Meantime circumstances, which we will relate according to his own
statement, introduced Bonaparte to an acquaintance, which was destined
to have much influence on his future fate. A fine boy, of ten or twelve
years old, presented himself at the levee of the general of the
interior, with a request of a nature unusually interesting. He stated
his name to be Eugene Beauharnois, son of the ci-devant Vicomte de
Beauharnois, who, adhering to the revolutionary party, had been a
general in the republican service upon the Rhine, and falling under the
causeless suspicion of the committee of public safety, was delivered to
the revolutionary tribunal, and fell by its sentence just four days
before the overthrow of Robespierre. Eugene was come to request of
Bonaparte, as general of the interior, that his father's sword might be
restored to him. The prayer of the young supplicant was as interesting
as his manners were engaging, and Napoleon felt so much interest in him,
that he was induced to cultivate the acquaintance of Eugene's mother,
afterwards the empress Josephine.
The lady was a Creolian, the daughter of a planter in St. Domingo. Her
name at full length was Marie Joseph Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She had
suffered her share of revolutionary miseries. After her husband, General
Beauharnois, had been deprived of his command, she was arrested as a
suspected person, and detained in prison till the general liberation,
which succeeded the revolution of the 9th Thermidor. While in
confinement, Madame Beauharnois had formed an intimacy with a companion
in distress, Madame Fontenai, now Madame Tallien, from which she derived
great advantages after her friend's marriage. With a remarkably graceful
person, amiable manners, and an inexhaustible fund of good-humour,
Madame Beauharnois was formed to be an ornament to society. Barras, the
Thermidorien hero, himself an ex-noble, was fond of society, desirous of
enjoying it on an agreeable scale, and of washing away the dregs which
Jacobinism had mingled with all the dearest interests of life. He loved
show, too, and pleasure, and might now indulge both without the risk of
falling under the suspicion of incivism, which, in the Reign of Terror,
would have been incurred by any attempt to intermingle elegance with the
enjoyments of social intercourse. At the apartments which he occupied,
as one of the Directory, in the Luxemburg Palace, he gave its free
course to his natural taste, and assembled an agreeable society of both
sexes. Madame Tallien and her friend formed the soul of these
assemblies, and it was supposed that Barras was not insensible to the
charms of Madame Beauharnois,--a rumour which was likely to arise,
whether with or without foundation.
When Madame Beauharnois and General Bonaparte became intimate, the
latter assures us, and we see no reason to doubt him, that although the
lady was two or three years older than himself,[9] yet being still in
the full bloom of beauty, and extremely agreeable in her manners, he was
induced, solely by her personal charms, to make her an offer of his
hand, heart, and fortunes,--little supposing, of course, to what a pitch
the latter were to arise.
[9] Bonaparte was then in his twenty-sixth year. Josephine gave
herself in the marriage contract for twenty-eight.
Although he himself is said to have been a fatalist, believing in
destiny and in the influence of his star, he knew nothing, probably, of
the prediction of a negro sorceress, who, while Marie Joseph was but a
child, prophesied she should rise to a dignity greater than that of a
queen, yet fall from it before her death.[10] This was one of those
vague auguries, delivered at random by fools or impostors, which the
caprice of fortune sometimes matches with a corresponding and conforming
event. But without trusting to the African sibyl's prediction, Bonaparte
may have formed his match under the auspices of ambition as well as
love. The marrying Madame Beauharnois was a mean of uniting his fortune
with those of Barras and Tallien, the first of whom governed France as
one of the Directors; and the last, from talents and political
connexions, had scarcely inferior influence. He had already deserved
well of them for his conduct on the Day of the Sections, but he required
their countenance to rise still higher; and without derogating from the
bride's merits, we may suppose her influence in their society
corresponded with the views of her lover. It is, however, certain, that
he always regarded her with peculiar affection; that he relied on her
fate, which he considered as linked with and strengthening his own; and
reposed, besides, considerable confidence in Josephine's tact and
address in political business. She had at all times the art of
mitigating his temper, and turning aside the hasty determinations of his
angry moments, not by directly opposing, but by gradually parrying and
disarming them. It must be added to her great praise, that she was
always a willing and often a successful advocate in the cause
of humanity.
[10] A lady of high rank, who happened to live for some time in
the same convent at Paris, where Josephine was also a pensioner
or boarder, heard her mention the prophecy, and told it herself
to the author, just about the time of the Italian expedition,
when Bonaparte was beginning to attract notice. Another clause
is usually added to the prediction--that the party whom it
concerned should die in an hospital, which was afterwards
explained as referring to Malmaison. This the author did not
hear from the same authority. The lady mentioned used to speak
in the highest terms of the simple manners and great kindness
of Madame Beauharnois.
They were married 9th of March, 1796; and the dowry of the bride was the
chief command of the Italian armies, a scene which opened a full career
to the ambition of the youthful general. Bonaparte remained with his
wife only three days after his marriage, hastened to see his family, who
were still at Marseilles, and, having enjoyed the pleasure of exhibiting
himself as a favourite of fortune in the city which he had lately left
in the capacity of an indigent adventurer, proceeded rapidly to commence
the career to which fate called him, by placing himself at the head of
the Italian army.
The renowned Italian campaigns occupy the remainder of the third, and
some part of the fourth volume, to which we now proceed. It will be
remembered that the war in Egypt being triumphantly concluded on the
part of Great Britain, the news of the contest reached France some time
before the English received it. Napoleon, on learning the tidings, is
reported to have said, "Well, there remains now no alternative but to
make the descent on Britain."