The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-07-13
JOSEPHINE'S TRAGIC FATE.
Reigned With Napoleon at Zenith of
His Power.

reasons: For her moral excellence,
intense suffering (such agony as only
women can appreciate,) and heroic
submission to her fate, says the Phil
adelphia Press.
She had hardly entered her teens
when young nobleman, the Marquis
de Beauharnais, sought and won her
hand. They had a charming home
in Paris, and were living the gay and
brilliant life of the capital when the
awful revolution of 1889 loomed up
on the horizon. They were both ar
rested and held as prisoners, with
the idea that both should be led to
the guillotine, as all the mobiles
should, according to the law of the
Girondists.
The Marquis paid the penalty, but
Josephine escaped. A few years la
ter the great Napoleon lost his heart
to her. The marriage was fortu-
nate one for him, as his own words
testify.
'The circumstances of my mar
riage with Nine. de Beauharnais, he
says, "placed me on proper footing
with the party necessary to my plan
of fusion, one of the first principles
of my administration; without my
wife, I should never have established
any natural relation with that class. -
Another declaration of his agrees
perfectly with this idea: 81 win only
battles Josephine wins me all
hearts,"
Josephine, at the time of her first
acquaintance with Bonaparte, then
only a young lieutenant, was in the
flower of her beauty and grace. All
historians agree that she possessed
rare personal attractions and espec-
tally in those of speech and grace of
movement she was inimitable. Aside
from this, she possessed a wonderful
ly cultivated singing voice, and she
played the harp with much skill. No
woman in all France, so the artists
of the day agreed, could rival the
consummate beauty and grace of the
Empress Josephine at any time,
whatever she might be doing or say
ing, but the fair Josephine seated at
her harp was so ideal that her hear
ers often used tol say that only gods
and heroes should be allowed the
privilege of being present at these Sc
lect musical soirees.
From the time that Napoleon be-
came emperor he lavished the great
est honors upon the children of Jose
phine by her former marriage, loving
them and treating them as il they
were his own.
The coronation took place at Notre
Dame with all the show. and pomp of
which the French are so fond. When
the papal benediction was pronounc-
ed Napoleon did the unique act of
crowning himself by placing the
crown on his head with his own
hands. He then turned to Josephine,
who knelt before him, and performed
the same ceremony for her by placing
a crown upon her head. And France
acknowledged them both as their en-
peror and empress. So much for
France.
The following year the magnificent
coronation at Milan took place, sur
passing, according to- all accounts,
the one in France. It was gorgeous
spectacle, one never to be forgotten
by the people, and yet amidst all that
brilliant blaze of beauty and of jew
els, the glittering uniforms of his
splendid soldiers and the martial
strains of music by which Napoleon
was surrounded, what were his feel
ings as he held the iron crown of
Milan in his grasp, the greatest ambi-
ton of his life?
And Josephine, who knelt at his
feet, to receive the highest honor that
mortal hands can confer, did the
glory of that crown satisfy her heart
No. For even as Josephine knelt as
this second crown was being placed
upon her head, she felt or OWNED
that the supreme tragedy of her life
was yet to be, for she had not given
birth to an heir, and as they had
been married several years, there
was no further hope of one.
Josephine knew that her failure to
give France a Napoleonic emperor
was her death knell. At last the fa-
tai day came. Napoleon tried to get
the agony over as soon as possible by
going straight to the point by saying:
Josephine, it is to you alone that
I owe the few moments of happiness
I have known in the world. Jose
L. FHrl