BONAPARTE'S FIRST MARRIAGE.
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.
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.
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."