Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/137

 117 WOMAN IN LOVE Romance is not confined solely to the realms of fiction. The romances of fact, indeed, are greater and more interesting ; they have made history, and have laid the foundations of the greatness both of artists and of poets. This section of Every Woman's Encyclopedia, therefore, will include, among thousands of other subjects : Love Poems and Songs The Superstitions of Love The Engaged Girl in Many Climes Famous Historical Love Stories Love Letters of Famous People Love Scenes from Fiction Proposals of Yesterday and To-day Elopements in Olden Days Etc., etc. TRUC LOVE STORIES OF FAMOUS PEOPLE No. THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE " Vou will be married to a man of fair complexion. A young Creole, whom you love, does not cease to think of you ; you will never marry him, and you will make vain attempts to save his life, but his end will be unhappy. Your star promises you two marriages. Your first husband will be a man born in Martinique, but he will reside in Europe and wear a sword. A sad legal proceeding will separate you, and after many troubles he will perish tragically, leaving you a widow with two helpless children. Your second husband will be of European birth ; without fortune, yet he will become famous ; he will fill the world with his glory, and will subject many nations to his power. You will then become eminent, but many will forget your kindnesses, and, after astonishing the world, you will die a miserable woman." Euphemia, the mulatto sage of Sannois, had spoken ; the weird art of the necro- mancer had revealed and laid bare the most secret truths of the future. JOSEPHINE'S CHARACTER It was, perhaps, easy for the sage to prophesy, for to her dying day Josephine remained a fatalist. Power, wealth, fame — she sought them not. Together they sought her, and blindly She followed. Josephine was not a great woman ; she was not a clever woman ; not even was she a beautiful woman ; but some subtle fascina- tion pervaded her whole nature, it still pervades her memory, ana it was this which made her life one long, inglorious triumph, and which laid prostrate before her feet an age rich in greatness, rich in wit, and rich in beauty. Josephine was a bad woman, reckless and extravagant, the typical demi-mondaine of Imperial France. The historian tells us so. But she was also a most lovable and fascinat- ing woman. As such the romancer cannot fail to find her. He proclaims her as a woman relatively good, the victim of a wicked city, a wicked country, and a wicked age. Josephine, however, drank deeply of the cup of life ; she lived as it were upon the pulse of Europe, and Europe then was being racked with. such a fever as it had never had before nor has had since. HER CHILDHOOD She was born on the Island of Martinique, June 23rd, 1763, on the day when the flag of France once again fluttered in the breezes above Sannois, and her parents, M. and Madame de la Pagerie, rejoiced to hear the victorious guns of la belle France boom- ing in the harbour while their child was being born into the world. Josephine was the wayward child of a precocious generation. At the age of ten she fell in love. It was no mere childish fancy, but a love which survived and wrecked her life, and which the environment of her youth alone made possible, for she was bom and bred in a country where women develop