The Princeton union., 1880-01-21
Nap0leOn's Marriages.

ANOHOACVA .
The marriages of the Bonopartes plav
an important part in the story of their
fortunes, and none of them were so sig:
niticant and important as those of the
Emperor. To one who, like him, looked
upon the world as made for him, and
upon laws as merely something which
were good for him to impose upon 9TH
ers, it must have appeared that his two
wives were admirably planned for his
use. Josephine de Beauharnais was an
ideal wife for young and rising man of
genius. She had everything which would
appeal to fancy like his, at once selfish
and passionate: She had tbeauty, rank,
the power of pleasing, and certain in
dolent grace that promised an obedience
reasonably free from jealousy Up to
the time that he mounted the imperial
throne and seated her by his side, she
was all that his narrow heart and bound
less ambition could DESIRE But after
the marvellous victory of Wagram had
opened up to his fevered imagination
still wider prospectives of dominion, he
looked for another style of wife. and
found her in Maria Louise of Austria.
Her blonde beauty, formed of pink and
white color and roundly curling lines
and the golden floss of child's hair.
appealed strongly to his jaded taste. He
was not old, but, as he said to the Direc-
tory, zone ages fast upon the field of bat
tie" and he wanted some such solace az
this soft. unlntellectual beauty (some-
body had called it the Alderney style of
prettlness) in his home, if such word
may be used of the Tuileries. Besides,
he doubtless felt that an emperor should
have an emperor's daughter to wife, and
this was young girl who had hundred
monarchs tor her ancestors, and yet she
would be gentle and obedient, and rot
argue with him or answer him. and
would give HIM heirs. He was genuine
ly attached to her, and if he knew nothing
about her, and had no premonition Of
Count Neipperg, it was all the better
for him. She also was quite taken by
storm with him, and for q while the nov
city of being loved by an ogre-for such
she had always considered him-was
agreeable to her. But his tumultuous
g.ory was too much for the daily food
of such human small being as the En-
press, and she was doubtless relieved
when the indignant soul lef. his body
at Longwood, and she was free to follow
her ignoble little heart and marry
Neipperg. g.. s.
Josephine would have had her revenge
If she could have forseen 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 metropo-
lis-Avcnue Josephine, La Refine Hor-
tense, Boulevard du Prince Eugene.
Though she was ousted remorsclessly
from a throne to make room for Maria
Louise, it was her children-the children
OF the creole proscri pit who should be-
come the tenants OF palaces, and not
those of her rival. The Duke of Rhich-
stadt was to pass youth OF ingiorious
pleasure, and was to die before his prime,
| and leave NJ son to inherit his claims to
empire; while the Beauharnais line was
to stretch out like the swarm of kings
seen by the Thane of Cawdor in his vis-
ion. Eugene, her heroic 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 Deuchtenberg, and first noble
man of the kingdom. His daughter,
united to the son Of Bernadotte, became
Queen of Sweden; another became prin-
cess OF Brahenzollcrn, third Empress
of Brazil. His Oldest son won the hand
of the Queen of Portugal, and younger
married daughter of the. Car Nicholas
of Russia. And whatever doubt might
be thrown on the purity of the Napoleon
lc descent by which the Emperor Napo-
leon III. claimed the throne, he was un-
questionably the son of Hortense, and
was Beauharnais, and Tascher-la- Pagerie
beyond challenge. The grand son of
Josephine, Louis Napoleon, ruled France
in peace with sort Of splendor tor the
space of twenty-five years, while the
period of the first Napoleon's reign, count
ing Consulate and empire together, was
but fifteen-though so powerful was the
personal imprint made by the uncle, and
so vague was the individual character OF
the nephew, that the shorter reign seems
like an age, and the longer like an ep-
isOde. S.ss H@1. a-s.