contained in the letter of June
eighteenth, 1795, to Joseph; and for a few weeks afterward he wrote at
intervals with some impatience, as if she were coy. In explanation it
is claimed that Napoleon, visiting her long before at the request of
Joseph, who was then enamoured of her, had himself become interested,
and persuading his brother to marry her sister, had entered into an
understanding with her which was equivalent to a betrothal. Time and
distance had cooled his ardor. He now virtually threw her over for
Mme. Beauharnais, who dazzled and infatuated him. This claim is
probably founded on fact, but there is no evidence sufficient to
sustain a charge of positive bad faith on the part of Napoleon.
Neither he nor Mlle. Clary appears to have been ardent when Joseph as
intermediary began, according to French custom, to arrange the
preliminaries of marriage; and when General Buonaparte fell madly in
love with Mme. Beauharnais the matter was dropped.

[Footnote 57: See Hochschild: Desiree, reine de Suede.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

A Marriage of Inclination and Interest[58].

[Footnote 58: The authorities for this chapter are as
for the last.]

The Taschers and Beauharnais -- Execution of Alexandre
Beauharnais -- Adventures of His Widow -- Meeting of
Napoleon and Josephine -- The Latter's Uncertainties -- Her
Character and Station -- Passion and Convenience -- The
Bride's Dowry -- Buonaparte's Philosophy of Life -- The
Ladder to Glory.

[Sidenote: 1796.]

In 1779, while the boys at Brienne were still tormenting the little
untamed Corsican nobleman, and driving him to his garden fortalice to
seek lonely refuge from their taunts in company with his Plutarch,
there had arrived in Paris from Martinique a successful planter of
that island, a French gentleman of good family, M. Tascher de la
Pagerie, bringing back to that city for the second time his daughter
Josephine. She was then a girl of sixteen, without either beauty or
education, but thoroughly matured, and with a quick Creole
intelligence and a graceful litheness of figure which made her a most
attractive woman. She had spent the years of her life from ten to
fourteen in the convent of Port Royal. Having passed the interval in
her native isle, she was about to contract a marriage which her
relatives in France had arranged. Her betrothed was the younger son of
a family friend, the Marquis de B