, 1879-12-25
NaPoleon's Marriages.

an important part pa thf story ~ tAer
fortunes, and none Of them wsr~ - sig
nifcant and important as thoar - the
Emperor To sae Who. like hsm, .ookei
upon the world a. made for HIN, and
upon laws merely as Eomeihiug ~rrc
good for him 70 impose upon Others. q
must have appeared that his tw0 wiveH
we're admirably planned f0r his own use
Josephine De BcAaharnels vas an ideal
wife for a Young and rising man of ge
MUS She had everything ~hioh would
appeal to a fancy like his, at cnce seifsh
ana passionate She had beauty, rank,
the power Of pleasing. and a orrtain in
iolent grace that promised an obedience
reasonably free from Jealousy. Up 10
the time that he mounted the imperial
throne and seated her by hts side, she
was all his narroS heart and boundless
ambition could desire. But after the
marvellous victory Of Wagram had open
eJ up to his fevered imagination still
wider perspectives Of dominion, he looked
for another style Of wife, and found her
in Maria Louisa Of Austria. Her blonde
beauty, formed of pink and white color,
and roundly curving lines, and the gold
en- floss of childs hair, appealed
strongly to his jaded taste He was not
old, but as he said to the Directory,
zone ages fast upon the field of battle"
and he wanted some such solace AS this
soft, intellectual beauty somebody has
called it the Alderney style Of pretti-
ness) in his bone, if such word may
be used of the Tuileries. Besides, he
doubtless felt that an emperor should
have an emperors daughter to wife, and
this was a young girl who had hun
dred monarchs for her ancestors, and yet
she would be gentle and obedient, and
not argue with him or answer him, and
would give him heirs. He was genuinely
attached to her, and if he knew nothing
about her, and had no premonition Of
Count Nepperg, it was all the better for
him. She also was quite taken by storr;
with him, and for while the novelty
of being loved by an ogre-for such she
had always considered him--was agree
able to her. But this tumultous glory
was quite too much for the daily
food ef such human small being as
the empress and she was
doubtless relieved when the indignant
soul left his body at Longwood, and she
was free to follow her ignoble little heart
and marry Neipperg.
Josephine would have had her re-
venge if she could have foreseen the
course of history for even few years.
1t is she and not the pretty Austrian,
who will be known forever as the wife
of Napoleon. 1t is her statue that rises
in marble in the public places of Paris.
1t is her name and those of her children
that mark the great avenues of the me-
tropolis--Avenue Josephine, La Refine
Hortense, Boulevard du Prince Eugene.
Though she was ousted remorselessly
from throne to make room for Maria
Louisa, it was her children-the children
of the creole prospect-who should be-
come the tenants of palaces, and not
those of her rival. The Duke of Reich
stadt was to pass youth Of inglorious
pleasure, and was to die before his
prime, and leave no sons to inherit his
claims to empire; while the Beauhar-
nais line was to stretch out like the
swarm of kings seen by the Thane of
Cawdor in his vision. Eugene, her he
roic son, after the fall of the Napoleons,
returned to the court of his father-in-
law, the King Of Bavaria, and became
Prince of Eichstadt, Duke of Leichten-
berg, and first nobleman of the kingdom.
His daughter, united to the son of Bern
adotte, became Queen iof Sweden; an
other became princess of Hohenzol-
lern, and third Empress of Brazil.
His oldest son won the hand of the
Queen of Portugal, and the younger
married daughter of the Gar Nicholas
of Russia. And whatever doubt might
be thrown on the purity of the Napo-
leonic descent by which the Emperor
III. claimed the throne, he was unques-
tionably the SON of Hortense, and was
Beauearnais and Tascher-la- Pagerie be-
yond challenge. The grandson of Jose
phine, Louis Napoleon, ruled France in
peace and with sort of splsndor for the
space Of twenty-five years, while the
na.,al &c