Читать книгу Empress Josephine (Historical Novel) - L. Muhlbach - Страница 6

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Six months had barely elapsed since Josephine’s return from the convent when the family Tascher de la Pagerie received from their relatives in Paris letters which were to be of the greatest importance for the whole family.

The beautiful Madame de Renaudin, sister of M. Tascher de la Pagerie, had settled in Paris after having rid herself of an unhappy marriage with a man, coarse and addicted to gambling, and after having, through a legal separation, reobtained her freedom. She lived there in the closest, intimacy with the Marquis de Beauharnais, who, for many years, at an earlier period, had resided as governor on the Island of Martinique, and there had bound himself to the whole family of Tascher de la Pagerie by the ties of a cordial friendship. His wife, during her residence in Martinique, had been the most tender friend of Madame de Renaudin, and when the marchioness bore a second son to her husband, Madame de Renaudin had stood as godmother, and promised to love and protect the child of her friend as if she were his mother.

Chance brought on the opportunity of accomplishing this promise and of fulfilling the oath made to God before the altar. The Marchioness de Beauharnais returned to France in the year 1763 with her husband and her two sons, but died there a short time after; and Madame de Renaudin, true to her oath, hastened to replace the natural guardian, the mother.

Perhaps she had but followed the dictates of her heart, perhaps against her will a sentiment of joy had passed over her at the death of the poor marchioness, for, by this death, one at least of the two obstacles intervening between Madame de Renaudin and the Marquis de Beauharnais had been removed. Both married, both of the Catholic religion, death alone could make their hands free, and confer upon them the right of joining hands together for all their days.

They loved one another, they had ceased long ago to make a secret of it; they avowed it to each other and to their dependants, for their brave, loyal, and noble hearts would not stoop to falsehood and deception, and they had the courage to acknowledge what their sentiments were.

Death had then made free the hand of the Marquis de Beauharnais, but life held yet in bondage the hand of the Baroness de Renaudin.

As long as her husband lived, she could not, though legally divorced from him, conscientiously think of a second marriage.

But she possessed the courage and the loyalty of true love; she had seen and experienced enough of the world to despise its judgments, and with cheerful determination do what in her conscience she held to be good and right.

Before God’s altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she loved the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had no duties which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice of her heart and braved public opinion.

She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de Beauharnais, with his two sons and their tutor.

The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and there, during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness de Renaudin, the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the friend, the confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely devoted to study, to the arts, to the sciences, and to household pleasures.

Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de Beauharnais had grown up under the care of their maternal friend: they had been through their collegiate course, had been one year students at Heidelberg, had returned, had been through the drill of soldier and officer, a mere form which custom then imposed on young men of high birth; and the younger son Alexander, the godchild of the Baroness de Renaudin, had scarcely passed his sixteenth year when he received his commission as sub-lieutenant.

A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy love excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen years, and awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely and without reserve he communicated his wishes to his father, begged of him to choose him a wife, and promised to take readily and cheerfully as such her whom his father or his sponsor, his second mother, would select for him.

A few months later reached Martinique the letters which, as already said, were to be of the utmost importance to the family of M. Tascher de la Pagerie.

The first of these letters was from the Marquis de Beauharnais, and addressed to the parents of Josephine, but with a considerate and delicate tact the marquis had not written the letter with his own hand, but had dictated it to his son Alexander, so as to prove to the family of his friend De la Pagerie that the son was in perfect unison of sentiment with the father, and that the latter only expressed what the son desired and approved.

“I cannot express,” wrote the marquis, “how much satisfaction I have in being at this moment able to give you a proof of the inclination and friendship which I always have had for you. As you will perceive, this satisfaction is not merely on the surface.

“My two sons,” continues he, “are now enjoying an annual income of forty thousand livres. It is in your power to give me your daughter to enjoy this income with my son, the chevalier. The esteem and affection he feels for Madame de Renaudin makes him passionately desire to be united with her niece. I can assure you that I am only gratifying his wishes when I pray you to give me for him your second daughter, whose age corresponds at best with his. I sincerely wish that your eldest daughter were a few years younger, for then she would certainly have had the preference, the more so that she is described to me under the most advantageous colors. But I confess my son, who is but seventeen and a half years old, thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near him in age. This is one of those cases in which reasonable and reflecting parents will accommodate themselves to circumstances.”

M. de Beauharnais adds that his son possesses all the qualities necessary to make a woman happy. At the same time he declares that, as regards his future daughter-in-law, he has no claims to a dowry, for his son already possesses an income of forty thousand livres from his mother’s legacy, and that after his father’s death he will inherit besides an annual income of twenty-five thousand livres. He then entreats M. de la Pagerie, as soon as practicable, to send his daughter to France, and, if possible, to bring her himself. The marquis then addresses himself directly to the wife of M. de la Pagerie, and repeats to her in nearly the same words his proposal, and endeavors also to excuse to her the choice of the second daughter.

“The most flattering things have been told me,” writes he, “of your eldest daughter, but my son finds her, with her fifteen years, too old for him. My son is worthy of becoming your son-in-law; Nature has gifted him with good and fine parts, and his income is sufficiently large to share it with a wife qualified to render him happy. Such a one I trust to find in your second daughter; may she resemble you, madame, and I can no longer doubt of my son’s happiness! I feel extremely happy to see my long-cherished wishes satisfied! I can not express to you how great will be my joy to see riveted forever, by means of this union of our two families, the inclination and the friendship which have already so long chained us together. I trust that Mademoiselle de la Pagerie will not refuse her consent. Allow me to embrace her and already to greet her as my own beloved daughter.”3

To this letter was addressed a note from Madame de Renaudin to her brother and to her sister-in-law. She openly acknowledges that she it was who desired this union, and who had brought the matter to its present stage, and she endeavors to meet the objection that it would appear strange for a young lady to undertake a long journey in search of a future husband, whilst it would be more expedient that the bridegroom should make the journey to his bride, to receive her at the hands of her parents, and bring her with him to a new home. But this bride of thirteen years must first be trained for her future destiny; she is not to be in the house of her future father-in-law, but in the house of Madame de Renaudin, her aunt, and she is there to receive the completion of her education and that higher culture which her parents, even with all the necessary means, could not give her in Martinique.

“We are of opinion,” she writes, “that the young people must see one another and please each other, before we bring this matter to a close, for they are both too dear to us to desire to coerce them against their inclination. Your daughter will find in me a true and kind mother, and I am sure that she will find the happiness of her future life in the contemplated union, for the chevalier is well qualified to make a wife happy. All that I can say of him exhausts by no means the praise he deserves. He has a pleasant countenance, an excellent figure, wit, genius, knowledge, and, what is more than this, all the noble qualities of heart and soul are united in him, and he must consequently be loved by all who know him.”

Meanwhile, before these letters reached Martinique, chance had already otherwise decided the fate of Mary, the second daughter of M. de la Pagerie. With one sentence it had destroyed all the family schemes. After three days of confinement to a bed of sickness, Mary had died of a violent fever, and when the letter, in which the Marquis de Beauharnais asked for her hand, reached her father, she had been buried three months.

M. Tascher de la Pagerie hastened to announce her death to the Marquis and to Madame de Renaudin; and to prove to them how much he also had at heart a union of the two families, he offered to his son, the chevalier, the hand of his third daughter, the little twelve-year-old Desiree. Undoubtedly it would have been more gratifying to him if the choice of the marquis had fallen upon his eldest daughter, and he makes this known very clearly in his answer to Madame de Renaudin.

“My eldest daughter,” writes he, “Josephine, who is lately returned from the convent, and who has often desired me to take her to France, will, believe me, be somewhat sensitive at the preference given to her younger sisters. Josephine has a beautiful head, beautiful eyes and arms, and also a wonderful talent for music. During her stay in the convent I procured her a guitar-teacher; she has made the best of the instruction received, and she has a glorious voice. It is a pity she has not the opportunity of completing her education in France; and were I to have my wish, I would bring her to you instead of my other two daughters.”

Meanwhile the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his son, found that the youngest daughter of M. de la Pagerie was too young for their impatient desire to bring to a favorable issue these important family concerns, and that the eldest of the daughters ought to have the preference. The son of the marquis especially pronounced himself decidedly in favor of Josephine, and father and son, as well as Madame de Renaudin, turned imploringly to M. Tascher de la Pagerie, praying that he would bring them his eldest daughter.

Now, for the first time, when the choice of the Beauharnais family had irrevocably fallen upon Josephine, now for the first time was this proposed marriage made known to her, and her consent asked.

Josephine, whose young heart was like a blank sheet of paper, whereon love had as yet written no name, Josephine rejoiced at the prospect of accomplishing the secret wish of her maiden heart, to go to Paris—Paris, the burning desire of all Creoles—Paris, after all the narratives and descriptions, which had been made to Josephine, rose before the soul of the young maiden as a golden morning dream, a charming fairy world; and full of gratitude she already loved her future husband, to whom she owed the happiness of becoming acquainted with the city of wonders and pleasures.

She therefore acquiesced without regret at being separated from her parents and from her sister, from the home of all her sweet reminiscences of youth, and joyously, in August of the year 1779, she embarked on board the vessel which was to take her with her father to France.

In the middle of October they both, after a stormy passage, touched the soil of France and announced to their relatives their safe arrival. Alexandre de Beauharnais, full of impatient longings to see his unknown young bride, hastened to Brest to bid her and her father welcome, and to accompany them to Paris.

The first meeting of the young couple decided their future. Josephine, smiling and blushing, avowed to her father that she was willing and ready to marry M. Alexandre Beanharnais; and, the very first day of his meeting with Josephine, Alexandre wrote to his father that he was enchanted with the choice made, and that he felt strongly convinced that, at the side of so charming, sweet, and lovely a being, he would lead a happy and sunny life.

The love of the children had crowned all the schemes of the parents, and on the 13th of December, 1779, the marriage of the young couple took place. On the 13th of December, Mademoiselle Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie became the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais.