Buonaparte, holding the chief military command in the capital, and daily rising in importance from the zeal and firmness of his conduct in this high post, had now passed into the order of marked and distinguished men.  He continued, nevertheless, to lead in private a quiet and modest life, studying as hard as ever, and but little seen in the circles of gaiety.  An accident which occurred one morning at his military levee, gave at once a new turn to his mode of life, and a fresh impetus to the advance of his fortunes.

A fine boy, of ten or twelve years of age, presented himself; stated to the general that his name was Eugene Beauharnois, son of Viscount Beauharnois, who had served as a general officer in the Republican armies on the Rhine, and been murdered by Robespierre; and said his errand was to recover the sword of his father.  Buonaparte caused the request to be complied with; and the tears of the boy, as he received and kissed the relic, excited his interest.  He treated Eugene so kindly, that next day his mother, Josephine de Beauharnois, came to thank him; and her beauty and singular gracefulness of address made a strong impression.

This charming lady, the daughter of a planter, by name Tascher de la Pagerie, was born in the island of Martinico, 24th June, 1763.  While yet an infant, according to a story which she afterwards repeated, a negro sorceress had prophesied that “she should one day be greater than a queen, and yet outlive her dignity."[7]

The widow of Beauharnois had been herself imprisoned until the downfall of Robespierre.  In that confinement she had formed a strict friendship with another lady who was now married to Tallien, one of the most eminent of the leaders of the Convention.  Madame Tallien had introduced Josephine to her husband’s friends; and Barras, the First Director, having now begun to hold a sort of court at the Luxembourg, these two beautiful women were the chief ornaments of its society.  It was commonly said—­indeed it was universally believed—­that Josephine, whose character was in some respects indifferent, possessed more than legitimate influence over the First Director.  Buonaparte, however, offered her his hand; she, after some hesitation, accepted it; and the young general by this marriage (9th March, 1796) cemented his connection with the society of the Luxembourg, and in particular with Barras and Tallien, at that moment the most powerful men in France.

Napoleon had a strong tendency to the superstition of fatalism, and he always believed that his fortunes were bound up in some mysterious manner with those of this graceful woman.  She loved him warmly, and served him well.  Her influence over him was great, and it was always exerted on the side of humanity.  She, and she alone, could overrule, by gentleness, the excesses of passion to which he was liable; and her subsequent fate will always form one of the darkest pages in the history of her lord.