A Marriage of Inclination and Interest[58].
[Footnote 58: The authorities for this chapter are as
for the last.]
The Taschers and Beauharnais -- Execution of Alexandre
Beauharnais -- Adventures of His Widow -- Meeting of
Napoleon and Josephine -- The Latter's Uncertainties -- Her
Character and Station -- Passion and Convenience -- The
Bride's Dowry -- Buonaparte's Philosophy of Life -- The
Ladder to Glory.
[Sidenote: 1796.]
In 1779, while the boys at Brienne were still tormenting the little
untamed Corsican nobleman, and driving him to his garden fortalice to
seek lonely refuge from their taunts in company with his Plutarch,
there had arrived in Paris from Martinique a successful planter of
that island, a French gentleman of good family, M. Tascher de la
Pagerie, bringing back to that city for the second time his daughter
Josephine. She was then a girl of sixteen, without either beauty or
education, but thoroughly matured, and with a quick Creole
intelligence and a graceful litheness of figure which made her a most
attractive woman. She had spent the years of her life from ten to
fourteen in the convent of Port Royal. Having passed the interval in
her native isle, she was about to contract a marriage which her
relatives in France had arranged. Her betrothed was the younger son of
a family friend, the Marquis de Beauharnais. The bride landed on
October twentieth, and the ceremony took place on December thirteenth.
The young vicomte brought his wife home to a suitable establishment in
the capital. Two children were born to them--Eugène and Hortense; but
before the birth of the latter the husband quarreled with his wife,
for reasons that have never been known. The court granted a
separation, with alimony, to Mme. de Beauharnais, who some years later
withdrew to her father's home in Martinique. Her husband sailed to
America with the forces of Bouillé, and remained there until the
outbreak of the Revolution, when he returned, and was elected a deputy
to the States-General.
Becoming an ardent republican, he was several times president of the
National Assembly, and his house was an important center of influence.
In 1790 M. Tascher died, and his daughter, with her children, returned
to France. It was probably at her husband's instance, for she at once
joined him at his country-seat, where they continued to live, as
"brother and sister," until Citizen Beauharnais was made commander of
the Army of the Rhine. As the days of the Terror approached, every man
of noble blood was more and more in danger. At last Beauharnais's turn
came; he too was denounced to the Commune, and imprisoned. Before long
his wife was behind the same bars. Their children were in the care of
an aunt, Mme. Églé, who had been, and was again to be, a woman of
distinction in the social world, but had temporarily sought the
protection of an old acquaintance, a former abbé, who had become a
member of the Commune. The gallant young general was not one of the
four acquitted out of the batch of forty-nine among whom he was
finally summoned to the bar of the revolutionary tribunal. He died on
June twenty-third, 1794, true to his convictions, acknowledging in his
farewell letter to his wife a fraternal affection for her, and
committing solemnly to her charge his own good name, which she was to
restore by proving his devotion to France. The children were to be her
consolation; they were to wipe out the disgrace of his punishment by
the practice of virtue and--civism!
During her sojourn in prison Mme. Beauharnais had made a most useful
friend. This was a fellow-sufferer of similar character, but far
greater gifts, whose maiden name was Cabarrus, who was later Mme. de
Fontenay, who was afterward divorced and, having married Tallien, the
Convention deputy at Bordeaux, became renowned as his wife, and who,
divorced a second and married a third time, died as the Princesse de
Chimay. The ninth of Thermidor saved them both from the guillotine. In
the days immediately subsequent they had abundant opportunity to
display their light but clever natures. Mme. Beauharnais, as well as
her friend, unfolded her wings like a butterfly as she escaped from
the bars of her cell. Being a Creole, and having matured early, her
physical charms were already fading. Her spirit, too, had reached and
passed its zenith; for in her letters of that time she describes
herself as listless. Nevertheless, in those very letters there is some
sprightliness, and considerable ability of a certain kind. A few weeks
after her liberation, having apprenticed Eugène and Hortense to an
upholsterer and a dressmaker respectively,[59] she was on terms of
intimacy with Barras so close as to be considered suspicious, while
her daily intercourse was with those who had brought her husband to a
terrible end. In a luxurious and licentious society, she was a
successful intriguer in matters both of politics and of pleasure;
versed in the arts of coquetry and dress, she became for the needy and
ambitious a successful intermediary with those in power. Preferring,
as she rather ostentatiously asserted, to be guided by another's will,
she gave little thought to her children, or to the sad legacy of her
husband's good name. She emulated, outwardly at least, the
unprincipled worldliness of those about her, although her friends
believed her kind-hearted and virtuous. Whatever her true nature was,
she had influence among the foremost men of that gay set which was
imitating the court circles of old, and an influence which had become
not altogether agreeable to the immoral Provençal noble who
entertained and supported the giddy coterie. Perhaps the extravagance
of the languid Creole was as trying to Barras as it became afterward
to her second husband.
[Footnote 59: See Pulitzer: Une idylle sous Napoléon I.]
The meeting of Napoleon and Josephine was an event of the first
importance.[60] His own account twice relates that a beautiful and
tearful boy presented himself, soon after the disarmament of the
sections, to the commander of the city, and asked for the sword of his
father. The request was granted, and next day the boy's mother, Mme.
Beauharnais, came to thank the general for his kindly act of
restitution. Captivated by her grace, Buonaparte was thenceforward her
slave. A cold critic must remember that in the first place there was
no disarmament of anybody after the events of October fifth, the only
action of the Convention which might even be construed into hostility
being a decree making emigrants ineligible for election to the
legislature under the new constitution; that in the second place this
story attributes to destiny what was really due to the friendship of
Barras, a fact which his beneficiary would have liked to forget or
conceal; and finally, that the beneficiary left another account in
which he confessed that he had first met his wife at Barras's house,
this being confirmed by Lucien in his memoirs. Of the passion there is
no doubt; it was a composite emotion, made up in part of sentiment, in
part of self-interest. Those who are born to rude and simple
conditions in life are often dazzled by the charmed etiquette and
mysterious forms of artificial society. Napoleon never affected to
have been born to the manner, nor did he ever pretend to have adopted
its exacting self-control, for he could not; although after the winter
of 1795 he frequently displayed a weak and exaggerated regard for
social conventions. It was not that he had need to assume a false and
superficial polish, or that he particularly cared to show his equality
with those accustomed to polite society; but that he probably
conceived the splendid display and significant formality of that
ancient nobility which had so cruelly snubbed him from the outset as
being, nevertheless, the best conceivable prop to a throne.
[Footnote 60: Mémorial, II, 258; III, 402.]
Lucien looked on with interest, and thought that during the whole
winter his brother was rather courted than a suitor. In his memoirs he
naïvely wonders what Napoleon would have done in Asia,--either in the
Indian service of England, or against her in that of Russia, for in
his early youth he had also thought of that,--in fact, what he would
have done at all, without the protection of women, in which he so
firmly believed, if he had not, after the manner of Mohammed, found a
Kadijah at least ten years older than himself, by whose favor he was
set at the opening of a great career. There are hints, too, in various
contemporary documents and in the circumstances themselves that Barras
was an adroit match-maker. In a letter attributed to Josephine, but
without address, a bright light seems to be thrown on the facts. She
asks a female friend for advice on the question of the match. After a
jocular introduction of her suitor as anxious to become a father to
the children of Alexandre de Beauharnais and the husband of his widow,
she gives a sportive but merciless dissection of her own character,
and declares that while she does not love Buonaparte, she feels no
repugnance. But can she meet his wishes or fulfil his desires? "I
admire the general's courage; the extent of his information about all
manner of things, concerning which he talks equally well; the
quickness of his intelligence, which makes him catch the thought of
another even before it is expressed: but I confess I am afraid of the
power he seems anxious to wield over all about him. His piercing
scrutiny has in it something strange and inexplicable, that awes even
our directors; think, then, how it frightens a woman."[61] The writer
is also terrified by the very ardor of her suitor's passion. Past her
first youth, how can she hope to keep for herself that "violent
tenderness" which is almost a frenzy? Would he not soon cease to love
her, and regret the marriage? If so, her only resource would be
tears--a sorry one, indeed, but still the only one. "Barras declares
that if I marry the general, he will secure for him the chief command
of the Army of Italy. Yesterday Buonaparte, speaking of this favor,
which, although not yet granted, already has set his colleagues in
arms to murmuring, said: 'Do they think I need protection to succeed?
Some day they will be only too happy if I give them mine. My sword is
at my side, and with it I shall go far.' What do you think of this
assurance of success? Is it not a proof of confidence arising from
excessive self-esteem? A general of brigade protecting the heads of
the government! I don't know; but sometimes this ridiculous
self-reliance leads me to the point of believing everything possible
which this strange man would have me do; and with his imagination, who
can reckon what he would undertake?" This letter, though often quoted,
is so remarkable that, as some think, it may be a later invention. If
written later, it was probably the invention of Josephine herself.[62]
[Footnote 61: Given in Aubenas: Histoire de
l'impératrice Joséphine, I, 293. This writer is frankly
not an historian but an apologist.]
[Footnote 62: Coston: Premières années de Napoléon
Bonaparte.]
The divinity who could awaken such ardor in a Napoleon was in reality
six years older than her suitor, and Lucien proves by his exaggeration
of four years that she certainly looked more than her real age. She
had no fortune, though by the subterfuges of which a clever woman
could make use she led Buonaparte to think her in affluent
circumstances. She had no social station; for her drawing-room, though
frequented by men of ancient name and exalted position, was not graced
by the presence of their wives. The very house she occupied had a
doubtful reputation, having been a gift to the wife of Talma the actor
from one of her lovers, and being a loan to Mme. Beauharnais from
Barras. She had thin brown hair, a complexion neither fresh nor faded,
expressive eyes, a small retroussé nose, a pretty mouth, and a voice
that charmed all listeners. She was rather undersized, but her figure
was so perfectly proportioned as to give the impression of height and
suppleness. Its charms were scarcely concealed by the clothing she
wore, made as it was in the suggestive fashion of the day, with no
support to the form but a belt, and as scanty about her shoulders as
it was about her shapely feet. It appears to have been her elegance
and her manners, as well as her sensuality, which overpowered
Buonaparte; for he described her as having "the calm and dignified
demeanor which belongs to the old régime."
What motives may have combined to overcome her scruples we cannot
tell; perhaps a love of adventure, probably an awakened ambition for a
success in other domains than the one which advancing years would soon
compel her to abandon. She knew that Buonaparte had no fortune
whatever, but she also knew, on the highest authority, that both favor
and fortune would by her assistance soon be his. At all events, his
suit made swift advance, and by the end of January, 1796, he was
secure of his prize. His love-letters, to judge from one which has
been preserved, were as fiery as the despatches with which he soon
began to electrify his soldiers and all France. "I awaken full of
thee," he wrote; "thy portrait and yester eve's intoxicating charm
have left my senses no repose. Sweet and matchless Josephine, how
strange your influence upon my heart! Are you angry, do I see you sad,
are you uneasy, ... my soul is moved with grief, and there is no rest
for your friend; but is there then more when, yielding to an
overmastering desire, I draw from your lips, your heart, a flame which
consumes me? Ah, this very night, I knew your portrait was not you!
Thou leavest at noon; three hours more, and I shall see thee again.
Meantime, _mio dolce amor_, a thousand kisses; but give me none, for
they set me all afire." What genuine and reckless passion! The "thou"
and "you" maybe strangely jumbled; the grammar may be mixed and bad;
the language may even be somewhat indelicate, as it sounds in other
passages than those given: but the meaning would be strong enough
incense for the most exacting woman.
On February ninth, 1796, their banns were proclaimed; on March second
the bridegroom received his bride's dowry in his own appointment, on
Carnot's motion, not on that of Barras, as chief of the Army of Italy,
still under the name of Buonaparte;[63] on the seventh he was handed
his commission; on the ninth the marriage ceremony was performed by
the civil magistrate; and on the eleventh the husband started for his
post. In the marriage certificate at Paris the groom gives his age as
twenty-eight, but in reality he was not yet twenty-seven; the bride,
who was thirty-three, gives hers as not quite twenty-nine. Her name is
spelled Detascher, his Bonaparte. A new birth, a new baptism, a new
career, a new start in a new sphere, Corsica forgotten, Jacobinism
renounced, General and Mme. Bonaparte made their bow to the world. The
ceremony attracted no public attention, and was most unceremonious, no
member of the family from either side being present. Madame Mère, in
fact, was very angry, and foretold that with such a difference in age
the union would be barren.
[Footnote 63: Carnot thoroughly understood and
appreciated the genius shown in Buonaparte's plan for an
Italian campaign, and converted the Directorate to his
opinion. They sent a copy to Schérer, then in command at
Nice, and he returned it in a temper, declaring that the
man who made such a plan had better come and work it.
The Directory took him at his word.]
There was one weird omen which, read aright, distinguishes the
otherwise commonplace occurrence. In the wedding-ring were two
words--"To destiny." The words were ominous, for they were indicative
of a policy long since formed and never afterward concealed, being a
pretense to deceive Josephine as well as the rest of the world: the
giver was about to assume a new rôle,--that of the "man of
destiny,"--to work for a time on the imagination and superstition of
his age. Sometimes he forgot his part, and displayed the shrewd,
calculating, hard-working man behind the mask, who was less a fatalist
than a personified fate, less a child of fortune than its maker.
"Great events," he wrote a very short time later from Italy, "ever
depend but upon a single hair. The adroit man profits by everything,
neglects nothing which can increase his chances; the less adroit, by
sometimes disregarding a single chance, fails in everything." Here is
the whole philosophy of Bonaparte's life. He may have been sincere at
times in the other profession; if so, it was because he could find no
other expression for what in his nature corresponded to romance in
others.
The general and his adjutant reached Marseilles in due season.
Associated with them were Marmont, Junot, Murat, Berthier, and Duroc.
The two last named had as yet accomplished little: Berthier was
forty-three, Duroc only twenty-three. Both were destined to close
intimacy with Napoleon and to a career of high renown. The good news
of Napoleon's successes having long preceded them, the home of the
Bonapartes had become the resort of many among the best and most
ambitious men in the southern land. Elisa was now twenty, and though
much sought after, was showing a marked preference for Pasquale
Bacciocchi, the poor young Corsican whom she afterward married.
Pauline was sixteen, a great beauty, and deep in a serious flirtation
with Fréron, who, not having been elected to the Five Hundred, had
been appointed to a lucrative but uninfluential office in the great
provincial town--that of commissioner for the department. Caroline,
the youngest sister, was blossoming with greater promise even than
Pauline. Napoleon stopped a few days under his mother's roof to
regulate these matrimonial proceedings as he thought most
advantageous. On March twenty-second he reached the headquarters of
the Army of Italy. The command was assumed with simple and appropriate
ceremonial. The short despatch to the Directory announcing this
momentous event was signed "Bonaparte." The Corsican nobleman di
Buonaparte was now entirely transformed into the French general
Bonaparte. The process had been long and difficult: loyal Corsican;
mercenary cosmopolitan, ready as an expert artillery officer for
service in any land or under any banner; lastly, Frenchman, liberal,
and revolutionary. So far he had been consistent in each character;
for years to come he remained stationary as a sincere French patriot,
always of course with an eye to the main chance. As events unfolded,
the transformation began again; and the "adroit" man, taking advantage
of every chance, became once more a cosmopolitan--this time not as a
soldier, but as a statesman; not as a servant, but as the _imperator
universalis_, too large for a single land, determined to reunite once
more all Western Christendom, and, like the great German Charles a
thousand years before, make the imperial limits conterminous with
those of orthodox Christianity. The power of this empire was, however,
to rest on a Latin, not on a Teuton; not on Germany, but on France.
Its splendor was not to be embodied in Aachen nor in the Eternal City,
but in Paris; and its destiny was not to bring in a Christian
millennium for the glory of God, but a scientific equilibrium of
social states to the glory of Napoleon's dynasty, permanent because
universally beneficent.