effect a reconciliation, but the vicomte remained inflexible. After a
month of fruitless attempts, Joséphine retired, with her aunt, to the
Abbaye de Panthémont, Rue de Grenelle, and early in December began a
formal action for separation. In her complaint she sets forth in the
greatest detail the existence which she has led; the indifference of
her husband, who in nearly three years of married life has passed less
than ten months with her. In conclusion she states the formal refusal
of her husband to resume their life in common, and files a copy of the
letter quoted above, which constitutes her principal grievance against
him.
It is certain that if Alexandre had any proofs of the misconduct of
Joséphine subsequent to their marriage, he would not have hesitated
at this time to bring them forward. The allegation regarding Hortense
is disproved by a simple examination of the dates. As for the other
charges, fifteen months later he voluntarily and explicitly withdrew
them. In March 1785, he met Joséphine in the office of his notary and
consented formally to a separation. All the provisions of this act are
greatly to the honor of Joséphine, and prove conclusively that there
was no basis for the grave charges Alexandre had made when under the
spell of an ignoble woman.
Joséphine was to live where she pleased; to receive from her husband an
allowance of 5000 livres a year; to have the custody of Eugène until
he was five years old; to keep Hortense, for whose maintenance her
_father_ was to pay 1000 livres quarterly in advance until she was
seven years old, and 1500 livres after that age. Alexandre further
agreed to pay all the legal expenses of the suit. Such was the end of
this famous action, from which Joséphine carried off all the honors of
war.
The sojourn of Joséphine at Panthémont was of great advantage to
her in every way. The Abbaye was like an immense furnished hôtel,
of the highest respectability, open only to women of “la première
distinction,” and there Joséphine for the first time had an opportunity
of meeting women of her own social rank. She was received as the
Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, an unfortunate, irreproachable young woman,
the victim of a cruel husband.
For a woman of the world, Joséphine already possessed two of the
essential requisites: she was a coquette and she knew how to lie. In
these two respects, her husband undoubtedly had a grievance against
her. And to these two qualities, Joséphine adds, by the faculty of
assimilation which is one of her strongest traits, that physical
education which in a new society is to place her in a class by herself.
Little by little a transformation is effected in her personality,
which changes the heavy and awkward Creole into a being delicate and
_souple_, a being desirable above all, who knows how to attract
and to hold. From every point of view this retreat of fifteen months
was profitable to her.
On leaving the Panthémont early in 1786 Joséphine, at twenty-three
years of age, found herself free, with an income of 9000 livres for
the support of Hortense and herself. At this time she sold the estate
at Noisy, and with the proceeds she bought at Fontainebleau a little
house, where she went to live with her aunt and the marquis. They
had a few friends in that locality, and in their society the days
passed pleasantly. At that time the Court was obliged to practice the
strictest economy, and for two years the royal hunt was abandoned.
In September 1786, under the terms of the act of separation, Eugène was
sent to his father, who placed him at school. Hortense was brought home
from Chelles, where she had been for two years with a nurse, and was at
once inoculated, by orders of the marquis, who was a great believer in
all innovations.
Abandoned at twenty-three years by her husband, whose liaisons with
other women were open and notorious; attractive, passionate, extremely
coquette, is it probable that Joséphine did not have a lover? Several
names have been mentioned in this connection, but we have no proofs.
All we know is that in June 1788 Joséphine suddenly sailed for
Martinique, taking Hortense with her. None of her biographers has
ever been able to find a satisfactory explanation of this voyage. It
has been surmised that it was either for the purpose of concealing
the results of her imprudence, or else was on account of the pressing
need of money. But, if the latter, was it not easier to await at
Fontainebleau the remittances from her father, who acted as agent of
the marquis, than to go three thousand miles in search of them? In
default of any documents we are reduced to conjectures, and with our
knowledge of Joséphine can only imagine one of two reasons: debts or
love. The biographers friendly to Joséphine attribute her journey
to the former cause; but it is rather strange that her enemies have
not seized on the fact that Decrès, writing by Napoleon’s orders in
1807, spoke of “the demoiselle of _eighteen_ years, whom Madame
de la Pagerie has adopted.” Had this girl, known as Marie-Bénaquette
Tascher de la Pagerie, been really only eighteen years of age at that
time, she must have been born early in 1789, that is to say during
this visit of Joséphine, and not in March 1786, as stated in the
document of doubtful authenticity already mentioned. Therefore, on the
ground of date alone, there was no reason why “Marie-Joseph-Rose,” as
stated in the certificate, could not have been the mother, instead
of Marie-Françoise. Turquan, who is always unfriendly to Joséphine,
does not hesitate to insinuate that Joséphine had a daughter during
this visit to Martinique in 1789, six years after her separation from
her husband, and gives as his authority a study of M. Frédéric Masson
upon _Joséphine avant Bonaparte_, published in the _Revue de
Paris_. This girl, Marie-Bénaquette, was married in March 1808 to
the private secretary of the captain-general of Martinique, a Monsieur
Blanchet, and her dot of sixty thousand francs was provided by the
Emperor, doubtless at the request of Joséphine. The whole episode is a
curious one, to say the least.
Whatever her motive may have been, Joséphine was in great haste to
leave France at the earliest possible moment. Finding on her arrival at
Havre that the government vessel which she had expected to take could
not sail for two weeks, she engaged passage for Hortense and herself on
a private ship, and sailed at once.
The voyage was pleasant and rapid. Arrived at Martinique Joséphine went
directly to Trois-Îlets, where she remained nearly two years. We have
no record of this visit, but her life must have been very dull. The
family was very poor, and both her father and her sister Françoise were
ill.
Her father died in November 1790, two months after Joséphine’s
departure, and her sister a year later.
CHAPTER THREE
1789–1794
THE REVOLUTION
Beauharnais Elected to the States-General--Joséphine Returns
from Martinique--Alexandre, President of the Assembly--Flight
of the Royal Family--End of the Constituent Assembly--Alexandre
Rejoins the Army--Promoted and Made Commander of the Army
of the Rhine--His Disgraceful Failure--His Resignation
Accepted--Joséphine at Paris and Croissy--Alexandre at
Blois--Both Arrested and Confined in the Carmes--Execution of
Alexandre
On the 5 May 1789, the States-General assembled at Versailles, and
Alexandre de Beauharnais was one of the members. He had presented
himself to the noblesse of Blois as a candidate for the place of one
of the two deputies to be elected by that bailiwick, and was chosen
almost unanimously through the influence of Lavoisier. This was
the fermier-général Lavoisier, member of the Academy of Sciences.
Established only twenty years at Blois, he had acquired by his
liberality a great popularity. He was the real head of the electoral
assembly, of which he was chosen secretary, and it was he who drafted
the _cahier des doléances_.
This memorandum of grievances, which Alexandre was charged to support,
was wholly inspired by the doctrines of Rousseau, and was the most
revolutionary of any presented to the King.
Beauharnais was faithful to his mandate, and on his arrival at
Versailles he ranged himself with the minority of the Noblesse--the
_Forty-seven_--beside Aiguillon, La Fayette, Lally-Tollendal, La
Rochefoucauld and the Duc d’Orléans.
On the night of the 4 August, when feudal rights were abolished, and
“every man generously gave away what he did not own,” Alexandre took a
leading part. In recognition of his attitude on this occasion, on the
23 November, after the Assembly had moved to Paris, Beauharnais was
chosen one of the three secretaries, with Aiguillon as president.
While Alexandre was thus playing one of the principal rôles in the
Constituent Assembly, the island of Martinique was in a state of
turmoil. There was open war between the whites and the blacks. Tascher,
the uncle of Joséphine, who was commandant of the port at Fort-Royal,
was elected mayor; there was a collision at Saint-Pierre between the
two parties, and fifteen blacks were killed. The garrison of Fort
Bourbon revolted, and Tascher was made a prisoner by the rebels. The
governor was compelled to evacuate, not only the capital, but also the
forts which defended it. Complete anarchy reigned on the island.
Joséphine was advised by her friends to leave, and she sailed for
France on the 4 September 1790 on the frigate _Sensible_. Her
departure was so hasty that she sailed almost without any changes of
clothing, and during the voyage was thrown upon the charity of the
officers of the ship for toilet necessities for herself and Hortense.
She landed in France early in November, and went directly to Paris,
where she lodged at the Hôtel des Asturies, Rue d’Anjou.
At this time Joséphine seems to have made another effort to bring
about a reconciliation with her husband, but without success. Alexandre
continued to live at the hôtel of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, and
Joséphine took an apartment in the Rue Saint-Dominique.
The summer of 1791, Joséphine and her children were with the marquis
and Madame Renaudin at Fontainebleau. Here she learned of the election
of her husband as president of the Assembly, on the 18 June. Two
days later occurred the flight of the royal family to Varennes. The
announcement was made by Beauharnais, in opening the session of Tuesday
the 21 June, and the Assembly remained in permanent session until the
afternoon of the following Sunday. During this period Alexandre, by
force of circumstances, was the personage the most _en vue_ in
France, the head of all authority. The King was suspended, and the
President of the National Assembly, for the moment, was sovereign. When
his son Eugène was seen in the streets of Fontainebleau, the people
cried: “Voilà le Dauphin!”
It was a strange turn of the wheel of fortune which thus brought face
to face the Marquis de Bouillé, the distinguished soldier of the
Antilles, the last royal governor, who arranged the flight to Varennes,
and this Beauharnais, who a few years before had vainly solicited the
favor of being his aide de camp. One had been a valiant soldier, whose
life had been devoted to his king and country: the other had never seen
any active service, and his brief existence, up to the present time,
had been a mixture of scandal and futility. In this encounter, by the
irony of fate, it was the veteran who lost, and the carpet-knight who
won.
The last of September the Constituent Assembly came to an end. As the
retiring deputies, by an act of rare and imbecile disinterestedness,
had declared themselves ineligible for election to the new Legislative
Assembly, they were all forced to retire to private life. Alexandre
set out at once for Loir-et-Cher, where he was named member of the
administration of the department. At this time he bought some national
property in the vicinity of Ferté-Beauharnais, of which he seemed to
consider himself the sole owner since the emigration of his brother.
But the exercise of his new civil duties was brief. Since the 25
August he had been on the rolls of the general staff, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel, and early in December he received an order to join
the 21st division to which he was attached.
The former president of the Assembly certainly took his time about
entering upon his military duties, for he remained in the country until
the last of January, and then came to Paris, where he devoted another
month to arranging his affairs. At this time he was successful in
securing a pension of 10,000 livres for his aged father. Finally he set
out for the headquarters at Valenciennes.
When hostilities began in April he was attached to the Third Corps,
commanded by Maréchal de Rochambeau in person. He took part in the
first operations, and personally sent to the Military Committee of the
Assembly an account of the rout at Mons.
For such distinguished services, Alexandre was promoted the last of
May and assigned to the Army of the North under Maréchal Lückner. He
continued to correspond with the Assembly, to describe the smallest
skirmishes, and to give his impressions of events. He was one of the
first to accept the revolution of the 10 August, and was rewarded on
the 7 September by being promoted to major-general and named chief of
staff of the new army in course of formation at Strasbourg.
The year 1792 came to an end without the Army of the Rhine making
any forward movement. During the first months of the following year,
Beauharnais was still in Strasbourg, or that vicinity: his name occurs
in no reports. The 8 March he was promoted to be lieutenant-general;
and on the 13 May, when Custine was made commander of the Army of the
North, Beauharnais succeeded him as general-in-chief of the Army of the
Rhine.
In June, after the fall of the Girondins, Alexandre was summoned
to Paris, to succeed Bouchotte as Minister of War. This nomination
displeased the all-powerful Commune of Paris, which denounced
Beauharnais as an aristocrat, and he wisely declined the appointment.
By this time the public was beginning to realize that General
Beauharnais was more fond of writing than of acting. Mayence was
besieged, and the commander of the Army of the Rhine had something
more important to do than to compose addresses. The last of June he
finally set his 60,000 men in motion, and advanced on the enemy. As
usual, he reported in the greatest detail the slightest skirmishes,
but did nothing to effect the relief of Mayence, which after a brave
defence was forced to capitulate on the 23 July. He then insulted the
heroic defenders of the city by a proclamation to his army, in which he
said: “No one could expect a surrender so long as the Republicans had
any ammunition or bread.” At the same time he wrote the Jacobins of
Strasbourg that the club ought to demand of the Convention the heads of
the traitors of Mayence and send them to the King of Prussia!
He then ordered his army to retreat to the lines of Wissembourg,
and sent in his resignation, on the ground that, as a member of a
proscribed caste, it was his duty to remove any subject of disquietude
from the minds of his fellow-citizens. Without any authorization, he
left his army and went to Strasbourg. It was a grave error thus to
abandon his post in the face of the enemy, at a moment when Custine
was on trial, Dillon under arrest, and all the generals of noble birth
subject to suspicion.
On the 21 August, his resignation was accepted, in terms which for all
time must cover his name with opprobrium. He was ordered to retire
at once to a distance of fifty miles from the frontier, to a place
of residence of which he would inform the Convention. So ended the
inglorious military career of Alexandre de Beauharnais.
* * * * *
From October 1791 to September 1793, except for visits to her
aunt at Fontainebleau, Joséphine passed all her time in her Paris
apartment. Then, on account of the new law regarding “suspects,” she
found it desirable to have a domicile outside the city, in order to
obtain a certificate of _civisme_ (good citizenship). For some
unknown reason, instead of using Fontainebleau, she decided upon
Croissy, a village on the Seine about ten miles from Versailles.
Here she sub-leased a house from Madame Hosten, a Creole friend
from Sainte-Lucie, who lived at Paris in the same hôtel, Rue
Saint-Dominique. She had a daughter of about the same age as Hortense,
and the mothers had become intimate friends. The 26 September 1793,
the Citoyenne Beauharnais presented herself at the municipality of
Croissy to make her declaration, and two days later she was joined
by her son Eugène, who came from his school at Strasbourg. In her
declaration there is no mention of Hortense, but this was probably
only an oversight. Mlle. de Vergennes, who passed this summer of 1793
at Croissy, states that it was then that she made the acquaintance of
Hortense, who was three or four years younger than herself. At this
time, Joséphine, to prove her civisme, placed Hortense with her old
nurse Marie Lanoy at Paris, as an apprentice to learn dress-making, and
Eugène was articled to one Cochard, a carpenter, who was the national
agent of the commune of Croissy.
This attack of civic fever, however, did not prevent Joséphine from
seeking society, and extending her acquaintance among the residents
of Croissy. Among the friends she made at this time were: Chanorier,
through whom she afterwards bought Malmaison; Mlle. de Vergennes, who
as Madame de Rémusat was to be her dame du palais; and Réal, who was to
become Councillor of State, commandant of the Légion d’honneur, comte
of the Empire.
During the month of January 1794, armed with her certificate of
civisme, Joséphine returned to her apartment in Paris.
* * * * *
Leaving Strasbourg so precipitately that he had not time to take with
him his carriages and horses, Alexandre proceeded directly to his
home at Ferté. From there he made haste to write the Jacobin Club of
Blois to announce his early visit. On his first appearance, however, he
was greeted with insults. He made a spirited reply, and thought that
he had saved the situation. Reassured, he leased a small house in the
city, and endeavored to gain the good will of his neighbors. At the
same time he opened correspondence with his wife: in the face of their
common peril, a kind of intimacy was established between them. In the
meanwhile he was elected mayor of the little commune of Ferté.
But Alexandre was not to enjoy very long his quiet life in the
country. On the 2 March 1794, by order of the Committee of General
Security, he was arrested, and conducted to Paris, where, on the 14
March, he was confined in the Carmes. On the 19 April, by order of
the same Committee, Joséphine was also arrested, at Croissy, taken to
Paris, and placed in the same prison. The old convent of the church
of Saint-Joseph des Carmes, its walls still stained with the blood of
the September Massacres, is standing to-day in the Rue Vaugirard close
by the Luxembourg and the Odéon. At that time, it was one of the most
insanitary prisons of Paris. It was cold, damp, dirty; infested with
vermin; poorly ventilated, and badly lighted.
However, the society was excellent, although rather mixed. Grands
seigneurs and grandes dames were mingled promiscuously with domestics
and artisans.
There Joséphine was thrown again with her husband, and there seems
to have been a good understanding between them, but nothing more.
Alexandre conceived a great passion for Delphine de Custine, while
Joséphine engaged in a violent flirtation with General Hoche, who
entered the Carmes at about the same time.
Every possible effort was made by Alexandre and Joséphine to secure
their liberty. Through Eugène and Hortense, who were allowed to visit
their mother, communication was kept up with the outside world.
Joséphine’s surly pug dog, Fortuné, which was not noticed in the crowd,
carried letters placed under her collar.
The case against Alexandre, however, was too strong for him to hope for
acquittal: his military career, his neglect to relieve Mayence, his
desertion of his post, made a record hard to defend. On the 22 July,
he was taken to the Conciergerie. Realizing that it was the end, as he
passed Madame de Custine, he handed her as a farewell present an Arab
talisman mounted in a ring which he always wore on his finger.
Alexandre faced death bravely. In those days, if few knew how to
live, all knew how to die. Without trial, without testimony, without
pleadings, without verdict, he was hurried to the guillotine in a batch
of fifty-five victims.
It was the 5 Thermidor. _Four days more!_
CHAPTER FOUR
1794–1795
AFTER THE TERROR
Paris During the Terror--The Fall of Robespierre--Joy of the
Prisoners--Joséphine Set Free--Her Behavior in Prison--She
Returns to Croissy--Her Relations with Hoche--Her Financial
Difficulties--Her Banker, Emmery--Her Love of Luxury--Her
Intimacy with Madame Tallien--Their Similar Tastes--Thérésia
Abandons Tallien--Joséphine’s New Home--She Places Her Children
in School--Paul Barras--His Political Prominence--His Liaison
with Joséphine--His Court at the Luxembourg
No words can depict the conditions in Paris during the “Great Terror,”
which began in March 1794, and ended with the fall of Robespierre on
the 27 July. The Law of the Suspects kept the prisons packed; the
guillotine was constantly employed: the whole nation appeared doomed to
the scaffold. The final seven weeks between the 23 Prairial (11 June)
and the 9 Thermidor were horrible. It was nothing more nor less than
a massacre: in the course of these forty-five days 1376 heads fell in
Paris. “Fear was on every side; drawing-rooms were empty; wine shops
were deserted; the very courtesans ceased to go to the Palais-Royal,
where virtue now reigned supreme. The Convention was well-nigh
deserted; the deputies had given up sleeping at home.”
When the head of Robespierre fell under the guillotine, a mighty shout
of joy went up from the one hundred thousand beings massed in the Place
de la Révolution. In the popular estimation, Robespierre had been the
incarnation of the Terror, therefore his downfall meant the end of the
Terror. No such thought had been in the minds of Barras and Tallien
when they struck down the dictator, but they were not slow to take
advantage of this reaction in public opinion.
The joy of the populace, however, was nothing in comparison with the
delight of the reprieved prisoners who had been hopelessly awaiting
death. The daily roll-call had ceased: it was never to be heard again.
While the tumbrils conveyed to the scaffold the dreaded instruments of
the Terror--Fouquier and the judges and jurymen, the former captives
were daily set free. At the same time a hundred thousand “suspects”
issued from their hiding places. Their joy was beyond words: “It was as
if they had risen from the tomb, or been born into life again.”
Joséphine was one of the first of the prisoners to gain her liberty:
ten days after the fall of Robespierre, on the 19 Thermidor (6 August),
she left the Carmes. One of her companions in misfortune has drawn a
sketch of her behavior in prison which is not wholly flattering: “She
was pusillanimous in the highest degree.... She passed her time in
telling her fortune with cards, and in weeping in public, to the great
scandal of her companions. But she was naturally affable, and does not
this trait make us oblivious to many qualities which are lacking? Her
_tournure_, her manners, her voice above all, had a particular
charm; but it must be admitted that she was neither magnanimous nor
frank; the other prisoners pitied her for her lack of courage.”