Empress Josephine Part 4

Notwithstanding all this, they were both to be again reunited one to another in a new bond of love and happiness. On the 3d of September, 1781, Josephine presented to her husband a son, the heir of his name, and for whom the father had already so long craved. Alexandre came to Noisy to be present at the birth of his child, and with true, sincere affection he embraced son and mother, and swore everlasting love and fidelity to both.

But circ.u.mstances were stronger than the will of this young man of twenty-two years. The monotonous life of Noisy, the quietude which prevailed in the house on account of the young mother, could not long retain captive the fiery young man. He endured this life of solitude, of watching at the bedside, of listening to the child's cries, for a whole week, and then was drawn away with irresistible attraction to Paris; the father's tenderness could no longer restrain the glowing ardor, the impa.s.sioned longings for distraction in the young man; and the viscount left Noisy to lead once more in Paris or with his garrison the free, unrestrained dissipations of his earlier days.

Josephine was comfortless. She had hoped the son would retain the father, but he left her alone, alone with the child, and with all the torments of her jealousy.

It is true, he came back now and then to see his son, his little Eugene, and also to make amends to the young, sick, and suffering mother, by a few days' presence, for the many days of absence.

But Josephine, irritated, jealous, too young, too inexperienced to reflect, Josephine committed the fault of receiving her husband every time he came, with reproaches and complaints, and of meeting him with violent scenes of jealousy and of offended dignity. The viscount himself, so young, so impa.s.sioned, had not the patience to go with calm indifference through the purgatory of such scenes. His proud heart rebelled against the chains with which marriage would bind him; he was angry with this woman who dared reproach him; he was the more vexed that his conscience told him she was unjust toward him, that he was the innocent one. He returned her complaints with deriding scorn; he allowed himself to be carried away by her reproaches to the manifestation of violent anger; and the tempest of matrimonial discord raged through this house, which at first seemed to have been built for a temple of peace and happiness.

The parents of the young couple saw with deep, heartfelt concern the gap deepening between them both, and which every day widened more and more, and as their warnings and wishes now remained fruitless, they resolved to try if a long absence might not heal the wounds which they both had inflicted upon their own hearts. At the request of his father and of Madame de Renaudin, the viscount undertook a long journey to Italy, from which he returned only after nearly nine months' absence.

What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be realized. The viscount returned home to his Josephine with a penitent, tender heart; and Josephine, enchanted with his tenderness, with the pliant loveliness of his whole being- Josephine, with a smile of blessedness and with happy dreams of the future, rested once more on the bosom of the man whom, even in her angry moods, she had never ceased to love.

But after a few months pa.s.sed in happiness and harmony, the viscount was once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his regiment, which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender threads which had bound together the hearts of husband and wife. Alexandre abandoned himself to his tendencies to dissipation, and Josephine to her jealousy. During the frequent visits which the viscount paid to his wife in Noisy, he was received with tears and reproaches, which always ended in violent scenes of anger and bitterness.

Such an existence, full of ever-recurring storms and ceaseless discord, weighed heavily on the hearts of both husband and wife, and made them long for an issue from this Labyrinth of an unhappy marriage. Yet neither of them dreamed of a separation; not only their son, the little Eugene, kept them from such thoughts, but also the new hopes which Josephine carried in her bosom would have made such thoughts appear criminal. It was necessary to endeavor to bear life as well as one could, and not allow one's self to be too much lacerated by its thorns, even if there was no further hope of gathering its roses.

Alexandre de Beauharnais, even if he lacked the skill of being a faithful, devoted husband, was a n.o.ble and goodnatured man, whose generous heart wanted to punish himself alone for the error of this marriage, which weighed so heavily on husband and wife; and, in order to procure peace to both, he resolved to become an exile, to tear away pitilessly the attractive ties which society, friends, and women, had woven around him. If he could not be a good husband, he might at least be a good soldier; and, whereas his heart could not adopt the resolution of devoting itself with exclusive affection to his wife, he resolved to devote himself entirely to that love to which he had never been disloyal, the love of fame. His ambitious nature longed for honors and distinction; his restless, youthful courage craved for action and battle-fields; and, as no opportunity offered itself on land, Alexandre de Beauharnais decided to search on the seas for what was denied him on land.

The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the British colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and enterprising man, since he had been in Martinique, with the forces at his disposal, with the help of the young creoles, and supported by the squadrons which lay in Port Royal, had conquered Dominique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Christophe, Mievres, and Montserrat, and now he contemplated an attack upon the rich and important island of Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted would force the English into peace.

Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted nothing more attractive than to join this important and daring enterprise of the Marquis de Bouille. With recommendations from his uncle, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the viscount hastened to the Marquis de Bouille, begged of him instantly the privilege of serving under him, and offered his services as adjutant.

The marquis received with kindness a young man so earnestly recommended, and gave him the hope of fulfilling his wishes. These hopes were not, however, realized; and the viscount, no longer able to endure the burden of uncertainty and of domestic discord, decided to leave France on his own responsibility, to sail for Martinique, and there to enlist as a simple volunteer, under the orders of the governor.

In September, 1782, he left Noisy for Brest, there to embark for Martinique. At the hour of departure the love, which for so long had been hidden under the dark cloud of jealousy and discord, awoke in all its glow and energy in the hearts of the young couple. With streaming eyes Josephine embraced her husband, and in the most touching tones entreated him to remain with her, entreated him not to tear the father away from the son, who already recognized him and stretched his little hands toward him, nor from the child yet unborn in her bosom. Carried away by so much intensity of affection, by such a fond, all-pardoning love, Alexandre was deeply moved; he regretted the past, and the decision he had taken to leave his wife and his family. All the sweet emotions of peace, of home, of paternal bliss, of married life, overcame him in this hour of farewell with, resistless power, and in Josephine's arms he wept bitter tears of repentance, of love, of farewell.

But these tears, no more than his wife's regrets, could make him waver in his determination.

The word of separation had been spoken, and it had to be fulfilled. Amid the anguish of parting, he felt for himself the necessity of breaking, by means of a long absence, with the evil practices of the past, and to make amends for the sad errors of his youth.

He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had in vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his family. Before the s.h.i.+p upon which he was to embark for his journey weighed anchor, he took a last farewell of his family in a letter addressed to Madame de Renaudin.

"I have," said he, "received the letter which tells of your good wishes for the future, and I have read with the deepest interest the a.s.surances of your attachment. These a.s.surances would still have been more flattering to me, could they have convinced me that my actual course has your approbation, and that you estimate rightly my determination, and the sacrifice I am making. However, I have on my side conscience, which applauds me for preferring, to the real, actual joys of a quiet and pleasurable existence, the prospect, even if a remote one, of preferment, which may secure me a distinguished position and a distinction which may be of advantage to my children. The greater have been my sacrifices, the more commendable it is to have made them; and if chance only favors my determination, then the laurels I will win shall make ample amends for all troubles and hards.h.i.+ps, and shall change all my anguish into joy!-Be kind enough, I pray you, to embrace for me, my father, my wife, and Eugene!" [Forward: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i, p. 133.]

It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique to win fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his resolves. He had no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news spread that negotiations had begun between England and France. M. de Bouille received strict orders to make no attack on Jamaica; and a few weeks after, on the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Versailles. A few months later, peace was concluded, and all the conquests made by the Marquis de Bouille were returned to England.

Alexandre de Beauharnais had then come in vain to Martinique. No fame was to be won-no laurels could be gathered there.

Unfortunately, however, the viscount found another occupation for his restless heart, for the vague cravings of his affections. He made the acquaintance there with a young creole, who had been a widow for the last six months, and who had returned to Martinique from France to pa.s.s there her year's mourning. But her heart had no mourning for her deceased husband; it longed for Paris, it craved for the world and its joys. She was yet, though a few years older than the viscount, a young woman; she was beautiful-of that wondrous, enticing beauty peculiar to the creoles; she was an accomplished mistress in the difficult art of pleasing, and she formed the design of gaining the heart of the impulsive Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. This design was not undertaken because he seemed worthy of love, but because she wanted to revenge herself on the family of Tascher de la Pagerie, which family had been for a long time at enmity with her own, and had given free and open expression against the too easy manners and light behavior of the beautiful widow. She wanted to take vengeance for these insults by seducing from M. de la Pagerie his own son-in-law, and by enjoying the triumph of having charmed away the husband from his daughter.

The proverb says, "What woman will, woman can!" and what the beautiful Madame de Gisard wanted was not so very hard to achieve. All she wished was to hold complete sway over the heart of a young man who felt heavily burdened with the fetters of marriage; who, now that the schemes of ambition had failed, reproached his young wife that she was the cause of his misfortune; that for her sake he had exiled himself from home, and sentenced himself to the dulness and loneliness of a village-life in Martinique. The society of the beautiful Madame de Gisard brought at least novelty and distraction to this loneliness; she gave occupation to the heart weary with connubial storms; she excited his fancy and his desires.

Madame de Gisard knew how to use all these advantages; she wanted to triumph over the family of De la Pagerie, she wanted to return to Paris in the company of a young, handsome, and distinguished lover.

It was not enough to win the love of the viscount; she had to drive him into the resolution of separating from his wife, of accusing her of unfaithfulness and guilt, so as to have the right of casting her away, in order that she herself might openly occupy her place. Madame de Gisard had the requisite talent to carry out her plans, and to acquire full control over the otherwise rebellious and proud heart of the young man. She first began to lead him into open rupture with his father and mother-in-law. Through respect for them, the viscount had avoided appearing in public with Madame de Gisard, and betraying the intimacy which existed between them. Madame de Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness and submissive spirit; she considered this servility to the head of the family as absurd, and she drove the viscount by means of scorn and sarcasm to open revolt.

Then, after separating him from his wife's family, she attacked the wife herself. With all the cunning and smoothness of a seducing demon, she encompa.s.sed the young man's heart, and filled it with mistrust against Josephine. She accused the forsaken one with levity and unfaithfulness; she filled his heart with jealousy and rancor; she used all the means of perfidy and calumny of which a woman is capable, and in which she finds a refuge when her object is to ruin, and she succeeded completely.

Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering against Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the news that, on the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given birth to a daughter at Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft emotions, by milder sentiments of reconciliation.

Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be on the defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but that he now must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own guiltiness, he must accuse his wife of guilt. She had offered herself as the price of his reconquered freedom; and the viscount, overcome with love, anger, and jealousy, was anxious to become worthy of this price.

He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother's head with the curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and, with all the vehemence of misguided pa.s.sion, he asked for an immediate separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin. Vain were the tears, the a.s.surances of innocence from Josephine. The tears of an injured woman, the prayers of his sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the whisperings and the seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard, who had secretly accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an unconditional sway.

The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation from his wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most shameless accusations.

Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had awaited the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped, through the voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself, saw herself suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest. Two years of suffering were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous process, which exposed her person to the idle and malicious tongues of the Parisians.

She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of G.o.d and to the justice of the Parliament. During the time of the process she withdrew, according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street Grenelle, St. Germain. However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de Beauharnais, her husband's father, bringing her the children, who, during the time of the unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy, under the guardians.h.i.+p of their grandfather and of a worthy governess. The members of her husband's family rivalled each other in their manifestations of affection to a woman so much injured and so incriminated, and openly before the world they declared themselves against the viscount, who, blinded by pa.s.sion and entirely in the chains of this ensnaring woman, was justifying the innocency of his wife by his own indiscreet demeanor-by the public exhibition of his pa.s.sion for Madame de Gisard, and thus caused the accusations launched against Josephine to recoil upon his own head.

At last, after one year of debates, of careful considerations and investigations, of receiving evidence, and of hearing witnesses, the Parliament p.r.o.nounced its decision.

Josephine was declared absolutely innocent of the crimes brought against her, and was entirely acquitted of the accusation of unfaithfulness. The Parliament p.r.o.nounced the solemn decree: The accusation directed against the Viscountess de Beauharnais was simply a malicious calumny. The innocency of the accused wife was evident, and consequently the Viscount de Beauharnais was bound to receive again his wife into his house. However, the viscountess was permitted and allowed not to share the same residence with her husband, and to separate herself from him. In this case the viscount was condemned to pay to his wife an annual pension of ten thousand francs, and to leave with her mother his daughter Eugenie Hortense, while he, the father, should provide for the education of the son.

Exonerated from the disgraceful imputation of faithlessness, Josephine was again free to leave the convent and return to the life of the world. It was her husband's family which now prepared for the poor young woman the most beautiful and most touching triumph. The father of her, accuser, the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his elder son and wife, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess de la Rochefoucauld, and the Baroness f.a.n.n.y de Beauharnais, came in their state carriages to the abbey to receive Josephine and lead her back to Paris. They had been joined by a great number of the most respectable and most n.o.ble ladies of the Parisian aristocracy, all in their state carriages, and in the splendor of their armorial trappings and liveries, as if it were to accompany a queen returning home.

Josephine shed tears of blessed joy when quitting her small, sombre rooms in the abbey. She entered into the reception-room to bid farewell to the prioress, and there met all these friends and relatives, who saluted her with looks of deepest tenderness and sympathy, and embraced her in their arms as one found again, as one long desired. This hour of triumph indemnified her for the sorrows and sufferings of the unhappy year which the poor wife of scarcely twenty years of age, and fleeing from calumny and hatred, liar! sighed away in the desolate and lonesome convent. She was free, she was justified; the disgrace was removed from her head; she was again authorized to be the mother of her children; she saw herself surrounded by loving parents, by true friends, and yet in her heart there was a sting. Notwithstanding his cruelty, his harshness, though he had abandoned and despised her, her heart could not be forced into hating the husband for whom she had so much wept and suffered. Her tears had impressed his image yet deeper in her heart. He was the husband of her first love, the father of her children; how could Josephine have hated him, how could her heart, so soft and true, cherish animosity against him?

At the side of her husband's father, and holding her daughter in her arms, Josephine entered Paris. Behind them came a long train of brilliant equipages, of relatives and friends. The pa.s.sers-by stopped to see the brilliant procession move before them, and to ask what it meant. Some had recognized the viscountess, and they told to others of the sufferings and of the acquittal of the poor young woman; and the people, easily affected and sympathizing, rejoiced in the decision of the Parliament, and with shouts and applause followed the carriage of the young wife.

The marquis, her father-in-law, turned smilingly to Josephine.

"Do you see, my daughter," said he, "what a triumph you enjoy, and how much you are beloved and recognized?"

Josephine bent down toward the little Hortense and kissed her.

"Ah," said she, in a low voice, "we are returning home, but the father of my children will not bid us welcome. For a pressure of his hand, for a kind word from him, I would gladly give the lofty triumph of this hour."

No, Alexandre de Beauharnais did not bid welcome to Josephine in his father's house, which they had occupied together. Ashamed and irritated, he had sped away from Paris, and returned to his regiment at Verdun.

On the arm of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Josephine traversed the apartments in which she had lived with her husband, and which she now saw again as a widow, whom not death but life had separated from her husband. Her father-in-law saw the tears standing in her eyes, and, with the refined sympathy of a sensitive mind, he understood the painful thoughts which agitated the soul of the young wife.

He fondly folded her in his arms, and laid his blessing hand on the head of the little Hortense.

"I have lost my son Alexandre," said he, "but I have found in his stead a daughter. Yes, Josephine, you are and will remain my daughter, and to you and to your children I will be a true father. My son has parted from us, but we remain together in harmony and love, and as long as I live my daughter Josephine will never want a protector."

CHAPTER VI.

TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE.

Whilst the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais, the empress of the future, was living in enforced widowhood, the life of Marie Antoinette, the queen of the present, resembled a serene, golden, sunny dream; her countenance, beaming with youth, beauty, and grace, had never yet been darkened with a cloud; her large blue eyes had not yet been dimmed with tears.

In Fontainebleau, whither Josephine had retired with her father-in- law, who through unfortunate events had lost the greatest part of his fortune-in Fontainebleau lived the future Empress of France in sad monotony; in Versailles, in Trianon, lived the present Queen of France in the dazzling splendor of her glory, of her youth, and of her beauty. In Trianon-this first gift of love from the king to his wife-the Queen of France dreamed life away in a pleasant idyl, in a joyous pastoral amus.e.m.e.nt; there, she tried to forget that she was queen, that is to say, that she was the slave of etiquette; there she tried to indemnify herself for the tediousness, the emptiness, the heartlessness of the great festivals in the Tuileries and in Versailles.

In Trianon, Marie Antoinette desired to be the domestic wife, the pleasant, youthful woman, as in the Tuileries and at Versailles she was the proud and lofty queen. Marie Antoinette felt her days obscured by the splendors of royalty; the crown weighed heavily on her beautiful head, which seemed made for a crown of myrtle and roses; life's earnestness had not yet cast its breath on those rosy cheeks and robbed of youth's charm the smile on those crimson lips.

And why should not Marie Antoinette have smiled and been joyous? Every thing shone round about her; every thing seemed to promise an enduring harvest of felicity, for the surface of France was calm and bright, and the queen's vision had not yet been made keen enough by experience to penetrate below this s.h.i.+ning surface and see the precipices already hidden underneath.