father than she could with her mother. So, when he questioned her one
day as to her unhappiness, she told him all. Now, Monsieur Tascher loved
his daughter after a fashion, but, as I told you, he loved money better;
and what do you think was his answer to the poor girl, who was so
broken-hearted about her lover, and so sad without the company of her
dear, dead sister? Why, he told her, that now that her sister was dead,
she (Josephine) must marry the gentleman whom her sister was engaged to
marry, had she lived. Monsieur Beauharnais was his name. Then the little
Creole cried till her eyes were half blind. In vain she told him that
she had promised William to marry none but him. Her father replied, that
in marrying M. Beauharnais, she would make the best match in Martinique,
but, as to William, he would never be a rich man. Josephine still kept
on crying. At last he told her a wicked fib: that since William had gone
to England, he had quite forgotten her. He did _not_ tell her, though,
that Josephine’s mother had in her possession twenty letters, which he
had written to his dear little wife, and which they had purposely kept
from her. Well, Josephine was spirited as well as loving, and when her
father told her that William had forgotten her, she said to herself, It
is very true; he has never written me one line. Then she shook the tears
from her beautiful eyes, as the rough wind shakes the dew-drops from the
rose, and holding up her flushed face to the bright sunlight, said,
proudly, “Marry me to whom you like; I will obey.” For all that, she
walked more than ever under the trees where they used to sit, and never
once did she carve the name of M. Beauharnais on her favorite trees.
Now, Josephine had an aunt in Paris named Madame Renardin, who was
constantly writing to Madame Tascher to come to Paris with Josephine,
that the marriage might more easily be brought about. But Madame Tascher
was very fond of her own beautiful island, and replied to Madame
Renardin, Ah, it is very easy to make Paris look fine, when I am two
thousand leagues away from it; no, no! I will not come to Paris; but
Monsieur Tascher and I will send Josephine there to be married. This
they did not tell Josephine, however. There was no need. She knew what
was going on. She was too keen-sighted not to understand what all the
long talks meant, between her father and mother. In an agony of grief at
the idea of leaving the place where she and William had been so happy,
to go among strangers and marry a man whom she had never even seen, she
threw herself at her mother’s feet, and using the only argument which
she thought would avail her, cried, “Oh, mamma, save me! save _Maria’s
sister_!” At the mention of her lost and _favorite_ daughter,
Josephine’s mother fainted. Josephine’s father turned upon his daughter,
and frowning as he pointed to her insensible mother, said, “Has, then,
_her_ precious life ceased to be dear to you?” Poor Josephine said no
more. From that moment she resigned herself to her fate.
Short work was made of the preparations for the voyage to France;
Josephine, meantime, walking for the last time under the trees, each one
of which had some happy story to tell—each one of which seemed to her
like a dear friend, from whom it were almost impossible to part. Now,
the day came when the ship was to set sail. A large number of islanders
had gathered upon the beach to wave hands and see her off. She had taken
leave of her father and mother, and stepped on board the ship. Suddenly,
a luminous meteor appeared in the heavens overhead, and by the aid of a
telescope which the captain handed her, Josephine examined it. Then the
captain told her, in great triumph, that “_she_ was the cause of it!
she—the future empress of France!” Then Josephine, for the first time,
remembered the prophecy of the old mulatto woman, who had told the
captain of it, and this was why the old sea-dog was in such glee at his
good fortune in having the illustrious little empress that was to be, on
board _his_ ship. This phosphoric flame, called “St. Elmo’s fire,” was
considered a good omen, and, at the time of their leaving, seemed to
form a sort of wreath around the ship. But everybody seemed more
interested in it than the poor, homesick Josephine, who could think only
of the home she was leaving, and the unknown home to which she was
going. The voyage proved very rough, and once they were in great danger;
but the mulatto woman had promised them a “through ticket,” and, of
course, they _went_ through, right side up! A young Creole named Lucy
accompanied Josephine, who was at this time only fifteen years old. You
will laugh when I tell you that the future empress carried her doll with
her, and that both she and Lucy used to play with them on the voyage.
But you will stop laughing when I tell you that when Lucy turned her
back, poor little Josephine used to talk to her doll about “William.”
Poor child! When her foot touched the coast of France, her woman’s life
began. The web was woven round her, and struggling was of no avail.
Madame Renardin bore away her beautiful niece in triumph to her own
house, to show her to the rich husband they had selected for her. No
more doll-playing for her; no more rose wreaths; but, instead, diamonds,
and fashion, and frivolity, and an aching heart. Did “William” never
come? Ah, yes; he came to Paris, spite of them all, to see his
Josephine. He called at her Aunt Renardin’s, but of this they never told
her. He continued, however, to write her a letter, in which he begged
her to tell him why she had neglected him, which was conveyed to her by
a servant, who was immediately dismissed for giving it to her. Then, for
the first time, Josephine knew that William had been true to her, that
he loved her still! But she had given her promise to her parents, and
resolutely refused to see him. Poor Josephine! In her sixteenth year,
she married, to please her friends, her dead sister’s lover, Monsieur
Beauharnais. The marriage proved an unhappy one, through no fault of
little Josephine’s, who most carefully endeavored to please the husband
thus forced upon her.
Meanwhile the young Bonaparte was making rapid strides toward the
fulfillment of the old Corsican herdsman’s prediction. On the death of
Josephine’s husband, she really became, as you all know, the wife of the
future emperor of France. How devotedly she performed her wifely duties
to the great conqueror, you all know, and how cruelly the ambitious
emperor set this noble woman aside, for the insipid little German
princess who was the mother of his much-coveted child, the Duc de
Reichstadt. In St. Helena, Bonaparte had plenty of time to think of his
injustice toward the good, brave Josephine, who, forgetting all the
misery he had caused her, would even then have lightened, by her
presence, the dreary exile from which his baby-faced German wife had
fled affrighted, back to the luxury of her father’s court. But death
stepped in, and snatched from the selfish Bonaparte this great
consolation of his last dreary hours. With _his_ name on her lips, and
her eyes fixed on his picture, which hung opposite her couch, she left
all France weeping over her grave. You ask, what of the child—the little
duke, whose birth this noble woman unselfishly rejoiced over, because
_it made Napoleon so happy_? Ah! it is of him I would now tell you. This
little duke, the child of so many hopes, did he, after all, sit upon the
throne of France? God is just. We shall see.
The Emperor of Austria was the little duke’s maternal grandfather. It
was to his palace the little, pale child was taken. It was the wish of
this grandfather, who, notwithstanding all the stories told to the
contrary, dearly loved the boy, to make a German prince of him. If it
should prove that, as he grew up, he had a fondness for military life,
he should follow it; still, he was to be kept away from agitating
Frenchmen as much as possible, for reasons you will very well
understand. The child was delicate, as I told you, and his grandfather
petted him, and had the doctor to him, and, between you and me, I dare
say that last might have been the reason he did not grow stronger. But,
notwithstanding the pink spot on his pale cheek, he had the fiery spirit
of his father, the great Napoleon. Oh! how he hated to be physicked, and
how he pined to grow strong, that he might dash over the ground on a
fiery horse, with staring eyes, big nostrils, and pawing hoofs, who
would go straight through a cannon if he bade him, and come out at the
other end, without losing a hair of his tail. But the more the poor
fellow wanted to make a soldier of himself, the feebler he seemed to
grow, till he could hardly sit upright on the horse, at the side of
which might always be found his kind old grandfather, when not called
away by his duties, saying kind things to his grandson, and trying to
keep up his spirits. You ask, Where was his mother, Maria Louisa? Ah!
you may well ask _that_. She was anywhere but where she ought to be; she
could not be a good woman, even for the sake of her sick boy, in whose
face she might have seen death written, had she stopped flirting long
enough to take one good look at him. She was a miserable, bad woman, and
if the little duke had any good qualities, she took no pains to
encourage them. It was well he had a good, kind grandfather to love him,
poor, fatherless child! The French people did not relish having
Napoleon’s son at an Austrian court. Not they. They disliked Maria
Louisa, the young duke’s mother, who never said such gracious, graceful
things, as did the kind, whole-souled Josephine, who brought them all at
her feet with one of her beautiful, sunny smiles. Maria Louisa was quite
another thing, with her skim-milk face, as rigid when they saluted her,
as if they hadn’t a drop of generous blood in their bodies. They needn’t
have fretted lest the little duke should grow up like his mother, if he
grew up at all; for I can tell you that all Austria could not get the
Napoleonic fire out of his veins, nor, alas! poor fellow! disease
either. All his thoughts were about his father. He knew not only every
detail of his battles and campaigns, but all the peculiarities of his
marshals and generals. “Oh!” said he, speaking of Waterloo, “I have
often wondered my father did not follow my uncle, and perish at the head
of his guards; what a magnificent close would that have been to his
brilliant life. Ah! those perfidious English! why could they not have
treated him as I know he would have treated their great Wellington, had
the fortune of war thrown him into my father’s hands.” He was
passionately fond of reading everything he could lay his hands on,
pertaining to his father. He had, somehow or other, accumulated a
perfect library of biographies concerning him. To Prince Metternich he
once said, “The object of my life should be, to make myself worthy of my
distinguished father; I hope to reach this point, and appropriate to
myself his high qualities; taking care, however,” added he, with great
good sense, “_to avoid the rocks upon which he split_.” Afterward he
said, “How I hate this miserable, sickly body, which thus sinks under my
will!” As he said this, there was a gleam of the eye, and compression of
the lip, truly Napoleonic.
On the eighteenth of June, 1831, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel,
and took command of the Hungarian regiment when in garrison at Vienna.
An immense crowd gathered to witness the spectacle; but alas! every eye
saw with what difficulty the poor young duke—fighting disease—sat upon
his horse. So evident was his great weakness, spite of his unquenchable
determination, that Dr. Margate, his physician, said to him, after he
had gone through his drill with the soldiers, “Monseigneur, I desire you
to remember that you have a will of iron in a body of glass; if you
persist in this exercise, it will kill you.” The next day, the doctor
considered it his duty to tell his grandfather the same thing. The
frightened old emperor, turning to his beloved grandson, said, “You have
heard what the doctor says; you must do this no more, but go directly to
my summer palace at Schönbrunn, and take care of your health.” The
disappointed duke bowed respectfully to his grandfather; but as he
raised his head, he glanced angrily at the doctor, saying, “It is _you_,
then, sir, who have put me under arrest!” A few weeks after this he was
attacked with quick consumption. He grew weaker and weaker, as he was
wheeled about the beautiful gardens of Schönbrunn, and he knew himself
that he must soon die; his chief anxiety seemed now to be, _whether he
should be able to know his father in the other world_. Poor Napoleon!
how he had coveted the love of this son! How eagerly that unhappy exile
at St. Helena had looked forward to it, and yet he was never to enjoy
it; was not the unhappy Josephine avenged? And not only in that! _Her_
grandson now sits upon the throne, to obtain an heir to which, the
unhappy woman was thrust aside, for the foolish, weak daughter of the
house of Hapsburg; while _her_ child, of whom I have been telling you,
has long since lain in his bronze coffin, under the church of the
Capuchins, among the buried majesties of Austria.
TWO QUARRELSOME OLD MEN.
I saw such an unpleasing sight to-day! Two old, gray-headed men, their
lips white with passion, clenching their fists in each other’s faces,
and calling each other all the disagreeable names they could think of;
while the bystanders looked on, laughed, took sides, and encouraged them
to fight, for their own amusement. I could not laugh. I felt more like
crying. These old men, with one foot in the grave, who seemed to have
outlived everything but their own bad passions—it was a pitiable
spectacle! Ah! said I, to myself, as I walked away, I am afraid there
are two mothers somewhere (may be they are not alive now), who have been
sadly to blame; or those respectable-looking old men would not be here,
degrading themselves by a brawling street fight. I think, when they were
little boys, that “I will!” and “I won’t!” must have been intimate
friends of theirs (and very bad company they are, too). I think these
fighting old gentlemen were allowed, when they were boys, to come and go
when and where they liked, and to lie abed till ten o’clock in the
morning, till breakfast was all cold, and then stamp and kick till they
got a hot one. I think, when they neglected to get their lessons, and
were, very properly, reproved for it, at school, that their mamma
thought it was dreadful bad treatment, and took them away; and I think
that, when she sent them to another school, they often played truant;
and then told the teacher that they had been sick. I think they were
stuffed with pies, and cake, and candy, and I think they called upon
poor, tired servant girls to brush and black their shoes, when they
should have learned to do it themselves. I think, when their sisters
asked them to go of any little errand, they roughly replied, “Do it
yourself!” I think, when their mothers said, “John (or Thomas) go to the
grocer’s for me, that’s a good boy!” that they replied, “How much’ll you
give me if I go?” and then, I think, when their mother gave them a
three-cent piece, that they pouted, and said that they wouldn’t go,
without they could have sixpence. That is the way such gray-haired old
men as I saw fighting in the street to-day, are made.
THE LITTLE PRINCES.
“As happy as a king—as happy as a queen!” Ah! what thoughtless words are
these! The tall pine rocks to and fro, and struggles with the fierce
winds and storms; one by one, its beautiful green branches are torn off,
and in an unexpected moment comes the terrible lightning flash,
scorching its very heart, and leaving it but a blackened cinder. All the
time the little flower at its feet sleeps, secure in its sweetness, its
very lowliness its surest safeguard and protection. Do you never think
of this when you envy the rich and the great? Perhaps you are poor, and
meanly clad, and poorly fed; and it seems to you that God is not good
and just, to make such a difference between you and another child of
your own age, who seems to be born only to have everything it wants, and
to rule over others? Have you never, when walking in the field, spied
upon some rocky height, a gaudy flower, which you imagined to be
sweet-scented and beautiful? Have you never torn your clothes, and
sprained your limbs, and nearly put your eyes out with briers, to get
it, only to find it, when obtained, nauseous, and full of thorns? Have
you never chased the brilliant butterfly over the meadows, till your
breath gave out, only to hold in your rash hand, after the eager, weary
chase, but a handful of glittering dust?
Well, just like this is human greatness, seen at a distance—just so
unsatisfactory its possession. Now, I suppose, you sometimes sit down
and dream with your eyes open, what you would like to be when you grow
up. I know I did, when I was a child. I don’t remember that I ever
wished to be great or celebrated; I never cared for that, and I care for
it now less than ever; but I wanted to be loved, oh! so much—so much! I
forgot that they whom I loved might die, or change, and so, you see, my
house, built upon the sand, was as likely to tumble over as they who
desire greatness. But I used to hear my little companions say, Oh, if I
were a prince or a princess! and I suppose children now-a-days wish the
same wishes as then; for childhood is childhood, while it lasts, all the
world over, with its blue skies, and rosy clouds, and angel dreams—never
seeing the dark cloud in the distance; never hearing the low, muttered
thunder, or seeing the brief lightning flash. And oh! it is well that it
is so, else the little bud would not dare to unfold its bright leaves;
but would close them tightly round its little, fragrant heart, and
shrivel up in its green inclosure, and drop from the stem, before the
world had praised God for the gift of its sweetness.
Perhaps you think princes and princesses are happy? Let me tell you the
story of two little princes.
They had lived in a great deal of splendor in a beautiful palace—had
plenty of rich clothes, plenty of toys, plenty of little ponies in the
stable to ride, plenty of servants to wait on them, and to do whatever
they wished; and I suppose the poor little things thought it would
always be so. But kings have enemies as well as friends, and so had
their father; and these enemies grew more numerous, and wished that the
father of these little princes were dead; and after a while they
succeeded in having things their own way, and the king was sentenced to
have his head cut off. Ah! it was not well to be a little prince then!
for little princes, if they live long enough, will one day be kings, you
know, unless they are put out of the way; and so these bad men thought.
Therefore, when their father was led out to be beheaded, these cruel
wretches forced the little princes to see it done, and then took their
father’s blood, and sprinkled it upon their bright, fair locks, and upon
their little garments. And then they took them, although they had
committed no crime, unless it was a crime to be the children of this
king whom they hated, and put them in prison. This was bad enough; but
they did worse than that. They shut them each up in a separate cage,
made very broad at the top, but narrowed down to a point at the bottom,
so that the little prisoners could neither stand straight, nor sit, nor
lie down; and then they fastened them in. The elder of these little boys
was but eight years old, and the other only six. Just fancy it! The only
comfort they had, was to put their arms through the bars of their cages,
and hold each other by the hand.
“We cannot live this way long,” said little Frank, the younger, as the
tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Would papa like to see you cry?” asked Henri. “Do you not see,” said
the courageous child, “that they treat us like men of whom they are
afraid; let us not, then, act like babies.”
So little Frank dried his tears, as his brother bade him; and they
talked about the beautiful palace they used to live in, and the
fountains, and the groves, and the gardens; and tried to imagine
themselves back there, and so to forget their troubles; but, after all,
it was dreary work.
One day, a little mouse peeped out of its hole in the lonely dungeon. I
dare say you have often run away from a mouse, or else wanted to have it
killed, or taken away; but then you were never shut up in a dungeon,
with nobody to care for you, else you would feel as these little
prisoners did, and have been glad to see even a friendly mouse. At first
the mouse was afraid, and ran back to its hole at sight of the little
princes. They called and called, and coaxed it to come back, for they
were very weary of their cages, and of having nothing to do, day after
day. Besides, their cramped limbs ached badly, and it was hard work to
bear pain of body as well as pain of mind, and have no one to say, I am
sorry for you, dear child. At last the little children thought of
throwing out a few crumbs of their prison bread. The little hungry mouse
understood that, and ventured out, and by and by, after a few days, he
would climb up into their cages, and eat from their hands.
When the wicked wretches who put them there heard of this, and found out
how patiently and sweetly these dear children bore their trials, and
that their little innocent heads drooped every night in peaceful
slumber, they were very angry; so they resolved to try other means of
tormenting them. So they called the executioner, and ordered him to go
to their dungeon once a week, and draw out one tooth from each of them.
Just think of that! You have had a tooth taken out, I dare say, but your
mother, or father, or sister was by your side, and holding your hand,
and pitying you with all their might, and wishing they could bear the
pain for you, and that gave you courage. And then it was soon over, and
only for once; and the bad toothache from which it delivered you was,
after all, worse to bear. But the little princes had no toothache; they
had a bad heartache, but trusting in God, they were trying to be
patient, and love even a little mouse, since they were denied everything
else. Oh! how mean and cowardly that great, big, strong man—that
executioner—must have felt, when he went in to torment two such little
angels!
When he told them what he had come for, the youngest boy commenced
crying, and the elder brother said to the executioner, “I beg you not to
draw out a tooth from Frank; you see how weak he is, and how ill!”
Then the executioner, hard as he was, shed tears; still he knew that he
must carry back two teeth, or have his own head cut off; and so told the
boys.
“Well, then,” said the elder brother, the brave Henri, “take out two
from my mouth, instead of one from my brother’s; I am strong, but the
slightest pain will kill him.” For a long time the two boys struggled
which should suffer for the other, until a messenger was sent, to know
why the executioner did not return—why he delayed. Then he advanced to
the cage, and drew a tooth from Henri, and was going toward Francis,
when Henri cried out, “No, no; take the other from my mouth; don’t touch
Francis!” and the executioner carried back two teeth; but they were both
from the mouth of the brave Henri. Every week he went back to the
dungeon, and every week did this heroic boy lose two teeth, one for
himself one for his brother; but alas! his bodily strength began to
fail, though his little lion heart was strong as ever. His limbs no
longer sustained him; he doubled up in the bottom of the cage, and tried
to put out his hand to his little brother.
“Frank,” said he, “I am dying; but perhaps, some time, you may get out;
if you should, and you should find our mother, oh, tell her how I love
her, just as I am about to die. Good by, Frank! give some crumbs every
day to our little mouse for me, won’t you, Frank?” and the next moment,
before Frank could answer him—so stupefied was the child with grief—the
brave Henri was dead, and nobody was in the dungeon but Frank and the
little mouse.
Nobody, did I say? Ah! God was there. Why he permitted all this
suffering, neither you nor I know; but I hope we shall know one of these
days. The angels are always learning such things in heaven. It puzzles
me often now, when I think about them, and sometimes I get impatient,
and wish God would tell me right off why he permits this, when he could
so easily prevent it; and then I think of the many, many times, in which
I have shed impatient tears at my own troubles, and then time has passed
on, and I have seen, even in this world, with my dim, earthly eyes, how
much better it was that those very things should have happened which
grieved me so. But with our bright, heavenly eyes, in the broad, clear
light of eternity, how easily, dear children, shall we untwist these
tangled threads of life, which seem to mock our efforts here. We can
wait, for, just as sure as that God reigns, it is all right.
Dear me! I suppose you are very impatient to know what became of poor
Frank, when he was left alone? Well, soon after Henri died, the wretches
who imprisoned the two innocent children died also; and then Frank was
taken from his dungeon, and set at liberty. Oh! how glad he must have
been to see the blue sky, and the green fields, and the sweet flowers,
and, better than all, to find his dear mother.
What a sorrowful story he had to tell her! and how many times they wept,
to think of poor Henri, and how the mother wept at night, over little
Frank, while he was sleeping, whose dungeon tortures had made him a
cripple for life. Ah! it is not well to be a little prince.