Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/139

 119 LOVK July 23rd, 1794, the guillotine claimed him among the number of its victims. Josephine escaped only by a miracle, and by adopting the lustful 'tenets of the " new religion." Liherte, egalite, frater- nite t Never have three fair words been more degraded ! Josephine, a defenceless woman, was at the mercy of the patriots. Her property, her all, were in their power. On men such as Hoche, Barras, and Tallien she depended for her very right to live ; and live she must, for she loved life, and was shamelessly extravagant. These men taught her how to live and how to gratify each of her fancy's fleet desires, and once she had learned the lesson, never could she forget it. Love seemed to be dead in France. On every side brute passion exercised its ghastly sway. Josephine forgot the power of love and sentiment ; and when she met Bonaparte, failed to understand the ardour of his passion ; failed to realise that still a man could love in France and look to woman for a helpmate and a friend. JOSEPHINE MEETS BONAPARTE Her first meeting with " the little general " was delightfully dramatic. Bonaparte, as Commandant of Paris, com- manded that all Parisians should be disarmed. Paris demurred, but dared not disobey; and among those who came to deliver up their arms was Eugene de Beau- harnais. He brought his only weapon, the sword of his dead father, whose memory he ardently re- vered. Bona- parte himself was a witness of the scene. He saw the boy's tears, under- stood and ad- mired their meaning, and allowed Eugene to depart carry- ing his sword "by special per- mission of the comma nde r himself." On the follow- ing day the Vicomtesse de Beauharnais called in person on the general, Napoleon's last farewell to Josephine Frotn the painting by I.asleite y. PoU and thanked him for the favour. Bona- parte was inordinately flattered, and suc- cumbed immediately — he who knew not the meaning of defeat — ^to the charm and fascination of the widow. He had seen Josephine, and he loved her ! Josephine recognised this and encouraged the general, not because she loved him, but because she realised his greatness, and saw in him a rising " star." Bonaparte's letters proclaim the ardour of his wooing. They pulsate with passion. Indeed, at seven o'clock one morning, he wrote : " My waking thoughts are all of thee. Your portrait and the remembrances of last night's delirium have robbed me of my senses of repose. Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an extraordinary influence you have over my heart ! Are you vexed ? Did I see you sad ? Are you ill at ease ? My soul is broken with grief, and there is no rest for your lover. But there is more for me when, delivering ourselves up to the deep feelings which master me, I breathe upon your lips, upon our hearts a flame which burns me up. . . . Mio dolce amor, accept a thousand kisses, but give me none, for they fire my blood." HER SECOND MARRIAGE Ultimately, the marriage took place be- fore a Paris registrar on March 9th, 1796, and Josephine found herself wedded to the greatest man the world has ever known, the most devout of hus- band-lovers. But this was the man with whose affection she thought fit to play ; the man whose love and whose es- teem she threw away as worth- less. One word, one glance, would have made him her slave for ever, would have bound him to her with a chain which even death could not have severed ; but she refused to give it to him. In her the flame of pleasure had consumed the flame of love.