As he spoke, there appeared at the door, not only the young man whom he had already seen, but also a charming woman of about twenty-seven or eight years of age. He half rose in his astonishment, and it was thus, with one knee on the ground, that Bonaparte first saw Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, the widow of Beauharnais.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
MARIE-ROSE-JOSEPHINE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE, VICOMTESSE BEAUHARNAIS
Bonaparte paused as if smitten with admiration. Madame de Beauharnais, at the time of which we are writing, was, as we have said, about twenty-seven years of age, of indisputable beauty, with a charming grace of manner, exhaling from her whole person that subtle fascination which resembles the perfume which Venus gave to her chosen ones to inspire love.
Her hair and eyes were black, her nose was straight, her mouth a smiling curve; the oval outline of her face was irreproachable. Her neck was set gracefully upon her shoulders, her figure was flexible and undulating, her arm was perfectly shaped, and her hand beautiful beyond comparison.
Nothing could have been more attractive than her Creole accent, of which she had retained only sufficient trace to betray her tropical birth.
As her maiden name indicated, Madame de Beauharnais belonged to a noble family. Born at Martinique, her education, like that of all Creoles, was left entirely to herself; but rare qualities of mind and heart had made of Mademoiselle Tascher de la Pagerie one of the most cultivated women of any age. Her kind heart had taught her early in life that, although they had wool on their heads, the negroes were more to be pitied than other men, since, through the power and cupidity of the whites, they had been torn from their own country and transferred to a land where they suffered constantly, and not infrequently were killed by cruelty.
The thing that attracted her attention was the plight of these unhappy men. All their family ties were sundered, but brothers in toil they stood with bent backs, toiling beneath the rays of the sun, delving in a soil which their blood and their sweat fertilized, but not for themselves.