Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, while in her native land of
Martinique, had been approached by an aged negress, who astonished her
through declaring to her: "You will ascend upon the loftiest throne in
the world."
Always treasuring the memory of this prediction, Josephine, when the
widow of Gen. Beauharnais, during the bitter days of the Reign of
Terror, was induced to consult a distinguished seeress of the Faubourg
St. Germain, who relied upon cartomancy as a means for elucidating the
mysteries of the past, present, and future. Although her visitor was
disguised as a waiting woman, the seeress, through a simple resort to
her pack of cards, read most correctly the entire past existence of
her consultant. Then, by the same means, she laid bare the gloomy
picture of Josephine's present situation; how the prison doors of the
Luxembourg stood ready to receive her; how the guillotine thirsted for
her life's blood; how, nevertheless, she would be saved from all these
impending dangers through intercession of a young soldier, to her at
the time personally a stranger. Subsequently, by a fresh appeal to her
cards, the seeress threw aside the veil obscuring Josephine's future
destiny, predicting her marriage, the onward march of her husband
towards fame and power, until finally, after a studious observation of
the cards, the cartomancian announced to her skeptical consultant that
on a given day, within the cathedral church of Notre Dame, the unknown
man she was destined to marry would place upon her head an imperial
diadem, and furthermore that she would be hailed, in the presence of
the highest ecclesiastical potentate on earth, as "Empress of the
French," and as such would be respected until her death.
The remarkably rapid and literal fulfillment of the predictions made
by a professional seeress to an unknown lady, to whom she promised the
most exalted of mortal positions, not only astonished the crowd of
courtiers, wonder-stricken at realization of this indisputable and
well-authenticated augury of miraculous events; but elicited the
attention of men of intellect and of science, hundreds of whom visited
the remarkable prophetess, and in every instance testified to the
accuracy of her predictions, although at a loss to comprehend the
source from whence she attained apparently super-human knowledge. It
appeared wonderful to these men of science that the mere combination
of a series of cards, which they had been accustomed to look upon as a
mere species of diversion, could be employed as well to read the past
as to penetrate the mysteries of the future; still they were
compelled, in an elaborate report made to the Emperor, whose
comprehensive mind yearned after explanation of all secrets, mental as
well as physical, to state that, while unable to account for the cause
for this prophetic knowledge, there could be no rational doubt of its
existence.