Page:History of the Empress Josephine (2).pdf/2

 HISTORY

OF THE

EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

This distinguished lady was born on the 24th of June, 176 on the island of Martinique, and while very young was take to France by her father to marry the viscount Beauharnois Two children were the fruits of this union, which during or period was not altogether felicitous. Certain suspicions too place on the part of the husband, the tribunals were appealed to, and a separation was demanded. These at length decree that the facts adduced were too uncertain to obtain a decree of so serious a nature, and the husband and wife were at length prevailed upon to resume their former intercourse. They now re-appered at court, where they had always been well received. Madame de Beauharnois, who was great favourite with the queen, about this time began to by considered one of the handsomest women in the royal circle at Versailles, and entered into all the dissipations of the period. But the assembling of the states-general, and the events that already seemed to prognosticate an approachin revolution, soon banished every idea of gaiety and pleasure from the palace of the kings of France. Her majesty often testified her fears on this subject in private to Josephine little dreaming that her friend should one day become he successor ; while the latter, in her-turn evinced great in easiness at the conduct of her brother-in-lain the marquis de Beauhamois, who then occupied a set out the represen- tatives of the nation This general inqtude was soon followed by a private alarm Her own husband, who had been for some time-a-field-officer and always evinced an eager desire for glory, was now about to join the army, in consequence of an unexpected declaration of war. He accordingly repaired to his regiment, and soon attained the rank of general. But although attached to, and beloved in turn by, Louis XVI., he readily perceived that this monarch was destined at no distant period, to lose that