillotine. Still more remarkable 
 were other extravagances of dress — and un- 
 dress — described not only by Arnault, but by 
 all the memoirists of the time. Among the 
 most prominent figures was Mme. TaUien, who 
 did not scruple to appear in public in the costume 
 of Diana, with a short tunic, reaching to her 
 knees and only partly covering her breasts, 
 and buskins on her feet. We do not hear of 
 Josephine in such attire, but she affected the 
 Greek dress which divided popularity with other 
 eccentricities of the Directory period, and helped 
 to lend such an air of carnival to Paris life. 
 
 Arnault gives a description of Josephine as 
 she appeared to him now, which is the more 
 interesting for being almost the only portrait 
 of her at the epoch of her second marriage.^ 
 She was not the most beautiful woman who 
 was to be seen at the Luxembourg, he says, 
 but she was certainly the most amiable. 
 
 > There is another, not so flattering, from the pen of the 
 Duchesse d'Abrantes, who was far from loving Josephine ; 
 
 " She was still charming at this epoch [May 1796] Her 
 
 teeth were frightfully bad ; but when her mouth was shut she 
 had the appearance, especially at a few paces' distance, of a 
 young and pretty woman " (" Memoires," ii. 51). 
 
1 66 The Empress Josephine 
 
 " Her even temper, the gentleness of her dis- 
 position, the kindness which animated her 
 looks and was expressed not merely in her 
 language, but in the very tone of her voice ; 
 her natural Creole indolence, which showed 
 itself in her attitude as well as in her movements, 
 and which she did hot entirely lose when exert- 
 ing herself to render a service — all this gave 
 her a charm which counterbalanced the vivid 
 beauty of her two rivals [Mme. Tallien and 
 Mme. Recamier]. Although she had less bril- 
 liance and freshness than the other two, still, 
 thanks to her regular features, her elegant 
 suppleness of figure, and the sweet expression 
 of her countenance, she was beautiful also." 
 
 This is an early tribute to the peculiar fas- 
 cination which Josephine throughout the second 
 part of her life exercised over men willing to 
 admit that there were many whose beauty 
 exceeded hers, and that she was not, to speak 
 strictly, a " beauty " at all. It is unfortunate 
 that we have nowhere any record of Josephine's 
 own opinion of her charms. That she did not 
 underrate them is clear from certain small in- 
 dications which we find later ; and how could 
 she, when she looked upon the number of her 
 
An Unvalued Conquest 167 
 
 admirers from her early prime down to the 
 day of her death ? 
 
 For the present, her really great conquest 
 was one about which she appeared to give herself 
 very little concern. Not even her most ardent 
 eulogists can make her out to have been in 
 any sense a good wife to Napoleon in 1796. 
 She may not have been actually unfaithful to 
 him as yet, although her continued intimacy 
 with Barras is very suspicious.' But her treat- 
 ment of his passionate letters and her extreme 
 unwillingness to join him in Italy show an 
 indifference to him which would be considered 
 cynical in any other woman. He continued 
 to pour out his love in the most unmeasured 
 language. Here are two extracts from letters 
 written to her during his early days in 
 Italy : 
 
 " You have done more than rob me of my 
 soul. You are the one thought of my life. 
 If I am wearied with the turmoU of affairs, if 
 I fear the outcome, if men disgust me, if I am 
 ready to curse life, I put my hand upon my 
 heart and feel your portrait there ; I gaze 
 upon it, love fills me with absolute happiness, 
 
 » Especially in view of the letter quoted on p. 214. 
 
1 68 The Empress Josephine 
 
 and all smiles on me except the length of time 
 that I see myself separated from my dear 
 one." 
 
 " To live for Josephine ! That is the story 
 of my life. I work in order to get near you ; 
 I kill myself in order to reach you. Fool that 
 I am ! I do not see that I am taking myself 
 farther from you." 
 
 Napoleon no doubt made a grave error in over- 
 whelming with such protestations the woman 
 whom he had chosen and whose character he 
 knew so little. But this error hardly excuses 
 Josephine for her reception of the protestations. 
 Arnault relates ^ that when she was brought, 
 by the hand of Murat, a command from Na- 
 poleon to join him in Italy, she showed it to 
 him together with the other letters which he 
 had sent to her since his departure from Paris, 
 all betraying a most violent passion. 
 
 " Josephine was amused at this feeling, 
 which was not devoid of jealousy. I can still 
 hear her reading a passage in which, while 
 seeming to reject the suspicions which obviously 
 tortured him, her husband wrote : ' If it is 
 true, however, beware the dagger of Othello ! ' 
 
 ' " Souvenirs," ii. 291. 
 
" // est drble, Bonaparte !" 169 
 
 I can hear her say, with her Creole accent, ' II 
 est drole, Bonaparte / ' " 
 
 Josephine never had any reticence about her 
 husband. Whether he amused or vexed her, 
 she must always seek a confidant. Arnault 
 continues : 
 
 " The love which she inspired in so extra- 
 ordinary a man clearly flattered her, although 
 she took matters less seriously than he did. 
 She was proud to see that he loved her almost 
 as much as he loved glory. She enjoyed this 
 glory, daily increasing, but it was in Paris that 
 she liked to enjoy it, in the midst of the ap- 
 plause which resounded about her at each fresh 
 piece of news from the Army of Italy." 
 
 An even more curious reminiscence of Jose- 
 phine's attitude toward her husband at this 
 period is furnished by Bailleul, the deputy.^ 
 Dining with her one night, he discussed Bona- 
 parte's successes and asked her what she thought 
 of him. " I think Bonaparte a very brave 
 man," she answered. No more. It would be 
 possible to make too much of this careless 
 reply, but at least it cannot be called very 
 sentimental or romantic, as Bailleul says. 
 
 ' " Etude sur les causes de I'el^vation de Napolfon," i. 138. 
 
17° The Empress Josephine 
 
 But the victorious general was unaware of 
 the thoughts of his wife in Paris, and his one 
 anxiety was to make her join him in Italy. 
 His messengers to Paris at the end of April 
 were not only heralds of victory to the Direc- 
 tory, but also bearers of requests to his wife. 
 First came Murat, with the text of the treaty 
 concluded with Sardinia ; then Junot, carry- 
 ing twenty-two standards captured from the 
 Austrians, and with him Joseph Bonaparte, 
 bearing a confidential despatch to the Directors. 
 All of them had messages to the conqueror's 
 wife. Joseph came with a letter of recom- 
 mendation from his brother. " I have for him 
 the most tender friendship," wrote Napoleon; 
 " he will, I hope, get the same from you, for 
 he deserves it." Joseph was charged to use 
 his powers of persuasion with the lady whom he 
 was meeting for the first time. It is probable 
 that he and Josephine were at once unfavour- 
 ably impressed with one another, for it was not 
 long before we see them in opposition, which 
 afterwards developed into lifelong hostility. 
 
 By the hand of Junot, the summons to 
 Josephine was, perhaps playfully, peremptory. 
 " You must return with him, do you under- 
 
May g, 1796 171 
 
 stand ? " wrote Napoleon. It may be sus- 
 pected that in her letters Josephine had be- 
 trayed her unwillingness to leave Paris. Still 
 less ready was she to do so now, when the fame 
 of the victory at Montenotte made her the 
 recipient of so much reflected glory and personal 
 admiration. The fetes in honour of France's 
 success might well seem to her to centre around 
 her. Was there any one more conspicuous than 
 herself at the ceremony of the presentation of 
 the standards to the Directory on May 9 ? She 
 was perhaps but one of the three Queens of 
 Beauty on this occasion, and not the most 
 beautiful ; but Mmes. TalUen and Recamier 
 were not the wives of the hero of the hour 
 like Josephine. When the standards had been 
 received and the speeches were all over, the 
 principal actors quitted the Luxembourg in the 
 midst of a brilliant ovation. Junot, the aide- 
 de-camp, just made colonel, led out his general's 
 wife and Mme. TaUien from the Palace into the 
 sunshine of a most glorious day of May. The 
 description of the scene may be left to Lauretta 
 Permon, who afterwards became Junot's wife 
 and Duchesse d'Abrantes : 
 
 " It may be imagined that Junot was not a 
 
i?^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 little proud at giving his arms to these two 
 charming women. He was then twenty-five. 
 He was a fine young man and had, in particular, 
 a most remarkable military carriage. He wore 
 that day a magnificent hussar uniform (that of 
 the Bercheny hussars), and all that the splen- 
 dour of such a dress could add to his good looks 
 had been employed to make the brave young 
 messenger, still pale from the wounds whose 
 blood had stained the flags taken from the 
 enemy, worthy of the army which he repre- 
 sented. As he came out he offered his arm to 
 Mme. Bonaparte, who, as wife of his commander, 
 had the right to first place, especially on this 
 solemn day. He gave the other to Mme. Tallien 
 and so came down the steps of the Luxembourg 
 with them. The crowd was immense. People 
 crushed and jostled to get a better view. 
 
 " ' See, it's his wife ! It's his aide-de-camp ! 
 How young he is . . . and how pretty she is ! ' 
 
 " ' Long Uve General Bonaparte ! ' cried the 
 mob. 
 
 " ' Long live the citizeness Bonaparte ! She 
 is good to the poor.' 
 
 " ' Yes,' said a stout market-woman, ' she's 
 really Our Lady of Victories.' 
 
Citizcness Bonaparte 173 
 
 Yes/ said another, ' you're right. But 
 look at the officer's other arm, that's Our Lady 
 of September.' " ^ 
 
 Such triumphs as this were dear to the heart 
 of Josephine, and she was loth to forgo them 
 and her easy life in Paris, whatever there might 
 be awaiting her in the Italy to which her husband 
 was calling her. It was difficult to find a pre- 
 text, however, for refusing to go — ^unless she 
 were iU. Very conveniently for her purpose, 
 she fell ill. It is impossible to resist the sus- 
 picion that her malady was one of the will, 
 rather than of the body. But to Napoleon it 
 was very real. Letters are extant from him 
 to Joseph and his wife, written when he was at 
 Tortona, in which he shows himself plunged in 
 grief. 
 
 " I am in despair," he writes to Joseph, " at 
 learning that my wife is iU. My brain reels, 
 and frightful forebodings agitate my mind. I 
 beseech you to lavish aU your cares upon her. . . . 
 If she is weU and can make the journey, I 
 
 • Duchesse d'Abrantds, " Memoires," ii. 51. The allusion 
 was to the September massacres, and is described by the 
 Duchess as affreux et injuste. Mme. Tallien was also 
 nicknamed Notre-Dame-de- Tkermidor, 
 
174 The Empress Josephine 
 
 ardently long for her to come. I want to see 
 her, to press her to my heart. I love her to 
 madness, and I cannot stay far away from her. 
 If she ceased to love me, I should have nothing 
 more to live for in the world. My dear brother, 
 see that my messenger only stops six hours in 
 Paris and that he returns with new life for me." 
 
 And again, to Josephine : 
 
 " My life is a perpetual nightmare. A fatal 
 foreboding prevents me from breathing. I 
 cannot see, I have lost more than life, more than 
 happiness, more than peace ; I am almost 
 without hope. I send you a messenger. He 
 will only stop four hours in Paris and will then 
 bring me your answer. Write me ten pages. 
 That alone will console me a little. You are 
 ill, you love me, I have grieved you, you are 
 pregnant, and I cannot see you. I have 
 wronged you so much that I do not know how 
 to atone for it. I accuse you of lingering in 
 Paris, and you are ill there. Forgive me, my 
 dear one, the love with which you have inspired 
 me has robbed me of reason, and I shall never 
 recover it. . . ." 
 
 But for our knowledge of the many facts 
 of Napoleon's mind, it would be impossible to 
 
Departure for Italy 175 
 
 believe that the man who was writing these 
 pitiful, self-abasing letters was also conquering 
 Italy, fighting and negotiating as if nothing 
 existed for him except the career of his ambi- 
 tion. 
 
 The above letter to Josephine was written on 
 Jtme 15. But before she had time to receive 
 it, Josephine had made up her mind to obey 
 her husband's commands. Her illness was put 
 aside and the suggestion that she was pregnant 
 forgotten for the present. What finally deter- 
 mined her to go to Italy, we do not know. She 
 did not start without letting it be seen that she 
 was still very unwilUng. " Her chagrin was 
 extreme," Arnault writes, " when she saw that 
 she had no way of escape. Thinking more of 
 what she was about to leave than of what she 
 was going to find, she would have given up the 
 palace prepared for her reception at Milan, all 
 the palaces in the world indeed, for her house 
 in the rue Chantereine." So he describes her 
 as supping for the last time at Luxembourg with 
 a nrnnber of friends — presumably including 
 Barras and the Talliens — and starting away with 
 Fortune, her dog, and her son Eugene. " Poor 
 woman ! " adds Arnault, " she burst into tears. 
 
i?^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 she sobbed as though she were going to 
 torture. She was going to reign Uke a 
 queen ! " 
 
 The party which set out from Paris for Milan 
 was no small one. Josephine had with her her 
 waiting-woman, Louise Compoint, three ser- 
 vants, and Fortune. As her escort there went 
 Joseph Bonaparte, Junot, and Murat. The 
 journey was not altogether as pleasant as it 
 might have been, if we are to believe the gossip 
 of the Duchesse d'Abrantes. Josephine, ac- 
 cording to this, would have Uked Colonel Junot 
 to pay her attention. He, in his devotion to 
 his general, would not lend himself to a flirtation 
 with the general's wife, and to escape vexation 
 made love to Louise, who was on intimate and 
 friendly terms with her mistress. The conse- 
 quence was a falling out between Josephine and 
 her maid, ending in the latter' s dismissal at 
 Milan. It must be remembered that Mme. 
 d'Abrantes is always biassed when she writes 
 about Josephine ; and moreover she was Junot's 
 wife. If Josephine was impressed by either of 
 her husband's young messengers from Italy, it 
 was by the dashing Murat, not by Junot. Mu- 
 rat's attentions to her in Paris had not escaped 
 
At Milan 177 
 
 notice, and rumour continued to couple his 
 name with hers after their arrival in Italy until 
 at last, as we shall see, it reached the ears of 
 Napoleon himself. 
 
 When the party reached Milan, the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief was away for a few days on 
 military duty, and the reception of Josephine 
 was of necessity left to the Due de Serbelloni, 
 a great Milanese nobleman and President of the 
 Directorate of the new Cisalpine Republic, in 
 whose palace she was to be lodged. Napoleon's 
 return was marked by great expressions of joy 
 on his part at the pleasure of seeing her again. 
 " Once at Milan," writes Marmont (afterwards 
 Due de Raguse), " General Bonaparte was very 
 happy. For at that time he only hved for his 
 wife ; he had long been in the same condition. 
 Never had a purer, truer, more exclusive love 
 possessed the heart of a man, and that a man 
 of so superior an order." 
 
 Quitting her again in a few days in order 
 to try to preserve Mantua from the advance 
 of Wurmser and the Austrian army, Napoleon 
 continued to address to Josephine the most 
 ardent letters, which Queen Hortense has pre- 
 served in her collection. That which most 
 
 VOL. I 12 
 
178 The Empress Josephine 
 
 merits quotation is the one dated Marmirolo, the 
 29 messidor (July 17), in which he says : 
 
 " Since I left you I have been constantly 
 melancholy. My happiness is to be with you. 
 Unceasingly there go through my memory your 
 kisses, your tears, your lovable jealousy ; and 
 the charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle 
 unceasingly a bright and burning flame in my 
 heart and my senses. ... I thought I loved you 
 a few days ago ; but, since I have seen you, I 
 feel that I love you a thousand times as much. 
 Since I have known you I adore you more every 
 day. This proves that La Bruyere's maxim 
 that ' Love comes all of a sudden ' is false. 
 Everything in nature has its course and a differ- 
 ent rate of growth. I beg you to let me see 
 some of your faults. Be less beautiful, less 
 gracious, less tender, less kind above all ; and 
 above all never be jealous, never weep ; your 
 tears drive away my reason and scorch my 
 blood. . . . Get back your health soon. Come 
 and join me ; and at least, before we die, let us 
 be able to say : ' We were happy for so many 
 days ! ' " 
 
 So the letters go on, with their messages about 
 " kisses as burning as you are cold," " as burning 
 
A Narrow Escape 179 
 
 as my heart, as pure as you," anxious inquiries 
 about her health, and sad complaints of two days 
 without a letter from her. As he found himself 
 unable to return to Milan, he sent for her to 
 come to meet him toward the end of July at 
 Brescia, " where the most tender of lovers awaits 
 you." She came ; but hardly had they been 
 re-united when a fresh move on the part of 
 Wurmser put them in a dangerous position. 
 Marching on Mantua, he almost took Napoleon 
 by surprise. According to what Josephine 
 herself told Segur, the Proveditore of Brescia 
 treacherously attempted to aid the Austrians 
 by inviting the French commander and his wife 
 to an evening fete on the day on which they 
 intended to depart. Josephine said that she 
 " refused so obstinately that she persuaded 
 Bonaparte to leave at once." " This happy 
 inspiration," writes Segur, " saved them. They 
 were not foiir leagues from Brescia when the 
 Austrians, in concert with the Proveditore, made 
 a forcible entrance into the town. Had Bona- 
 parte been surprised in the middle of the fete, he 
 would have been either killed or made prisoner 
 of war." 
 Whether it was really due to Josephine's 
 
i8o The Empress Josephine 
 
 insistence or not, the escape from Brescia was 
 decidedly lucky. With a small escort of twenty 
 men the General reached the neighbourhood- 
 of Verona, whence he made an attempt to send 
 his wife into safety by way of the shore of 
 Lake Garda. But her carriage was fired upon 
 by an Austrian boat ; and, two of the horses 
 being kiUed, she abandoned it and fled in a 
 local cart to Castiglione, where Napoleon met 
 her again. The presence of the Austrians at 
 Brescia cut off direct communication with 
 Milan, and Josephine's terror was extreme. 
 She wept profusely, and Napoleon is reported 
 to have vowed that Wurmser should pay him 
 dearly for the tears which he had caused. At 
 last an opportunity was found of reaching 
 Milan by skirting Mantua, which a French 
 force was besieging. Josephine passed under 
 fire again, however, from the walls of Mantua, 
 and it must have been with extreme relief that 
 she reached Milan once more. Her husband's 
 state of mind may be gathered from his letter 
 of August lo, written as soon as he had reached 
 Brescia again. 
 
 " I am here, my adored one," he says, " and 
 my first thought is to write to you. Your 
 
More Letters from Napoleon 1 8 1 
 
 state of health and your image have'never 
 ceased to occupy my mind for one moment 
 during the journey. I shall not be at peace 
 until I have received letters from you. I 
 await some impatiently. It is impossible for 
 you to imagine my anxiety. I left you melan- 
 choly, troubled, and half-ill. If the deepest 
 and tenderest love could make you happy, you 
 ought to be so. I am overwhelmed with 
 affairs. Good-bye, my sweet Josephine. Love 
 me, keep well, and think often, often of me. 
 
 " Bonaparte." 
 
 The letters which he hoped for did not come 
 at once, for four days later we find him com- 
 plaining of the anxiety caused by their absence. 
 " You know how dear they are to me. I do 
 not live when I am far from you ; my life's 
 happiness is in the society of my sweet Jose- 
 phine." 
 
 It would be possible to quote at great length 
 from these letters of Napoleon to his wife 
 during the campaign of 1796, so instructive 
 are they with regard to his feelings towards 
 her. But as the letters have long been available 
 in English to all interested in the story of 
 
1 82 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Napoleon and Josephine, the temptation must 
 be resisted to do more than refer to those 
 letters which are essential to the understanding 
 of Josephine's history at this time. It is 
 unfortunate that we have none of her replies 
 to the impassioned appeals of Napoleon ; for 
 it would be interesting to see how far they 
 deserved his criticism, in his letter dated 
 Modena, October 17, that they were " as cold 
 as fifty and like those of fifteen years of married 
 life." One valuable letter of hers remains, 
 having been discovered by Aubenas among 
 the Tascher family archives ; but it was ad- 
 dressed to Mme. Renaudin, now become at 
 length Marquise de Beauharnais. Josephine 
 sent it to Paris by the hand of Serbelloni, in 
 whose palace at Milan she was again lodged. 
 She writes : 
 
 " M. Serbelloni will inform you, dear aunt, 
 how I have been received in Italy, feted wherever 
 I went, by all the princes of Italy, including 
 the Grand Duke of Tuscany, brother of the 
 Emperor. Well, I prefer to be just a nobody 
 in France ! I do not care for the honours of 
 this country. I am very wearied. It is true 
 that my state of health contributes much to my 
 
A Surfeit of Adoration 183 
 
 melancholy ; I am often ill. If happiness could 
 bring me health, I ought to be well. I have 
 the most amiable husband it is possible to 
 meet. I have no time to want anything. My 
 wishes are all his. He is all day in adoration 
 before me, as if I were a divinity ; there could 
 not be a better husband. M. Serbelloni will 
 tell you how much I am loved. He often 
 writes to my children, whom he loves very 
 much. He is sending to Hortense, by M. 
 Serbelloni, a beautiful repeater-watch, enamelled 
 and set with fine pearls ; and to Eugene a 
 beautiful gold watch. Good-bye, my dear aunt, 
 my dear mamma, be assured of my tenderest 
 affection. I will try to send to you a little 
 money on the first opportunity, for the purpose 
 for which you have asked it." 
 
 Why should Josephine have been so 
 " wearied " at Milan, where she Uved a Hfe of 
 extreme ease and was in no want of money — 
 two points of great importance to her at all 
 periods of her existence ? Part of the truth 
 can be gathered from her letter to her aunt. 
 She was in indifferent health ; and the honours 
 which were hers in Italy failed to please her 
 because Italy was not Paris. She had not 
 
184 The Empress Josephine 
 
 ceased to regret the splendour of Paris, where 
 amid her own friends she could enjoy the glory 
 of Napoleon's successes. Moreover, it is im- 
 possible to resist the idea that the husband 
 " all day in adoration before her " — even when 
 he was not within many miles of her — added 
 to her weariness. In Paris, when she read his 
 fervent protestations, she might complacently 
 say : " // est drole, Bonaparte ! " But in Italy 
 it was not sufficient to pass over the matter 
 so lightly, and to answer the many letters with 
 an occasional reply. She did not write more 
 frequently from Milan than from Paris, perhaps, 
 but there was the inevitable meeting with her 
 husband to be faced, as it had already been 
 faced for a few days at Milan and at Brescia. 
 It is only by ignoring the facts that her ad- 
 miring biographers can present a picture of 
 her at this period as a woman in love with her 
 husband. On the other hand, her love for 
 some one else was a subject of common talk 
 in Milan and in the army at the time. 
 
 The man whom scandal assigned to her as 
 a lover was a certain Hippolyte Charles, a 
 friend of Leclerc, who had recently made him 
 his assistant adjutant-general. Among the 
 
Hippolyte Charles 185 
 
 crowds of young officers who had been presented 
 to the wife of the Commander-in-Chief on her 
 arrival at Milan, Charles had especially caught 
 her attention by his superficial attractions. 
 Arnault, who came across him earlier in 1796, 
 declares that he " never met a better companion 
 nor one of more equable temperament." The 
 Duchesse d'Abrantes describes him at greater 
 length. He was a friend of Junot as well as 
 of Leclerc, so that she had opportunities for 
 studying him. In appearance Charles was 
 small but well built, with a brown complexion, 
 jet-black hair, passable eyes and teeth, and 
 very small hands and feet. In his elegant 
 hussar costume, abundantly covered with gold 
 lace, he was " charming." In society his wit 
 was not of the kind which appealed to all. 
 He was much addicted to puns and similar 
 forms of humour. " A more comical man 
 could not be found," says the Duchesse. Such 
 as he was, Charles appealed not only to the 
 poet Arnault and the Duchesse d'Abrantes, 
 but also to Josephine, who was not satisfied 
 with admiring his social talents. She quickly 
 made an intimate friend of him, and the fact 
 did not escape public notice that in Napoleon's 
 
i86 
 
 The Empress Josephine 
 
 absence he was a most constant visitor at the 
 Serbelloni palace. 
 
 Rumour did not at once acquaint Napoleon 
 with the gossip of Milan, and if expressions of 
 jealousy are to be found in his letters of Sep- 
 tember, October, and November 1796, they 
 are but vague accusations of neglect and 
 coldness. Definite suspicion was not aroused 
 in his mind until after the victory of Arcoli 
 had enabled him to return to Milan. On the 
 4 frimaire (November 24) he wrote a few 
 hurried hues from Verona, sapng that he 
 hoped soon to be in the arms of her whom he 
 " loved to madness," and that only Josephine's 
 love was wanting to make her husband happy. 
 Three days later he wrote to Genoa from Milan : 
 
 " I reached Milan, I hastened into your room, 
 I left everything to see you and press you in 
 my arms. . . . You were not there. You are 
 off to the towns with their fetes, you fly from 
 me when I come, you no longer think of your 
 dear Napoleon. Caprice caused you to love 
 him, inconstancy makes you indifferent to 
 him. 
 
 " I shall be here until the gth," he concludes. 
 " Do not put yourself out. Rush after plea- 
 
An Unfortunate Absence 187 
 
 sures. Happiness was made for you. The 
 whole world is too happy if it can give you 
 pleasure, and your husband alone is very, very 
 unhappy." 
 
 A still more pitiful letter followed next day, 
 ending with the words : "I reopen my letter 
 to give you a kiss. Oh, Josephine, Josephine ! " 
 The self-abasement of a conqueror could hardly 
 have gone further. Josephine returned from 
 Genoa to be forgiven, which did not take long. 
 Her absence from Milan had been due to 
 accident, not to design. She had received an 
 invitation from the old republic of Genoa to 
 be present at some festivities, and, not expecting 
 that Napoleon would reach Milan so soon, had 
 accepted. She came back when the festivities 
 were over, and found Uttle difficulty in per- 
 suading her husband that she was rejoiced to 
 see him. Having spent less than a dozen days 
 with her since their marriage, he was easily 
 cajoled. Harmony was completely re-estab- 
 lished, and no clouds seemed to mar the bright- 
 ness of hfe at the SerbeUoni palace. Lavalette, 
 whq had just become one of the General's 
 aides-de-camp, writing of this period, says : 
 " The Commander-in-Chief was then in the full 
 
1 88 The Empress Josephine 
 
 intoxication of his married hfe. Mme. Bona- 
 parte was charming, and all the troubles of 
 command, all the cares of government of Italy, 
 could not prevent her husband from abandoning 
 himself freely to his domestic happiness." 
 
 Lavalette adds a little story of the time 
 which is worth repetition : "It was during 
 this short stay at Milan that the young painter 
 Gros made the first portrait of the General. 
 He represented him on the bridge of Lodi at 
 the moment when, flag in hand, he hurled 
 himself forward to inspire the troops. The 
 artist could not get a moment's audience, but 
 Mme. Bonaparte took her husband on her 
 knees after breakfast and held him there for a 
 few nunutes." And in this way the portrait 
 was painted. 
 
 The examples are many of the similar exercise 
 by Josephine of her power over her husband, 
 and she undoubtedly rejoiced in its exhibition. 
 It is true that in most instances the power was 
 used in obtaining trivial favours, and that 
 where she attempted to use it in more important 
 matters she failed. But there was one great 
 exception to this rule. It was not for nearly 
 fourteen years that she was unsuccessful in 
 
A Calculated Coldness? 189 
 
 exerting her fascination over Napoleon to the 
 extent of making him believe that she was the 
 wife necessary to his happiness. Neglect ^ of 
 him in his absence, and first suspicion, then 
 actual certainty of her infidelity, could not 
 estrange him any longer than for the time 
 when he was out of the circle of her witchcraft. 
 The story connecting Josephine's name with 
 that of Charles did not yet apparently reach 
 Napoleon's ears, although the hussar is said 
 to have accompanied her to Genoa on the 
 trip which prevented her from being at Milan 
 on November 27. It required the interven- 
 tion of a third party to drive him to take 
 action. 
 
 ' Imbert de Saint-Amand suggests a rather amusing theory 
 with regard to Josephine's neglect of her husband. " It is not 
 impossible," he writes ("La Citoyenne Bonaparte," 121), 
 " that Josephine's coldness was calculated. There are indeed 
 men who are attached more by resistance than by 5delding 
 and who unwittingly prefer a variable sky, now splendid, now 
 black and vexed by lightnings, to love's unclouded blue. Let 
 us not forget that Josephine had to deal with a conqueror, and 
 that love resembles war. She did not surrender, she let herself 
 be conquered. Had she been more tender, more attentive, 
 more loving, perhaps Bonaparte would have loved her less." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MILAN AND MONTEBELLO 
 
 NAPOLEON'S rest at Milan was not of 
 long duration. Soon after the beginning 
 of 1797 he was obliged to take the field once 
 more against the Austrians. In the middle of 
 January he was again in the thick of the fight. 
 By February 3, when Wurmser capitulated at 
 Mantua, three Austrian armies had been de- 
 stroyed in succession and all that remained was 
 to conquer the Holy See. Josephine had been 
 brought by her husband to Bologna before the 
 commencement of the January campaign, and 
 it was there that she received news from him 
 that he expected soon to finish his task com- 
 pletely and to send for her. We know nothing 
 about her stay at Bologna, but can gather 
 from one of Napoleon's letters that she was 
 not contented with it. " You are melancholy 
 and ill," he said on February 16, " you no 
 longer write to me, you want to go to Paris." 
 
 190 
 
Napoleon Busy 191 
 
 Three days afterwards he wrote again an- 
 nouncing that the Pope had agreed to the 
 Treaty of Tolentino and that if her health 
 permitted she might come to meet him at 
 Rimini or Ravenna. " But take care of your- 
 self, I beg you," he added. The rest of the 
 letter is an impassioned appeal for a word 
 from her. " What have I done ? . . . You 
 are either ill or you do not love me. Do you 
 think my heart is of marble ? . . . You who 
 doubtless know too well the absolute empire 
 which you have over me, write to me, think 
 of me, and love me ! " 
 
 This is the last of Napoleon's letters of the 
 Italian period preserved in Queen Hortense's 
 collection. But the war was not yet over, as 
 the General had hoped. Another Austrian 
 army, led by the Archduke Charles, had entered 
 Italy for a last effort to crush Napoleon, and 
 he marched north again to meet it. Josephine 
 likewise went northward and stopped at Mantua 
 to rest. Early in March we see her writing to 
 Hortense at Mme. Campan's to say that she 
 was recovering from an attack of fever. 
 
 " I have been rather iU at Bologna," she 
 continues. " Besides, I am growing weary in 
 
192 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Italy, in spite of all the fetes which they give 
 me and the flattering welcome which I receive 
 from the inhabitants of this beautiful country. 
 I cannot accustom myself to be separated so 
 long from my dear children ; I want to press 
 them to my heart. I have every reason, how- 
 ever, to hope that this moment is not very far 
 distant, and this helps me much to recover 
 from the indisposition from which I have been 
 suffering. . . . Write to me often. It is very 
 long since I have had news from you. Love 
 your mamma as she loves you, and you will 
 adore her. Good-bye, my good little Hortense ; 
 your mamma embraces you and loves you 
 with all her heart." 
 
 While Josephine was at Mantua, Napoleon 
 had driven back the Archduke and advanced 
 into Austrian territory. A series of successes 
 brought him almost within sight of the walls 
 of Vienna. An armistice was signed early in 
 April, followed on the i8th by the peace pre- 
 liminaries at Leoben. Then, while events were 
 leading up to the occupation of Venice by his 
 lieutenants. Napoleon rejoined Josephine. In 
 May they were once more together in the com- 
 fortable surroundings of the Serbelloni palace 
 
At Milan Again 193 
 
 at Milan. Here, if the state had been con- 
 siderable during the conqueror's previous resi- 
 dence, it was many times more magnificent 
 now. The Court of Napoleon Bonaparte had 
 begun, and in the midst of the combined as- 
 sembly of French military notables and Italian 
 aristocrats Josephine forgot her desire to return 
 to Paris. It always pleased her in later Hfe 
 to look back on this period, when the Milanese 
 people waited for hours to catch a glimpse of 
 the hero, and the hero's wife received the 
 homage which he delighted to see her sharing 
 with him. To add to her content, her son 
 Eugene had been called from France to join 
 the General's staff as aide-de-camp and lived in 
 the palace near her side. 
 
 The remaining days of May passed rapidly 
 in the midst of receptions, promenades on the 
 Corso, excursions to Como and Maggiore, and 
 aU that Milan and its neighbourhood could offer. 
 Before the end of the month a move was made 
 to Montebello, about half-way between Verona 
 and Vicenza, which Napoleon had chosen as 
 his headquarters during the hot season. Here, 
 in a chateau large enough to be a palace, the 
 whole Bonaparte family was to be lodged and 
 
 VOL. I 13 
 
194 The Empress Josephine 
 
 to make at last the acquaintance of her whom 
 their greatest representative had introduced into 
 their circle without consulting them. The 
 ordeal now awaited Josephine which hitherto 
 she had escaped. Joseph she had met in Paris 
 a year before, as we have seen, and Lucien and 
 Louis were perhaps not quite strangers to her. 
 But the part which she no doubt dreaded most 
 still remained, to meet the Bonaparte ladies, 
 mother and daughters. With what anxiety 
 must she not have thought of her thirty-four 
 years, of the complexion which required so 
 much rouge and powder to disguise its loss 
 of freshness, of the teeth whose badness she 
 must disguise by a smile which never opened 
 her lips ? And, still more, with what terror 
 must she not have reflected on the chances of 
 the betrayal by gossip of her life as a widow 
 in Paris and of her indiscretions since she had 
 by her second marriage taken the name of 
 those whom she was now about to encounter ? 
 It was a rather fortunate circumstance that 
 Mme. Letizia Bonaparte and her daughters 
 did not come to Montebello entirely in the role 
 of critics. Without waiting for the consent of 
 her illustrious son, the mother had but re- 
 
The Bonaparte Ladies 195 
 
 cently agreed to let her eldest daughter Elisa 
 (Marianna) marry FeUx Bacciochi, an officer 
 of low rank and no particular attainments, 
 the wedding having taken place on May i 
 at Marseilles. Elisa, the least good-looking of 
 the Bonapartes, tall, thin, and manly rather 
 than womanly in appearance, had already 
 reached the age of twenty, which in Corsica 
 was considered somewhat old for an unmarried 
 woman, and her mother had therefore favoured 
 the suit of Bacciochi, who was a Corsican 
 himself, of Genoese origin, and remotely con- 
 nected with the Ramolini, Mme. Letizia's own 
 family. EUsa herself, although of an am- 
 bitious nature, was eager to be married and 
 saw in her suitor merits which no one else was 
 subsequently able to discover. One of the 
 principal objects of the visit to Montebello, 
 according to Napoleon himself,' was to bring 
 about a reconciliation over this hasty wedding. 
 Another was that Napoleon should conclude a 
 match which he had arranged for his sister 
 Paulette. He, who always kept so close a 
 watch upon the affairs of his own family, was 
 weU aware that there was a danger of this 
 
 ' "MemoJres," iv., 209. 
 
196 The Empress Josephine 
 
 reckless young girl, the spoilt beauty of the 
 Bonapartes, compromising herself fatally. Only 
 seventeen years of age, she had fallen in love 
 with Freron, the Convention's Commissioner 
 Extraordinary in the South, where he had 
 proved his good republicanism by tyrannous 
 severity ; ' Freron, the man of forty, with his 
 retreating forehead, large nose, and prominent 
 eyes ; Freron, moreover, with his family of 
 illegitimate children. To this man she had 
 written, with all that temporary intensity of 
 love of which she was capable : "I swear, dear 
 Stanislas, never to love any one but you. My 
 heart is shared by none ; it is given entirely 
 to you. Who could oppose the union of two 
 souls who seek only happiness and find it in 
 each other's love ? No, my friend, neither 
 mamma nor any one else can refuse you my 
 hand." To rescue Paulette from such an 
 infatuation. Napoleon was glad to give her to 
 his friend Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, whom he 
 had first met at Toulon and had introduced to 
 his family after the siege. Leclerc, although 
 
 1 It should be added, however, that Arnault describes Freron 
 as not a bad man, " though he could act with violence when 
 stimulated by revenge or the instinct of self-preservation," 
 and as an agreeable person in society. 
 
The Montebello Gathering 197 
 
 but twenty-four, was already a general and 
 endeavoured strenuously to model himself on 
 his chief, whom he sufficiently resembled to gain 
 for himself later the nickname of le Bonaparte 
 blond. 
 
 Important, however, as were his sisters' 
 affairs. Napoleon knew as well as the others 
 that the really eventful feature of the gathering 
 at Montebello was the confronting of Josephine 
 and her relatives by marriage. He had made 
 no effort before his marriage to win over his 
 family, knowing that the task would have been 
 hopeless. He had induced Mme. Letizia and 
 Joseph to write to his wife in a moderately 
 friendly strain ; and he had endeavoured to 
 make Joseph and Josephine entertain amiable 
 feelings toward one another in Paris. He 
 could now only watch how the Bonaparte and 
 Beauharnais elements blended. It seemed at 
 first as if matters were going well. Mme. 
 Letizia, the rigid Corsican, could not be expected 
 to open her arms to the Creole-Parisian woman 
 of fashion with the damaged character. But 
 Josephine's careful consideration for her mother- 
 in-law and her air of deference conciliated 
 the elder woman, and there was no outward 
 
198 The Empress Josephine 
 
 expression of antipathy. EHsa, Paulette, and 
 CaroUne were not more inchned to commend 
 their brother's choice than any other three sisters 
 in a similar case. Elisa, however, who had 
 herself a husband on probation, was gratified 
 that Josephine treated both her and Bacciochi 
 with amiability. Caroline, no more than a 
 child still, seems always to have agreed fairly 
 well with her sister-in-law until the time when, 
 after her marriage with Murat, she conceived 
 designs upon the throne of France. But be- 
 tween Paulette and Josephine there was an 
 immediate aversion. " I have never seen so 
 much hatred between two sisters-in-law," says 
 the Duchesse d'Abrantes, whose liking was no 
 greater for Paulette than for Josephine. It 
 was a case of hate at first sight, and the younger 
 woman soon had an opportunity of gratifying 
 her spite.' 
 
 The Leclerc-Bonaparte wedding took place 
 at Montebello in the middle of 1797. Arnault's 
 description of the bride at this period of her 
 life is amusing : 
 
 ' As far as Paulette was concerned, there is no exaggeration 
 in saying, as M. Masson does (" Napoleon et sa Famille," i. 
 136), that there was a Bonaparte vendetta against the Beau- 
 harnais dating from the first day. 
 
Paulette Bonaparte 199 
 
 " If 'she was the prettiest creature one could 
 see, she was also the most unreasonable one 
 could imagine. She had the behaviour of a 
 schoolgirl, talking at random, laughing at 
 everything or nothing, mimicking the most 
 important personages, sticking out her tongue 
 at her sister-in-law when she was not looking, 
 nudging me with her knee when I did not pay 
 enough attention to her sallies, and drawing 
 upon herself from time to time those terrible 
 glances with which her brother called to order 
 the most rebellious of men. A minute later all 
 started over again, and the authority of the 
 General of the Army of Italy spent itself vainly 
 on a httle girl's giddiness." 
 
 Her marriage with Leclerc gave Paulette an 
 opportunity which she welcomed of striking a 
 blow on her brother's behalf, as she doubtless 
 told herself she was doing. On Leclerc's staff, 
 it wiU be remembered, was the young hussar 
 Hippol3d;e Charles, Arnault's " good compan- 
 ion," the society wit and dandy. Paulette 
 listened with avidity to all the stories connecting 
 the names of Charles and Josephine and repeated 
 them to Napoleon. He may have heard some 
 of them already and of the presence of Charles 
 
200 The Empress Josephine 
 
 in Genoa in the previous November. That he 
 was at length persuaded that his earher vague 
 jealousy had not been without justification 
 seems now certain. He took immediate action 
 against the hussar, but none against Josephine. 
 " At headquarters," says the Duchesse d'Ab- 
 rantes, " the report suddenly spread that the 
 Commander-in-Chief had caused the arrest of 
 M. Charles and that he was to be shot." In- 
 stead of shooting him, however, for which he 
 was well aware that he could plead no military 
 justification, although there were also accusa- 
 tions against him of improper dealings with the 
 army contractors. Napoleon contented himself 
 with dismissing him from the army, thus 
 sparing him to tempt Josephine's fidehty again 
 two years later and almost to bring about a 
 divorce. Whether Josephine had yet justified 
 the suspicions against her or had been merely 
 indiscreet, she could not restrain her tears at 
 the banishment of her friend. " My sister-in- 
 law," said Paulette subsequently to the Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes in Paris, " almost died of grief, and 
 certainly one does not die of grief at parting 
 with one's friends. There must have been 
 more than friendship in the case. As for 
 
MURAT. 
 From an ensraving after a painting by Isiibey. 
 
Suspicions Justified 201 
 
 me, I consoled my brother, who was very 
 unhappy." 
 
 There is reason to think that about this time 
 also other rumours reached Napoleon's ears, 
 connecting his wife's name with that of Murat, 
 who was said to have boasted of her favours at 
 a wine-party given by him to some brother- 
 officers of the Army of Italy .^ Probably Na- 
 poleon had nothing definite to rely upon, but 
 it is evident, from his subsequent behaviour 
 during the Egyptian and Syrian expedition, 
 that he did not forget. Nor did he forgive 
 Murat until the time of his marriage with Caro- 
 line Bonaparte at the beginning of 1800. What- 
 ever he may have said privately to Josephine, 
 however, there is no hint that he gave any out- 
 ward sign of bitterness against her. Some of 
 the biographers profess to detect a change in 
 his attitude from that of an ardent lover to that 
 of an indulgent, but not bhndly affectionate, 
 husband ; and certainly we never see again in 
 his correspondence with Josephine the language 
 of overmastering passion. 
 
 In spite of the troubles arising from Jose- 
 
 ' The story is, of course, to be found in the AbrantSs 
 Memoirs (ii. 238 ff.). 
 
202 The Empress Josephine 
 
 phine's first meeting with the ladies of her 
 husband's family and from his discovery that he 
 had not been wrong in the suggestion which he 
 had rather timidly ventured to make, that there 
 was something behind her neglect of him in his 
 absence — in spite of these, the three months 
 spent at Montebello passed, on the whole, in 
 pleasant fashion. Marmont may indeed be 
 suspected of wishing to see all in a charming 
 light when he writes in his Memoirs how " the 
 frankest and most cordial harmony reigned 
 among us all, and no circumstance or event ever 
 made any break in it." Doubtless with the 
 departure of the Bonapartes, not long after 
 Paulette's marriage to Leclerc, there came for 
 Josephine in particular a period of peaceful 
 enjoyment of the gifts of fortune. She was 
 stiU irresistible to Napoleon ; and more than 
 ever she was courted by those who wished to 
 win favour with the conqueror. Princes, towns, 
 the Cisalpine Republic, and the very Pope 
 hastened to send her presents of jewels, pictures, 
 other works of art and antiquities, some of which 
 stiU remain to decorate the rooms at Malmaison 
 which it so dehghted her to fill with her trophies. 
 The fetes also continued, and we hear nothing 
 
A Happier Period 203 
 
 now of the weariness with which they formerly 
 inspired her. In fact, her contentment with her 
 lot appears to have been greater than at any 
 time since she left Paris so unwillingly in the 
 previous year. 
 
 Only one blow seems to have come to lessen 
 her happiness — the death of Fortune. This 
 little pug-dog, whom Napoleon once told 
 Arnault that he found in possession of madame's 
 bed when he married and who showed his re- 
 sentment at the intruder by taking a piece out 
 of his leg, did not Umit his hostility to men. 
 He met the cook's dog in the garden at Monte- 
 bello, and treating him like Napoleon, found him 
 far from equally complacent. The result was 
 that Fortune was discovered dead. " It was a 
 most tragic death," writes Arnault. "I leave 
 you to imagine what was his mistress's grief. 
 The conqueror of Italy could not but show his 
 sympathy. He mourned sincerely for an acci- 
 dent which left him sole possessor of his wife's 
 bed." But Josephine consoled herself. She 
 " did as many a woman does to comfort herself 
 for the loss of a lover ; she took another." And 
 Fortune never lacked a successor during the 
 lifetime of Josephine. 
 
204 The Empress Josephine 
 
 When the three months at Montebello were 
 over. Napoleon moved to another chateau in 
 what was once Venetian territory, Passeriano, 
 whither Josephine followed him, together with 
 a number of ladies of her acquaintance. While 
 Napoleon discussed with the Austrian repre- 
 sentative the terms of the Treaty known to 
 history as that of Campo Formio, Josephine 
 amused herself with the society around her, and 
 with excursions to the neighbouring places of 
 interest, including a visit of several days' 
 duration to Venice. When the Treaty had been 
 signed, Napoleon left for Milan and thence, by 
 way of Savoy and Switzerland, for Rastadt, to 
 be present at the Congress meeting there. 
 Josephine, who still had with her Eugene, was 
 allowed to make her way back slowly in a kind 
 of triumphal progress, which began at Tiirin 
 and included the principal towns of Southern 
 France, all eager to pay her the honours which 
 they were unable at present to shower on her 
 husband. ^ 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE 
 
 WHILE Josephine remained in Italy in 
 company with Eugene, Napoleon had 
 found on his arrival at Rastadt a letter from the 
 Directory inviting him to return to Paris at 
 once. He hastened to comply, and on Decem- 
 ber 5, only five days after reaching Rastadt, was 
 back in the capital, which he had not seen since 
 he left it two days after his marriage. The 
 eagerness of the Government and the populace 
 to welcome the hero of Italy was great, although 
 in the case of the Government this feeling was 
 mixed with others which Napoleon had no 
 difficulty in divining. The Directors entertained 
 him on December lo at a magnificent fete at 
 the Luxembourg, aU hung with trophies and 
 draperies for the occasion. Before an altar to 
 La Patrie sat the five Directors, to whom the 
 victorious General was presented by Talleyrand, 
 lately made Minister of Foreign Affair^ through 
 
 205 
 
2o6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 the influence of Mme. de Stael. To the ex- 
 bishop's florid eulogy Napoleon made a brief 
 and brusque reply. He did not show to best 
 advantage at such ceremonies. Barras followed 
 with a speech still more ornate than Talleyrand's, 
 which he concluded by clasping Napoleon to 
 his breast. He was not the man to feel 
 any uneasiness over the curious bond which 
 existed between them in the person of 
 Josephine. 
 
 The Directors' entertainment, in spite of its 
 pomp, was quite thrown in the shade by that 
 given by Talleyrand, who had now no dearer 
 wish than to attach himself to the conqueror — 
 and the conqueror to him. Carnot had said of 
 him that, as he had already sold his calling, his 
 King, and his God, he would not scruple to sell 
 the Directory ; and truly no regard for the 
 Directors restrained him from courting the 
 General whose rise threatened their safety. In 
 order to make the occasion additionally agree- 
 able to Napoleon, Talleyrand waited for the 
 return of Josephine to Paris, which was not 
 until January 2, 1798, and on her arrival re- 
 quested from her a list of those whom she wished 
 to be invited. The evening was one which was 
 
Napoleon Feted in Paris 207 
 
 long remembered by all who were present ; 
 even at Saint-Helena Napoleon recalled it with 
 pleasure. The Hotel GalUfet was turned upside 
 down, and the host spent twelve thousand livres 
 on the decorations alone. Four thousand guests 
 passed up the grand staircase to the sound of 
 music from a band placed in the cupola. Within, 
 the principal object was a small shrine, built 
 in Etruscan style, in which Talleyrand had 
 placed a bust of Brutus presented to him by 
 Bonaparte. Outside, the grounds were illu- 
 minated by Bengal Hghts and guarded by 
 soldiers drawn from all the regiments in Paris. 
 Talleyrand had every reason to be pleased with 
 the success of his arrangements. He says 
 himself : " The rooms in which the company 
 gathered had been adorned with all possible 
 luxury. Every one paid me comphments. 
 ' This must have cost you a great deal, citizen 
 Minister,' said Mme. Merlin, wife of the Director, 
 to me. ' Par le Perou, madame,' I answered 
 her in the same tone." 
 
 Napoleon and Josephine arrived at half-past 
 ten, she in a Greek costume, he in civilian 
 clothes. Arnault records that Napoleon said 
 to him as they entered the ball-room : " Give 
 
2o8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 me your arm. I see numbers of importunate 
 people waiting to attack me. While we remain 
 together they will not venture to break into our 
 conversation." Others noticed that, as far as 
 possible, the General kept close to his wife during 
 the evening, causing the remark that he was 
 very much in love and excessively jealous — 
 although, says Stanislas Girardin in his journal, 
 " Mme. Bonaparte is no longer pretty ; she 
 is nearly forty, and quite looks it." 
 
 Supper was served at midnight at a table of 
 three hundred covers, the women being seated, 
 the men standing behind them. At one o'clock 
 the guest of the evening and his wife withdrew. 
 He was not destined to escape aU the " impor- 
 tunate people " lying in wait for him, since it 
 was now that the celebrated scene with Mme. 
 de Stael took place. The introduction was 
 made by Arnault, much against his wish. He 
 thus describes the meeting : * 
 
 " She overwhelmed Napoleon with compli- 
 ments. He allowed the conversation to drop. 
 She, disappointed, searched for aU possible 
 topics. ' General, which is the woman whom 
 you would love most ? ' 'My wife.' ' Very 
 
 ' "Souvenirs," iv. 27. 
 
Mme. de StagI 209 
 
 simple ; but which is the one whom you would 
 esteem most ? ' ' The one who best knows how 
 to look after her household.' ' Yes, I under- 
 stand. But which now would be for you the 
 first among women ? ' ' The one who has the 
 most children, madame.' " 
 
 This was all, for Napoleon turned away. 
 The interview was scarcely satisfactory to the 
 woman who had written to him that it was some 
 error in human institutions which had given 
 him as wife the sweet and tranquil Josephine, 
 when a soul of fire like her own was made for 
 the adoration of a hero Uke him. As she was 
 not wont to conceal her admirations, it is not 
 surprising that the story of the conversation 
 spread over Paris next day. Among those who 
 heard it with displeasure was Josephine, who 
 had a liking for Mme. de Stael and continued 
 acquaintance with her down to her last days 
 at Malmaison. She reproached Napoleon with 
 his answer, according to his own account,^ and 
 told him that Paris would accuse him of 
 narrowmindedness (faire le capucin). 
 
 Life in Paris as wife of the man of the hour 
 was without doubt to the liking of Josephine. 
 
 • Quoted in Jung's " Memoires de Lucien," ii. 235. 
 VOL. I 14 
 
2IO The Empress Josephine 
 
 Everything seemed to be going well with her/ 
 She had successfully resisted the attacks made 
 upon her concerning her conduct in Italy by 
 the Bonaparte family and others. Napoleon 
 showed great affection for her children, and 
 together they watched with delight Hortense 
 playing her part in " Esther " at Mme. Cam- 
 pan's school, where she was one of the picked 
 pupils, just as Eugene was at the Irish College. 
 At home Josephine had at last in reality become 
 the popular hostess which some of her bio- 
 graphers would make her out to have been years 
 before. The house in the rue Chantereine was 
 constantly fiUed with the leading men and 
 women of the day. During her stay in Italy 
 she had ordered its refurnishing at a cost of more 
 than one hundred and twenty thousand francs. 
 At the end of March 1798, Napoleon bought it 
 for her outright, and she proceeded to put into 
 it the spoils of Italy, her presents from towns, 
 
 ' Except, perhaps, that she was obliged to restrain her 
 spending impulses in the presence of Napoleon. But there were 
 ways of avoiding even his eye. The Duchesse d'Abrantds 
 remarks that, if Josephine had listened to him, " his conquest 
 over her prodigal spirit would have been greater than the 
 conquest of Egypt which he was about to undertake " 
 ("Memoires," i. 424). This home conquest, however, was 
 one which he was never destined to make. 
 
The Hostess of rue Chantcreinc 2ii 
 
 princes, and Pope, her statues, pictures, cameos, 
 and antiquities, so that the house became a 
 veritable monument of victory, most appropriate 
 in a street which a grateful country had just 
 renamed rue de la Victoire in compliment to 
 her husband. 
 
 The advdation and the honours, however, 
 which pleased Josephine wearied Napoleon. 
 He went so far as to refuse to attend a gala 
 performance at the Opera at which he should 
 have been the principal guest. His inaction 
 and dependence on others were galling to the 
 late dictator of Italy.' The constant gossip 
 about what he was going to do irritated him. 
 
 ' M. Masson says (" Le Sacre et le Couroimement de 
 Napoleon," p. i6) : " Although at times he seemed to be 
 seeking a way of separating his fortunes from his former 
 protectors', although he allowed some of their acts to be 
 criticised in his presence, he was not, in spite of Campo Formio, 
 in a position to do without them. There was no such state at 
 the rue Chantereine as at Montebello — no princes, ambassadors, 
 or cardinals suing for peace ; no peoples waiting on him for 
 their independence or liberty. Certainly there were a good 
 welcome, official eulogies, the renaming of the ' rue de la 
 Victoire,' the rush to see him at balls, and a great popularity. 
 But how long does that last at Paris ? Less than the fame of a 
 singer, a courtesan, a novel, or a criminal trial. ... So he 
 was in a hurry to leave, just as his old friends were in a hurry 
 to get him away. But he wanted a golden door, and this 
 must be Egypt." 
 
2 12 The Empress Josephine 
 
 especially since much of that gossip took place 
 in Josephine's salon. " All that you say," he 
 told his wife, " is considered to come from me. 
 Keep silence. In this way my enemies (and 
 you are surrounded by them) will be unable to 
 draw conclusions from your words." ' The 
 revival of the tale of his indebtedness to Barras, 
 which Josephine failed to contradict, was 
 particularly distasteful to him. For a multi- 
 tude of reasons he was anxious to leave Paris. 
 Bourrienne claims that Napoleon said to him 
 as early as January 1798 : " Bourrienne, I don't 
 want to stay here ; there is nothing to do. ... I 
 must go to the East. ... If the success of an 
 invasion of England appears to me doubtful, 
 as I fear it will, the Army of England must 
 become the Army of the East, and I shall go to 
 Egypt." 
 
 The Army of England had been one of the 
 topics most eagerly discussed in the salon of the 
 rue de la Victoire. All Paris was excited about 
 it, and it was but natural that the General's 
 wife should be besieged by those who wished to 
 find out what was on foot against the one Power 
 remaining in arms out of the great coalition 
 
 ' Duchesse d'Abrant^s, i. 426. 
 
A Suspicious Letter 213 
 
 formed in 1793 to conquer revolutionary France. 
 Napoleon, however, on receiving the command 
 of the new Army, did not allow himself to be 
 led away by the ideas of others. The words 
 which Bourrienne attributes to him may well 
 be authentic. When it came to the point, he 
 did not take long to reject the scheme for cross- 
 ing the Channel. On February 10 he started 
 on a tour of the northern ports from Boulogne 
 to Dunkerque. In eight days he had seen 
 sufficient to convince him that the idea of an 
 invasion of England was impracticable. So, as 
 he had said, the Army of England had to become 
 the Army of the East. But it was essential that 
 the plan should be kept secret, and conse- 
 quently the thought of an expedition across the 
 Channel was kept before the public as late as 
 the end of March. 
 
 It is to the period of Napoleon's tour along 
 the northern coast that the letter is assigned 
 which shows Josephine to have kept up relations 
 with Barras of which she did not wish her 
 husband to know. This letter, undated, is 
 addressed to " Citizen Botot, Secretary of 
 Director Barras, at the Luxembourg " and 
 runs : 
 
214 The Empress Josephine 
 
 " Bonaparte arrived to-night, Please, my 
 dear Botot, express my regrets to Barras that 
 I cannot come to dinner with him. Tell him 
 not to forget me. You know better than any 
 one else, my dear Botot, how I am placed. 
 Good-bye. Sincere friendship. 
 
 " Lapagerie Bonaparte." 
 
 This letter, it must be admitted, actually 
 proves nothing more than that Josephine had 
 an understanding with Barras and his secretary 
 of which her husband was ignorant. But the 
 wording of it and the fact that its recipient was 
 a man disliked by Napoleon, as well as the 
 employee of her own former protector, certainly 
 put Josephine in a bad light. It is very un- 
 fortunate for her that one of her extremely few 
 surviving letters, apart from those of mere 
 affection, should be one calculated to cast grave 
 suspicion upon her conduct at a time when other- 
 wise she might have been believed to be paying 
 better attention than usual to her position of 
 wife. 
 
 The return of Napoleon to Paris, which spoilt 
 Josephine's dinner with Barras, was the secret 
 sign of the substitution of Egypt for England 
 
The Egyptian Project 215 
 
 as the destmation of France's attack. Nothing 
 was allowed to leak out concerning the new plan, 
 and Napoleon actually started for Toulon eight 
 days in advance of his official nomination as 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the East. 
 On the evening of May 3 he and Josephine dined 
 with Barras at the Luxembourg and went to a 
 performance of " Macbeth " afterwards, with 
 Talma in the title-part. The same night they 
 quitted Paris, Josephine stiU being uncertain 
 whither they were going and leaving without 
 having said good-bye to Hortense at Mme. 
 Campan's. 
 
 The journey to Toulon is described by 
 Marmont, who with Duroc, Bourrienne, and 
 Lavalette accompanied the General and his 
 wife in one large berlin, surmounted by a vast 
 heap of luggage. Napoleon was in so great a 
 hurry to reach Toulon that he ordered the driver 
 to take a short cut, by a rough road which 
 avoided Marseilles. It was a dark night when 
 they entered upon this portion of the journey, 
 and every one inside the coach was fast asleep 
 when suddenly, during the rapid descent of a hill, 
 a violent shock awoke cdl. Jumping out, they 
 foimd themselves on the bank of a torrent. 
 
2i6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 with a broken bridge before them. The moun- 
 tain of luggage had been caught by the branch 
 of a tree and pulled up the horses within ten 
 feet of destruction. 
 
 It is rather strange that neither Lavalette 
 nor Bourrienne mentions this incident in his 
 Memoirs ; nor does Josephine when writing to 
 Hortense on May 15. Her letter merely says : 
 
 " I have been at Toulon five days, my dear 
 Hortense ; I was not at all tired by the journey, 
 but was very vexed at leaving you so pre- 
 cipitately, without saying good-bye to you or my 
 dear Caroline. But, my dear daughter, I am 
 a little consoled for this by the hope I have of 
 embracing you soon. Bonaparte does not wish 
 me to embark with him ; he wishes me to go to 
 the waters before taking the journey to Egypt. 
 He wiU send to fetch me in two months. . . ." 
 
 At Toulon, if she missed Hortense, Josephine 
 found her son Eugene, who had left the Irish 
 College of Saint-Germain to accompany his step- 
 father to Egypt as aide-de-camp. There also 
 was Emilie de Beauhamais, her niece, whose 
 marriage to Lavalette, another aide-de-camp, 
 had been accomplished by Josephine just before 
 leaving Paris. EmiUe was the daughter of the 
 
Josephine at Toulon 217 
 
 Vicomte Alexandre's elder brother Francois, 
 and had been sent by Josephine to join Hortense 
 at Mme. Campan's. The story was that Louis 
 Bonaparte, on his visits to his sister Caroline's 
 school, had seen Emilie and fallen in love with 
 her. But Josephine, for some reason, did not 
 wish her to marry Louis and insisted on her 
 taking Lavalette, although there was no attrac- 
 tion between the two. Nevertheless it must be 
 said for Josephine's benefit, that the match 
 turned out well enough, whereas the extent of 
 Louis' attachment to Emilie may be judged by 
 the fact that when, some time later, there was a 
 suggestion of a divorce in order that Louis might 
 marry Mme. Lavalette, he remarked : " Even 
 were she free, I would not marry her now. She 
 is too much marked by smallpox." An attack 
 of that disease had indeed greatly disfigured her 
 after her marriage. 
 
 The Army of the East -,et saU from Toulon 
 on May 19, 1798. Josephine went off to her 
 husband's ship, the Orient, to bid him farewell, 
 and then returned to land, to the balcony re- 
 served for her and other ladies waiting to see 
 the last of the fleet. The naval bands struck 
 up, and the warships and forts exchanged 
 
21 8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 salutes as the expedition left the harbour. 
 Several vessels nearly ran aground, including 
 the Orient, but at length all got safely away. 
 We are told that Josephine waved a tear- wet 
 handkerchief to the end. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose the tears 
 anything but genuine, for the moment. But 
 Josephine's conduct throughout her husband's 
 stay in Egypt was such as to inspire grave doubts 
 as to whether her principal feeling, as she saw 
 the Orient depart, was not one of relief. She 
 may at first have contemplated rejoining him in 
 Egypt, but if she ever had any wish to do so, it 
 certainly faded away as the claims of society 
 at Plombieres asserted their hold upon her. 
 Plombieres was the watering-place which had 
 been selected for a visit before Napoleon's de- 
 parture for Egypt. The prolongation of her 
 stay there was accidental. She was standing 
 with three friends on the wooden balcony of the 
 house hired by her, when the supports gave 
 way and precipitated all to the ground, fourteen 
 feet below. Josephine was rather badly hurt 
 and thought it necessary to summon Hortense 
 from school to see her. Her convalescence 
 lasted until August, and the solicitude of every 
 
Plombieres and Paris 219 
 
 one about her health must have been most 
 flattering to her. The local authorities supplied 
 her daily with music and flowers, and Barras 
 insisted on bulletins being sent to him regularly 
 in Paris. 
 
 There was little inducement, perhaps, to 
 recover speedily. When she felt well enough 
 to move, Josephine went, not to Egypt, but 
 to Paris. This, however, was by Napoleon's 
 orders, for he had written to her to meet the 
 newly married Mme. Marmont there and to 
 proceed with her to Naples. Thence a ship 
 might convey them to Egypt by way of Malta. 
 The news of the battle of Aboukir, closing the 
 Mediterranean to all except blockade-runners, 
 put an end to this plan. Josephine must be 
 exonerated from the accusation of a refusal to 
 go to Egypt, in spite of what her enemies say. 
 The passage was well nigh impossible to all but 
 " Napoleon and his fortunes." 
 
 Freed from the danger of being compelled 
 to leave France, Josephine found herself in a 
 sufficiently pleasant position. Before sailing 
 from Toulon, Napoleon had informed her that 
 he had arranged that she should receive forty 
 thousand francs a year during his absence, 
 
220 The Empress Josephine 
 
 payment to be made through Joseph, in whose 
 hands were placed all his funds. As long ago 
 as the time when he was in Italy he had told 
 her to look out for a suitable country house near 
 Paris. It has been mentioned that during her 
 visits to Croissy Josephine had seen the roofs 
 of Malmaison, near the village of Reuil, and 
 that she had been struck by its situation. 
 Hither she took Napoleon on his return from 
 Italy. He liked the house enough to offer the 
 owner two hundred and fifty thousand francs, 
 but in his preparations for Egypt found no 
 time to conclude the negotiations. Josephine, 
 however, signed a contract in her own name ^ 
 agreeing to give two hundred and ninety thou- 
 sand, including over thirty-seven thousand for 
 the furniture. The latter was to be paid for in 
 cash ; two hundred and ten thousand was to be 
 owed for the present. As may be imagined, 
 Josephine was obliged to draw upon Joseph 
 Bonaparte for all her year's allowance in 
 advance, and even then found a great difficulty 
 in pa}dng the interest on her debt. 
 
 ' Apparently not until April 21, 1799, although she is 
 generally made to instal herself at Malmaison soon after leaving 
 Plombidres. 
 
Malmaison 321 
 
 The main thing, however, was that Malmaison 
 was hers. The house was not altogether ideal. 
 It was dilapidated and, even when repaired, 
 somewhat resembled a barracks. It had, more- 
 over, a reputation for unhealthiness, on which 
 account some trace its name to a Norman mala 
 mansio. But its fine position and its proximity 
 to the Saint-Germain road appealed to Josephine ; 
 so did its grounds, laid out as a jardin anglais ; 
 and so did its ample accommodation, in which 
 she could house her treasures from Italy and the 
 constantly accumulating additions, for which 
 her home in the rue de la Victoire was far too 
 small. She took up her residence at Malmaison 
 with the greatest pleasure and began to decorate 
 it with her statues and mosaics, her Old Masters 
 and the rest. For new furniture, as for her 
 dresses, jewels — already worthy of figuring in 
 a story of the Arabian Nights, according to 
 Mme. de Remusat— and flowers, she could 
 only run into further debt, since the initial ex- 
 penses of Malmaison had absorbed all her cash. 
 In July 1799 she prevailed upon the unwilhng 
 Joseph to advance her (against Napoleon's 
 order) fifteen thousand francs for liabilities in 
 connection with the house. It is not sur- 
 
2 22 The Empress Josephine 
 
 prising that no attempt was made to reduce the 
 debt of two hundred and ten thousand to the 
 former proprietor. 
 
 At Malmaison now Josephine proceeded to 
 spend most of her time, except during the cold 
 season. She only visited Paris for the play and 
 other entertainments. The winter of 1798-9 
 she passed in the city, however, renewing her 
 acquaintance with the public men, especially 
 the Directors Barras, Gohier, and Rewbell, to 
 the son of the last-named of whom she was 
 supposed to wish to marry Hortense. On 
 their side, the Directors were not at all loth to 
 cultivate the wife of the Commander-in-Chief 
 in Egypt, apart from her personal charms ; for 
 she might at least know more than they knew 
 about his intentions. Josephine's salon in the 
 rue de la Victoire, therefore, was once more 
 thronged. But it seldom saw now within its 
 walls members of the Bonaparte family. 
 Napoleon being absent, the feud raged hotly. 
 Josephine's generally admired tact was unequal 
 to the task of conciliating the Bonapartes. 
 Very unwisely, heedless of the fact that they 
 were watching her with unremitting attention, 
 she both talked and acted in a way which 
 
Indiscretions 223 
 
 gave them ample opportunities to do her 
 harm. 
 
 Mme. de Remusat, for instance, tells of a visit 
 which she and her mother paid to Malmaison. 
 " Mme. Bonaparte," she says, " by nature 
 expansive and often a little indiscreet, no sooner 
 met my mother again than she unbosomed 
 herself of a large number of confidences about 
 her absent husband, her brothers-in-law, and 
 a whole world of people who were absolute 
 strangers to us. Bonaparte was given up as 
 almost lost to France, his wife was neglected. 
 My mother took pity on her, we paid her some 
 attentions, which she never forgot." 
 
 The last two sentences show that this visit 
 was paid in the summer of 1799. The quotation 
 illustrates generally Josephine's lack of proper 
 reticence when she found any one ready to be 
 confidant of her griefs, which thus were assured 
 of a wide audience. 
 
 But worse indiscretions than mere gossiping 
 about her husband and his family put Josephine 
 at the mercy of her enemies. It was probably 
 during the winter season in Paris that she met 
 again the Hippolyte Charles whose prospects 
 in the army Napoleon had summarily blighted 
 
224 The Empress Josephine 
 
 in Italy. This re-encounter with the gay young 
 man nearly cost Josephine an early divorce. 
 It was Josephine's good nature, according to 
 her friends, which led her to notice Charles 
 again in Paris, and, by introducing him to the 
 Compagnie Bodin, a firm of contractors, to 
 endeavour to repair the damage which Napoleon 
 had done to his career in Italy. Charles showed 
 an aptitude for making money out of the Army 
 to which he had once belonged ; moreover, he 
 had experience of contractors. To express his 
 gratitude for her assistance he called at Mal- 
 maison. The moderate versions of the story 
 make him become thereafter a frequent visitor, 
 who stopped late strolling in the park at Mal- 
 maison with his hostess. As only a ditch 
 separated the park from the road to Saint- 
 Germain, passers-by could see them in the moon- 
 light, Josephine in her white dress and scarf, 
 Charles in his black or blue clothes. The 
 villagers, ignorant of the facts, told how the 
 lady loved "her brother." Others, better in- 
 formed, had a different tale to tell. Laurette 
 Permon was acquainted with what was going 
 on through a friend of her mother, and she felt 
 no doubt as to Josephine's guilt. She writes 
 
Charles Again 225 
 
 in her Memoirs ^ that " M. Charles hved at 
 Mahnaison quite as if he were its master. 
 Friends have their privileges." 
 
 Josephine of course must have been well 
 aware what a weapon against her the scandal 
 about Charles would prove in the hands of the 
 Bonapartes ; and she did not altogether neglect 
 to provide herself with friends whose respecta- 
 bility was unimpeachable, in order that she 
 might caU them as witnesses to character. In 
 particular she cultivated the society of Gohier, 
 the President of the Directory, and his wife, 
 against whom no one could bring any complaint 
 on the score of morals at least ; for Gohier had 
 married his cook. To this eminently trust- 
 worthy household Josephine paid more and 
 more visits as time went on. Now Gohier was 
 not unaware of the stories in circulation about 
 Josephine, and, according to the Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes, after faihng to persuade her that 
 she ought to break off all relations with Charles, 
 advised her to work for a divorce. " You tell 
 me that you and M. Charles feel nothing but 
 friendship for one another," he is represented 
 as saying. " But if this friendship is so exclusive 
 
 ' Duchesse d'Abrantfis, " M6moires," iii. 207-10. 
 VOL. I 15 
 
226 The Empress Josephine 
 
 of all else that it makes you fly in the face of 
 convention, I must tell you the same as if it 
 were a case of love : Get a divorce ! " 
 
 If this speech of Gohier's is truly reported, 
 Josephine's position must indeed have been 
 desperate. She had other reasons for thinking 
 so, too, besides Gohier's warning. One evening 
 she went into Paris from Malmaison to a dinner 
 given by Barras at the Luxembourg. The 
 guests included the Talliens and Talleyrand, 
 and the last-named sat between Josephine and 
 Mme. Tallien. Less than two years ago the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs had been at Jose- 
 phine's feet, nor had he neglected to pay her 
 court since then. But this evening he gave no 
 attention to her and devoted all his time to 
 his other neighbour. So marked was his conduct 
 that at length Josephine rose from the table, 
 went into another room, and wept. What 
 could be the explanation of Talleyrand's be- 
 haviour ? Since it could hardly be that he had 
 received early private intelligence of Napoleon's 
 death in Egypt, it must be that he had news 
 of a determination to divorce Josephine. Only 
 if he were certain of her approaching disgrace 
 could he dare to treat her as he did this night 
 
An Anxious Moment 227 
 
 at the Luxembourg. But it was too late to do 
 anything. There was but one chance, to see 
 Napoleon as soon as he returned, before any one 
 else could get to him. " If only I am the first 
 to see him, he will throw himself into my arms." 
 Such are the words attributed to her when she 
 knew that he was in France. His arrival must 
 have been at once dreaded by her and recognised 
 as her only hope. 
 
 There was not long to wait now for the 
 critical moment. On the evening of October 10 
 she was at the Luxembourg again, dining this 
 time with Gohier and his wife. Suddenly the 
 news came to the President of the Directory that 
 Napoleon had landed on the previous night at 
 Frejus in Provence. It was a moment to make 
 aU feel anxious. Josephine, striving to hide 
 all personal emotion, addressed herself to 
 Gohier. " President, do not be afraid that 
 Bonaparte comes with intentions hostile to 
 liberty. But you must unite to prevent him 
 faUing into bad hands. I am going to meet him. 
 It is important for me not to be anticipated by 
 his brothers, who have always detested me." 
 It is Gohier himelf who reports this speech, in 
 his Memoirs. Josephine then looked at Mma 
 
228 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Gohier, he says, and added : " However, I 
 have nothing to fear from calumny. When 
 Bonaparte learns that my favourite society has 
 been with you he will be as flattered as he will 
 be grateful for the welcome which I have had 
 in your house during his absence." 
 
 This was certainly putting on a brave face, 
 but her listeners can hardly have been deceived 
 into crediting Josephine with the confidence 
 which she professed. In the eyes of all who 
 had watched the drama it must have appeared 
 that the curtain was about to go up on the 
 final scene, when the sinning wife was to pay for 
 the offences which she had committed against 
 so fond and forgiving a husband. The scene 
 was indeed a final one, but not of the drama 
 of the married life of Josephine and Napoleon. 
 It was final, to our knowledge, as far as the 
 story of Josephine's unfaithfulness is concerned, 
 With regard to her life as wife to Napoleon, 
 however, it may be said to be only the end of 
 the introductory act. 
 
From 
 
 NAPOLEON" BONAPARTE. 
 1 engraving after the picture by J. Gu^rin 
 
 p. 223, 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 NAPOLEON'S RETURN FROM EGYPT 
 
 IN order to understand what was the position 
 of affairs when Josephine and Napoleon 
 met in October 1799, it is necessary to go back 
 to the summer of the previous year, when 
 Josephine was still at Plombieres recovering 
 from her accident. In August 1798 a French 
 vessel was captured at the mouth of the Nile 
 by English warships. Among the correspond- 
 ence on board was found a letter dated July 25 
 and written by Napoleon to his brother Joseph. 
 The latter, of course, never received it, but part 
 of it was printed in the English papers. The 
 most important sentences, as far as we are 
 concerned, are as follows : 
 
 " I may be in France within two months. I 
 commend my affairs to you. I have great 
 domestic trouble, for the veil has been entirely 
 removed. ... It is a sad state of affairs to 
 have at the same time all kinds of feelings in 
 
 229 
 
23° The Empress Josephine 
 
 the same heart toward one and the same person 
 — you understand what I mean. See that I 
 have a coimtry house on my arrival, either near 
 Paris or in Burgundy. I expect to pass the 
 winter there and to shut myself up. I am tired 
 of human nature. I have need of solitude 
 and isolation. Greatness wearies me, feeling is 
 dried up, glory is unmeaning. ... I mean to 
 keep my house. I will never give it up to any 
 one, whoever it may be." 
 
 From this letter it is plain that as early as 
 the July after he had left Toulon Napoleon con- 
 templated a separation from Josephine ; since 
 for no other reason could he require a new 
 country house, when Josephine had already 
 bought Malmaison, nor would he have an- 
 nounced his determination not to give up to 
 any one the house in the rue de la Victoire, which 
 he had taken over from Josephine. By whom 
 then had the veil been " entirely removed " 
 since he left France ? Not by Joseph, for there 
 would in that case have been some indication 
 of the fact in Napoleon's letter. It has been 
 suggested that during the voyage from Toulon 
 to Alexandria Napoleon had questioned some 
 of his old comrades of the Army of Italy and 
 
The Veil Removed 23^ 
 
 had been enlightened by them with regard to 
 the relations between Josephine and Charles — 
 and perhaps Murat also. M. Masson has, how- 
 ever, published^ a letter written by Eugene to 
 his mother, dated one day previous to the 
 above quoted letter from Napoleon to Joseph. 
 The boy says herein : 
 
 " Bonaparte for five days seemed very melan- 
 choly, and this followed after a talk which he had 
 with Julien, Junot, and also Berthier. He was 
 more affected than I should have beUeved by 
 these conversations. All that I heard amounted 
 to this, that Charles came in your carriage to 
 within three post-stations of Paris, that you 
 have seen him in Paris, that you have been to 
 the fourth tier of the Italiens with him, that 
 he gave you your little dog, and that he is even 
 at this moment with you. This is all that I 
 could overhear, in broken words. You know 
 quite well, mamma, that I do not believe this, 
 but what is certain is that the General is much 
 affected. Nevertheless he has redoubled his 
 kindness to me. He seems by his actions to 
 wish to say that the children are not answerable 
 for the faults of their mother. But your son 
 
 1 "Josephine rfepudi^e," 17-18. 
 
232 The Empress Josephine 
 
 chooses to think all this gossip the invention of 
 your enemies. He does not love you the less 
 for it, nor desire the less to embrace you. I 
 hope when you come all will be forgotten. ..." 
 
 This passage in Eugene's letter certainly 
 sheds light on a difficult question, although it 
 does not reveal how the scandal about Josephine 
 and Charles reached Egypt. Whatever the 
 ultimate source of his information. Napoleon 
 seems to have been temporarily calmed by 
 extreme pressure of work, for we hear of no 
 further outbreak until we come to the date of 
 the celebrated conversation with Junot at the 
 springs of the Messoudiah on February 17, 1799. 
 It seems clear that in February Napoleon re- 
 ceived some news from Paris which aroused him 
 to fury, whether it related to past affairs or 
 to Josephine's continued acquaintance with 
 Charles.* 
 
 The scene at the Messoudiah springs is 
 described by Bourrienne, whose account per- 
 haps deserves more beHef than many of his 
 stories, in that, although he is always a witness 
 
 '■ Bourrienne says that, though Bonaparte did not tell him, 
 he had " plenty of reasons for thinking that Murat's name had 
 been coupled with that ol Charles in the indiscretions of 
 Junot at the source of the Messoudiah." 
 
The Messoudiah Scene 233 
 
 most friendly to Josephine, what he here 
 narrates puts her in an unfavourable light. 
 
 " I saw Bonaparte," writes Bourrienne, 
 " walking alone with Junot, as often happened. 
 I was a little distance away, and I do not 
 know why my eyes were fixed on him during 
 this conversation. The always pale face of 
 the General had become even paler than usual, 
 without my being able to guess the reason. 
 There was something convulsive about it, 
 something wild in his looks, and several times 
 he struck his head. After a quarter of an 
 hour's talk he left Junot and came back toward 
 me. I had never seen him with so discontented 
 and preoccupied an air. I went forward to 
 meet him, and as soon as we were together he 
 said to me in a brusque, hard tone : ' You don't 
 care for me at aU. . . . These women ! Jose- 
 phine ! ... If you had cared for me, you would 
 have told me all that I have just learnt from 
 Junot. He is a true friend. Josephine ! . . . 
 and I am six hundred leagues away. You 
 ought to have told me. Josephine ! . . . To 
 think that she should have deceived me so ! . . ; 
 She ! . . . Curse them 1 I will wipe out this 
 race of fops and coxcombs . As for her, 
 
234 The Empress Josephine 
 
 divorce ! . . . Yes, divorce, a public and sensa- 
 tional divorce ! . . . I must write ! I know 
 everything. ... It is your fault. You ought 
 to have told me about it." 
 
 The secretary tried to calm his General and 
 to persuade him not to listen to jealous slanders. 
 It was necessary, he said, to avoid such a 
 scandal in his position. When he spoke, 
 however, of Napoleon's future and of his glory, 
 Napoleon broke in : " My glory ? Oh, I don't 
 know what I would give not to have what 
 Junot told me true, I love this woman so ! If 
 Josephine is guilty, I must have a divorce to 
 separate us for ever. I don't want to be the 
 laughing-stock of all the idlers of Paris. I 
 shall write to Joseph. He wiU get a divorce 
 for me." 
 
 The Duchesse d'Abrantes denies the truth 
 of Bourrienne's account. But she was Junot's 
 wife and would naturally not wish him to 
 appear as the accuser of his future Empress. 
 It is certain that Josephine never afterwards 
 had a friendly feeling for either Junot or his 
 wife — the latter of whom has taken a voluminous 
 revenge in her Memoirs. 
 
 An independent, though naturally not un- 
 
PRINCE EUGKNIi DE BEAUHARNAIS. 
 
 From a painting at Versailles. Photo by Neurdin Frtres. 
 
Exigtnt and Napoleon 235 
 
 biassed, \Adtness to Napoleon's trouble of mind 
 at this period is Eugene de Beauharnais. The 
 seventeen-year-old aide-de-camp found himself 
 in a very unpleasant position while his step- 
 father was receiving the damaging accusations 
 against his mother. Eugene says in his 
 Memoirs : 
 
 " Although I was very young, I inspired 
 him with sufficient confidence in me to cause 
 him to reveal his trouble to me. It was 
 usually in the evening that he made his com- 
 plaints and confidences to me, taking long 
 strides up and down his tent. I was the only 
 one to whom he could unbosom himself freely. 
 I tried to soften his resentment and consoled 
 him as best I could and as much as my age 
 and the respect I felt for him allowed me." 
 
 Eugene's difficulty became greater still when, 
 in his disgust at his betrayal, and after his 
 return from Syria to Egypt, Napoleon took 
 up Mme. Foures, wife of an officer in the 
 chasseurs.' So public was this affair — his first 
 
 1 Bourrienne says it was in September ijgS that Napoleon 
 " fell violently in love with Mme. Fourds, the wife of an 
 infantry lieutenant. She was very pretty, and her charms 
 were enhanced by the rarity in Egypt of women calculated to 
 please European eyes. Bonaparte took for her a house 
 
23^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 infidelity to Josephine since their marriage — 
 that " Our Lady of the East " became a 
 commonplace in the mouths of the Army in 
 Egypt. Naturally relations were now strained 
 between Eugene and his step-father. Eugene 
 writes guardedly : 
 
 " General Bonaparte paid some attention to 
 a certain officer's wife and sometimes drove 
 out with her. People did not fail to say she 
 was his mistress, so that my position, both as 
 aide-de-camp and as son of the General's wife, 
 grew painful. Forced by my duties to ac- 
 company the General, who never went out 
 without his aide-de-camp, I had already allowed 
 myself to accompany the carriage once when, 
 unable to bear the humiliation any longer, I 
 sought out General Berthier and asked him 
 for permission to join a regiment. This step 
 was followed by a sharp scene between my 
 step-father and myself, but he ceased from 
 this moment to take his rides with the lady. 
 
 adjoining Elfy Bey's palace, which we occupied. He frequently 
 ordered dinner to be prepared there, and I used to go with 
 him at seven o'clock and to leave him at nine. The connection 
 soon became the general subject of gossip at headquarters." 
 Napoleon, he adds, sent Four& home on a mission to the 
 Directory, but the English captured him and maliciously sent 
 hira back to Egypt. 
 
Mme. Fourfes 237 
 
 I remained with him, and he treated me none 
 the worse for what had happened." 
 
 Eugene Beauharnais was loyal to his patron, 
 as well as a dutiful and affectionate son, and 
 he has minimised the extent of Napoleon's 
 intrigue with Mme. Foures. With regard to 
 his mother, he probably felt that he could 
 more easily love than excuse her. He admits 
 that when, having decided to return to France, 
 Napoleon came to him and said : " Eugene, 
 you are going to see your mother again," his 
 joy was not as great as it ought to have been. 
 
 Leaving Egypt on the night of August 22-3, 
 and breaking their voyage in Corsica, Napoleon 
 and Eugene landed at Frejus on October 9, 
 having successfully escaped the EngUsh cruisers 
 in the Mediterranean. The journey from Frejus 
 to Aix was made by night along a road hghted 
 by the torches of an enthusiastic crowd. At 
 Avignon, Valence, and Lyon the welcome was 
 equally warm for the expected deliverer of 
 France from over-taxation, anarchy, and in- 
 ternal revolt. One day's halt was made at 
 Lyon, during which time Napoleon could not 
 stir without the attentions of a wildly applauding 
 mob. The fears of the Directory concerning 
 
238 The Empress Josephine 
 
 his return were amply justified in the first 
 hours spent by Napoleon in France. 
 
 There were other eyes, however, as anxious 
 in their way as the Directors', watching for 
 Napoleon's arrival. And not all the watchers 
 were content to wait. Josephine on the 
 morning after the Gohiers' dinner started 
 off to Lyon ; so did his brothers Joseph, 
 Lucien, and Louis, and his brother-in-law 
 and friend Leclerc — Josephine with the 
 thought, " If only I am the first to see 
 him he will throw himself into my arms," 
 the brothers burning with zeal to anticipate 
 her. Now it happened, unfortunately for 
 Josephine, that it was possible for Napoleon 
 to proceed from Lyon to Paris by either of 
 two ways. He actually chose the Bourbonnais 
 route, and taking only Eugene with him, 
 hastened in a light carriage toward Paris. On 
 the way he met Joseph, Lucien, and Leclerc, 
 Louis having fallen ill and remained behind. 
 Josephine, knowing Napoleon's affection for 
 the Burgundian country, had taken the other 
 road and arrived at Lyon to find him gone. 
 An immediate return brought her to Paris 
 again forty-eight hours after Napoleon, and at 
 
The Race for Napoleon 239 
 
 least three days after his meeting with his 
 brothers. They had had full time to do their 
 worst, and Josephine might well despair. 
 
 The great desire of the Bonapartes, the end 
 for which they had been observing their sister- 
 in-law's conduct for so long, was that they 
 should get hold of Napoleon and persuade him, 
 before he reached Paris, that he must put his 
 wife away at once. They saw the coup d'Etat 
 coming which might put their brother at the 
 head of the Government. Josephine must not 
 be allowed, even for a day, to share with 
 Napoleon the first place. All had fallen out 
 well for them. They poured their complaints — 
 his wrongs — ^into his ears, and when he arrived 
 at the rue de la Victoire he knew the worst 
 that they could say about her. Possibly he 
 intended to give her a hearing before coming 
 to any decision. When he reached his house, 
 however, he fovmd aU his own family there, 
 but no Josephine. Was she ill ? he demanded. 
 The only answer was a smile, than which 
 nothing could suggest worse. The shock was 
 terrible and profound, says the Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes, who claims to be well acquainted 
 with all that was passing. " He thought that. 
 
240 The Empress Josephine 
 
 as he did not find her in the midst of his 
 family, supported by his sisters, presented by 
 his mother, she felt herself unworthy of their 
 protection and was flying the very presence of 
 him whom she had dishonoured. The mis- 
 take about the roads seemed to him a mere 
 excuse." 
 
 Josephine was not left entirely unbefriended, 
 though the advocate who appeared could only 
 use arguments like those of Bourrienne at the 
 Messoudiah springs. An acquaintance of both 
 husband and wife, CoUot, came to the rue de 
 la Victoire. " There will be nothing in future 
 between her and me," declared Napoleon. 
 " What, are you going to leave her ? " " Has 
 she not deserved it ? " "I do not know, but 
 is this the time to think about it ? " asked 
 Collot, who begged him to remember that 
 France's eyes were upon him and would only 
 see in him, if he engaged in domestic quarrels 
 now, " one of Moliere's husbands." Napoleon 
 listened to the end and then only said that 
 Josephine should never set foot in his house, 
 but must go to Malmaison. The public knew 
 too much to make any mistake about the 
 reasons for her departure. CoUot told him 
 
The Locked Door 241 
 
 that his very violence proved that he was still 
 in love. " She wiU come and make her ex- 
 cuses, you will forgive her, and all will be 
 peace." " I forgive her ? Never ! " cried the 
 irritated Napoleon. " How little you know 
 me ! If I were not sure of myself I would 
 tear my heart out and throw it on the fire." 
 He stopped, almost choked with his vehemence, 
 and put his hand to his breast as if he meant 
 to fulfil his threat. 
 
 But the celebrated scene was at hand which 
 has left the greatest impression on the popular 
 imagination in connection with the story of 
 Napoleon and Josephine. Josephine arrived 
 by night from her futile journey to Lyon, and 
 entered the house in the rue de la Victoire. 
 Napoleon was locked up in his private study 
 and refused absolutely to see her. He walked 
 up and down the room with long strides, 
 furiously angry and declaring that he had 
 been too kind to her in Italy, but now he would 
 never see her again, never ! Outside stood 
 Josephine knocking at the door, weeping and 
 dishevelled, crying : " Open the door, mon 
 ami, mon bon ami, I will explain everything. . . . 
 Oh, he won't open it ! . . . What have you 
 
 VOL. I 16 
 
242 The Empress Josephine 
 
 against me, tell me ? . . . Oh, if you knew 
 all the harm you are doing me ! " 
 
 Napoleon took no apparent notice of her 
 sobs and cries. Easily moved as he usually 
 was by tears, on this occasion he could not see 
 them and had the strength to resist them. In 
 her desperation she rolled upon the floor and 
 struck her head against the door. At length 
 an idea came to her. There were her children, 
 for whom he had always shown an affection 
 rare in a step-father, and whom he had seemed 
 to love as being part of his wife. Could he 
 turn them away now, along with her ? Eugene 
 and Hortense came at their mother's bidding. 
 Napoleon did not refuse to see them, and 
 they entered his room. 
 
 " Bonaparte was reduced to silence," says 
 the Duchesse d'Abrantes, who describes the 
 events with extreme minuteness, " and could 
 offer no opposition to the irresistible appeal of 
 two young and innocent creatures kneeling 
 at his knees, bathing his hands with their 
 tears, and each repeating : ' Don't abandon 
 my mother, it will kill her. And must we 
 poor orphans, whose natural guardian has 
 already been torn from us by the scaffold, must 
 
Forgiveness 243 
 
 we unjustly be robbed of the guardian whom 
 Providence sent us ? ' " 
 
 The struggle was over. " Go and fetch your 
 mother," said the man who had declared 
 himself inflexible. Josephine was lying on 
 the stairs outside his room. She was lifted 
 up and brought in. She fell into his arms 
 without a word, though not without a tear, 
 and then probably fainted — which was better 
 diplomacy than the promised explanation. 
 Napoleon raised her and carried her to his bed. 
 Perhaps she explained all then. At any rate, 
 at seven next morning Lucien Bonaparte re- 
 ceived a summons to come to the rue de la 
 Victoire and was ushered into a room where 
 he found his brother and his sister-in-law still 
 in bed. Nothing could have shown him so 
 briefly that the schemes against Josephine 
 had failed. 
 
 Josephine could hardly have hoped for an 
 easier victory, after the Bonaparte family had 
 beaten her so decidedly in the race to reach 
 Napoleon first. StiU, her anguish outside the 
 door, the genuineness of which it is impossible 
 -to doubt, was not without its permanent effect 
 upon her. This night seems to have been the 
 
244 The Empress Josephine 
 
 turning-point of her life, in one respect. We 
 do not again hear of her wifely unfaithfulness. 
 She was still the old Josephine who concealed 
 her extravagant debts from her husband, above 
 all men, and made a confidant of almost any one 
 before him, but she no longer betrayed him 
 with a Barras, a Murat, or a Charles. Her 
 narrow escape from a shameful divorce had 
 shown her that she had trusted almost too 
 much in the forgiveness which had not failed 
 her before ; and her amendment of her ways, in 
 this particular, appears to have been complete. 
 The generosity of Napoleon was decidedly 
 remarkable. He only stipulated that Josephine 
 should never again see Hippolyte Charles, who 
 thereupon passes out of the history in which 
 he played so small and ignoble a part. But 
 Napoleon never forgot his hatred of him, and 
 no one ever ventured to mention the name of 
 Hippolyte Charles in his presence again. One 
 day, long after, the Emperor was walking arm 
 in arm with Duroc to see the Austerlitz Bridge 
 just then in the course of construction. A 
 cab passed them in the street, and Duroc felt 
 the weight on his arm suddenly grow heavy. 
 He turned and saw Napoleon looking pale and 
 
Napoleon and Charles 245 
 
 faint. " What is it ? " he cried in alarm. 
 " Nothing," said Napoleon peremptorily, " be 
 quiet ! " The occupant of the cab weis Charles. 
 
 With regard to Murat, there is no evidence 
 that Napoleon said anything to Josephine now, 
 but it was evident later that his indiscretion, 
 whatever it amounted to, was not forgotten 
 either. The only bitter comment on the situa- 
 tion which we find attributed to Napoleon 
 is his remark to Real : " The warriors from 
 Egypt are like those from the siege of Troy, 
 and their wives have been equally faithful." 
 
 Bourrienne adds a paragraph to the story 
 of the reconciliation which is interesting if true. 
 Collot, Josephine's advocate of a day or two 
 before, was invited to breakfast on the morning 
 after all was over. " Well, she is here," said Na- 
 poleon to him as soon as they were alone. He 
 went on to explain how he had come to break 
 his resolve. " As she went downstairs weeping, 
 I saw Eugene and Hortense following her with 
 tears. I have not the kind of heart which can 
 bear to see tears flowing. Eugene was with 
 me in Egypt and I have been accustomed to 
 look on him as my adopted son. He is a brave 
 and good boy. Hortense is just about to come 
 
246 The Empress Josephine 
 
 out into the world. All who know her speak 
 well of her to me. I confess, Collot, that I was 
 deeply moved. I could not resist the sobs 
 of these two poor children. I asked myself, 
 Ought they to be victims of the faults of their 
 mother ? I kept Eugene, Hortense fetched her 
 mother. What could I do ? One can't be a 
 man without being weak." " You may be sure 
 they will repay you," said Collot. " They 
 ought to, Collot, they ought to, for it has cost 
 me dear enough." 
 
 There were others, of course, affected by 
 the reconciliation beside the two principals 
 and the Beauharnais children. The Bonaparte 
 brothers, especially Joseph and Lucien, would 
 have found it hard to conceal their vexation 
 at the failure which had befallen them when 
 everything seemed to promise success ; but 
 there were the great events of brumaire to 
 prepare for, and it was necessary to patch up 
 a domestic truce in order to devote all energies 
 to public affairs. Of the women of the family, 
 although Josephine had not a friend in one of 
 them, none openly displayed any displeasure 
 at what had happened except Paulette (Mme. 
 Leclerc) ; and she was so much in the habit of 
 
Effect of the Reconciliation 247 
 
 speaking her mind on all occasions that little 
 attention was paid to her. Mme. Letizia, how- 
 ever, could not altogether conceal her feelings, 
 little though she was wont to talk unguardedly. 
 Speaking to her old friend Mme. Permon, who 
 asked her why she did not go to the rue de la 
 Victoire for some information which she wanted, 
 she said : " Signora Panoria, I do not go there 
 to satisfy my heart, but to Julie's or Christine's. 
 There I see my sons happy. As for the other 
 one ... no, no ! " So saying she tightened 
 her lips and opened her eyes, as was character- 
 istic of her when deeply interested in what she 
 was talking about.^ There could be no doubt 
 that she regretted that Napoleon had not 
 repudiated his wife. 
 
 1 Duchesse d'Abrantds, " Memoires," ii. 127. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 JOSEPHINE AND BRUMAIRE 
 
 AS soon as she had obtained forgiveness for 
 her infideHty during 1798-9, Josephine 
 was given a part to play in the preparations for 
 the coup d'Etat which is surprisingly large in 
 view of what we know of Napoleon's detes- 
 tation of the interference of women in politics. 
 As late as the time of his return from Italy, he 
 had forbidden his wife to talk of public affairs 
 " since she knew nothing about them." But 
 now he felt the need of a certain help which 
 she, and no one else, was able to give him. 
 He was himself out of touch with the society 
 of the period. His family could aid him little 
 here. Joseph and Lucien, although they had 
 undoubtedly been playing for their own hands 
 rather than for his, had influence with the 
 Councils, the elder as a lobbyist, the younger 
 as an orator ; but they could not influence 
 sections of the great world of Paris on whom 
 
 248 
 
Josephine in Politics 249 
 
 it was imperative for Napoleon to have a hold. 
 Josephine, however, could do so. Seldom as 
 she may have thought of her absent husband 
 in Egypt, she had maintained connections which 
 were capable of being used for his great ad- 
 vantage after his return to Paris. The love 
 which she manifested, throughout life, of a 
 " pull " with those in authority was at the 
 present moment of the utmost service to the 
 man whom she had wronged. Gohier, Rewbell, 
 and, of course, Barras were her friends among 
 the Directors. The Directory which, in Na- 
 poleon's own words, trembled at his home- 
 coming was most amiable to the wife of him 
 whom they feared. Then, again, Josephine's 
 liking for the old aristocracy and the leaders 
 of fashion was also useful. Her talent for 
 cajolery had a full opportunity for display, and 
 that talent was very real. She was very different 
 now from the young girl whom the Vicomte de 
 Beauharnais had despaired of being able to 
 teach. She had learnt to be a graceful and 
 attractive hostess. 
 
 A picture drawn by Arnault of one of the 
 evenings in the rue de la Victoire illustrates 
 this better than any other description could. 
 
25° The Empress Josephine 
 
 " Josephine," writes Arnault, " did the honours 
 of her salon more gracefully than ever. There 
 might be seen there men of every party, generals, 
 deputies, Royalists, Jacobins, abbes, a Minister, 
 and even the President of the Directory. To 
 judge by the air of superiority of the master of 
 the house, one might have thought him already 
 a monarch amid his court." On the night in 
 question, Fouche, the Minister of Police, ar- 
 rives late, and as he seats himself by Josephine 
 is asked by Gohier for the latest news. Fouche 
 speaks of the rumours of conspiracy, and after 
 begging them to trust him to deal with it, 
 bursts into a laugh. How can he laugh at 
 such things ? asks Josephine. Gohier (who is 
 not in the conspiracy) reassures her : "Be 
 easy, citizeness ; when a man talks of such 
 things before ladies, it is because he does not 
 think that he will have to act. Be like the 
 Government — don't worry yourself about these 
 rumours. Sleep in peace 1 " 
 
 Near at hand stood Napoleon, listening with 
 a smile. It was on the eve of the contemplated 
 upset of the Government by the conspiracy of 
 which Gohier knew so little and the others so 
 much. 
 
Preparations for the Coup d'Etat 251 
 
 The stroke had been planned for the 16 bru- 
 maire an VIII. (November 7, 1799) ; but a 
 postponement was made for two days. As 
 President of the Directory, Gohier was mean- 
 while the object of the politest attentions from 
 Bonaparte and his wife. While the husband 
 told Gohier that it would give him great pleasure 
 to dine with him on the i8th, the wife had a 
 still more important task entrusted to her — 
 nothing less than an attempt to force the 
 President into joining the attack on the Govern- 
 ment. It had been arranged that at six in the 
 morning of the 18 brumaire, the officers of the 
 army in Paris and the National Guard should 
 meet at Napoleon's house. At midnight on 
 the 17th Josephine sent Eugene to the Luxem- 
 bourg with an invitation for Gohier and his 
 wife to breakfast with her next morning. " Do 
 not fail to come," she wrote. " I have some 
 very interesting matters to talk about to you." 
 Gohier in his Memoirs says that the hour men- 
 tioned by " the good Josephine " seemed to 
 him suspicious. He therefore told his wife 
 to go alone and to tell her hostess that he 
 would have the honour of calling later. She 
 arrived at the appointed hour and found the 
 
252 The Empress Josephine 
 
 house full of officers. Napoleon greeted her 
 with the remark that Gohier must come. Would 
 she write to teU him so ? Mme. Gohier wrote, 
 sending the note by her own servant. But 
 what she said to her husband was that he had 
 done right in staying away, as everything 
 pointed to a trap. When the message had 
 gone, Josephine came up to her and said : 
 " What you notice must make you foresee the 
 inevitable. I cannot tell you how grieved I 
 am that Gohier has not accepted my invita- 
 tion. I planned it with Bonaparte, who wants 
 the President of the Directory to be one of 
 the members of the Government which he pro- 
 poses to set up. When I sent the letter by 
 my son's hands, it ought to have shown him 
 what importance I attached to it." 
 
 Mme. Gohier insisted that she must go back 
 to her husband, as she was not wanted where 
 she was. Josephine would not detain her, but 
 begged her, as she left, to use all her influence 
 to win her husband to join them. " I must 
 warn you," she said at parting, '' that at this 
 moment Talleyrand and Bruix are with Barras, 
 asking him to resign, which he will doubtless 
 not refuse to do. Besides, they are authorised 
 
i8 and 19 Brttmaire 253 
 
 to tell him that Bonaparte is quite determined 
 to use aU means, even force, if he ventures to 
 make the slightest resistance." Even after the 
 wife's departure she did not abandon all hope 
 of persuading the husband, but sent to him 
 a joint friend of theirs to let him know that 
 if he merely refrained from opposing the con- 
 spirators he should have the Ministry of Justice 
 in the new Government. Gohier takes some 
 pride in his refusal of this offer ; but, though 
 he wrote a letter (intercepted by Napoleon) 
 denouncing the plot to the Five Hundred, he 
 became reconciled later, and in two years' 
 time accepted the post of Consul-General in 
 HoHand. 
 
 Josephine's exertions to win over the Gohiers 
 seem to prove her gratitude to her respectable 
 friends, who she had once thought might 
 justify her conduct in Napoleon's eyes. The 
 story also shows her entrusted with a task of 
 no little importance in the conspiracy of bru- 
 maire. For the remainder of the two days 
 during which Napoleon established his hold on 
 the leading place in the Repubhc she had little 
 to do but wait and watch. On the igth, 
 between nine and ten at night, Mme. Letizia 
 
254 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Bonaparte and her daughters arrived at the 
 rue de la Victoire to obtain certain news of 
 the alleged attempt on Napoleon's life at Saint- 
 Cloud. They had been at the theatre when 
 the report reached them. In her anxiety, 
 Mme. Bonaparte had put aside her scruples 
 and consented to go to her daughter-in-law. 
 It would be interesting had we any description 
 from eye-witnesses of Josephine's reception of 
 her visitors ; but there is none. On that day 
 all attention was turned to Napoleon, and his 
 wife remains in the background. It was be- 
 tween three and four the next morning when 
 the new Consul, accompanied in a carriage 
 by his colleague Sieyes, his brother Lucien, 
 and General Gardanne, drove over from Saint- 
 Cloud. His arrival at the rue de la Victoire 
 is left to the imagination, and no pen has told 
 how Josephine received the news that she 
 was wife of the Dictator of France. 
 
 On the day following the overthrow of the 
 former Government, Napoleon and Josephine 
 moved from their private house to the Petit- 
 Luxembourg. It was necessary that a few 
 weeks should pass before Napoleon, as First 
 Consul by general consent, should occupy the 
 
The Pctit'Luxembourg 255 
 
 Tuileries. The supersession of the poUticians 
 by the military hero was not yet complete. 
 The hero's assistants, without whom he would 
 have fared so ill on the 18 and ig brumaire, 
 had susceptibihties, and could not have seen 
 without protest aU the power falling at once 
 into the hands of one man, whoever he might 
 be. The state observed at the Petit-Luxem- 
 bourg, therefore, was modest. Napoleon had 
 rooms on the grotmd floor, a private staircase 
 from his study leading to the first floor, where 
 Josephine and her daughter were lodged. There 
 was no luxury at the table. The ten o'clock 
 breakfast and five o'clock dinner were both 
 short meals. After the latter. Napoleon went 
 upstairs to Josephine's apartments, where re- 
 ceptions were held nightly. But at midnight, 
 at the latest, Napoleon's brusque " AUons nous 
 coucher / " was a sign for breaking up, and 
 the day was over. 
 
 The evening receptions alone showed the 
 shghtest departure from Republican and bour- 
 geois simplicity, and even they were not much 
 more formal, perhaps, than the Directors' 
 salons had been. Only the manners were 
 better, and it is recorded that now for the 
 
256 The Empress Josephine 
 
 first time since the Revolution the title " Ma- 
 dame " began to be heard again, to the disgust 
 of many uncompromising citizens. The Petit- 
 Luxembourg was the resort of society, political, 
 artistic, and fashionable ; and at last Josephine 
 was society's leader, supplying by her tact 
 and amiability the many deficiencies of her 
 husband, whether they were caused by ill- 
 humour, absorption in work, or natural tem- 
 perament. The better section of her personal 
 friends, the remnants of the ex-nobles and the 
 rallies, came to blend as far as possible with 
 the new blood. The times forbade a too close 
 scrutiny into character, but admittance by 
 card of invitation only preserved the salon 
 from the intrusion of some of the more dis- 
 reputable frequenters of the Directory enter- 
 tainments. There was a certain restraint which 
 had been decidedly lacking before. Like his 
 nephew later, after the establishment of the 
 Second Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte insisted 
 particularly on the observance of decorum 
 among the ladies who came to his receptions. 
 He had his theories as to what was proper in 
 their dress. An amusing story is preserved 
 in the " Moniteur " of the period. There was 
 
CAROLIXE BONAPARTE {MUPAT). 
 After an etching; hy Flanii.g. 
 
 256, 
 
Napoleon the Censor 257 
 
 a large party gathered at the Luxembourg, 
 and, it being December still, the fires were 
 alight. Suddenly the Consul ordered the fire 
 to be made up. He was obeyed, but still re- 
 peated his command two or three times. At 
 last one of the servants pointed out that there 
 was no room for any more fuel. Napoleon 
 raised his voice and said : " That will do. I 
 wanted a good fire to be made up, for the cold 
 is intense. Besides, these ladies are nearly 
 naked." After the eccentricities of the Direc- 
 tory period, when it was not considered out- 
 rageous to appear in the costume of Diana 
 in the open air, such a remark must have oc- 
 casioned a considerable shock. 
 
 While the Bonapartes were still at the Luxem- 
 bourg, a marriage took place in the family 
 which was attributed to Josephine's instigation ; 
 namely, that of Murat and Caroline, sister of 
 Napoleon. In view of the scandal involving 
 herself and the handsome Murat in the past, 
 Josephine may have been glad of the oppor- 
 tunity to show her husband that she only 
 wished the young soldier well, and had no sort 
 of personal attachment to him. If so, she 
 seems to have produced the right effect, for 
 
 VOL. I 17 
 
258 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Bourrienne states that Napoleon said to him : 
 "I am rejoiced that my wife is interested in 
 this match. You can easily guess the reasons." 
 Murat and Caroline, however, needed no prompt- 
 ing. The former had met his General's sister 
 at Montebello, and again in Paris after the 
 return from Egypt. ^ Carohne and Hortense 
 were spending their holidays at the rue de la 
 Victoire ; to get them out of the way of the 
 conspiracy, both were sent back to Mme. 
 Campan's academy before brumaire. The story 
 goes that Murat was thoughtful enough on 
 the night of the 19th to send four of his grena- 
 diers to Saint-Germain to give Caroline the 
 news of her brother's success. As it was very 
 late when they arrived at the school, it is 
 probable that Mme. Campan appreciated the 
 attention less than her pupil. 
 
 In spite of the mutual attachment of the two. 
 Napoleon did not welcome the idea of a mar- 
 riage at first. He expressed his disapproval of 
 ces manages d' amourettes. It was suspected that 
 he designed his sister for General Moreau, while 
 
 * The Duchesse d'Abrant^ says that Caroline " loved Murat 
 passionately," and that Murat was very much in love with 
 h«r (ii. 241). 
 
The Marriage of Murat 259 
 
 he had looked on Murat ever since the Italian 
 days with a dislike which not even his extreme 
 bravery at Aboukir or his much-needed support 
 in the Council of the Five Hundred on the 19 
 brumaire had been able to remove. When, 
 therefore, Murat asked him for Caroline's hand, 
 he merely replied that he would think about 
 the proposal. The same evening he mentioned 
 the subject to Josephine in the presence of 
 her two children and of Bourrienne. Josephine 
 at once supported Murat's suit, and the others 
 when appealed to agreed with her. Napoleon's 
 objections were met by references to Aboukir 
 and brumaire. " I admit that Murat was 
 splendid at Aboukir," he replied, and at length 
 he gave way. After all, he told Bourrienne 
 such a marriage would please the Republicans 
 better than a noble alliance for CaroHne. It 
 could not be forgotten that Murat was an inn- 
 keeper's son. 
 
 Accordingly the match was made, and on 
 January 18, 1800, the contract was signed, the 
 civil marriage taking place at Joseph's house at 
 Mortefontaine two days later. The couple ap- 
 peared well suited. Murat was one of the best- 
 looking men in the army and had a reputation 
 
26o The Empress Josephine 
 
 for quite reckless courage. Caroline, although 
 she was not the peer of her sister Paulette, 
 was universally admired. At eighteen she is 
 described as having a dazzling complexion and 
 a beautiful skin, with a pleasing and ingenuous 
 expression. She had, however, a decision of 
 character contrasting with the childish grace- 
 fulness of her face. She appreciated her hus- 
 band's many weak points ; she also had a better 
 understanding than the rest of her family of the 
 strength and weakness of her celebrated brother, 
 whom she was said to resemble more than the 
 others. 
 
 In connection with this Murat-Bonaparte 
 marriage, there is told one of the many stories 
 of Josephine's passion for jewellery, which is 
 at the same time illustrative of her readiness 
 to deceive her husband, no matter who her 
 feUow-conspirators might be. Napoleon treated 
 his sister very generously in the marriage 
 settlement, giving her a dowry of thirty thousand 
 francs. He also wished to make her a wedding 
 present of value and, apparently not having 
 sufficient funds immediately at hand, selected 
 from among his wife's jewels a diamond collar, 
 which he presented to Caroline. Josephine was 
 
A Story about Jewellery 261 
 
 not unnaturally grieved over the loss of her 
 collar. She knew that the jeweller Foncier 
 had a collection of pearls, said to have been the 
 property of Marie Antoinette. She thought that 
 if she could acquire these she would be consoled. 
 But Foncier asked a sum for them variously 
 stated at two hundred and fifty and five hundred 
 and fifty thousand francs. She could not allow 
 such a bill to fall into Napoleon's hands, nor 
 could she pay it unaided. Accordingly she 
 appealed to Berthier, the Minister of War, 
 who was weU disposed to her and not scrupulous. 
 It happened that he wished to have admitted 
 to the Luxembourg his mistress, Mme. Visconti. 
 If this could be done, he would divert in Jose- 
 phine's favour a sum of money intended for 
 hospital expenses for the French Army in Italy. 
 The compact was made, and it only remained 
 for Josephine to explain the presence of the 
 pearls, since Napoleon had an attentive eye 
 for her wardrobe. There was no difficulty, 
 however, in finding another friend as accommo- 
 dating as Berthier. Bourrienne is himself wit- 
 ness to his own treachery toward his patron. * 
 One day Josephine said to him : " Bourrienne, 
 
 • " Memoires," iii. 293. 
 
262 The Empress Josephine 
 
 there is a large party to-morrow, I must wear 
 my pearls. But you know him. He is sure to 
 scold if he notices. Please don't go away, 
 Bourrienne ; if he asks me where my pearls 
 come from, I shall tell him without hesitation 
 that I have had them a long time." Bourrienne 
 agreed to stand by her. Next evening Napoleon 
 came up and said to Josephine : " Ah, what 
 have you got there ? How fine you look to- 
 day ! What are those pearls ? I do not seem 
 to have seen them on you before." " Good 
 Heavens ! That is the collar which the Cis- 
 alpine Republic gave to me. I have put it 
 in my hair." "But I seem . . ." "Well, 
 ask Bourrienne, he will tell you." " What do 
 you say, Bourrienne?" asked Napoleon. "Do 
 you recall them ? " " Yes, General," was the 
 strictly truthful answer, " I well remember 
 having seen them before." 
 
 In spite of the pain which the loss of her 
 diamond collar caused to Josephine until she 
 had replaced it, it does not appear that she felt 
 any grudge against Caroline as the recipient 
 of her jewellery. Of the three Bonaparte sisters 
 CaroUne was the one with whom she was on 
 the best terms. After her marriage she accom- 
 
Josephine, Murat, and Caroline 263 
 
 panied Josephine and Hortense both in Paris 
 and to Malmaison ; and a letter remains, written 
 by Josephine to Murat on June 20, 1800, which 
 runs as follows : 
 
 " I have only just time, dear little brother, to 
 recommend to you the bearer of my letter, to 
 assure you of my fond attachment and to tell 
 you that you have a charming little wife, who 
 behaves admirably. Good-bye, dear little 
 brother, I embrace you and love you well." 
 
 This curious note might almost be taken as 
 a proof of the innocence of its writer's relations 
 with Murat in the past. It certainly shows her 
 amiably disposed toward Murat's wife at the 
 time when it was written; 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CONSULESSE 
 
 ON the morning of February 19, 1800, 
 Napoleon remarked to his secretary: 
 " Well, Bourrienne, so to-day at last we are going 
 to sleep in the Tuileries ! " He turned next to 
 Josephine, gave her a playful pinch, as he 
 delighted to do, and then threw his arms about 
 her. No doubt the move was no surprise to 
 either of his listeners. Everything since the 18 
 brumaire had pointed to the aggrandisement 
 of the military member of the Consulate, the 
 pike among the other fish.^ Rather than play 
 Second and Third Consuls to Napoleon's First, 
 Sieyes and Ducos had resigned, and had been re- 
 placed by the more accommodating Cambaceres 
 and Lebrun. It was as First Consul by title, as 
 well as in fact, that Napoleon transferred his 
 
 1 In the early days of the new Government, Mme. Permon 
 had observed to her old friend Letizia Bonaparte : " The 
 pike will eat the other fish." All that Mme. Bonaparte could 
 find to say in reply was : " Oh, Panoria ! " 
 
 264 
 
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL. 
 From nn engraviny after Appiani. 
 
 p. 164. 
 
The Move to the Tuilcries 265 
 
 residence from the Petit-Luxembourg to the 
 Tuileries. That home of the kings of France 
 had been renamed the Palais du Gouvernement, 
 to avoid offence ; and not only Napoleon Bona- 
 parte but also Lebrun was lodged there. But, 
 nevertheless, there was to be but one ruler 
 in the Palace now and for the next fourteen 
 years. 
 
 It was one o'clock on the day on which he 
 made the announcement to his secretary that 
 Napoleon left the Luxembourg, seated with Cam- 
 baceres and Lebrun in a coach drawn by six 
 white horses, the gift of the Emperor to the 
 maker of the Treaty of Campo Formio. Jose- 
 phine had been sent on ahead to the Tuileries, 
 and watched, from a seat to which Lebrun had 
 invited her in one of the windows of the 
 Pavilion of Flora, the arrival of the procession 
 in which she had no official position entitUng 
 her to ride. Near her sat Hortense and two 
 other Beauharnais, Stephanie and Emilie, now 
 Mme. Lavalette ; and, around, a number of 
 generals' wives and other prominent ladies, all 
 clad in the fashionable Greek costume of the day, 
 with light silk scarves over it. The Consuls' 
 coach drew up beneath their gaze, followed 
 
266 The Empress Josephine 
 
 by a long string of cabs with their numbers 
 obUterated and their origin disguised as well as 
 possible for the emergency ; since Paris did 
 not possess carriages after the Revolution had 
 swept away such signs of aristocracy from 
 its midst. On arrival, the First Consul de- 
 scended from his coach and mounted a horse 
 which was waiting him. Then, with Murat and 
 Lannes at his side, he passed in review the 
 defihng regiments, saluting with bare head 
 the mutilated flags, while the crowd cheered 
 alike the troops and the Consul, and the 
 ladies waved their handkerchiefs from the 
 windows above. The review over, Napoleon 
 dismounted from his horse and entered the 
 Tuileries. That night, as they retired to rest, 
 Napoleon cried to Josephine : " Come along, 
 you Uttle Creole, get into the bed of your 
 masters ! " So reports Mme. de Remusat, the 
 recipient of so many confidences from her 
 Empress-patron in later years. 
 
 The " httle Creole " slept in the bedroom of 
 Marie Antoinette on the ground floor of the 
 Tuileries, her other rooms adjoining it, while 
 Hortense had a small suite leading from her 
 mother's dressing-room. Contrary to what had 
 
The First Consul's Home 267 
 
 been the case at the Luxembourg, at the 
 Tuileries Napoleon had his rooms above his 
 wife's, occupying the apartments which had 
 belonged in turn to three Royal Louis. As at 
 the Luxembourg, however, so at the Tuileries, 
 Napoleon had a private staircase leading from 
 his suite to Josephine's; here his study com- 
 municated with the stairs through a wardrobe 
 which had once served Marie de Medici as an 
 oratory. The First Consul intended to make 
 no departure from his former domestic habits, 
 and seldom made use of the large state bed 
 reserved for him in the Royal apartments. 
 
 Where, however, their personal and intimate 
 life was not concerned, the removal to the 
 Tuileries was rapidly followed by great changes. 
 Nothing showed this more clearly than the first 
 reception of the foreign ambassadors two days 
 after the move. Napoleon's valet. Constant, 
 in his Memoirs thus describes the scene of 
 February 21 : 
 
 " At eight in the evening the apartments of 
 Mme. Bonaparte were crowded with company. 
 There was a dazzUng display of splendid 
 dresses, feathers, diamonds, etc. So great was 
 the throng that it was found necessary to throw 
 
268 The Empress Josephine 
 
 open Mme. Bonaparte's bedchamber, the two 
 drawing-rooms being very small. When, after 
 considerable embarrassment and trouble, the 
 company had been arranged as well as possible, 
 Mme. Bonaparte was announced, and she 
 entered, conducted by M. de Talleyrand. She 
 wore a white muslin dress with short sleeves 
 and a pearl necklace, and her hair was braided 
 simply and confined by a tortoiseshell comb. 
 The murmur of admiration which greeted her 
 entrance must have been exceedingly gratifying 
 to her. I think she never looked more graceful 
 or elegant. M. de Talleyrand, still holding her 
 by the hand, presented her to the members of 
 the Diplomatic Body, one after another, not 
 introducing them by name, but designating them 
 by the courts which they represented. He 
 then led her round the two drawing-rooms. 
 They had not gone more than half round the 
 second room when the First Consul entered, 
 unannounced. He was dressed in a very plain 
 uniform coat, white cashmere breeches, and 
 top-boots. Round his waist he had a tricoloured 
 silk scarf with a fringe to match, and he carried 
 his hat in his hand. Amid the embroidered 
 coats, cordons, and jewels of the ambassadors 
 
A Diplomatic Reception 269 
 
 and foreign dignitaries, Bonaparte's costume 
 appeared no less singular than did the simple 
 elegance of Josephine's dress compared with the 
 splendour of the ladies around her." 
 
 Josephine might well have contrasted now 
 the position which she had held at the " court " 
 of Barras and that which she now enjoyed as 
 wife of the First Consul Bonaparte. Not all the 
 changes were to her liking, no doubt. Napoleon 
 continued to purge his wife's society of the 
 characters who seemed to him undesirable. 
 Jung, the editor of Lucien Bonaparte's Memoirs, 
 represents Josephine as weeping to see herself 
 reduced to the company of the wives of the 
 great Government officials, " devoid of grace 
 and very badly dressed " ; but Jung, like Lucien 
 himself, is an unfriendly witness where Josephine 
 is concerned. Society at the Tuileries was 
 not limited to the dowdies. The Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes mentions as prominent figures there 
 at the time Mmes. de la Rochefoucauld, 
 Lavalette, Lameth, Laplace, Lu^ay, Lauriston, 
 d'Harville, Remusat, and Talhouet. As for 
 the young wives now for the first time intro- 
 duced to society, we read of Josephine's kind 
 reception of them aU and her endeavours to 
 
27° The Empress Josephine 
 
 put them at their ease. If she had to mourn 
 the loss of agreeable friends like Mme. TalUen 
 and other stars of the Directory period, she had 
 at least compensation in her rank as the leading 
 woman in Paris. Still more important was her 
 position after her husband's brilliant success 
 in the Marengo campaign in the early summer 
 of 1800, on his return from which Mme. Permon 
 accused him of " playing the little king." He 
 stm awaited the favourable moment for intro- 
 ducing a formal etiquette and for assigning to 
 his wife an official household. Nor did he 
 permit her to be more than a privileged spectator 
 at the commemoration of the faU of the Bastille 
 on Jul}^ 14, eleven days after his return from 
 Italy. But in other respects she had ample 
 occasion for satisfaction with the progress of 
 her fortune. 
 
 Josephine's peace continued to be agitated 
 by the unending war with the Bonaparte family. 
 Truces might be declared from time to time, 
 as during the conspiracy of brumaire; but the 
 struggle was ever renewed after the reasons for 
 the truce had passed away. With Lucien in 
 particular the bitterest struggle endured. Lucien 
 Bonaparte had_by his conduct on the 19 brumaire 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 
 n painting by R, Leftvre ut Versailles. 
 
The War with the Bonapartes 271 
 
 established a strong claim on the gratitude of 
 a brother who was never ungrateful to members 
 of his own family. Yet within less than a year 
 from that date Lucien was deprived of the re- 
 ward which his services had earned ; and in his 
 disgrace the hand of Josephine was not wanting. 
 Lucien had obtained the Ministry of the 
 Interior, an ofl&ce for which his character fitted 
 him iU and in which he made many enemies. 
 His attachment to his personal friends, many 
 of whom qualified for the title by the patience 
 with which they hstened to his poems and 
 romances, led him to reward them with posts 
 to which they had no claims whatever ; and 
 his unrestrained passion for opposition to the 
 established order of things, whatever it might 
 be, made him ready to hsten to the suggestions 
 of his brother's ill-wishers and even put him 
 under suspicion of actual conspiracy against 
 the First Consul. With Fouche, head of the 
 pohce, he was on the worst of terms. Fouche 
 is one of the two men — Talleyrand is the other — 
 whose hold upon Napoleon, conscious of their 
 roguery, has never been satisfactorily explained. 
 But even without that hold now he had a strong 
 position in the contest with Napoleon's brother, 
 
272 The Empress Josephine 
 
 especially vdth the assistance which Josephine 
 was ready to give him. She and Fouche were 
 aUies through common interests^ and Fouchd 
 knew how to bind her firmly to him. It is 
 alleged that the Minister of Police was already 
 paying to her, as he undoubtedly seems to have 
 paid later, a sum of a thousand francs a day in 
 order that he might obtain from her information 
 as to the secrets of the Tuileries. Fouche, as 
 Napoleon's head spy, had no scruples against 
 spying on his employer himself. Josephine was 
 curiously destitute of scruples as to the manner 
 in which she obtained money to meet the debts 
 which she was afraid to acknowledge ; and we 
 do not appear justified in rejecting the story of 
 her acceptance of Fouche's bribes. 
 
 The downfall of Lucien was not accomplished 
 with ease, in spite of his obvious abuse of his 
 official position. His services had been great 
 and he had a powerful ally in his mother, 
 whose love for her third son was very strong. 
 In the Petit-Luxembourg days Napoleon was 
 disturbed by the opening movements of the 
 struggle. Mme. Letizia came to him in great 
 agitation one day, complaining that there was 
 an organised campaign against Lucien. She 
 
JOSEPH FOUCHE, DUC D OTRANTO. 
 
 From a lithograph by Del|3eche, 
 
Lucicn Bonaparte 273 
 
 denounced Fouch6 as its originator. She did 
 not venture to attack Josephine directly, but 
 the latter, who was present when her mother- 
 in-law called, was speedily reduced to tears. 
 Before going the old lady turned to her and 
 asked her to warn " her friend Fouche " that 
 she, Mme. Bonaparte, thought her arms long 
 enough to bring to repentance any one, whoever 
 he might be, who slandered her sons. 
 
 Napoleon's absence in Italy delayed the 
 crisis ; but it was not long in coming after 
 his return. Josephine is said by some ac- 
 counts to have taken upon herself to call her 
 husband's attention to the harm which was 
 being done to his government by the mal- 
 administration in the Ministry of the Interior, 
 and to have persuaded him that it was necessary 
 to take the portfoUo away from his brother. 
 She may have done so before Lucien himself 
 rendered his position untenable. She had many 
 opportunities denied to others of influencing 
 Napoleon's mind, without definitely formu- 
 lating a charge against her brother-in-law. 
 Lucien is reported to have complained that 
 his brother " put faith in the treacherous 
 insinuations of a woman whom he ought to 
 
 VOL. I 18 
 
274 The Empress Josephine 
 
 have known well enough not to sacrifice his 
 family to her." But Lucien, apart from his 
 official immorality or laxness, whichever one 
 prefers to call it, made it impossible for himself 
 to continue in his office for quite another reason. 
 It is now that we first begin to hear about 
 the great question of Heredity, which was 
 to be the cause of such bitter anguish to Jose- 
 phine in the years to come. Already the First 
 Consul had so established his position in the 
 State that people wondered, and had com- 
 menced to discuss privately, to what end this 
 one-man rule was tending. Was the Consulate 
 of Napoleon to be prolonged ? And if it 
 were to be prolonged to the extent of his life- 
 time, who would be his successor ? This was 
 a matter in which friends and enemies alike 
 were keenly interested ; and, naturally, none 
 more so than his brothers and his wife. Jose- 
 phine again found herself on the side of Fouche, 
 who, like other ex-Jacobins, opposed a pro- 
 longation of office for Napoleon and the granting 
 to him of the right to name his successor. It 
 was not Republican sentiment which animated 
 Josephine, however. She was no longer a 
 Sans-culotte Montagnarde. She was only a wife 
 
The Question of Heredity 275 
 
 who saw the danger of a divorce from a husband 
 ruling France for Ufe and allowed to choose his 
 successor. Would he not desire to be suc- 
 ceeded by a son, and could she bear him such 
 a son ? If she could not, he had a remedy, 
 which threatened ruin to her. i 
 
 Napoleon's brothers, on the other hand, 
 asked for nothing better than a Ufe consulate 
 for him and his right to name his successor. 
 If he had no son to inherit from him, whom 
 could he choose in preference to one of his 
 own brothers ? Lucien's gift of eloquence 
 pointed him out as the spokesman of the family, 
 and, confident in his own powers, he did not 
 refuse the task of educating the public to the 
 right point of view. The result was most 
 unexpected by himself, and most gratif3dng 
 to Josephine. 
 
 About the end of October 1800, the whole 
 of official Paris was startled by the receipt from 
 the Ministry of the Interior of an anonymous 
 pamphlet entitled " A Parallel between Caesar, 
 Cromwell, and Bonaparte," in which the heredi- 
 tary principle was warmly supported. Fouche 
 arrived at the Tuileries with a copy and took 
 it to the First Consul, proclaiming it a seditious 
 
2^6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 and dangerous publication. Napoleon sent for 
 his brother, between whom and Fouche there 
 was immediately a violent scene in his presence. 
 Angry at the attempt to force his hand, Na- 
 poleon, although he would not deny that the 
 pamphlet embodied some of his own ideas, 
 said that the man who had written the last 
 pages, in which the argument was most strongly 
 developed, was a fool. At this moment Jose- 
 phine entered the room. Going over to Na- 
 poleon, she seated herself upon his knees and 
 passing her fingers through his hair said to 
 him : "I beg you, Bonaparte, not to make 
 yourself king. It is that dreadful Lucien 
 who is driving you to it. Don't Usten to 
 him." 
 
 The combination of his official misconduct 
 and his premature monarchist activity was 
 too much for Lucien. He was removed from 
 the Interior, and, by way of a consolation, was. 
 nominated to a special embassy to Madrid, 
 with a large salary attached to it. The final 
 scene before his departure is described by 
 Stanislas de Girardin, who was present at the 
 evening reception at the Tuileries on Novem- 
 ber 5, 1800 — ^five days less than a year from 
 
Lucien's Fall 277 
 
 Lucien's great achievement at Saint-Cloud. 
 In an armchair sat Josephine, looking thought- 
 ful and striving to hide her satisfaction at 
 what had come to pass. Opposite her was 
 seated Hortense, frankly radiant with joy. 
 Elisa Bacciochi, whose favourite brother was 
 Lucien and who was to accompany her hus- 
 bcind with Lucien to Madrid, was near at hand, 
 wdth profound sorrow written on her face. 
 She confided to Girardin that she was on the 
 point of tears. He besought her to keep them 
 back since they would so please " certain 
 persons." The general air in the circle was 
 one of constraint. The First Consul and the 
 disgraced Minister had been in long conference 
 in another room. They entered. Napoleon 
 with a troubled face and disordered hair, Lucien 
 showing an unnatural gaiety. In the sight of 
 all present Lucien went up to his sister-in-law 
 *and spoke a few words in her ear. Then, before 
 he left, he inquired of her what commissions 
 she had for him in Madrid. She asked him for 
 a few of the fans for which Spain was famous. 
 As he went out, both she and Hortense were 
 most gracious to him. She pressed Elisa's 
 hand and embraced her. The scene was over. 
 
278 The Empress Josephine 
 
 Four days later, on the 18 brumaire, the em- 
 bassy started for Madrid. 
 • Lucien was out of the way, a victim partly 
 to his own temerity. But the ideas which he 
 had advocated remained. Napoleon, although 
 he had consented to the disgrace of his brother, 
 did not cease to devote attention to the question 
 which excited so much interest in his own 
 family and outside. However much he con- 
 cealed the fact, he had for months been passing 
 under review the possible candidates to succeed 
 him when he should secure his supreme power 
 for life. An outsider could scarcely be thought 
 of, for to nominate such before his own death 
 would be to raise up a rival in his lifetime. 
 He might himself have a son. In default of 
 issue, however, he must be prepared with 
 some one else from his own family. Fond as 
 he was of Joseph, he was quite aware of his 
 very serious deficiencies. Lucien was plainly 
 impossible. Louis was next, and it was greatly 
 in his favour that, owing to his youth, he had 
 not so far compromised himself in politics. 
 Moreover, had not Louis's education been per- 
 sonally superintended by himself and appeared 
 to him so successful that he had pronounced 
 
Attempted Assassination 279 
 
 him in 1791 to be "a man of forty, with all 
 the proper application and judgment " ? He 
 had not altered his opinion of the young man 
 nine years later. On the day after Lucien's 
 fall. Napoleon is reported to have said to an 
 intimate friend : " There is no further need to 
 rack our brains to find a successor. I have found 
 one — Louis. He has none of the faults of his 
 brothers, and he has all of their good qualities." 
 Events appeared to bring the question of 
 a successor to Napoleon increasingly to the 
 front. The First Consul had so many enemies 
 that it was not to be expected that all of them 
 would refrain from extreme measures in their 
 desire to get rid of him. A prematurely di- 
 vulged plot to assassinate him on his way 
 to the Opera in October 1800 was followed 
 by a very nearly successful effort in December, 
 which might have carried off Josephine as 
 wen. It was Christmas Eve, and a performance 
 of Haydn's " Creation " was to take place at 
 the Opera. The Consular party rode in two 
 carriages from the Tuileries. In the first were 
 Napoleon, Bessieres, Lannes, and young Lebrun, 
 son of the Third Consul. In the other were 
 Josephine, Hortense, Caroline Murat, and the 
 
2 8o The Empress Josephine 
 
 aide-de-camp Rapp. Josephine had lately re- 
 ceived from Constantinople a new shawl, which 
 she was wearing that night. Rapp began to 
 explain to her how such shawls were worn in 
 Egypt, and before they left the Tuileries en- 
 deavoured to fasten hers for her in the fashion 
 he described. Owing to this delay at the 
 start Josephine's carriage was further behind 
 the other than it would otherwise have been. 
 This trivial circumstance perhaps saved her 
 Ufe. As the First Consul entered the rue 
 Saint-Nicaise a cab and an old cart, coming 
 from the cross road, were on the point of block- 
 ing the way. One of the Consular escort 
 forced the cab out of the path of Napoleon's 
 carriage, which passed on rapidly. Immedi- 
 ately a loud explosion was heard. The cart 
 was loaded with a powder-barrel and had 
 blown up. The windows of the first carriage 
 were broken, but no other harm was done to 
 it. The second was close enough behind to 
 feel the shock, too ; its windows were shattered, 
 and Hortense received a slight cut on the 
 hand from the glass. Josephine fainted, but 
 she was unhurt. In the street eight people 
 were killed and twenty-eight wounded. 
 
After the Outrage 281 
 
 Napoleon took the affair very calmly. He 
 hastened up the stairs, as usual, to show him- 
 self in the box before the arrival of the ladies. 
 His only remark was : " These rascals wanted 
 to blow me up. Fetch me a book of the ora- 
 torio." He had apparently been satisfied that 
 the second carriage was safe and wished to 
 prove immediately by his presence in the 
 Opera House that the attempt had failed. 
 Josephine arrived in tears and with signs of 
 the shock plainly visible on her face, but sat 
 through the performance at her husband's 
 side. 
 
 The outrage of the rue Saint-Nicaise, al- 
 though it had done no injury except to a few 
 harmless passers-by, drew additional attention 
 to the fact that Napoleon had no successor. 
 He had not quite abandoned hope that he 
 might have an heir by Josephine, though she 
 was thirty-eight and the doctors were not en- 
 couraging. They advised another course of 
 waters for the summer of 1801, and it was 
 decided that she should go again to Plombieres. 
 But before this Josephine had begun to put 
 into execution a plan by which she trusted 
 that she might secure her position as wife of 
 
282 The Empress Josephine 
 
 the First Consul, even if it should prove that 
 she was incapable of bearing him a child. 
 
 Napoleon, as has been seen, had come to 
 the conclusion that of all his family Louis was 
 the one most suitable to be his heir, in default 
 of direct issue. Some have attributed the 
 suggestion to Josephine ; but there was no 
 need to point out to Napoleon the merits of 
 his brother. It is quite likely that Josephine 
 welcomed the idea of making Louis the re- 
 versionary heir, and she certainly schemed 
 to turn it to her own advantage. Louis was 
 unmarried. Why should he not take Hortense 
 to wife and so help to bind more closely the 
 Bonaparte and Beauharnais families ? He had 
 been supposed to feel rather bitterly the refusal 
 of the hand of Emilie Beauharnais, and might 
 be consoled by marriage with her cousin. Na- 
 poleon approved of the plan. It only remained 
 to persuade Louis and Hortense. 
 
 Here, however, difficulties were encountered. 
 Neither party showed an inclination to the 
 match. Louis, after his early promise in France 
 and Italy, had suffered a great change of char- 
 acter after an illness which befell him in 1797. 
 His family, especially his brother Napoleon, 
 
Louis Bonaparte 283 
 
 appeared to consider the change a passing 
 phase and his new attitude toward life a mere 
 pose. They refused to recognise that he had 
 become in reality a sentimental hypochondriac, 
 morose, jealous, and vain. Change of air 
 seemed to them the best cure. Louis agreed 
 to go on a year's tour in Germany and Northern 
 Europe, and started off in October 1800. It 
 is not known whether he had yet received any 
 hint of the marriage which his brother and his 
 sister-in-law had in view. His tour was un- 
 expectedly cut short. At the end of January, 
 a month after the attempt in the rue Saint- 
 Nicaise, he reappeared in Paris, saying that he 
 was ill. He took a country house, not far from 
 Paris, but away from the public roads and difl&- 
 cult of access through marsh and woodland. 
 Here he shut himself up until March. Then he 
 announced that*-he wished to join his regiment 
 in Portugal. An invitation to visit Malmaison 
 first could not be refused, and he spent a fort- 
 night there. At the end he left the chateau 
 in the middle of one night. His conduct was 
 mysterious, and the easiest explanation is that 
 he was troubled by the scheme for his future. 
 He was a young man who formed many senti- 
 
284 The Empress Josephine 
 
 mental attachments, and Constant (who, as 
 Napoleon's valet, could of course speak with 
 authority) claims that up to the very time 
 of his wedding he was interested in a girl 
 whom he had met casually in the Tuileries 
 gardens, the daughter of an inspector of 
 bridges. 
 
 The departure of Louis gave Josephine no 
 opportunity of completing her arrangement 
 for her daughter's marriage, and she left for 
 Plombieres in the summer with all stiU in a 
 state of uncertainty. An amusing letter is pre- 
 served by Bourrienne which obviously belongs 
 to this period, although he attributes it to 1802, 
 an impossible date.' It is dated simply 21 
 messidor and is signed by Josephine Bonaparte, 
 Beauharnais-Lavalette (i.e. EmiUe), Hortense 
 Beauhamais, Rapp, and Bonaparte m^re. Ad- 
 dressed to " The Inhabitants of Malmaison," 
 it runs as f oUows : 
 
 " The whole party left Malmaison in tears, 
 which brought on such dreadful headaches that 
 all the amiable persons were overcome by the 
 
 » Because in 1802 Hortense (then married to Louis) re- 
 mained behind at Malmaison while Josephine went to Plom- 
 bieres. 
 
A Frivolous Narrative 285 
 
 thought of the journey. Mme. Bonaparte m^re 
 bore the fatigues of this memorable day with 
 the greatest courage ; but Mme. Bonaparte, 
 consulesse, exhibited none. The two young 
 ladies who sat on the dormeuse were rival 
 claimants to a bottle of eau-de-cologne ; and 
 every now and then the amiable M. Rapp 
 stopped the carriage for the comfort of his 
 poor sick little heart, overflowng with bile ; 
 finally he had to take to bed on arriving at 
 Epernay, while the rest of the amiable party 
 tried to drown their sorrows in champagne. 
 The second day was more fortunate in the 
 matter of health and spirits, but provisions 
 were wanting and the sufferings of the 
 stomach were great. The travellers lived on 
 hopes of a good supper at Toul ; but their 
 despair reached its height when on arrival 
 they found only a miserable inn with nothing 
 in it. We saw some odd-looking people there, 
 which consoled us a Uttle for spinach dressed 
 in lamp-oil and red asparagus fried in curdled 
 milk. Who would not have been amused to 
 see the gourmands of Malmaison seated at a 
 table so shockingly served ? 
 
 " Nowhere in history is there to be found the 
 
A Course of Waters 287 
 
 perhaps the collaboration of General Rapp, 
 terminated with two postscripts : 
 
 " The company begs pardon for blots. 
 
 " It is requested that the person who receives 
 this journal shall show it to all who take an 
 interest in the fair travellers." 
 
 After her visit to Plombieres with this lively 
 set of companions, among whom one would 
 imagine the grave Mme. Bonaparte mhre rather 
 misplaced, Josephine went to Vichy before 
 returning to Paris to resume her matrimonial 
 schemes on behalf of Hortense. Her own hopes, 
 if she entertained any, of the beneficial effect 
 of the course of waters were not gratified, and 
 it was more than ever important that she 
 should secure a new hold over Napoleon, even 
 if it had to be secured at the price of amiability 
 to one of those brothers who had since her 
 marriage given her many proofs of their male- 
 volence toward her. 
 
2 86 The Empress Josephine 
 
 record of a day of such dreadful distress as that 
 on which we reached Plombieres. On our depar- 
 ture from Toul we meant to breakfast at Nancy, 
 for every stomach had been empty for two days ; 
 but the civil and miUtary authorities came to 
 meet us and prevented the execution of our 
 plan. We continued our journey, wasting away, 
 so that you might see us growing thinner every 
 minute. To complete our misfortune, the 
 dormeuse, which seemed to have taken a fancy to 
 embark on the Moselle for Metz, barely escaped 
 overturning. But at Plombieres we have been 
 weU recompensed for our unlucky journey, for 
 on arrival we were welcomed with all kinds of 
 rejoicings. The town was illuminated, the guns 
 fired, and the faces of beautiful women at every 
 window give us reason to hope that we shall 
 support our absence from Malmaison with less 
 regret. 
 
 "With the exception of some anecdotes, 
 which we reserve for conversation on our re- 
 turn, you have here a correct account of our 
 journey, to which we, the undersigned, hereby 
 certify." 
 
 This frivolous account, which seems to be the 
 composition of the two younger ladies, with 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 JOSEPHINE AND HER CHILDREN 
 
 THE fact that Josephine arranged a marriage 
 for her daughter with a man for whom she 
 had no liking (having, indeed, met him very 
 seldom), and with whom she subsequently found 
 it impossible to live in harmony, has been taken 
 as a confirmation of the accusation made by some 
 of her contemporaries that she was not a good 
 mother to her children — such contemporaries, 
 for instance, as the Duchesse d'Abrantes, who 
 writes : " I do not claim that she did not love 
 Hortense. God preserve me from uttering such 
 a thought ! Still, I have my memories, and 
 these memories bring back to me words, facts, 
 and things which I do not believe compatible 
 with a mother's love such as Hortense should 
 have inspired." Josephine, she continues, was 
 the only one who did not seem to recognise the 
 charm and attraction of her own daughter. 
 The dislike which the Duchesse bore toward 
 
 288 
 
QUEEN HORTENSE. 
 
 From an engraving' after tlie picture b}' Gtrodet, 
 
 p. 288. 
 
Josephine as a Mother 289 
 
 Josephine is apparent in these sentences. But 
 we must not on that ground entirely reject what 
 she says, especially as we find suggestions of a 
 somewhat similar kind, less unkindly put, in 
 other writers. 
 
 What, then, gave rise to the idea that Jose- 
 phine was not a good mother ? We hear of no 
 definite act which can be described as unkind. 
 It is true that we find Hortense at certain periods 
 confided to the care of others ; for instance, to 
 that of the Princess of HohenzoUem-Sigmarin- 
 gen at Saint-Martin, Artois, in 1791, and, after 
 the death of Alexandre de Beauhamais, to that 
 of Mme. Campan. In 1791, however, Paris 
 was scarcely a safe spot for children ; and there 
 was nothing unusual in the despatch of Hortense 
 to a boarding-school in 1795, even if it were 
 more convenient for her mother to have no 
 child hving with her during her intimacy with 
 Barras. Nor can it be said that any letters 
 from Josephine which have been pubUshed 
 give the shghtest hint of unkindness. They 
 are all full of the fondest endearments — "my 
 child, my Hortense," " my good httle Hortense," 
 " my cherished daughter " — and of prayers for 
 speedy meeting. It is true that the letters to 
 
 VOL. I 19 
 
290 The Empress Josephine 
 
 her daughter were selected for publication by 
 that daughter herself. Nevertheless, the note 
 of tender affection sustained for so many years 
 is remarkable ; if it had become a habit, it 
 was a very agreeable habit. 
 
 As far as it is possible to judge, the real 
 meaning of the accusation against Josephine 
 is that she was unfitted by nature to guide her 
 children's Uves. This is true, and the children 
 themselves recognised the fact in a praise- 
 worthy manner. Both Eugene and Hortense 
 early grew accustomed to a reversal of the 
 maternal and fiUal relations. Josephine was 
 already to them, before they reached nominal 
 years of discretion, like a wayward charge for 
 whom their love must find excuses. They had 
 a firm belief in her affection for them, but they 
 knew that they were her protectors, not she 
 theirs. Eugene, even at the age of seventeen, 
 was fuU of the sense of responsibility which such 
 a position entailed. Can we not see this in the 
 already quoted letter of July 24 from Egypt, 
 and particularly in two of the sentences which 
 conclude that letter : " For six weeks no 
 news, no letters from you, from my sister, or 
 from any one. You must not forget us, mamma, 
 
EugSne's Protecting Care 291 
 
 you must think o-f your children." Through- 
 out his correspondence with her the same tone 
 prevails, always respectful, always loving, but 
 at the same time always admonitory. His 
 affectionate and loyal nature — strange issue 
 from the union of Alexandre de Beauhamais, 
 who was neither affectionate nor loyal, and 
 Josephine, in whose character loyalty was not 
 a strong feature, whatever view we take of h«r 
 affectionateness ! — never let Eugene cease from 
 advising, supporting, and defending the spoilt 
 creature whom fate had given him as a mother. 
 She grew to rely on him in a way in which sh« 
 relied on no one else, and at the end of her career 
 as Empress it was not until she had seen Eugene 
 and heardhim discuss the question with Napoleon 
 that she recognised what he had long seen, that 
 she must bow to the inevitable and accept the 
 divorce with what calm she could assume. 
 
 The relative positions of mother and children 
 were impressed upon them very strongly after 
 Napoleon's return from Egypt. Eugene well 
 aware, Hortense probably unaware, of the 
 charges against their mother, they had jointly 
 saved her from a shameful fate. Frequently 
 afterwards it fell to the lot of Hortense (who, 
 
292 The Empress Josephine 
 
 unlike Eugene, was so much at her mother's 
 side) to shield Josephine against Napoleon in 
 less serious situations than that at the rue de 
 la Victore in October 1799. Napoleon made 
 no protest against this attitude of his step- 
 daughter, but even welcomed it. He had a 
 perfectly genuine paternal feeUng for her, which 
 she for many years scarcely understood and 
 his enemies most basely misrepresented. Mme. 
 de R6musat, however, does it justice when she 
 writes : " He who seldom had a high opinion 
 of women always professed respect for Hortense, 
 and the way in which he spoke of her and acted 
 toward her gives the lie very explicitly to the 
 accusations made against her. In her presence 
 his language was always more guarded and 
 proper. He often called her in as judge between 
 his wife and himself, and accepted from her ' 
 lessons which he would have taken from no one 
 else patiently. ' Hortense,' he sometimes said, 
 ' compels me to beheve in virtue.' " 
 
 Napoleon's estimate of his step-daughter was 
 doubtless too high, just as that of some of her 
 other relatives by marriage was too low. Lucien 
 Bonaparte writes of her that at the time of her 
 wedding she was " very advanced for her age 
 
Hortense 293 
 
 in knowledge of the world (les choses d'ici-bas)," 
 and, as we shall see, did not hesitate to make 
 a disgraceful imputation against her, which 
 her unhappy husband afterwards could not 
 banish from his mind. What she would have 
 become with a reasonable man in the place of 
 Louis it is difficult to say. Gifted with a sweet 
 and loving disposition, she was easily affected 
 by cold treatment, and stiU more by such in- 
 justice and jealousy as she received from Louis. 
 Her ultimate lapse from the strait path of 
 morality, of which the result was the illegitimate 
 half-brother of Napoleon III. known to history 
 as the Due de Morny, was, if not excusable, at 
 least intelligible in one of her disposition. 
 
 In appearance Hortense is described as 
 pleasing rather than beautiful. She had too 
 large a nose, a poorly shaped mouth, and, like 
 her mother, bad teeth. On the other hand, 
 she had a slight, elegant figure, fair hair of 
 great beauty, and large eyes of violet-blue. 
 Two years before her marriage the Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes writes of her as " really charming at 
 this time of her life " and as uniting the graces 
 of the Creole and the French woman. She had 
 imbibed whatever there was^ofj^education to be 
 
294 The Empress Josephine 
 
 obtained at the academy of Saint-Germain-en- 
 Laye, where she was a pupil dear to Mme. Cam- 
 pan's heart. She danced, drew, painted, and 
 sang with equal facility, could play both piano 
 and harp, and, as she showed later, could compose 
 music ; " Partant pour la Syrie " survives as 
 an example of her skiU. Nor were her Uterary 
 pretensions altogether contemptible. With more 
 strength of character (which could hardly be 
 expected of a daughter of Alexandre de Beau- 
 harnais and Josephine) she might have made for 
 herself in reality the honoured name which her 
 Imperial son piously claimed for her after her 
 death. More strength of character, too, might 
 have led her to resist the manage de convenance 
 to which she was persuaded by her mother, her 
 step-father, and others who called themselves 
 her friends.^ But nature furnished her with 
 
 1 Mme. Campan, for instance, counselled her to strict 
 obedience to the wishes of Napoleon. " I beg you to see," 
 wrote the preceptress to her pupil of former days, "that in 
 everything your conduct and Eugene's may satisfy the First 
 Consul as regards his views for the settlement of you two. 
 You are one of the dearest bonds between him and your 
 mamma, and should you fall into disgrace and negligence, do 
 not think that you will ever find consolation. One may 
 dispense with reaching a high position, nay, one may even feel 
 that it is a happiness to live remote from such ; but one cannot 
 come down again with sorrow. This is a great truth." 
 
Marriage Schemes 29 5 
 
 no power of resistance against those who treated 
 her kindly. 
 
 The autumn of 1801 saw the consummation 
 of Josephine's desire to marry Hortense to 
 Louis Bonaparte. Lucien claims ^ that she 
 first made an attempt to secmre him for her 
 daughter. His bitter hatred for Josephine 
 makes his story suspicious, especially as we 
 know that Josephine was aware of a proposal 
 from Lucien to Napoleon to find him another 
 wife in her place. He says, however, that, 
 soon after his return from Spain (he came 
 back in November 1801, having accumulated 
 fifty million francs, it was reported), he was 
 invited to breakfast by Josephine. She was 
 very gracious to him, and, in the presence of 
 the blushing Hortense, openly hinted at a 
 match. Lucien was guarded in his rephes and 
 let her know that he did not contemplate a 
 second marriage after his loss of Christine. 
 Josephine did not insist, but the arrival of the 
 First Consul put an end to an embarrassing 
 situation. 
 
 Unfortunately for Lucien's reputation for 
 truth, it seems probable that Hortense was 
 
 • "Memoires," iL 268. 
 
29^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 already engaged to Louis when his elder brother 
 returned from Madrid. Louis was back in 
 Paris in September, and at a dance at Mal- 
 maison yielded to the wishes of Napoleon and 
 Josephine and asked Hortense to be his wife. 
 He claims in his Memoirs to have been forced 
 into an engagement. But he is scarcely more 
 trustworthy than Lucien ; and what he says 
 in his Memoirs, moreover, is coloured by his 
 subsequent quarrels with his wife. At the 
 time of the engagement, whatever may have 
 been his state of mind before and after, he 
 was generally supposed to have fallen in love 
 with Hortense. Even Lucien bears witness 
 to this.^ With his peculiar delicacy of feeling 
 he ventured to suggest to Louis that there 
 might be reasons for the anxiety of Hortense' s 
 mother and step-father to marry her ; but 
 Louis could only stammer that he was already 
 in love. " You are in love ? " Lucien says 
 that he replied. " Then why the devil do you 
 come to ask my advice ? Forget what I have 
 told you. Marry her and God bless you ! " 
 
 The insinuation which Lucien had not scrupled 
 to make was one of singular infamy ; but, as 
 
 I "Memoires," li. 269. 
 
The Engagement with Louis 297 
 
 it remained in the unhappy mind of Louis 
 and helped to poison him against his wife, it 
 must be explained here. Lucien repeated the 
 story which some of the vilest scandal-mongers 
 had invented against Napoleon — that he was 
 himself in love with Hortense.^ Louis took 
 no notice of this very base falsehood at the 
 time, and it was not until he discovered their 
 incompatibility of character that it recurred 
 to him. Then he was morbidly inclined to 
 receive every suspicion. 
 
 Bourrienne, no more truthful but less actuated 
 by malice in distorting facts than the Bonaparte 
 brothers, has yet another account of the way 
 in which the engagement between Louis and 
 Hortense was brought about. Hor tense, he 
 says, was smitten with Duroc, one of Napoleon's 
 aides-de-camp ; and he himself acted as their 
 intermediary in carrying letters unknown to 
 Napoleon or Josephine. Hortense's desire, how- 
 
 ' And indeed that he was the father of her first child. M. 
 Masson easily disproves this by an exposition of dates 
 (" Napoleon et les Femmes," 178). Lucien, it may be noted, 
 after describing his interview with Louis, says : " Eight days 
 later Louis was married. It was a case of urgency." But for 
 the existence of his own Memoirs it might be possible to feel 
 some sympathy with Lucien ; but they leave him with hardly 
 a rag of decent character. 
 
i98 The -Empress Josephine 
 
 ever, was not secret, and at length on January 4, 
 1802, Napoleon consented to let her marry the 
 man of her choice, if Duroc wished it ; if not, 
 she must marry Louis. Duroc, when he was 
 told that it was an essential condition that he 
 must go to live at Toulon — " I don't want a 
 son-in-law in my house," said Napoleon — 
 refused. The same night before they went 
 to bed Napoleon told Josephine that Hortense 
 must wed Louis, which was what Josephine 
 herself wanted. 
 
 That Hortense had an attachment for Duroc 
 is true, but the rest of Bourrienne's tale ^ seems 
 drawn largely from his imagination. Hortense 
 only admits that Duroc wished to marry her, 
 that she was not unwilling, and that Murat 
 (not Bourrienne) conveyed a letter from him 
 to her before he went away on a mission for 
 Napoleon to Berlin. Hortense was afraid to 
 open the letter and left it in her room. On 
 going downstairs in the evening, she was greeted 
 by the First Consul with the remark : " These 
 are nice things I hear. You receive love-letters 
 without your parents' consent ! " She burst 
 
 1 It is very much compressed above. See Bourrienne, iv. 
 319-21. 
 
Hortense's Marriage 299 
 
 into tears. After teasing her for a little. Na- 
 poleon relented. It was agreed to send Duroc's 
 letter back to him unread, and the affair ended. 
 There are thus numerous contradictory ver- 
 sions of the manner in which Josephine's scheme 
 was brought to a successful issue. But she 
 gained her end. " My daughter can only 
 marry a prince or a Bonaparte," she is said 
 to have remarked. On January 3, 1802, the 
 marriage contract was drawn up, and on the 
 following day Hortense became the wife of 
 Louis Bonaparte.^ Little more than three 
 years later she was a princess. 
 
 1 " Never was a ceremony more gloomy," says Louis in his 
 Memoirs. " Never did husband and wife feel such misgivings 
 about a forced and ill-assorted match." But these words 
 were written long after the marriage had come to a disastrous 
 end. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 UNWELCOME HONOURS 
 
 THE wedding of Louis Bonaparte and 
 Hortense Beauharnais was marked by 
 a religious ceremony in addition to the civil 
 contract ; and at the same time the marriage 
 of Caroline with Murat, which had up to the 
 present been purely civil, was now, by Na- 
 poleon's order, blessed by the Church. Napoleon 
 did not, however, suggest that a similar course 
 should be adopted with regard to his own 
 union with Josephine. It may be imagined 
 that the significance of this was not lost upon 
 Josephine, little though she may have been 
 troubled by religious scruples, which hardly 
 were a part of her nature. The growing respect 
 paid by Napoleon for religious forms, which 
 was to be strikingly illustrated soon, can but 
 have made this neglect to ratify his own mar- 
 riage in the eyes of Christians painfully sus- 
 picious to his wife. She knew, moreover, 
 
 300 
 
LOUIS BONAPARTE, KING OF HOLLAND. 
 
 From a lithograph after Eelliard. 
 
Civil and Religious Wedlock 301 
 
 that Lucien while at Madrid had proposed to 
 his brother a marriage with the Infanta Isabella 
 of Spain. Napoleon had rejected the proposal, 
 not without mentioning it to Josephine. But 
 what warrant had she that another suggestion 
 might not prove more tempting to him, since, 
 if he were not open to such suggestions, why 
 should he not give to his union with her that 
 sanction which he considered necessary in the 
 cases of his brother Louis and his sister Caroline ? 
 It must have been with a troubled heart that 
 Josephine saw her husband start on January 8, 
 four days after Louis's wedding, to meet the 
 envoys of the Cisalpine Republic at Lyon, and 
 to receive from them the offer of their Presi- 
 dency. Every step upward for Napoleon 
 brought an added dread to his childless wife. 
 Even when they first moved to the Tuileries, 
 she is reported to have trembled and exclaimed 
 that " to climb so high was to expose oneself to 
 giddiness " ; and now it was plain that the 
 chmbing must continue, whither she could not 
 see. 
 
 Still, in spite of the terror of divorce which 
 must always have been at her heart, she had 
 no reason to complain that Napoleon did not 
 
302 The Empress Josephine 
 
 make her state increase with his own. When 
 the move was made from the Petit-Luxembourg 
 to the Tuileries, Josephine had no official 
 position at all, and, although she was hostess 
 at a virtual Court, had no Household over 
 which to preside. At the Tuileries a gradual 
 development of her position began, which 
 was manifested also at Malmaison, where in 
 May 1801 she entertained with Napoleon the 
 newly created King of Etruria and his wife. 
 A Bourbon at last was the guest of the Jose- 
 phine who had failed as the Vicomtesse de 
 Beauharnais to be admitted to the Bourbon 
 Court at Paris. In the chief festivals of the 
 year — the fete of the Republic on July 14, and 
 the commemoration of hrumaire on November 9 
 — she had the most prominent place among 
 the women. But it was not until after Napo- 
 leon's return from Lyon in February 1802 that 
 he decided to brave public opinion and establish 
 a regular Court etiquette and a Household 
 in the Palace. Josephine now had assigned 
 to her four " Ladies of the Palace," each of 
 whom attended on her for a week at a time, 
 while all four were present on great occasions, 
 such as when the ambassadors' wives and 
 
The Growth of Etiquette 303 
 
 other distinguished visitors were to be pre- 
 sented to her. All her ladies had aristocratic 
 names which must have been dear to her — 
 Lauriston, Lu9ay, Remusat, Talhou&t — and 
 which at the same time were calculated to 
 impress those who were inclined to look askance 
 at a Republican First Consul's wife. Scoffers 
 were more silent when they saw at her re- 
 ceptions an etiquette modelled on the pre- 
 sentations to the Queens of France, a host of 
 green-and-gold liveried servants, and a regular 
 palace staff of Governor and prefects, all 
 generals, of aides-de-camp, and of ladies of old 
 family. 
 
 Nowhere was the change in Josephine's 
 condition more conspicuous than at the great 
 ceremony of Easter 1802, when Napoleon 
 signalised his reconciliation with religion by a 
 solemn Te Deum at Notre-Dame. In the 
 previous year, Joseph Bonaparte and Cardinal 
 Consalvi had drawn up the terms of the Con- 
 cordat, which was promulgated in April after 
 its acceptance by the State bodies. On the 
 day of the service an audience was given to 
 the Cardinal Legate, who after visiting the 
 First Consul was received also by his wife. 
 
304 The Empress Josephine 
 
 It was observed that Josephine did not advance 
 to meet the Legate, but merely rose from her 
 chair twice, as he came in and went out. All 
 the details had been arranged beforehand by 
 Napoleon. Time was not yet ripe for Josephine 
 to ride with him in the procession ; but, ac- 
 companied by more than sixty ladies of the 
 highest positions in France, she proceeded to 
 the place reserved for her in the gallery of the 
 church. So brilliant was the scene there that 
 Napoleon remarked at the Tuileries that he 
 recommended to painters the picture of the 
 gallery of Notre-Dame on April 18, 1802. In 
 the centre of all Josephine should have sat, 
 but on her arrival she found that Mme. Hulot, 
 mother-in-law of Moreau, the hero of Hohen- 
 linden, had taken her place and refused to 
 move. Josephine, who desired to conciliate the 
 old lady, took another seat ; but Napoleon, 
 when he observed what he described as " the 
 nut-cracker face and evil expression " of Mme. 
 Hulot where his wife should have been, ex- 
 hibited signs of bad temper which continued 
 to the end of the service. 
 
 The procession which went to Notre-Dame 
 was the most gorgeous since the Revolution, 
 
A Notre'Dame Ceremony 305 
 
 if it were not to be compared to that which 
 went from the Tuileries to the same place some 
 two years and a half later. For the first time 
 since the old regime had disappeared Uveries 
 were seen in the streets, the green of Napoleon's 
 household, the red and blue of the other Consuls, 
 the yellow of the various great officials, etc. 
 Four-horse carriages drew the Councillors of 
 State, Ambassadors, and Ministers, six horses 
 the Second and Third Consuls, and eight horses 
 Napoleon himself, clad in scarlet velvet coat 
 and black breeches, with a tricolour plume in 
 his hat. Inside the church four battalions of 
 troops waited, and the Te Deum was accom- 
 panied by drums and trumpets within and the 
 firing of artihery without. It was long before 
 the service, which Napoleon had ordered to be 
 conducted with the fuUest possible pomp,^ 
 came to an end. After aU, the Bonaparte 
 
 1 Too much for many of those present, it would appear. 
 Bourrienne remarks on the irreverence of part of the con- 
 gregation, the whisperings and even open murmurs during the 
 ceremony. It was not so easy for others as for Napoleon to 
 break away from the anti-religious habits of the Revolution. 
 But the others did not comprehend like Napoleon the im- 
 portance of winning over from the Bourbon cause the clergy — 
 " one of our best weapons," as the Bourbon claimant wrote to 
 the Comte d'Artois. 
 
 VOL. I 20 
 
3o6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 family, husbands and wives, drove to Morte- 
 fontaine to dine with Joseph, the nominal 
 concluder of the Concordat. 
 
 In the midst of aU the splendour and move- 
 ment of the time we get continual glimpses of 
 the undjdng strife between Bonaparte and 
 Beauharnais, that Fourteen Years' War which 
 raged about the person of Napoleon and was 
 only suspended when the belligerents were 
 temporarily distracted by their own interests 
 to some other occupation. The question of 
 turning the First Consulship into a life office, 
 which was more and more discussed as time 
 went on, furnished a grand occasion for a new 
 outbreak of hostilities between Josephine and 
 the Bonaparte brothers. The defeat of Lucien, 
 which had resulted in his financially profitable 
 exile to Spain, was not accepted by him or the 
 others as final. Circumstances fought on their 
 side, and as they saw success approaching, 
 they grew triumphant in anticipation. Bour- 
 rienne describes their pretensions as incredible 
 and relates how one day Lucien, asked by 
 Josephine why he had not come to dinner at 
 the Tuileries on the previous evening, answered : 
 " Because there was no seat reserved for me. 
 
Family Strife 307 
 
 The brothers of Napoleon ought to have the 
 first place after him." 
 
 Mme. de R^musat tells another tale of dis- 
 puted precedence at a dinner given by Joseph 
 Bonaparte at Mortefontaine about this period. 
 On this occasion Napoleon appears as one of 
 the combatants in the warfare. The family 
 was assembled, including Mme. Letizia, and 
 when dinner was announced Joseph offered 
 his arm to his mother, asking Lucien to take 
 in Josephine. Napoleon at once remarked 
 that Joseph must put his mother on his left 
 hand and his sister-in-law on his right. The 
 elder brother took no notice, and the party 
 was going into the dining-room as he had 
 arranged, when Napoleon crossed over rapidly 
 to Josephine, took her from Lucien, and walking 
 in with her first, sat down to table with her 
 at his side. A coldness fell upon the guests, 
 but Napoleon called to Mme. de Remusat, who 
 was in attendance on Josephine, and asked 
 her to sit on his other side. As she was a 
 stranger this at least avoided any further 
 dispute. But it is not surprising to hear that 
 cordial feeling was absent from the dinner- 
 table and that Josephine confessed to her 
 
3o8 The Empress Josephine 
 
 lady that she was glad when it came to an 
 end. 
 
 Petty victories, sought or unsought for by 
 herself, over the pretensions of the Bonapartes 
 could not console Josephine for the inevitable 
 approach of an event which she dreaded. After 
 the Senate had voted a further term of ten 
 years, which by no means satisfied Napoleon, 
 the Council of State decided in May that it 
 was time to ask France to settle by plebiscite 
 the question whether the First Consul should 
 hold his office for life. Josephine confided her 
 anxieties to all who would listen to her. " Bona- 
 parte's real enemies," she told Roederer, " are 
 those who put into his head ideas about a 
 dynasty, about heredity, divorce, and a second 
 marriage." " Bonaparte listens to me with 
 sufficient attention," she said on another oc- 
 casion to one of the Councillors of State, " but 
 his flatterers soon alter his opinions for him. 
 The generals exclaim that they have not fought 
 against the Bourbons merely to substitute the 
 Bonapartes for them. I do not at all regret 
 that I have given my husband no children, 
 since I should tremble for their fate. I Shall 
 remain attached to the destiny of the Bona- 
 
Josephine's Confidences 309 
 
 partes," she continued, " however perilous it 
 be, as long as he cherishes for me the regard 
 and friendship which he has always shown. 
 But the day on which he changes I shall leave 
 the Tuileries." 
 
 Fouche was also the recipient of her con- 
 fidences ; but, however much he agreed with 
 her in opposing the idea of a life Consulship, 
 he saw that all efforts to thwart Napoleon 
 would be in vain. Since the course of events 
 could not be stopped, let it go on. He had 
 no other advice to give. As enemies of the 
 scheme on foot, both he and she were for the 
 time out of the inner ring. He probably fore- 
 saw his own coming fall from the Ministry and 
 that Josephine could not help him. She had 
 defended him at the time of the rue Saint- 
 Nicaise outrage, when he had been accused of 
 neglecting his duty. But now she was hardly 
 in a position even to earn the daily pension 
 which he allowed her to keep him informed 
 of what went on at the Tuileries or at Mal- 
 maison. Napoleon was putting her on false 
 scents, it was said, in order that she might 
 mislead his Minister of Pohce — a truly re- 
 markable position of affairs ! Whether or not 
 
3IO The Empress Josephine 
 
 it was true (as M. Masson, for instance, main- 
 tains) that her sensual influence over him was 
 waning, he certainly avoided for the moment 
 the risk which was threatened by trusting his 
 thoughts to her. In a corresponding degree 
 Lucien was readmitted to his confidence, whence 
 he had been banished since his misbehaviour 
 as Minister of the Interior. It was useless for 
 Josephine to complain. " How can you trust 
 Lucien ? " she asked. " Have you not told 
 me yourself that you saw a letter written by 
 him to his uncle, in which he threatened your 
 life ? Have you not told me that Lucien 
 would be nothing as long as you were First 
 Consul ? " " Attend to your spinning ! " was 
 Napoleon's only reply. 
 
 There was nothing for Josephine to do in 
 Paris. She could not check the course of 
 events, as Fouche had told her, and she might 
 as well go away as stay where she was not for 
 the moment wanted. There were always the 
 waters. Corvisart, the doctor, would not pro- 
 nounce it impossible for Plombieres to aid in 
 a matter which caused her so much sorrow, 
 whatever she might say with ulterior motives 
 to Councillors of State. While she remained in 
 
Unpleasant Discussions 311 
 
 the family circle, all keenly interested in the 
 discussion of subjects which filled her with 
 dread, there was little chance of her forgetting 
 that she was thirty-nine and that she had not 
 borne Napoleon a child. One day the question 
 of barrenness came up among the ladies. " You 
 forget," said Josephine, " that I have already 
 had children. Are not Eugene and Hortense 
 my children ? " " But you were young then, 
 my sister," replied EUsa Bacciochi. Josephine 
 had recourse to her never-failing remedy of 
 tears. In the middle Napoleon entered the 
 room and insisted on being told what was the 
 matter. " How indiscreet of you ! " he said 
 angrily to Elisa. " Do you not know that the 
 truth is not always good to tell ? " 
 
 Such intervention on the part of her husband 
 was worse than the original malice of her sister- 
 in-law ; and Josephine must have felt em- 
 barrassed, although the society in which she 
 had mixed had few reticences, at the public 
 discussion of her bodily state. For Napoleon 
 continued to talk in a most open way, in com- 
 pany including Lucien and several generals, 
 about the possibiUty of a child being born. It 
 was unlikely at her age, he told her jokingly, 
 
312 The Empress Josephine 
 
 even if he were not the father. Thereupon 
 Lucien joined in the conversation and re- 
 marked : " Now, my sister, show the Consul 
 that he is mistaken and give us quickly a Uttle 
 Csesarion I " ^ 
 
 From such unwelcome conversations at least 
 Josephine escaped when she went to Plombieres 
 about the middle of June. She left behind her 
 at Malmaison Hortense, in order that there 
 might be a hostess in charge. There survives 
 a letter from Napoleon to her at this epoch, 
 which is curiously worded and shows him in a 
 very tender mood, in spite of the alleged waning 
 of her dominion over him. 
 
 " I have not received any news from you," 
 he writes, " but I suppose you must already 
 have begun to take the waters. We are a 
 Httle melancholy here, although your amiable 
 daughter does the honours of the house marvel- 
 lously well. I have been for two days slightly 
 troubled with my pain. Your big Eugene ar- 
 
 ' The account which Bourrienne says he had from Josephine 
 of this scene makes Lucien's suggestion to have been that 
 either she or Napoleon should have a child by some one else. 
 " The amiable Josephine," adds Bourrienne, " was sobbing as 
 she described the scene to me." In this case it seems better to 
 trust to Lucien's version, which is that given above. It 
 sounds more probable. 
 
The Life Consulate 313 
 
 rived here yesterday. He is marvellously 
 well. 
 
 " I love you as on the first day, because you 
 are good and amiable above all things. 
 
 " Hortense teUs me that she has written to 
 you often. 
 
 " A thousand amiable messages and a kiss of 
 love. Ever yours. 
 
 " Bonaparte." 
 
 Before the end of July Josephine returned 
 from Plombieres to find that the plebiscite had 
 already been taken which made Napoleon First 
 Consul for the term of his life, although the 
 result had not yet been made public. As she 
 must have been expecting this, she had no 
 doubt by now grown accustomed to the idea. 
 She asked him when he was going to make her 
 Empress of the Gauls, and he laughingly re- 
 assured her as to her position. Whatever he 
 had now in his head, he was not yet prepared 
 to take her into his confidence. On August 4 
 the figures of the plebiscite were declared, 
 showing that an overwhelming majority of his 
 fellow-countr5mien desired Napoleon to be Life 
 Consul over them. At the Tuileries all was 
 
314 The Empress Josephine 
 
 rejoicing. The Bonaparte family was as- 
 sembled there, and thither came visitors in 
 crowds to offer their congratulations. It was 
 observed that on Josephine's face more appre- 
 hension than joy was visible. Napoleonist 
 writers have commented unfavourably on this, 
 some quoting Bourrienne's criticism that " she 
 saw in each step which the First Consul made 
 toward the throne a step which took him farther 
 from her " as though it were a mark of her 
 selfish regard for her own interests alone. This 
 hardly seems just to Josephine. Although she 
 might have been better advised to mask her 
 thoughts, it was not unreasonable that she 
 should feel apprehensive as to what was in 
 store for her, with nothing except her husband's 
 love (and that possibly not so ardent of late) 
 standing between her and the divorce to which 
 many of his advisers, of his own kindred es- 
 pecially, were constantly urging him, in the 
 interests alike of State and of family. 
 
 Another point should be taken into con- 
 sideration in connection with Josephine's du- 
 bious reception of the elevation of Napoleon 
 to the Life Consulship, which was already 
 Empire under a Republican name. It cannot 
 
The Old Aristocracy 315 
 
 be supposed that her attachment to the Royalist 
 cause was sufficiently strong to make her 
 willing to sacrifice anything to it. Still, in 
 spite of her erstwhile declarations of sans- 
 culotterie, she had a genuine respect for the old 
 rigime. The ex-nobles had always found a 
 friend in the widow Beauharnais, and they 
 had continued to find one in Mme. Bonaparte. 
 Such of the old aristocracy as could safely live 
 in Paris were welcomed in her salons. Whether 
 at the rue de la Victoire, the Petit-Luxembourg, 
 or the Tuileries, it was the same. Those still 
 expressing opinions favourable to the Bourbons 
 knew that they would not be rejected by the 
 First Consul's wife on that account. They 
 knew she Uked their manners and sympathised 
 with their loyalty to the exiled family. They 
 felt no compunction, therefore, in paying visits 
 to her, even when they scornfully refused all 
 deahngs with the Consul himself. They re- 
 ferred to her any petitions which they had to 
 make, and she on her part delighted to forward 
 them. It was always a pleasure to her to be 
 a patroness, and particularly to an aristocratic 
 client. 
 Nor did Josephine stop here. She even 
 
3^6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 allowed herself to be approached by Royalist 
 agents who hoped to be able to persuade General 
 Bonaparte, as they called him, to play the 
 Monk in a Bourbon restoration. An interesting 
 letter has been pubUshed written in March 1801 
 by the Comte de Provence to one of his sup- 
 porters, the Marquis de Clermont-Gallerande. 
 No one, the Comte wrote, could better persuade 
 General Bonaparte to re-establish the legitimate 
 monarchy than she whose lot was bound up 
 with his, who could only be happy at his happi- 
 ness and honoured by his glory. " I did not 
 learn what is her way of thinking to-day. The 
 Comte de Viom^nil, about whose sentiments 
 there can certainly be no doubt, has told me 
 more than once that at Martinique he often 
 urged her that her RoyaMsm went beyond 
 prudence, and the assistance which she gives 
 to-day to those of my faithful subjects who 
 have recourse to her earns for her thoroughly 
 the name of angel of kindness which you give 
 to her. So make known to Mme. Bonaparte 
 my sentiments. They should not surprise her. 
 Either I am deceived or her heart will rejoice 
 at them." 
 If the Comte de Provence could write thus 
 
Bourbon Intrigues 317 
 
 early in 1801, in 1802 Josephine was still more 
 eager to further the Bourbon restoration. Her 
 dream was to see Napoleon Constable of France 
 and herself a leading figure at a Legitimist 
 Court. Her rooms in the Tuileries were there- 
 fore always open in the mornings — for they 
 would not come in the evenings to mix with 
 the supporters of the Government — to adherents 
 and secret agents of the late Royal family. 
 In the spring of 1802 Napoleon discovered 
 something of this and ordered two ladies, 
 Mmes. de Damas and de Champcenetz, to be 
 put across the frontier. He welcomed Jose- 
 phine's friendship with the old nobility, but 
 he had no mind to become a Constable of 
 France under the Bourbons ; moreover, there 
 was danger in the Royalist conspiracies, as 
 was to be seen before long. 
 
 In view of her fears and her ambitions alike, 
 we must not judge Josephine too harshly if she 
 could not enter joyfuUy into the celebrations 
 of August 1802, and if it was with somewhat 
 of terror that she saw the " star " of Napoleon 
 shining forty feet above Notre-Dame during 
 the illumination of the cathedral in honour of 
 his new dignity. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AN ANXIOUS PERIOD 
 
 IN the October following Napoleon's attain- 
 ment of the Life Consulship, an event took 
 place in the Bonaparte family which brought 
 about a temporary improvement of relations be- 
 tween some of the warring members. On the i8 
 vendemiare an XI. (October lo, 1802) a child was 
 born to Hortense and Louis Bonaparte, who was 
 baptized Napoleon-Charles. Two hundred and 
 eighty days had elapsed since the marriage of 
 Hortense and Louis, and Josephine must have 
 felt a great relief at the dispelling of the sus- 
 picions which Lucien and others had endeavoured 
 to create concerning the " urgency " of that 
 marriage. Napoleon had been keenly alive to 
 the way in which he and his step-daughter had 
 been slandered, since there was an attempt to 
 revive the scandal while Hortense was doing 
 the honours of Malmaison during her mother's 
 absence at Plombidres. It was perhaps in 
 
 318 
 
The First Grandchild 319 
 
 consequence of this that he decided that the 
 birth of the child should not occur at the 
 Tuileries or Malmaison, and took for her a 
 new house in the rue de la Victoire rather 
 larger than that which had been first Josephine's, 
 next his, and lastly lent by him to his brother 
 and Hortense. Accordingly it was in this house 
 that Napoleon-Charles was bom. The " Moni- 
 teur," for the first time in the history of the 
 Bonaparte family, announced the occurrence 
 with the mother's name printed in small capitals. 
 Josephine, it has been said, must have felt 
 a great relief at the birth of her grandchild in 
 due season. For it is impossible that she could 
 be ignorant of the evil falsehood which it pleased 
 some of the Bonapartes and the more un- 
 scrupulous Royalist enemies of the First Consul 
 to spread about him and Hortense. It has 
 been argued from the fact that Josephine later 
 repeated the stories in moments of extreme 
 agitation, that she was inclined to believe them. 
 This appears an unwarranted deduction. What 
 Josephine said when she was distracted by grief 
 and what she believed in her sane condition 
 were totally different things. She was a woman 
 with singularly little power of repression when 
 
3*0 The Empress Josephine 
 
 afflicted with sorrow or under the influence of 
 a personal grievance ; and the troubles of the 
 years preceding her divorce were calculated to 
 disturb an equilibrium more constant than hers. 
 Louis Bonaparte came back to Paris three 
 days before the birth of his son. He had begun 
 to act in a strange manner very soon after his 
 marriage. The early days with Hortense at 
 6 rue de la Victoire had been unpleasant for 
 both of them. He lost no time before making 
 a systematic attempt to detach Hortense from 
 her mother's side. Granted that Louis shared 
 the hatred of Joseph and Lucien for Josephine 
 and that he despised her for her past levity 
 of conduct, he acted very unwisely in show- 
 ing his sentiments to a daughter who had 
 so strong an affection for her mother as 
 Hortense had for Josephine. He went stiU 
 further, it is said, and told Hortense what 
 he knew about Josephine's character. The 
 effect was not what he apparently expected. 
 She did not agree with Louis that she must break 
 off relations with her mother. On the other 
 hand, she now had no one to go to in her wretch- 
 edness. Her dull-eyed, morose, imaginary in- 
 valid of a husband had succeeded in cutting 
 
Hortcnse and Louis 321 
 
 her off from the full sympathy of her former 
 natural protectors, but he did not thereby draw 
 her to himself. She could only nurse her grief 
 in her own heart and find what consolation she 
 might in society and her personal tastes. When 
 Louis left her in the March after their wedding, 
 upon the useful pretext of joining his regiment 
 again, she could not bear the associations of 
 their home, and was glad therefore to spend 
 most of her time at the Tuileries and Malmaison 
 until the advent of her first-born brought a 
 distraction. 
 
 Napoleon-Charles's birth was followed by an 
 improvement in his parents' domestic affairs. 
 Louis could have no real doubt that the child 
 was his, and for a little while he showed a 
 distinctly tenderer feeling toward his wife. 
 Even Josephine, who can hardly have been 
 totally ignorant of Louis's intentions against 
 herself, was satisfied by his improved attitude 
 toward his wife, and for the present there was 
 a harmony in the inner circle of the Bonaparte- 
 Beauharnais family which was indeed rare. 
 
 There was, however, coming to be a new 
 factor in the lives of Josephine and Napoleon 
 which was destined to cause her much pain and 
 
 VOL. I 21 
 
322 The Empress Josephine 
 
 him much annoyance. Josephine was growing 
 jealous. The day had passed when his heart 
 was torn by her levity and actual unfaithfulness. 
 She had mended her ways, and she was in her 
 fortieth year. He, on the other hand, was 
 little over thirty-three and the supreme ruler 
 of France, with temptations thrown daily in 
 his way. He had shown no lessening of his 
 affectionate regard for her ; but his passion had 
 hardly survived the return from Egypt, had 
 even ceased to be exclusively hers before his 
 return . If she could not retain her empire over 
 his senses, could she count upon his affection 
 to put aside the thought of a younger wife whom 
 so many counselled him to take, in the interests 
 of himself, his family, and the State ? She 
 began to watch with an anxious eye for every 
 trace of infidelity to her, regardless of the fact 
 that whenever she made a scene the annoyance 
 drove Napoleon farther in the direction in which 
 she feared to see him go. She failed for some 
 time (it is hardly unnatural) to appreciate his 
 reasoning that " she took things far too seriously 
 and ought not to make herself miserable about 
 amusements in which his affection had no part." 
 Mme. de Remusat relates one of the scenes 
 
Jealousy 323 
 
 which occurred at the Tuileries some time in 
 1803. Josephine suspected that one of the 
 actresses at the Theatre-Frangais, Mile. Georges, 
 had an attraction for her husband. Now it had 
 grown to be Napoleon's custom to go to bed 
 first and to send for Josephine, often as early as 
 II o'clock. One night Josephine was waiting 
 in her own sitting-room with Mme. de Remusat. 
 Midnight passed, and no summons came from 
 Napoleon. Josephine grew more and more 
 agitated. At last she turned to her lady and 
 said : " I can bear it no longer. Mile. Georges 
 is there. I want to surprise them. Follow 
 me ; we will go up together." Mme. de Remu- 
 sat's protests were unavailing, and Josephine 
 dragged her along with her to the secret stair- 
 case and up the stairs. All was in darkness, but 
 suddenly a slight noise was heard. " Perhaps it 
 is Bonaparte's mameluke Rustan, guarding 
 his door," whispered Josephine fearfully. " The 
 wretch is capable of killing us both." Mme. 
 de Remusat yielded to panic and this time 
 dragged her mistress with her down the stairs. 
 When they were back in the sitting-room 
 Josephine abandoned the idea of a surprise. 
 Napoleon, however, came to hear of the affair 
 
324 The Empress Josephine 
 
 and insisted that in future he and she must 
 occupy their own separate rooms. Josephine, 
 in her grief, urged that she was afraid for his 
 safety, and that as she was a Hght sleeper it 
 was to his advantage to have her with him. 
 But he would not give way. 
 
 Mme. de Remusat, who has preserved this 
 anecdote, was herself for a short period suspected 
 by Josephine of attractingthe regardof Napoleon. 
 He undoubtedly took pleasure in the conver- 
 sation of the good-looking lady of honour, who 
 was only twenty-two when she entered Jose- 
 phine's service in 1802, and saw much of her 
 society during a month in camp at Boulogne, 
 whither she had come to nurse her husband, 
 lying ill there. Josephine was decidedly cold 
 to her on her return ; but she had no reason 
 for fear, since Mme. de Remusat was a warm 
 adherent of the wife against the husband, and 
 her Memoirs are strongly coloured by the 
 innumerable confidences which Josephine made 
 to her during their long association.^ She had 
 
 ' Mme. de Remusat burnt her original Memoirs during the 
 Hundred Days, fearing, it was said, that the anti-Napoleonist 
 tone, which her indignation at the divorce of Josephine had 
 inspired, might be the cause of trouble to her. She wrote 
 the Memoirs which now survive in 1818. 
 
Mme. de Rdmusat 325 
 
 met Josephine at Croissy, where her mother, 
 Mme. Gravier de Vergennes, widowed by the 
 Terror, had a house ; and, in spite of the 
 disparity in age, the two became warm friends. 
 The incident at Boulogne only caused a slight 
 estrangement between them. " Clari " — her 
 real name was Claire-Elisabeth- Jeanne — was too 
 sympathetic a recipient of her complaints for 
 Josephine to lose her over a misunderstanding 
 for which she was in no way responsible. To 
 no one else was she so ready to impart 
 her ever-increasing suspicions against her 
 husband. 
 
 It was but natural that there should be found 
 people ready, out of friendship or malice, to 
 inform Josephine that Napoleon had cast his 
 eyes in this or that direction. And hence- 
 forward, by a strange reversal, the man who had 
 written to his wife in 1796 to " beware the 
 dagger of Othello," was doomed to be harassed 
 by the tongue of a jealous woman. Lucien has 
 in his Memoirs a story which may be true, 
 although there is one unexpected feature in it. 
 He says that Napoleon one day had been im- 
 portuned by Josephine's complaints and re- 
 marked to her ; " Imitate Livia and you will 
 
3^6 The Empress Josephine 
 
 find me an Augustus." " What does he mean 
 about Livia ? " asked the weeping Josephine 
 of Joseph and Lucien — surely curious consolers 
 for her to seek ! " Imitate Livia," was their 
 only reply ; and Lucien adds : " It is said that 
 she followed our advice. It was the best thing 
 she could do." 
 
 However, the best distraction from the tor- 
 ments of jealousy for Josephine was undoubtedly 
 that Napoleon should be occupied in public 
 affairs which would leave him little time for love. 
 This was not long in coming. On April 14, 1803, 
 a diplomatic reception was to be held at the 
 Tuileries. Josephine was in her private apart- 
 ments, completing her toilet, with Mme. de 
 Remusat in attendance. The First Consul, 
 present as so often while his wife dressed in the 
 evening, was sitting on the floor playing with 
 the six-months-old baby Napoleon-Charles. A 
 message came that the guests were waiting. 
 " Come, ladies ! " said Napoleon, with an abrupt 
 change of manner ; and with a pale and con- 
 tracted face he walked hastily into the salon. 
 He made straight for Lord Whitworth, the 
 English Ambassador, and in the midst of the 
 great oiicial gathering cried to him : "So you 
 
War with England 327 
 
 are decided upon war ! We have had it for 
 ten years, you want it for another ten, and you 
 are forcing me to it." Josephine and her 
 attendant lady exchanged glances of alarm. 
 What they were listening to was the virtual 
 announcement that the Treaty of Amiens was 
 at an end. 
 
 The immediate result of the rupture with 
 England was of a gay father than a gloomy 
 character for Josephine. Napoleon decided to 
 take her with him on a tour through Belgium, 
 after she had paid an unusually short visit to 
 Plombieres. A letter written from Plombieres 
 to Hortense at Malmaison shows her in low 
 spirits at their separation. 
 
 " I feel that I was not born for so much 
 greatness," she says, " and that I should be 
 more happy in retirement, surrounded by the 
 objects of my affection. I know you, my dear 
 daughter, and am sure that you, while you make 
 the happiness of my life, share also all my cares. 
 Eugene should be with you now. This idea 
 consoles me. I know well enough your attach- 
 ment to Bonaparte to be convinced that you 
 give him your loyal companionship. You owe 
 him, on many grounds, friendship and gratitude. 
 
328 The Empress Josephine 
 
 . . . Send me news often. Take good care of my 
 grandchild." 
 
 Whatever sentiments this letter conveys, it 
 shows no jealousy of Hortense's relations to 
 Napoleon, nor anything but love for Hortense 
 and her baby. 
 
 Josephine returned to Paris before the Belgium 
 tour, and it was on June 24 that she set out with 
 Napoleon from Saint-Cloud for Amiens, the 
 coast ports, and Lille. From the last-named 
 town she wrote on July 9 another of her affec- 
 tionate letters to her daughter, part of which 
 deserves quotation : 
 
 " I have been meaning, my dear Hortense, 
 to get your brother and my ladies to write to 
 you to give you news of Bonaparte and myself. 
 Since my departure from Paris I have been 
 constantly employed in listening to compliments. 
 You know me, and can judge from this how much 
 I should prefer a quieter life. Happily the 
 society of my ladies compensates me for the 
 busthng life which I lead. All my mornings, 
 and often my evenings, are passed in receiving 
 people. I have now to go to a ball. This 
 pleasure would have been very agreeable to me 
 if I could have shared it with you or at least 
 
A Triumphal Tour 329 
 
 seen you enjoy it. The hardship which my 
 heart feels most is that which separates me 
 from my dear Hortense and from my grandson, 
 whom I love almost as much as I love his 
 mamma." 
 
 The party passed through Ostend and Bruges 
 to Ghent, where the departmental prefect 
 overwhelmed Josephine with more compliments. 
 " At Ghent," he told her, " they were aware 
 of the empire over hearts which her benevolence 
 exercised. When that virtue of benevolence 
 was accompanied by the irresistible charms 
 of grace, inteUigence, and talent, it was all- 
 powerful. So at Ghent everything was subject 
 to her sway." At Antwerp, MaUnes, and 
 Brussels similar eulogies awaited her. Napoleon 
 was travelling through Beligum in Royal state, 
 attended by diplomatists, ministers, and generals, 
 and even by a Papal Legate, Cardinal Caprara ; 
 and Josephine received the attentions due to a 
 queen. At Brussels a strange scene occurred. 
 High Mass was to be said at the cathedral of 
 Sainte-Gudule, and the clergy had prepared 
 to receive Napoleon at the door and lead him 
 in procession to a throne set up near the -altar. 
 But Napoleon, always attentive to historic 
 
33° The Empress Josephine 
 
 precedents, was aware that Charlemagne had 
 entered the cathedral by a side door, which 
 bore his name in consequence. Accordingly he 
 told Josephine to take her place with the Second 
 Consul in the gallery, while he entered by 
 Charlemagne's door and seated himself on the 
 throne before the expectant clergy knew that 
 he was in the building. 
 
 After Brussels, visits were paid to Liege and 
 Maestricht, and on August 12 Napoleon and 
 Josephine returned to Saint-Cloud, having seen 
 eighty towns in forty-eight days ; certainly 
 the busiest forty-eight days in the history of 
 their life together. 
 
 The war which had been in progress with 
 England since May made little difference to 
 Josephine except in so far as it absorbed the 
 First Consul, and life went on much as before. 
 So did her struggle with her husband's family. 
 Another member of that family had lately re- 
 appeared to take up the contest after an absence 
 of more than a year. Paulette had gone out 
 most unwillingly to San Domingo at the end of 
 1801, accompanying her brave young husband 
 Leclerc, the ' ' right hand ' ' of Napoleon, as he him- 
 self called him. In January 1803 she returned 
 
MARIE PAULINE, PRINCESS BORGHESE.,. 
 From the painting by LefC'vrc in tlie Museum at Versailles. 
 
Paulette as a Widow 331 
 
 -to France, carrying her husband's heart in an 
 urn ' and having cut off all her hair to leave in 
 his coffin. Napoleon, fond though he was of 
 ■ Paulette, had remarked : " Oh, she knows her 
 hair will grow all the better for being cut ! " 
 He read his sister aright. The inconsolable 
 widow in the June after her return met at 
 Joseph's house at Mortefontaine the Roman 
 Prince Camillo Borghese. This handsome and 
 elegant young man, who had compromised 
 himself at home a few years before by espousing 
 French revolutionary ideas and had publicly 
 burnt the escutcheon of his rich and noble 
 family, had rehabilitated himself when he 
 became head of the family. Introduced to 
 Joseph Bonaparte by his friend Angiolini, he 
 had been invited to Mortefontaine. Although 
 he was ill-educated and singularly devoid of 
 talent, he made an immediate conquest of 
 Mme. Leclerc. In her letter from Lille, part 
 
 ' On the urn she had inscribed the words : " Paulette 
 Bonaparte, married to General Leclerc 20 prairial an V,, has 
 enclosed in this urn her love, together with the heart of her 
 husband, whose dangers and glory she shared." We are re- 
 minded of her words to Freron five years earlier : "I swear, 
 dear Stanislas, never to love any one but you." And of those 
 to her lover Forbin in 1 807 : "A ddio, caro, sempre cava amioo, 
 amante caro, si ii amo ti amaro sempre," 
 
33^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 of which is quoted above, Josephine wrote to 
 Hortense : 
 
 " Doubtless you know that Mme. Leclerc is 
 marrying. She weds Prince Borghese. She 
 wrote two days ago to Bonaparte to tell him 
 that she desired him for her husband and that 
 she felt she would be very happy with him. 
 She asks Bonaparte to allow Prince Borghese 
 to write to him to ask for her hand. It seems 
 that Joseph and M. Angelini [sic] made this 
 marriage. In case the family may not have 
 spoken to you of it, say nothing about it." 
 
 On receiving the Prince's letter, Napoleon 
 offered no objection to the marriage, but referred 
 him to J oseph as the head of the family. In such 
 a matter he preferred to recognise his brother's 
 seniority, which otherwise counted so httle. 
 Borghese obtained Joseph's consent and at the 
 end of August was secretly married to Paulette 
 at Mortefontaine, in the presence of Joseph, 
 Lucien, and Angiolini. The reason for secrecy 
 was this : Although Napoleon was willing to 
 leave the question of their sister's re-marriage 
 to the natural head of the family, he could not 
 himself, as head of the State, countenance the 
 breach of the lately restored Usages relating to 
 
The Borghcsc Marriage 333 
 
 mourning, which prescribed a period of one year 
 and six weeks for a husband. Leclerc had only 
 been dead nine months, so that Paulette's 
 violation of the law was scandalous. Napoleon 
 refused to be present at the pubhc civil marriage 
 in November and left for Boulogne without 
 seeing his sister. He had an additional reason 
 for ill-temper, for on October 26 Lucien had 
 been civilly married to the widow Alexandrine 
 Jouberthou or Jouberton, by whom he had 
 already a son. Napoleon called on him im- 
 mediately to put the woman away, and failing 
 to persuade him to do so, banished him from 
 France in the following spring. 
 
 Some of her enemies among the Bonapartes, 
 therefore, were rendering it impossible for them 
 to do harm to Josephine, by themselves for- 
 feiting their powerful brother's regard — Lucien 
 almost permanently, and Paulette for many 
 months. Lucien's removal was undoubtedly an 
 advantage to Josephine, although she had not 
 contributed in any way to his present disgrace, 
 and indeed appears after this to have tried to 
 soften Napoleon's heart toward him. Paulette 
 she had less reason to fear, for her very petulance 
 rendered her animosity comparatively harmless. 
 
J34 The' Empress Josephine 
 
 Josephine received the newly married Princess 
 at the Tuileries soon after the civil ceremony 
 and was able to inflict a signal defeat to her 
 pretensions by an exercise of that tact which 
 enabled her on so many occasions to be pleasant, 
 but also on a few put it in her power to be un- 
 pleasant without leaving her adversary any 
 ground for complaint. 
 
 The affair is amusingly described by the 
 Duchesse d'Abrantes, who was an interested 
 spectator. Paulette was to be formally pre- 
 sented to her sister-in-law in her new name and 
 with her new husband. Although it was a 
 November evening, Josephine proceeded to 
 array herself in a white Indian muslin robe, 
 with short sleeves, decorated with a few gold 
 lion-head brooches, while a golden network 
 held up the hair piled on the top of her head. 
 The First Consul, passing her dress under review 
 as usual, exclaimed as he kissed her shoulder : 
 " Josephine, I shall be jealous. You have some 
 scheme on . Why are you so beautiful to-day ? " 
 " I know that you like me in white, and I have 
 put on a white dress. That is all." " Well, 
 if it is to please me, you have succeeded " — and 
 he kissed her again. Josephine awaited her 
 
A Question of Colour 335 
 
 sister-in-law in the large saloon of Saint-Cloud, 
 upholstered in blue, which made an admirable 
 setting to her white mushn dress. Suddenly 
 the doors of the saloon were thrown open and 
 the usher announced " Monseigneur the Prince 
 and Madame the Princess Borghese." Pauhne 
 entered in a light green velvet robe, decorated 
 with pearls, emeralds, and diamonds, and with 
 an emerald and diamond tiara on her head. 
 Josephine, assuming royal airs, allowed her to 
 come nearly the length of the room to greet her. 
 Pauline turned to Mme. Junot a few minutes 
 later and said : " My sister-in-law thought to be 
 disagreeable to me in making me come all the 
 way across the room, but she has charmed me. 
 My train would not have been displayed if she 
 had come to meet me, while now it has been 
 admired in its entirety." Suddenly a thought 
 struck her. She turned again to Mme. Junot 
 and said in a desperate whisper : " Good 
 heavens, I have put on a green dress to sit in 
 a blue chair ! " Horror-struck, she rose as soon 
 as she could and bade farewell to Josephine, 
 who smilingly kissed her. Josephine had not 
 designed the situation so humiliating to the 
 belle des belles, but at least she had taken 
 
33^ The Empress Josephine 
 
 advantage of the opening which Fate had offered 
 to her, and the dazzling victory for which Pauhne 
 had no doubt looked had been won by Josephine. 
 The year 1803, which in its middle months 
 seemed to threaten grave dangers to Josephine 
 and almost to promise her enemies the victory 
 for which they prayed, closed with her position 
 rather strengthened and with her enemies dis- 
 concerted. It might be that she had reason 
 for doubting, as she did, the faithfulness of her 
 husband to his marriage vow, but, if he allowed 
 himself to stray occasionally, he seemed more 
 than ever determined to prove to her that she 
 was to him the only wife whom he desired and 
 that it was with her that he meant to share the 
 honours which he was confident would be his. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by Hazeli, IVatson &* yiney, Ld., London and Ayieshiryt England.