Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon

Napoleon are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine

im, and despite her admiration cursed him-while hatred heaved up the hearts of all nations against him-even then none could refuse admiration to the tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness

nded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine's beauty was believed in, and the heart was ravished by the

Graces have remained absent, and where the gifts of these lovely ones fail, th

of youth, namely loveliness, that only real beauty. Josephine possessed the beauty of grace, and this quality remained when youth, happiness, and grandeur, had deserted her. This beauty of grace struck the Emperor Alexander as he came to Malmaison to salute the dethroned empress. He had entered Paris in triumph, and laid his foot on the nec

ed the deep and fine intuition of all that which is beautiful and noble: she was the protectress of the arts and sciences. She knew that disciples were not wanting to the arts, but that often a Maecenas is needed. She le

ng loyalty to him who rejected her; languishing for very sorrow on account of his misfortune, and dying for very grief as vanished away the star of his happiness. Thousands in her place, rejected, forgotten, cast away, as she was-thousands would have rejoiced in the righteousness of the fate which struck and threw in the dust

the universal history of man and represented before our eyes, so her life passes before us; and surprised, wondering, we gaze on, indifferent whether the heroine of such a tragedy be Creole, French, or to what nation she may owe her birth. She belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no love for the Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of brass who bowed the people do

shame, and suffering, but it means to write a woman's life which, as a fated tragedy or like a mighty picture, rises before our vision. It is to unfold a por

ndeed, a portion of the universal drama which is unfolded in the life of this woman, and amid so much blood, so much dishonor, so many tears, so much humiliation, so much pride, arrogance, and treachery, of this