The proudest monument in the Island of Martinique, in the French West Indies, so any inhabitant will tell you, is the statue of a woman in the town of St. Pierre. The woman thus honored is Josephine, once Empress of the French People, who, so the legend on the pedestal of the statue relates was born at the hamlet of Trois Ilets, Martinique, on June 23, 1763.
If one searches in the legends of the island for an explanation of the position to which the child of this humble spot arose, he will find nothing more serious than the prophecy of an old negress, made to the little girl herself, that one day she would be Queen of France. If he looks in the chronicles of the island for an explanation, he will find nothing to indicate that she could ever rise higher than the life of an indolent creole, a life narrowed by poverty and made tolerable chiefly by the beauty of the nature about her and by her own happy indifference of temperament.
Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, the child’s father, was the eldest son of a noble of Blois, France, who went to Martinique in the first quarter of the eighteenth century chiefly because he could not succeed in anything in his own country. He did no better in Martinique than he had done in France and was only able to start his children in life by dint of soliciting favors for them from his well-to-do relatives at home. For Joseph he obtained a small military position, but the lad was no better at improving his opportunities than his father had been and returned to Martinique after a few years a lieutenant of marines—without a place.
When soliciting failed, nothing was left in those days for a nobleman who did not relish work but marriage, and Joseph succeeded, by help of his friends, in making a very good one with Mlle. Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois, whose father was of noble descent and, what was more to the point, was prosperous and of good standing in Martinique. Joseph went to live on a charming plantation belonging to his father-in-law, just back from the sea and near the village of Trois Ilets. Soon after this, war with the English called him into service as a defender of the French West Indies. The war was not long, and for his services he secured a pension of 450 livres (about ninety dollars). It came none too soon, for a passing hurricane devastated the plantation at Trois Ilets in 1766, and drove the family into one of the sugar houses to live. M. de la Pagerie was never able to repair the damages to his plantation done by the storm or build another home for his family. He never, indeed, followed any steady employment, but idled his life away in gaming, intrigue, and soliciting—always in debt, always in bad odor among honest men—his only asset his birth.
But to the happiness of little Josephine it mattered very little in those days whether her home was a sugar-house or a palace, her father an honest man or a sycophant. Her days were spent under the brilliant skies, in the forests or the open fields, chasing birds and butterflies, and gathering the gorgeous tropical flowers which to the end of her life she passionately loved. Almost her only companions were the negroes of the plantations, who gave her willing admiration and obedience. Untaught, unrestrained, idolized by slaves, knowing nothing but the tropical luxury and beauty of the nature about her, she developed like the birds and the negroes, becoming, it is true, a graceful, beautiful little animal, but with hardly more moral sense than they and with even less sense of responsibility.
Josephine was ten years old before it occurred to anybody to send her to school. So far her only instruction had been what little she had gathered from a mother occupied with younger children; from the priest of Trois Ilets, who, it is fair to suppose, must have at least tried to teach her the catechism, and from the curious lore and gossip of the negroes. At ten, however, she was sent to a convent at Fort Royale, where she remained some four years. Here she was taught such rudimentary knowledge as enabled her to read,—if not understand, to write a polite note, to dance,—not very well, to sing, and play the guitar a little. It was a small equipment, but no doubt as good as most young girls of Martinique possessed in that day. Indeed many a noble-born maid in France started out with less in the eighteenth century, and it was quite as much as one would suppose from her position that she would need—more than she used indeed, for little Yeyette, as Josephine was called, if amiable and obedient when she left the convent, was indolent and vain, loving far better her childish play of decorating herself with brilliant flowers and watching her own image in the clear water of the pools on the plantation, than she did books and music; and the loving flattery of her old nurse was dearer to her than any amusement she found in the meager society of the island, where she now was to take her place and, her parents hoped, help retrieve the bad fortunes of the family by a good marriage.
The opportunity came quickly. Josephine had been but a few months out of the convent when one day her father laid before her what must have been a bewildering and, one would suppose, a terrifying proposition—would she like to leave Martinique and go to France, there to marry Alexander de Beauharnais. The boy was not unknown to her. Like herself, he was born in Martinique, and though he had left there when she was only seven years old and he ten, it is not unlikely that she had seen him occasionally at the home of her grandmother who cared for him in the absence of his father and mother in France.
The influence which had led the father of Alexander de Beauharnais to ask for the hand of a daughter of M. de la Pagerie for his son was not altogether creditable. The two families had never known each other until 1757, when M. de Beauharnais came to Martinique as its governor. The elder M. de la Pagerie was not slow in seeking the new governor’s acquaintance and support for his family, for the latter was rich and in favor with the king at Versailles. The relation prospered sufficiently for M. de la Pagerie to secure a place in the household of the governor for one of his daughters. He could have done nothing better for his family. This daughter was not long in gaining an important influence over both M. and Mme. de Beauharnais, and in winning as a husband M. Renaudin, an excellent man and prosperous. This for herself. For her family, she secured so many favors from the governor that it became a matter of serious criticism and finally, added to other indiscretions, led to a divorce between her and M. Renaudin. All this scandal did not influence the governor, however, and when, in 1761, he left Martinique, on account of the dissatisfaction with his administration there, and hurried to France with his wife to make his peace at Versailles, Mme. Renaudin went, too. There she prospered, buying a home and laying aside money. It was M. de Beauharnais’s money, people said. However this may be, it is certain that she exercised great influence over him, that for her he neglected his wife, and that after the latter’s death the friendship or liaison continued until his death.
From all this it will be seen that Mme. Renaudin was a clever woman, intent on making the most out of the one really strong relation she had been able to form in her life. She was clever enough to see, when Alexander was brought to France after his mother’s death, that his love and gratitude would be one of her strongest cards with the father in the future. She set to work to win the boy’s heart, and she succeeded admirably. In his eyes, she took his mother’s place, and her influence over him was almost unlimited.
By the time he was seventeen, Alexander de Beauharnais was a most attractive youth. He had been well educated in the manner of his time, having been, with his elder brother, under the care of an excellent tutor for a number of years, two of which, at least, were passed in Germany. After his brother entered the army, Alexander and his tutor joined the household of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld and there studied with the latter’s nephews. In this aristocratic atmosphere he imbibed all the new liberal ideas of the day; he learned, at the same time, the graces of the most exquisite French society and the philosophy of Rousseau. Alexander was seventeen years old when his education was pronounced finished, and a search was made for a place for him suitable to his birth, his relations, and his ambition. Thanks, largely, to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, he was made a lieutenant in the army.