As mighty events always exercise an influence on minor ones, so this
fearful attempt at murder became the occasion for the introduction into
France of a new branch of industry, which had hitherto drawn millions
from Europe to the East.
Josephine, gratefully remembering her truly wonderful deliverance
through the means of her Persian shawl, wore it afterward in preference
to any other. Until then she had never fancied it, for when Bonaparte
sent it to her from Egypt, she wrote to him: “I have received the shawl.
It may be very beautiful and very costly, but I find it unsightly. Its
great advantage consists in its lightness. I doubt, however, if this new
fashion will meet with approbation. Notwithstanding, I am pleased with
it, for it is rare and warm.” [Footnote: “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice,”
par Mademoiselle Ducrest, vol. iii., p. 227.]
But after it had saved her life, she no longer thought it unsightly, she
was fond of wrapping herself up in it, and the natural consequence was,
that these Persian shawls soon formed the most fashionable and costly
article of apparel.
Every lady of the higher classes considered it a necessity to cover her
tender shoulders with this valuable foreign material, and it soon became
“comme il faut” a duty of position, to possess a collection of such
Persian shawls, and to wear them at the balls and receptions in the
Tuileries.
The desire to possess such a precious article of fashion led these
ladies oftentimes to “corriger la fortune” and to obtain, by some bold
but not very creditable act, possession of such a shawl, which had
now become in a certain measure the escutcheon of the new French
aristocracy.
The Duchess d’Abrantes, in reference to this matter, relates two thefts
which at that time troubled the aristocratic society of the Tuileries,
which prove that the ladies had taken instructions from the gentlemen,
and that dishonest persons of both sexes were admitted into the society
of heroes and their beautiful wives!
At a morning reception in the Tuileries, the shawl of the Countess de
St. Martin had been stolen; and this lady was very much distressed at
the loss, for this cashmere was not only a present from Madame Murat,
but was one of uncommon beauty, on account of the rarity of the design,
consisting of paroquets in artistic groups, instead of the ordinary
palm. The countess was therefore untiring in recounting to every one her
irreparable loss, and uttered bitter curses against the bold female who
had stolen her treasure.
“A few weeks later,” relates the duchess, “at a ball given by the
minister Talleyrand, the countess came toward me with a bright
countenance and told me that she had just now found her shawl, and,
strange to say, upon the shoulders of a young lady at the ball!
“‘But,’ said I to her, ‘you will not accuse this lady before the whole
company!’
“‘And why not?’
“‘Because that would be wrong. Leave this matter to me.’
“She would not at first, but I pressed the subject on her consideration,
and she agreed at length to remain somewhat behind, while I approached
the young lady, who stood near the door, and was just going to leave the
ballroom. I told her in a low voice that in all probability she had
made a mistake; that she had perhaps mislaid her own cashmere, and had
through carelessness taken the shawl of the Countess de St. Martin.
“I was as polite as I could possibly be in such a communication; but the
young lady looked at me unpleasantly for such an impertinent intrusion,
and replied that ‘since the time the Countess de St. Martin had deafened
the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl, she had had
ample leisure to recognize as her property the cashmere she wore.’ Her
mother, who stood a few steps from her, and was conversing with another
lady, turned toward her when she heard her daughter speak in so loud a
voice. But the Countess de St. Martin, who had overheard that she ‘had
deafened the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl,’
rushed in to the rescue of her case.
“‘This cashmere belongs to me,’ said she, haughtily--seizing, at the
same time, the shawl with one hand, while the young lady with her fist
thrust her back violently. I saw that in a moment they would come to
blows.
“‘It will be easy to end this difficulty,’ said I to the Countess de St.
Martin. ‘Madame will be kind enough to tell us where she has purchased
this shawl which is so much like yours, and then you will see your
mistake, and be satisfied.’
“‘It does not suit me to tell where I got this shawl,’ replied the lady,
looking at me contemptuously; ‘there is no necessity for my telling you
where I purchased it.’
“‘Well, then,’ exclaimed eagerly the Countess de St. Martin, ‘you
confess, madame, that the shawl really belongs to you?’
“The other answered with a sarcastic smile, and drew the shawl closer
to her shoulders. A few persons, attracted by the strangeness of such
a scene, had gathered around us, and seemed to wait for the end of so
extraordinary an event.
“The countess continued with a loud voice:
“‘Well, then, madame, since the shawl belongs to you, you can explain to
me why the name of Christine, which is my first name, is embroidered in
red silk on the small edging. Madame Junot will be kind enough to look
for this name.’
“The young woman became pale as death. I shall never during my life
forget the despairing look which she gave me, as with trembling hand she
passed me the shawl, just as her father appeared from a room near the
place of the scene. I took the cashmere with an unsteady hand, and
sought reluctantly for the name of Christine, for I trusted she would at
least have taken it out; but the deathly paleness of the guilty one told
the contrary, and in fact I had no sooner unfolded the shawl, than the
name appeared, embroidered at the narrow edging.
“‘Ah!’ at last exclaimed the countess, in a triumphant tone, ‘I have--’
but as she raised her eyes to the young woman, she was touched by her
despairing look. ‘Well, then,’ cried she, ‘this is one of those mistakes
which so often happen. To-morrow I will return your cashmere.--We have
exchanged cashmeres,’ said she, turning to the young lady’s father,
who, surprised at seeing her naked shoulders, gazed at his daughter,
not understanding the matter. ‘You will have the goodness to send me my
shawl to-morrow,’ added she, noticing how the young woman trembled.
“We returned into the ballroom, and the next day the young lady sent to
the Countess de St. Martin her precious shawl.
“Something similar to this happened at the same time to Madame Hamelin.
She was at a ball; when rising from her seat to join in a contra-dance,
she left there a very beautiful black shawl; when she returned,
her shawl was no longer there, but she saw it on the shoulders of a
well-known and distinguished lady. Approaching her, she said:
“‘Madame, you have my shawl!’
“‘Not at all, madame!’
“‘But, madame, this is my shawl, and, as an evidence, I can state the
number of its palms--it has exactly thirteen, a very unusual number!’
“‘My shawl has also, by chance, precisely thirteen palms.’
“‘But,’ said Madame Hamelin, ‘I have torn it since I came here. You can
see where it is torn, and by that means I recognize my shawl.’
“‘Ah, my goodness! my shawl has also been torn; that is precisely why I
bought it, for I obtained it on that account somewhat cheaper.’
“It is useless to dispute with a person who is determined to follow
Basil’s receipt, that ‘what is worth taking is worth keeping.’ Madame
Hamelin lost her shawl, and had, as a sole consolation, the petty
vengeance of relating to everybody how it was taken, and of pointing
out the thief, who was in the meanwhile perfectly shameless.” [Footnote:
Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. ix., pp. 70-76.]
No one, however, had a larger and more choice selection of these
cashmere shawls than Josephine. Mdlle. Ducrest relates that the deceased
empress had more than one hundred and fifty of the most magnificent and
costly cashmere shawls. She had sent to Constantinople patterns from
which she had them made there, as pleasing to the eye as they were
costly and precious. Every week M. Lenormant, the first man-milliner
in Paris, came to Navarra, the country residence of the empress,
and brought his most beautiful shawls for her selection. The empress
possessed several (having a white ground covered with roses, violets,
paroquets, peacocks, and other objects of beauty hitherto unknown in
France) each of which cost from fifteen to twenty thousand francs.
The empress went so far in her passion for cashmeres as to have dresses
made of the same material. One day she had put on one of these dresses,
which was so beautiful, that some gentlemen invited to dinner could not
withhold their admiration. One of them, Count Pourtales, thought that
this splendid material would be well adapted for a gentleman’s vest.
Josephine, in her large-heartedness, had a pair of scissors brought; she
then cut her dress into several pieces sufficiently large for a vest,
and divided them among the gentlemen present, so that only the bodice
of the dress remained, with a small piece around the waist But this
improvised spencer over the white richly-embroidered under-dress, was so
exceedingly becoming to the empress, and brought out so exquisitely her
beautiful bust, and slender graceful waist, that it would have been
easy to consider as a piece of coquetry what was simply Josephine’s
spontaneous generosity. [Footnote: Mademoiselle Ducrest.]
Josephine, however, did not so assiduously attend to her cashmere shawls
as to forget the unfortunate victims of the infernal machine. On the
contrary, she saw with deep pain how every one was busy in inculpating
others, and in casting suspicions on royalists and Jacobins, so as to
give a pretext to punish them. She noticed that all those who wished to
gain the consul’s favor were zealous in spying out fresh culprits, for
it was well known that Bonaparte was inclined to make of all hostile
parties a terrible example, so that, through the severity of the
punishment and the number of the punished, he might deter the
dissatisfied from any further plots.
Josephine’s compassionate heart was distressed, through sympathy for so
many unfortunate persons, whom wicked men maliciously were endeavoring
to drag into guilt, so as to have them punished; and the injustice which
the judges manifested at every hearing filled her with anger and
horror. Ever ready to help the needy, and to protect the persecuted, she
addressed herself to Fouche, the minister of police, and requested him
to use mildness and compassion. She wrote to him:
“Citizen minister, while trembling at the frightful calamity which has
taken place, I feel uneasy and pained at the fear of the punishments
which hang over the poor creatures who, I am told, belong to families
with which I have been connected in days past. I shall therefore be
appealed to by mothers, sisters, and despairing wives; my heart will be
lacerated by the sad consciousness that I cannot obtain pardon for all
those who implore it.
“The generosity of the consul is great, his affection for me is
boundless, I know it well; but the crime is of so awful a nature that
he will deem it necessary to make an example of extreme severity. The
supreme magistrate was not alone exposed to danger--many others were
killed and wounded by this sad event, and it is this which will make the
consul severe and implacable.
“I conjure you, then, citizen minister, to avoid extending your
researches too far, and not always to spy out new persons who might be
compromised by this horrible machine. Must France, which has been held
in terror by so many executions, have to sigh over new victims? Is
it not much more important to appease the minds of the people than to
excite them by new terrors? Finally, would it not be advisable, so soon
as the originators of this awful crime are captured, to have compassion
and mercy upon subordinate persons who may have been entangled in it
through dangerous sophisms and fanatical sentiments?
“Barely vested with the supreme authority, ought not the first consul
study to win the hearts rather than to make slaves of his people?
Moderate, therefore, by your advice, where in his first excitement he
may be too severe. To punish is, alas, too often necessary! To pardon
is, I trust, still more. In a word, be a protector to the unfortunate
who, through their confession or repentance, have already made in part
penance for their guilt.
“As I myself, without any fault on my part, nearly lost my life in the
revolution, you can easily understand that I take an interest in those
who can perhaps be saved without thereby endangering my husband’s life,
which is so precious to me and to France. I therefore earnestly desire
that you will make a distinction between the leaders of this conspiracy
and those who, from fear or weakness, have been seduced into bringing
upon themselves a portion of the guilt. As a woman, a wife, a mother,
I can readily feel for all the heart-rending agonies of those families
which appeal to me.
“Do what you possibly can, citizen minister, to diminish their numbers;
you will thereby spare me much anxiety. I can never be deaf to the cries
of distress from the needy; but in this matter you can do a great
deal more than I can, and therefore pardon what may seem strange in my
pleadings with you.
“Believe in my gratitude and loyalty of sentiment.
“JOSEPHINE.” [Footnote: Ducrest, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 231.]