Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon

"I win the battles, Josephine wins me the hearts." These words of Napoleon are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the much-loved, the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one.

Even while Napoleon won battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the neck of the conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from nations their liberty-while Europe trembling bowed before him, and despite her admiration cursed him-while hatred heaved up the hearts of all nations against him-even then none could refuse admiration to the tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked at his side; none could refuse love to the wife of the conqueror, whose countenance of brass received light and lustre from the beautiful eyes of Josephine, as Memnon's statue from the rays of the sun.

She was not beautiful according to those high and exalted rules of beauty which we admire in the statues of the gods of old, but her whole being was surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine's beauty was believed in, and the heart was ravished by the spell of such a gracious, womanly apparition. Goethe's words, which the Princess Eleonore utters in reference to Antonio, were not applicable to Josephine:

"All the gods have with one consent brought gifts to his cradle, but, alas! the Graces have remained absent, and where the gifts of these lovely ones fail, though much was given and much received, yet on such a bosom is no resting-place."

No, the Graces were not absent from the cradle of Josephine; they, more than all the other gods, had brought their gifts to Josephine. They had encircled her with the girdle of gracefulness, they had imparted to her look, to her smile, to her figure, attraction and charm, and given her that beauty which is greater and more enduring than that of youth, namely loveliness, that only real beauty. Josephine possessed the beauty of grace, and this quality remained when youth, happiness, and grandeur, had deserted her. This beauty of grace struck the Emperor Alexander as he came to Malmaison to salute the dethroned empress. He had entered Paris in triumph, and laid his foot on the neck of him whom he once had called his friend, yet before the divorced wife of the dethroned emperor the czar, full of admiration and respect, bowed his head and made her homage as to a queen; for, though she was dethroned, on her head shone the crown in imperishable beauty and glory, the crown of loveliness, of faithfulness, and of womanhood.

She was not witty in the special sense of a so-called "witty woman." She composed no verses, she wrote no philosophical dissertations, she painted not, she was no politician, she was no practising artist, but she possessed the deep and fine intuition of all that which is beautiful and noble: she was the protectress of the arts and sciences. She knew that disciples were not wanting to the arts, but that often a Maecenas is needed. She left it to her cousin, the Countess Fanny Beauharnais, to be called an artist; hers was a loftier destiny, and she fulfilled that destiny through her whole life-she was a Maecenas, the protectress of the arts and sciences.

As Hamlet says of his father, "He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again;" thus Josephine's fame consists not that she was a princess, an empress anointed by the hands of the pope himself, but that she was a noble and true wife, loving yet more than she was loved, entirely given up in unswerving loyalty to him who rejected her; languishing for very sorrow on account of his misfortune, and dying for very grief as vanished away the star of his happiness. Thousands in her place, rejected, forgotten, cast away, as she was-thousands would have rejoiced in the righteousness of the fate which struck and threw in the dust the man who, for earthly grandeur, had abandoned the beloved one and disowned her love. Josephine wept over him, lamented over his calamities, and had but a wish to be allowed to share them with him. Josephine died broken-hearted-the misfortunes of her beloved, who no more loved her, the misfortunes of Napoleon, broke her heart.

She was a woman, "take her for all in all"-a noble, a beautiful woman, a loving woman, and such as belongs to no peculiar class, to no peculiar nation, to no peculiar special history; she belongs to the world, to humanity, to universal history. In the presence of such an apparition all national hatred is silent, all differences of political opinion are silent. Like a great, powerful drama drawn from the universal history of man and represented before our eyes, so her life passes before us; and surprised, wondering, we gaze on, indifferent whether the heroine of such a tragedy be Creole, French, or to what nation she may owe her birth. She belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no love for the Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of brass who bowed the people down into the dust, and trod under foot their rights and liberties-if we Germans have no love for the conqueror Napoleon, because he won so many battles from us, yet this does not debar us from loving Josephine, who during her lifetime won hearts to Napoleon, and whose beautiful death for love's sake filled with tears the eyes of those whose lips knew but words of hatred and cursing against the emperor.

To write the life of Josephine does not mean to write the life of a Frenchwoman, the life of the wife of the man who brought over Germany so much adversity, shame, and suffering, but it means to write a woman's life which, as a fated tragedy or like a mighty picture, rises before our vision. It is to unfold a portion of the world's history before our eyes-and the world's history is there for our common instruction and progress, for our enlightenment and encouragement.

I am not afraid, therefore, of being accused of lacking patriotism, because I have undertaken to write the life of a woman who is not a German, who was the wife of Germany's greatest enemy and oppressor. It is, indeed, a portion of the universal drama which is unfolded in the life of this woman, and amid so much blood, so much dishonor, so many tears, so much humiliation, so much pride, arrogance, and treachery, of this renowned period of the world's history, shines forth the figure of Josephine as the bright star of womanhood, of love, of faithfulness-stars need no birthright, no nationality, they belong to all lands and nations.

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