Page:History of the Empress Josephine (1).pdf/4

Rh infallible index of purity of heart, was with her no uninstructed admiration. She had early cultivated a knowledge of botany, a study of all others especially adapted to the female mind, which exercises without fatiguing the understanding, and leads the thoughts to hold converse with heaven through the sweetest objects of earth. To the empress Josephine, France and Europe are indebted for one of the most beautiful of vegetable productions—the Camelie. In all to which the empire of woman’s taste rightly extends, hers was exquisitely just, and simple as it was refined. Her sense the becoming and the proper in all things, and under every variety of circumstances, appeared native and intuitive. She read delightfully; and nature had been here peculiarly propitious, for so harmonious were the tones of her voice, even in the most ordinary conversation, that instances are common of those who, coming unexpectedly and unseen within their influence, have remained as if suddenly fascinated and spell-bound, till the sounds ceased or fears of discovery forced the listener away. Like the harp of David or the troubled breast of Israel’s king, this charm is known to have wrought powerfully upon Napoleon. His own admission was, ‘The first applause of the French people sounded in my ear sweet as the voice of Josephine.’”

A circumstance, trifling in itself, but for after events deserves to be recorded here—the prophetic intimation to Josephine, when little advanced beyond childhood, of her future high destinies. We need not express our utter rejection of the supposition that the prophetess believed her own prediction. We see, in the course of Josephine’s story, that her remembrance of it aided to direct the course of events to its fulfilment. Still its coincidence, with a course of event which could be so directed, remains a startling and unaccountable fact.

“One day, some time before my first marriage, while taking my usual walk, I observed a number of negro girls assemble round an old woman, engaged in telling their fortunes. I drew near to observe their proceedings. The old sybil, on beholding me, uttered a loud exclamation, and almost by