The Empress Josephine | Page 9

and against her will the thoughts of the young maiden returned
to the prophecy again and again.
What the old fortune-teller had said, was it so very ridiculous, so
impossible? Could not that prophecy become a reality? Was it, then,
the first time that a daughter of the Island of Martinique had been
exalted to grandeur and lofty honors?
Josephine asked these questions to herself, as dreaming and thoughtful
she swung in the hammock and gazed toward the horizon upon the sea,
which, in its blue depths and brilliancy, hung there as if heaven had
lowered itself down to earth. That sea was a pathway to France, and
already once before had its waves wafted a daughter of the Island of
Martinique to a throne.
Thus ran the thoughts of Josephine. She thought of Franchise
d'Aubigne, and of her wondrous story. A poor wanderer, fleeing from
France to search for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M.
d'Aubigne had landed in Martinique with his young wife. There
Franchise was born, there passed away the first years of her life. Once,
when a child of three years old, she was bitten by a venomous serpent,
and her life was saved only through the devotion of her black nurse,
who sucked alike poison and death from the wound. Another time, as
she was on a voyage with her parents, the vessel was in danger of being
captured by a corsair; and a third time a powerful whirlwind carried
into the waves of the sea the little Francoise, who was walking on the
shore, but a large black dog, her companion and favorite, sprang after
her, seized her dress with its teeth, and carried the child back to the
shore, where sobbing for joy her mother received her.
Fate had reserved great things for Francoise, and with all manner of
horrors it submitted the child to probation to make of it a strong and
noble woman.
A severer blow came when her father, losing in gambling all the
property which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving
his family in poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came
when on her return to France, whither her mother was going with her,
she lost this last prop of her youth and childhood. Madame d'Aubigne
died, and her body was committed to the waves; and, as a destitute

orphan, Francoise d'Aubigne touched the soil of France.
And what became of the poor orphan of the Creole of Martinique?
She became the wife of a king, and nearly a queen! For Francoise
d'Aubigne, the widow of Scarron, the governess of the children of
Louis XIV, had caused the mother of these children, the beautiful
Madame de Montespan, to be cast away, and she became the friend, the
beloved, the secret spouse of the king: and the lofty Louis, who could
say of himself, "L'etat c'est moi" he, with all the power of his will, with
all his authority, was the humble vassal of Franchise d'Aubigne,
Marquise de Maintenon!
This was the first princess whom Martinique had given to the world!
Was it not possible that the prophecies of the old negro woman could
be realized? could not once more a daughter of the Island of Martinique
be exalted into a princess?
"You will be Queen of France!" the negress had said.
No, it was mere folly to believe in such a ridiculous prophecy. The
throne of France was now occupied. Alongside of her consort, the good,
the well-beloved Louis XVI, the young and beautiful Queen Marie
Antoinette, the daughter of the mighty Empress Maria Theresa, sat on
the throne. She was young, she was beloved throughout France, and she
had already, to the great delight of her husband and of his people, borne
an heir to the throne of France.
The throne of the lilies stood then on firm and sure foundations, and the
prophecies of the old negress belonged only to the kingdom of fables.
[Footnote: This prophecy, nearly as related above, was told by the
Empress Josephine herself to her maids of honor in the castle of
Navarra.--See "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine, la Ville, la Cour
et les Salons de Paris sous l'Empire, par Madame Georgette Ducrest."]

CHAPTER III
.
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