The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

“‘That not only should I not die, but that I should become Queen of France’.

“‘Why then do you not appoint your household?’ asked Madame d’Aiguillon, who was also one of the prisoners of the Revolution.

“‘Ah! that is true, – I had forgotten. Well, my dear, you shall be maid of honor; I promise you the situation.’

“Upon this the tears of those ladies flowed more abundantly; for they thought, on seeing my coolness at such a crisis, that misfortune had affected my reason. Such, ladies, is the truth about this so celebrated prophecy. The end gives me but little inquietude. I live here peacefully in retirement; I have no concern with politics; I endeavor to do all the good in my power; and thus I hope to die calmly in my bed.”

After the death of the Vicomte de Beauharnais on the scaffold, his wife Josephine, who had also been imprisoned by the Jacobins, was at length condemned to die.

A few days before her terrible doom was to have been sealed, Josephine and Madame de Fontenay, also a prisoner, were standing together at the barred window of their prison. M. Tallien, a man of much influence with the rising power which was opposing the tyranny of Robespierre, was in love with Madame de Fontenay, and daily walked past the convent of the Carmelites, where Josephine and the other ladies of high birth were imprisoned.

Observing M. Tallien, Madame de Fontenay made a sign for him to draw near, and she then dropped from the window a piece of cabbage-leaf, in which she had enclosed the following note: —

“My trial is decreed; the result is certain. If you love me as you say, urge every means to save France and me.”

Roused by the danger of her whom he loved, M. Tallien proceeded to the convention, and making an impassioned and eloquent speech, denouncing Robespierre, he turned the tide of popular opinion against the tyrant, and in a short time Robespierre’s head fell under the bloody guillotine, where he had already caused so many thousands to perish.

The manner in which Josephine received the news of her enemy’s death was strange and interesting. It was the day before that upon which it had been decreed that Madame de Beauharnais should be put to death. Josephine was standing at the window of her prison, calmly gazing upon the outward world, while her fellow-prisoners were weeping around, overcome with the thought of the terrible doom which awaited their loved friend. But Josephine’s fortitude did not desert her, and she was endeavoring to comfort her mourning companions, when her attention was arrested by a woman in the street below, who seemed trying to give her some information by various strange signs.

At first the woman held up her robe, pointing to it several times. Josephine called out through the grated window, “Robe?” and the woman eagerly made a sign of assent; and picking up a stone, which in French is pierre, she held it up. Josephine cried out, “Pierre?” and the woman joyfully nodded, and then pointed first to her robe and then to the stone. Whereupon Josephine wonderingly exclaimed, “Robespierre?” and the woman again assented with every mark of delight, and continued to draw her hand around her throat, making the signs of cutting off a head. The glad cry soon resounded through the prison, “Robespierre is dead!”

Thus was the axe lifted from the neck of Josephine, and she soon walked forth free, saying smilingly to her friends: —

“You see I am not guillotined; and I shall yet be queen of France!”

Thus not only had the life of the future empress of France, but the fate of that great kingdom itself, depended at one time upon a tiny cabbage-leaf, thrown by the hand of a feeble woman.

After Josephine de Beauharnais was betrothed to General Bonaparte, on one occasion she requested him to accompany her to the residence of M. Raguideau, an old lawyer, who had long been her confidential friend and adviser, that she might inform him of her coming marriage. On arriving at the lawyer’s office, Josephine withdrew her hand from the arm of Bonaparte, and requested him to wait for her in the outer apartment until she had spoken with her old friend alone. Neglecting, however, to close the door which separated the two offices, Bonaparte was able to overhear the conversation between his intended bride and the old lawyer.

“M. Raguideau,” said Madame de Beauharnais, “I have come to inform you of my approaching marriage.”

“And with whom, madame?” exclaimed the astonished lawyer.

“I am about to marry General Bonaparte, sir.”

“General Bonaparte, do you say? Pshaw, madame! a soldier of fortune, who has his way to make.”

“He will make it, my good friend!” replied Josephine, with flushed cheeks.

“When, and how?” was the incredulous retort. “But first, what is he worth at present?”

“Nothing, save his house in the Rue Chantereine.”

“A shed! A likely fortune, indeed! And so you are really resolved to marry this adventurer?”

“I am.”

“So much the worse for you, madame.”

“Explain yourself, sir!” said Josephine, with offended dignity.

“Because, madame, you had much better remain a widow than marry a paltry general, without either name or prospects. You must assuredly be mad! Will your Bonaparte ever be a Dumouriez or a Pichegru? Will he ever be the equal of our great republican generals? I have a right to doubt it. Moreover, let me tell you that the profession of arms is worthless now; and I would much rather know that you were about to marry an army-contractor than General Bonaparte.”

“Every one to his taste, monsieur,” disdainfully replied Josephine, stung to the quick by the contemptuous tone of the old man, who had always heretofore been fatherly to her. “You, sir, it would appear, regard marriage merely as an affair of finance;” and she rose with queenly dignity to take her leave.

“And you, madame,” broke in the excited and angry old man, “you see in it only a matter of sentiment, and what you, no doubt, call love. Again I repeat, all the worse for you, madame! all the worse for you! I had given you more credit for good sense than to suspect that you would allow yourself to be dazzled by a pair of gold epaulets. Reflect before you make such a sacrifice; for rest assured, that if you are rash enough to persist in this foolish scheme, you will repent your folly all the days of your life. Who ever heard of a rational woman throwing herself away upon a man whose whole fortune consists in his sword and his great-coat?”

General Bonaparte had listened to this extraordinary conversation with rising excitement; and when he heard the words “sword” and “great-coat” so contemptuously uttered, he sprang from his chair, with blazing eyes, forgetting the presence of the astonished clerks; but, recovering himself instantly, he sat down again, determined not to expose himself to ridicule.

Josephine soon appeared, looking highly annoyed and indignant, followed by the irate old lawyer; but Bonaparte, giving him no time for further insult, drew the hand of his betrothed within his arm, and, making a silent and contemptuous bow, withdrew.

Josephine had no idea that Bonaparte had been an unwilling listener; but she noticed his marked increase of kind and courtly attention on the way home; and not until the day of the coronation did either Josephine or Raguideau entertain the slightest suspicion that their conversation had been overheard by Bonaparte. On the day of the coronation, when the emperor and empress were about to proceed to the palace of the archbishop, Napoleon sent one of his chamberlains to M. Raguideau, with the command that the emperor desired his immediate presence at the Tuileries. The astonished lawyer, arriving with breathless haste, overwhelmed with mingled feelings of fear and hope at such unexpected summons, was ushered into the grand salon, where Napoleon, attired in his royal robes, was conversing with Josephine, who was also arrayed in her gorgeous coronation costume.

“Ah! here you are at last, M. Raguideau!” said Napoleon, with a quizzical smile upon his imposing countenance; “I am very happy to see you!”

“Sire,” began the trembling old man, not knowing whether that august smile betokened promotion or decapitation.

“My good sir,” continued the emperor, not giving him time to reply, “do you remember a day in 1796, when I accompanied to your house Madame de Beauharnais, now empress of the French?” – emphasizing the word “empress” with all the depth of his magnetic voice. “Do you remember the eulogy which you uttered on the military profession, and the personal panegyric of which I was the object? Well, what say you now? Were you a true prophet? You declared that my fortune would always consist of my sword and my great-coat; that I should never make a name nor position, like Dumouriez or Pichegru; and that Madame de Beauharnais was insane to sacrifice herself to a ‘mere general.’ I have made my way, nevertheless, as you perceive, and in despite of your sagacious predictions. Think you that the ‘army-contractor’ would have bestowed a brighter boon upon his wife, after eight years of marriage, than a crown, and that crown the imperial diadem of France?”

As he ceased speaking, Napoleon lovingly raised the hand of Josephine to his lips, while she looked with amazement upon this bewildering scene. The poor old lawyer, overwhelmed with consternation, stood trembling in dumb despair; his eyes were cast upon the floor, and his limbs shook as with an ague fit; while the emperor gazed upon him with an amused smile, highly enjoying his discomfiture. At last the frightened man stammered: —

“Sire, I could not foresee. Sire, did you really overhear?”

“Every word, M. Raguideau. You are aware that walls have ears, and I owe you a severe reprisal; for, if my excellent Josephine had listened to your advice, it would have cost her a throne, and me the best of wives. You are a great culprit, M. Raguideau!”

At those terrible words “reprisal” and “culprit,” the poor old man turned pale as a corpse; his tottering limbs almost refused to support his agitated form.

“How could I tell? how could I imagine?” he gasped out; “I thought only of her, of her fatherless children. I had loved them for years. I was anxious to see them once more restored to prosperity and happiness.”

“I believe you,” said the emperor, touched by the emotion of the gray-haired old man, who had been a friend to his wife in her days of need; “you could not tell; you could not foresee;” and for a moment Napoleon paused, and then continued in more solemn tones, “the future is beyond the grasp of any living man.” Then, resuming his bantering way: “So, now, we will return to the present; and, as I cannot altogether overlook the injury which you sought to inflict upon me, I condemn you to go this day to Nôtre Dame, and to witness the ceremony of my coronation. Not in a corner, not behind a pillar, which will prevent my having ocular evidence of your obedience, but in the seat that I shall cause to be retained for you. Do you hear, sir? I must see you both in the cathedral and in the line of the procession.”

Transported with the overwhelming relief and the ecstatic joy of such an honor, the poor old lawyer was hardly able to express his gratitude, and could scarcely maintain his dignity as he bowed himself from the royal presence, and hastened to prepare for the coming august ceremony.

Napoleon having jested with his wife over the abject terror of the trembling culprit, the emperor and empress entered their carriage, and proceeded to the archbishopric. As they left the cathedral after the magnificent ceremony of the coronation, Napoleon recognized the old lawyer in the crowd; and as their eyes met the Emperor smiled graciously upon his former enemy. The smile was answered by so profound a bow, that Napoleon afterwards laughingly declared to Josephine, “that for several seconds he was in doubt whether the sage prophet of 1796 would ever be able again to assume the perpendicular.”

During Napoleon’s campaigns, Josephine was at all times in receipt of news from the army, brought to her by couriers from Bonaparte. No matter at what time the despatches arrived, day or night, she always received them with her own hands, and made inquiries of the courier of all in the army whom she knew. She would always say some pleasant thing to him, and reward him with a more or less costly gift, according to the importance of the news received.

At one time, when Bourrienne had remarked to Josephine, “Madame, I really believe that in spite of yourself you will be made queen or empress,” Josephine exclaimed: “Bourrienne, such ambition is far from my thoughts. That I may always continue the wife of the First Consul, is all that I desire.”

During the Prussian campaign, nothing was talked of throughout Germany but Napoleon’s generous conduct with respect to Prince Hatzfeld. Among the letters seized at Berlin, and delivered to Napoleon, was one from the prince to the king of Prussia, in which he revealed the condition and strength of the French army. The prince was arrested, and tried as a spy, and condemned to death. The remainder of the scene is described in Napoleon’s letter to Josephine, which is as follows: —

“I have received your letter, in which you seem to reproach me for speaking ill of women. It is true that I dislike female intriguers above all things. I am used to kind, gentle, and conciliatory women. I love them, and if they have spoiled me, it is not my fault, but yours. However, you will see that I have done an act of kindness to one deserving woman. I allude to Madame de Hatzfeld. When I showed her her husband’s letter, she stood weeping, and in a tone of mingled grief and ingenuousness, said, ‘It is indeed his writing!’ This went to my heart, and I said: ‘Well, madame, throw the letter into the fire, and then I shall have no proof against your husband.’ She burned the letter, and was restored to happiness. Her husband now is safe; two hours later, and he would have been lost. You see, therefore, that I like women who are simple, gentle, and amiable; because they alone resemble you.”

Josephine’s kindness and consideration for the comfort of every one in her household, even down to the lowest menial, was proverbial. When travelling with Napoleon, a picket-guard was appointed by the emperor for her service. One cold night, in the early dawn, she heard marching and coughing under her window. She wondered who could be out so late in the chill of that hour; and upon inquiry, she learned that it was the sentinel posted there. She thereupon sent for the officer of the guard, and said to him, “Sir, I have no need of a sentinel at night; these brave men have endured enough in the army when they followed it to the wars; they must rest while in my service. I don’t want them to catch cold.” The officer, smiling at the apprehensive solicitude of the empress, and touched by her unexpected kindness, dismissed the sentinel, and his place was not supplied.

Napoleon is said to have talked but little. When out of his own house, if he chanced to stop and speak with any one, it was considered of enough importance to be remarked and reported. The following is Josephine’s portrait of Napoleon at home: “He had a fine intellect, a sensible and grateful heart, simple tastes, and the qualities of an amiable man; to the sentiments of an honest man, he united a prodigious local memory.”

When Josephine spoke of her husband, she always said, “The emperor says,” “the emperor wishes,” “the emperor orders,” etc. She very rarely called him by name in public, and in private she called him Bonaparte; while her tender name for him was mon ami. When speaking of her, Napoleon usually called her the empress, or he would say, “I am going to see my wife”; but in addressing her he called her Josephine, unless he spoke with severity or on some serious occasion, when he called her Madame, without other title or name.

It cannot be denied that Josephine had a great weakness for extravagant jewels and adornments; but as she dressed always with perfect taste and elegance, and as she was as lavish in her bounties as she was in her personal expenditures, she may be pardoned this feminine weakness. She at least never offended the eyes of admirers of good taste, and her pleasing person, so becomingly adorned, was one of the most charming sights of the court of the empire.

This was another cause of the jealousy of her sisters-in-law; and even Pauline, the Bonaparte beauty, was often most sorely chagrined to find her own boasted charms thrown in the shade by the refined elegance and queenly bearing of the emperor’s wife.

An amusing story is told of the mortification of this proud beauty upon one grand occasion, when she had resolved for once to outshine her hated sister-in-law.

Pauline, Madame Le Clerc, after wearing her widow’s weeds for as short a time as possible after the death of her first husband, General Le Clerc, had wedded a real prince, and was accordingly to make her début at court as Princess Borghèse.

Pauline has kept her own counsel about her grande toilette for that momentous occasion; but the rumor is afloat that she intends to make a grand coup with her gorgeous appearance, and quite extinguish her august sister-in-law.

Josephine, having heard that she was to be crushed into utter insignificance by the vain beauty, quietly determined a little stratagem of her own. Confident of being mistress in the art of dress, she accordingly resolved to assume a costume which should delight by its very simplicity. But a simplicity so artistically arranged that the very splendor of her rival should but heighten the effect of her own toilet. Her dress was of the finest Indian muslin, bordered with gold and embroidery, and gracefully draped to show the perfect elegance of her figure. Her hair was dressed à la grecque, and banded with pearls, while antique gems and pearls formed her sole ornaments.

“Ravissante!” exclaimed her ladies, as she entered the salon; and even Napoleon’s usual gravity relents, as he cries: —

“Josephine, je suis jaloux! Tu es divine!” and he kisses her on the forehead, pinching her ear laughingly, which was his favorite manner of bestowing a gracious caress.

The time passes, but no princess. Napoleon impatiently retires from the salon; his time is too precious to wait longer the “official visit,” as he calls it, of the prince and princess.

At length the clatter of horses’ hoofs is heard. A carriage grand enough, with its gilding and emblazonry, to have borne the Grand Monarque himself, dashes into the Cour d’Honneur of St. Cloud.

Six gayly caparisoned horses are harnessed to this gorgeous vehicle, and a large retinue of outriders surround it, bearing torches. On the grand staircase are stationed the entire staff of domestics to receive their princely guests.

Presently the huissier opens the doors of the salon, and announces with becoming grandiloquence: —

“Monseigneur le Prince, and Madame la Princesse Borghèse.”

The grande entrée is made with imposing hauteur, and Pauline sees with satisfaction that she has made a sensation. But her vain heart is ruffled because she is obliged to cross the room to Josephine, instead of being met by her, as la grande princesse had of course expected.

But she comforted her wounded pride with the thought that this promenade would give her the opportunity to display her velvet train embroidered with diamonds.

Pauline was indeed magnificent. Her costume was a pale green velvet embroidered with gold, and thickly sprinkled with flashing brilliants. The front of her dress was a tablier of diamonds, with diamond stomacher, and the same glistening jewels upon her sleeves. Her handsome head was adorned with a diadem of emeralds and diamonds, and the same gems sparkled upon snowy arms, wrists, and throat. In fact, she was loaded with the entire wealth of diamonds possessed by the princely family of Borghèse; and as it was reported that when she came back from St. Domingo, where her former husband died, she had guarded carefully a coffin, containing the supposed remains of her late husband, but in reality filled with diamonds and other precious stones. If this was true, Pauline doubtless had diamonds of her own to add to the vaunted store of the family of her second princely husband.

Be that as it may, Pauline flashed in diamonds from head to foot; nay more, even to the end of her gorgeous train, where the same rich jewels also sparkled.

She was indeed dazzling!

Josephine and Pauline are at length seated side by side. The proud princess is forced to acknowledge that Josephine’s toilet is charming; and all beholders are confirmed in their opinion that Madame Bonaparte’s taste is faultless.

But horrors! What has happened? Pauline, la princesse, has grown pale as death. Is she ill? Oh! worse than that. Oh, awful catastrophe! Pauline, gazing into a large mirror before her, expecting to be ravished with her own beauty, perceives this dreadful fact. The furniture and draperies of the newly furnished salon, while giving full effect to Josephine’s costume, actually transform herself into a hideous spectacle. Wearing a green velvet gown, she has seated herself upon a blue velvet sofa! It is positively too shocking for her nerves to endure. Had her boasted triumph encountered such ignominious defeat? Hastily rising, she made her adieus, and departed to weep in mortified chagrin and baffled pride. Poor Pauline! kind-hearted Josephine had not intended to achieve such an unexpected triumph.

The Empress Josephine was very generous to her attendant ladies, often making them costly presents. As she frequently gave them handsome costumes and pretty novelties which she had worn but once or twice, the ladies at length entered into quite a trade with certain Jews, who came to the court to display their merchandise. As the robes of the empress were often too rich for the ladies who received them to wear themselves, they exchanged them for piece-goods, which the Jewish merchants brought for sale. These garments of the empress became quite the rage; and at one ball, Josephine might have beheld the ladies in an entire quadrille, arrayed in her cast-off robes. Even princesses were frequently the purchasers of these gowns from the Jews, who had obtained them in exchange for the merchandise with which they had supplied the ladies of Josephine’s court.

At one time an ambassador arrived from Persia, bringing very magnificent presents to the Emperor Napoleon and costly cashmeres to Josephine. For some time his Persian Excellency was all the rage, and the ladies of the French court vied with each other in endeavoring to show attention to these eastern guests. The parties given by the Persian ambassador and his suite, at their residences, were largely attended, and much curiosity was evinced to partake of the foreign tea and queer cakes offered by their Persian hosts.

The empress at length determined to attend one of their parties incognito, being accompanied by several of her ladies. On being introduced to the ambassador, Josephine received a gracious smile, and the Persian presented her with a small bottle of attar of roses, a kind of present which, among the Persians, denoted a mark of high honor and respect.

Josephine tasted several mysterious Persian dishes, and expressed admiration of his Excellency’s pipe, which was brought to him by two slaves, who kneeled when they offered it to their august master. Josephine noticed that the tips of his Excellency’s finger-nails were colored with different tints.

The ambassador being impressed with the manner and grace of the empress, invited her to be seated by his side on his divan. She graciously declined the attention, saying that such an honor belonged only to privileged persons, fearing that her identity would be made known. The Persian then asked, through his interpreter, if she would be willing to go and reside with him in Persia, promising that he would give her a high position.

Scarcely restraining her mirth, Josephine replied that she was married and had two children, and that her duty and interests would keep her in France. And with as much haste as courtesy would allow, the empress and her ladies retired from the presence of their Persian host.