“Contrary to all our wishes,” writes she to her husband’s sister, the beautiful Madame Renaudin, in Paris—­“contrary to all our wishes, God has given me a daughter.  My joy is not therefore diminished, for I look upon my child as a new bond which binds me still closer to your brother, my dear husband, and to you.  Why should I have such a poor and meagre opinion of the female sex, that a daughter should not be welcomed by me?  I am acquainted with many persons of our sex who concentrate in themselves as many good qualities as one would only with difficulty find in the other sex.  Maternal love already blinds me and fosters in me the hope that my daughter may be like them, and if even I cannot enjoy this satisfaction, yet I am thankful to my child that by means of her existence I am gathering so much happiness.”

Indeed, extraordinary joy, since the birth of the child, reigned in the house of M. Tascher de la Pagerie; joy reigned all over Martinique, for the long war between France and England was ended, and a few months before the birth of little Joseph Marie Rosa, the peace which secured to France the possession of her maritime colonies had been signed.  Martinique, so often attacked, bombarded, besieged by English ships—­Martinique was again the unconditional property of France, and on the birthday of the little Marie Joseph Rosa the French fleet entered into the harbor of Port Royal, landed a French garrison for the island, and brought a new governor in the person of the Marquis de Fenelon, the nephew of the famous Bishop de Fenelon.

Joyously and quietly passed away the first years of the life of the little Joseph, or little Josephine, as her kind parents called her.  Only once, in the third year of her life, was Josephine’s infancy troubled by a fright.  A terrible hurricane, such as is known to exist only in the Antilles, broke over Martinique.  The historians of that period know not how to depict the awful and calamitous events of this hurricane, which, at the same time, seemed to shake the whole earth with its convulsions.  In Naples, in Sicily, in the Molucca Islands, volcanoes broke out in fearful eruptions; for three days the earth trembled in Constantinople.  But it was over Martinique that the hurricane raged in the most appalling manner.  In less than four hours the howling northwest’ wind, accompanied by forked lightning, rolling thunder, heavy water-spouts, and tremendous earth-tremblings, had hurled down into fragments all the houses of the town, all the sugar-plantations, and all the negro cabins.  Here and there the earth opened, flames darted out and spread round about a horrible vapor of sulphur, which suffocated human beings.  Trees were uprooted, and the sugar and coffee plantations destroyed.  The sea roared and upheaved, sprang from its bounds, and shivered as mere glass-work barks and even some of the larger ships lying in the harbor of Port Royal.  Five hundred men perished, and a much larger number were severely wounded.  Distress and poverty were the result of this astounding convulsion of nature.