The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-02
Claims of the Marquis, Cen
eral and Inventor Are
Questioned.
NARRATIVE OF PLAIN EUGENE.
Widow and Son of a Count Beau
harnais Are Still Alive IN
This City.

IN humble lodgings at SIG broadway IN
this City live the widow and son of Count
Eugene de Beauharnais, according to their
statements, and they are inclined to take
exceptions to the pretensions, as they al
lege, Of General Beauharnais.
General Beauharnais, it will be remem-
bered, was the lion at the Palace Hotel
hers not more than five weeks ago and
called himself the Marquis Eugene de
Beauharnais of Paris and New Orleans.
His grandfather he said. and the father OF
the Eugene de Beauharnais who was the
first husband of the Empress josephine
Napoleon being the second-were brothers.
According to his own story the general
was born in Virginia and was stolen by
Cherokee Indians while boy of tender
years from his fathers place near Pow
haitian to be made to pose as a twin
brother OF a son of Chief Elkpost at their
camp in the Shenandoah Valley, but the
son dying he was returned to his father in
Difference to the superstitions of his cap
tors. After he grew up he became a brig
adier-general of the Southern army, a
Charleston harbor blockade-runner, the
financial agent of the Confederacy, the
right-hand man OF General Lee and
marked man, upon whose head was a
price, $50, 900 reward for his capture being
offered by the United States Government.
AS the general had crude petroleum
generator patent, and as he had OCCASION
ally called himself by some other name it
was thought at the time that he and
Colonel a. P. Chamberlain, who also had
such a patent and had been born in Vir-
ginia, were one and the same person.
Young Eugene Beauharnais of 819
Broadway, sailor, miner, engineer, fond of
travel and adventure, and to whom the
V est coast of Africa and parts of the Orient
have become almost as familiar as his own
domicile, says, in so many words, that he
thinks the general represented himself to
be one of the noble Beauharnais family
without good, legitimate reason for so do
ing.
1t IS an interesting story which young
Eugene tells, to wit:
1 believe this man is using my fathers title
In my childhood went to school here at the
college de Charlemagne, which was conducted
by a. Hamel, a son of the Viscount Hamel.
Mons. Hamel made a statement in writing to
my mother saying that he recognized in my
fathers picture the features of his old COM
rade. Count de Beauharnais, with whom he
went to school in Paris in 1888 and 1884 in the
institution Courmand, ct Fontenoy aux Roses.
From the time they went to school together we
have had no trace of my father until he ap-
peared in Providence r. l., lecturing in 1854
1898. My father was well-educated man and
III,
when he felt like it he could practice medi-
cine
My mothers maiden name was Sarah Kis-
sack and she comes of an old Manx family as
old as the Beauharnais. My father married
her in this City on June Is, 1859. He was
then plain Valentine Eugene Beauharnais,
MD.
was born in March, 1860, at Stockton. and
IN the following January my father died of
brain fever at Cullacan, in the State OF Sinaloa,
Mexico. Father had gone there to practice
m oil and of ar and uUaTn a. Mo
where was taken sick with smallpox.
We have never had any chance to look up
any records because since we returned to this
City from Mexico it has been one of constant
struggle for existence.
General Beauharnais called upon my mother
and myself one evening, but he did not seem
to be very much interested in our statements,
though he was full of stories about himself
and his invention. 1t was the 2Sth OF July
he came. He asked if 1 could produce any
good proofs OF my identity, and when l an
swered I could not he seemed very much re-
lieved and turned the conversation entirely.
Neither OF US can lay any claim to any rela-
tionship with the Empress Josephine. The
children of her husband, Eugene Beauharnais,
are all accounted for. One son married Rus
sian Princess and the other Queen of Portu-
gal. One daughter married q son OF the King
OF Sweden, another a Hohenzollern of Ger
many and another was in Austria. The Beau
harnais family has some representation in
almost every European court. My father may
have descended from brother OF Alexander
Eugene's father.
This General Beauharnais pronounces
the to pane lead to IN 6e sqeh that by
had never learned TO speak French in his
youth. He pronounCes it "Oozhun," with
some accent on the first syllable
General Beauharnais says his mother was
Benton. My father had been on friendly
terms at Washington with Senator Benton of
Missouri. My father was well known here by
the late Judge Leander Quint and also Cap
tain NJ. R. Roberts of this City. Besides these
there were Dr.. Grattan of Stockton, DR.. Goss,
Mr.. Harris of Sandy Gulch, and many more.
Artist Emil NJ. Pissis went to school with me
and must have heard Mons. HameFs state
ment Madame Hamel is still living, but she
is in France, she and her two daughters being
here, Eivine Lapariat, living on Suffer street.
The statement made by NJ. Hamel
reads as follows:
the undersigned, A. Hamel, director of the
College de Charlemagne, at San Francisco
certify to having been student at Fontenay
aux Roses, Institution Courmand, in 1882, 1888
and 1884, and of having for q comrade in my
class a young man named Eugene Beauharnais
I further certify that Madame Beauharnais
whose son had as a scholar in 1865 and 1866,
has shown me photograph of her husband,
now deceased, and that notice, in recognizing
the portrait, little change by age of my old
comrade, Eugene Beauharnais a. HAMEL.
San Francisco, March l, 1878.
The notice of Count Beauharnais' death
was published in the Alta California of
April IA, 1861, after the return from Mexico
of Mrs. Beauharnais and her son. 1t read
simply:
Died-At Culiacan, Mexico, January 27, Val
entine Eugene Beauharnais, NJ. D.
French and German papers please copy.
Eugene Beauharnais of 819 Broadway
therefore says that he is determined to de-
vote his life to the work of ascertaining
who and what he is, and, incidentally, he
reiterates his belief that the Marquis Eu-
gene de Beauharnais of Paris and New
Orleans is not as he ought to be.
All SIMPSON CHURCH