Josephine now received letters from Martinique earnestly entreating her to return, with her children, to the home of her childhood. World-weary, she immediately resolved to accept the invitation. But the thought of crossing the wide ocean, and leaving her son Eugene behind, was a severe pang to a mother's heart. Eugene had been taken from her and sent to a boarding-school. Josephine felt so deeply the pang of separation from her beloved child, that she obtained an interview with M. Beauharnais, and implored him to allow her to take Eugene with her. He gave a cold and positive refusal.
Josephine embarks for Martinique.
Hours of despondency.
A few days after this, Josephine, cruelly separated from her husband and bereaved of her son, embarked with Hortense for Martinique. She strove to maintain that aspect of cheerfulness and of dignity which an injured but innocent woman is entitled to exhibit. When dark hours of despondency overshadowed her, she tried to console herself with the beautiful thought of Plautus: "If we support adversity with courage, we shall have a keener relish for returning prosperity." It does not appear that she had any refuge in the consolations of religion. She had a vague and general idea of the goodness of a superintending Providence, but she was apparently a stranger to those warm and glowing revelations of Christianity which introduce us to a sympathizing Savior, a guiding and consoling Spirit, a loving and forgiving Father. Could she then, by faith, have reposed her aching head upon the bosom of her heavenly Father, she might have found a solace such as nothing else could confer. But at this time nearly every mind in France was more or less darkened by the glooms of infidelity.
Josephine arrives at Martinique.
Her kind reception.
The winds soon drove her frail bark across the Atlantic, and Josephine, pale and sorrow-stricken, was clasped in the arms and folded to the hearts of those who truly loved her. The affectionate negroes gathered around her, with loud demonstrations of their sympathy and their joy in again meeting their mistress. Here, amid the quiet scenes endeared to her by the recollections of childhood, she found a temporary respite from those storms by which she had been so severely tossed upon life's wild and tempestuous ocean.
Chapter III.
Arrest of M. Beauharnais and Josephine.
A.D. 1786-A.D. 1793