Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon Part 4

On a sudden she left the brilliant, enchanting Paris, which had entranced her with its many joys and its many distractions, and, as her husband had to be for some time at Blois with his regiment, she went to Noisy, to her aunt's residence, so as to labor at her higher mental culture, at the side of the lovely and intellectual Madame de Renaudin.

Josephine had hitherto, as a simple, sentimental young lady, played the guitar, and chirped with it, in her fresh but uncultivated voice, her sweet songs of love. She gave up the guitar, the favorite instrument of the creoles, and exchanged it for the harp, for which attainment as well as for the art of singing she procured the best and ablest masters. Even a dancing-master had to come to Noisy to give to the young viscountess that perfection of art which would enable her, without fear, to dance at a ball alongside of the Viscount de Beauharnais, "the beautiful dancer of Versailles." With her aunt she read the works of the writers and poets who were then praised and loved, and with wonderful predilection she also studied botany, to which science she ever clung during her life, and which threw on her existence gleams of joy when the sun of her happiness had long set.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Josephine, wounded both in her vanity and in her love--Josephine wished not and could not bear, as a pa.s.sive, silent sufferer, the neglect of her husband; he had insulted her as a woman, and the wrath of a woman rose within her. She screened not her jealousy from her husband; she reproached him for preferring other women to his wife, for neglecting her for the sake of others, and she required that to her alone he should do homage, that to her alone he should consecrate love and allegiance.

She wept, she complained, when she learned that, whilst she was left at home unnoticed, he had been here and there in the company of other women; she allowed herself to be so carried away by jealousy as to make violent reproaches against her husband.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be realized.

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

But after a few months pa.s.sed in happiness and harmony, the viscount was once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his regiment, which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender threads which had bound together the hearts of husband and wife.

Alexandre abandoned himself to his tendencies to dissipation, and Josephine to her jealousy. During the frequent visits which the viscount paid to his wife in Noisy, he was received with tears and reproaches, which always ended in violent scenes of anger and bitterness.

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

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

The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the British colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and enterprising man, since he had been in Martinique, with the forces at his disposal, with the help of the young creoles, and supported by the squadrons which lay in Port Royal, had conquered Dominique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St.

Christophe, Mievres, and Montserrat, and now he contemplated an attack upon the rich and important island of Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted would force the English into peace.

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

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

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

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

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

He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had in vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his family.

Before the s.h.i.+p upon which he was to embark for his journey weighed anchor, he took a last farewell of his family in a letter addressed to Madame de Renaudin.

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

It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique to win fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his resolves.

He had no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news spread that negotiations had begun between England and France. M. de Bouille received strict orders to make no attack on Jamaica; and a few weeks after, on the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Versailles. A few months later, peace was concluded, and all the conquests made by the Marquis de Bouille were returned to England.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of G.o.d and to the justice of the Parliament. During the time of the process she withdrew, according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street Grenelle, St. Germain. However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de Beauharnais, her husband's father, bringing her the children, who, during the time of the unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy, under the guardians.h.i.+p of their grandfather and of a worthy governess.