Marquis de Beauharnais, father of the general who was the first husband of Mme. Bonaparte, having been employed in a military capacity at Martinique, became attached to an aunt of Mme. Bonaparte’s, with whom he returned to France, and whom he married in his old age.
This aunt brought her niece, Josephine de la Pagerie, to France. She had her educated, and made use of her ascendency over her aged husband to marry her niece, at the age of fifteen years, to young Beauharnais, her stepson. Although he married her against his inclination, there is no doubt that at one time he was much attached to his wife; for I have seen very loving letters written by him to her when he was in garrison, and she preserved them with great care. Of this marriage were born Eugène and Hortense. When the Revolution began, I think that Beauharnais’s love for his wife had cooled. At the commencement of the Terror M. de Beauharnais was still commanding the French armies, and had no longer any relations with his wife.
I do not know under what circumstances she became acquainted with certain deputies of the Convention, but she had some influence with them; and, as she was kind-hearted and obliging, she used it to do as much good to as many people as possible. From that time her reputation for good conduct was very much damaged; but her kindness, her grace, and the sweetness of her manners could not be disputed. She served my father’s interests more than once with Barrère and Tallien, and owed to this my mother’s friendship. In 1793 chance placed her in a village on the outskirts of Paris, where, like her, we were passing the summer. Our near neighborhood led to some intimacy. I remember that Hortense, who was three or four years younger than I, used to visit me in my room, and, while amusing herself by examining my little trinkets, she would tell me that all her ambition for the future was to be the owner of a similar treasure. Unhappy woman! She has since been laden with gold and diamonds, and how has she not groaned under the crushing weight of the royal diadem!
In those evil days when every one was forced to seek a place of safety from the persecution by which all classes of society were beset, we lost sight of Mme. de Beauharnais. Her husband, being suspected by the Jacobins, had been thrown into prison in Paris, and condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. She also was imprisoned, but escaped the guillotine, which preyed on all without distinction. Being a friend of the beautiful Mme. Tallien, she was introduced into the society of the Directory, and was especially favored by Barras. Mme. de Beauharnais had very little fortune, and her taste for dress and luxury rendered her dependent on those who could help her to indulge it. Without being precisely pretty, she possessed many personal charms. Her features were delicate, her expression was sweet; her mouth was very small, and concealed her bad teeth; her complexion was rather dark, but with the help of red and white skillfully applied she remedied that defect; her figure was perfect; her limbs were flexible and delicate; her movements were easy and elegant. La Fontaine’s line could never have been more fitly applied than to her:
“Et la grâce, plus belle encore que la beauté.”
She dressed with perfect taste, enhancing the beauty of what she wore; and, with these advantages and the constant care bestowed upon her attire, she contrived to avoid being eclipsed by the youth and beauty of many of the women by whom she was surrounded. To all this, as I have already said, she added extreme kindness of heart, a remarkably even temper, and great readiness to forget any wrong that had been done to her.
She was not a person of remarkable intellect. A Creole, and frivolous, her education had been a good deal neglected; but she recognized her deficiencies, and never made blunders in conversation. She possessed true natural tact; she readily found pleasant things to say; her memory was good—a useful quality for those in high position. Unhappily, she was deficient in depth of feeling and elevation of mind. She preferred to charm her husband by her beauty, rather than the influence of certain virtues. She carried complaisance to excess for his sake, and kept her hold on him by concessions which, perhaps, contributed to increase the contempt with which he habitually regarded women. She might have taught him some useful lessons; but she feared him, and allowed him to dictate to her in everything. She was changeable, easy to move and easy to appease, incapable of prolonged emotion, of sustained attention, of serious reflection; and, although her greatness did not turn her head, neither did it educate her. The bent of her character led her to console the unhappy; but she could only dwell on the troubles of individuals—she did not think of the woes of France. The genius of Bonaparte overawed her: she only criticised him in what concerned herself personally; in everything else she respected what he called “the force of his destiny.” He exerted an evil influence over her, for he inspired her with contempt for morality, and with a large share of his own characteristic suspicion; and he taught her the art of lying, which each of them practiced with skill and effect.
It is said that she was the prize of his command of the army of Italy; she has often assured me that at that time Bonaparte was really in love with her. She hesitated between him, General Hoche, and M. de Caulaincourt, who also loved her. Bonaparte prevailed. I know that my mother, then living in retirement in the country, was much surprised on learning that the widow of M. de Beauharnais was about to marry a man so little known as Bonaparte.
When I questioned her as to what Bonaparte was like in his youth, she told me that he was then dreamy, silent, and awkward in the society of women, but passionate and fascinating, although rather an odd person in every way. She charged the campaign in Egypt with having changed his temper, and developed that petty despotism from which she afterward suffered so much.
I have seen letters from Napoleon to Mme. Bonaparte, written at the time of the first Italian campaign. She accompanied him to Italy, but he sometimes left her with the rearguard of the army, until a victory had secured the safety of the road. These epistles are very singular. The writing is almost illegible; they are ill spelt; the style is strange and confused. But there is in them such a tone of passionate feeling; the expressions are so animated, and at the same time so poetical; they breathe a love so different from mere “amours,” that there is no woman who would not have prized such letters. They formed a striking contrast with the graceful, elegant, and measured style of those of M. de Beauharnais. How strange it must have been for a woman to find herself one of the moving powers of the triumphant march of an army, at a time when politics alone governed the actions of men! On the eve of one of his greatest battles, Bonaparte wrote: “I am far from you! It seems to me that I am surrounded by the blackest night; I need the lurid light of the thunderbolts which we are about to hurl upon our enemies to dispel the darkness into which your absence has thrown me. Josephine, you wept when I parted from you—you wept! At that thought all my being trembles. But calm yourself: Wurmser shall pay dearly for the tears I have seen you shed.” And on the morrow Wurmser was beaten.
The enthusiasm with which General Bonaparte was received in beautiful Italy, the magnificence of the fêtes, the fame of his victories, the wealth which every officer might acquire there, the unbounded luxury in which she lived, accustomed Mme. Bonaparte from that time forth to all the pomp with which she was afterward surrounded; and she acknowledged that nothing in her life ever equaled the emotions of that time, when love came (or seemed to come) daily, to lay at her feet a new conquest over a people enraptured with their conqueror. It is, however, plain from these letters that Mme. Bonaparte, in the midst of this life of triumph, of victory, and of license, gave some cause for uneasiness to her victorious husband. His letters, sometimes sullen and sometimes menacing, reveal the torments of jealousy; and they abound in melancholy reflections, which betray his weariness of the fleeting delusions of life. It may have been that these misunderstandings, which outraged the first very keen feelings Bonaparte had ever experienced, had a bad effect upon him, and hardened him by degrees. Perhaps he would have been a better man if he had been more and better loved.
When, on his return from this brilliant campaign, the conquering general was obliged to exile himself to Egypt, to escape from the growing suspicion of the Directory, Mme. Bonaparte’s position became precarious and difficult. Her husband entertained serious doubts of her, and these were prompted by Joseph and Lucien, who dreaded the powerful influence that she might exercise through her son, who had accompanied Bonaparte. Her extravagant tastes led her into reckless expense, and she was harassed by debts and duns.
Before leaving France, Bonaparte had directed her to purchase an estate; and as she wished to live in the neighborhood of Saint Germain, where her daughter was being educated,