3. The Betrothal

Six months had barely elapsed since Josephine's return from the convent when the family Tascher de la Pagerie received from their relatives in Paris letters which were to be of the greatest importance for the whole family.

The beautiful Madame de Renaudin, sister of M. Tascher de la Pagerie, had settled in Paris after having rid herself of an unhappy marriage with a man, coarse and addicted to gambling, and after having, through a legal separation, reobtained her freedom. She lived there in the closest, intimacy with the Marquis de Beauharnais, who, for many years, at an earlier period, had resided as governor on the Island of Martinique, and there had bound himself to the whole family of Tascher de la Pagerie by the ties of a cordial friendship. His wife, during her residence in Martinique, had been the most tender friend of Madame de Renaudin, and when the marchioness bore a second son to her husband, Madame de Renaudin had stood as godmother, and promised to love and protect the child of her friend as if she were his mother.

Chance brought on the opportunity of accomplishing this promise and of fulfilling the oath made to God before the altar. The Marchioness de Beauharnais returned to France in the year 1763 with her husband and her two sons, but died there a short time after; and Madame de Renaudin, true to her oath, hastened to replace the natural guardian, the mother.

Perhaps she had but followed the dictates of her heart, perhaps against her will a sentiment of joy had passed over her at the death of the poor marchioness, for, by this death, one at least of the two obstacles intervening between Madame de Renaudin and the Marquis de Beauharnais had been removed. Both married, both of the Catholic religion, death alone could make their hands free, and confer upon them the right of joining hands together for all their days.

They loved one another, they had ceased long ago to make a secret of it; they avowed it to each other and to their dependants, for their brave, loyal, and noble hearts would not stoop to falsehood and deception, and they had the courage to acknowledge what their sentiments were.

Death had then made free the hand of the Marquis de Beauharnais, but life held yet in bondage the hand of the Baroness de Renaudin.

As long as her husband lived, she could not, though legally divorced from him, conscientiously think of a second marriage.

But she possessed the courage and the loyalty of true love; she had seen and experienced enough of the world to despise its judgments, and with cheerful determination do what in her conscience she held to be good and right.

Before God's altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she loved the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had no duties which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice of her heart and braved public opinion.

She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de Beauharnais, with his two sons and their tutor.

The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and there, during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness de Renaudin, the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the friend, the confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely devoted to study, to the arts, to the sciences, and to household pleasures.

Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de Beauharnais had grown up under the care of their maternal friend: they had been through their collegiate course, had been one year students at Heidelberg, had returned, had been through the drill of soldier and officer, a mere form which custom then imposed on young men of high birth; and the younger son Alexander, the godchild of the Baroness de Renaudin, had scarcely passed his sixteenth year when he received his commission as sub-lieutenant.

A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy love excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen years, and awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely and without reserve he communicated his wishes to his father, begged of him to choose him a wife, and promised to take readily and cheerfully as such her whom his father or his sponsor, his second mother, would select for him.

A few months later reached Martinique the letters which, as already said, were to be of the utmost importance to the family of M. Tascher de la Pagerie.

The first of these letters was from the Marquis de Beauharnais, and addressed to the parents of Josephine, but with a considerate and delicate tact the marquis had not written the letter with his own hand, but had dictated it to his son Alexander, so as to prove to the family of his friend De la Pagerie that the son was in perfect unison of sentiment with the father, and that the latter only expressed what the son desired and approved.

"I cannot express," wrote the marquis, "how much satisfaction I have in being at this moment able to give you a proof of the inclination and friendship which I always have had for you. As you will perceive, this satisfaction is not merely on the surface.

"My two sons," continues he, "are now enjoying an annual income of forty thousand livres. It is in your power to give me your daughter to enjoy this income with my son, the chevalier. The esteem and affection he feels for Madame de Renaudin makes him passionately desire to be united with her niece. I can assure you that I am only gratifying his wishes when I pray you to give me for him your second daughter, whose age corresponds at best with his. I sincerely wish that your eldest daughter were a few years younger, for then she would certainly have had the preference, the more so that she is described to me under the most advantageous colors. But I confess my son, who is but seventeen and a half years old, thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near him in age. This is one of those cases in which reasonable and reflecting parents will accommodate themselves to circumstances."

M. de Beauharnais adds that his son possesses all the qualities necessary to make a woman happy. At the same time he declares that, as regards his future daughter-in-law, he has no claims to a dowry, for his son already possesses an income of forty thousand livres from his mother's legacy, and that after his father's death he will inherit besides an annual income of twenty-five thousand livres. He then entreats M. de la Pagerie, as soon as practicable, to send his daughter to France, and, if possible, to bring her himself. The marquis then addresses himself directly to the wife of M. de la Pagerie, and repeats to her in nearly the same words his proposal, and endeavors also to excuse to her the choice of the second daughter.

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