They had encircled her with the girdle of gracefulness, they had
imparted to her look, to her smile, to her figure, attraction and
charm, and given her that beauty which is greater and more enduring
than that 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 neck of him whom he once had called his friend,
yet before the divorced wife of the dethroned emperor the czar, full
of admiration and respect, bowed his head and made her homage as to
a queen; for, though she was dethroned, on her head shone the crown
in imperishable beauty and glory, the crown of loveliness, of
faithfulness, and of womanhood.

She was not witty in the special sense of a so-called "witty woman."
She composed no verses, she wrote no philosophical dissertations,
she painted not, she was no politician, she was no practising
artist, but she possessed 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 left it to her cousin, the
Countess Fanny Beauharnais, to be called an artist; hers was a
loftier destiny, and she fulfilled that destiny through her whole
life--she was a Maecenas, the protectress of the arts and sciences.

As Hamlet says of his father, "He was a man, take him for all in
all, I shall not look upon his like again;" thus Josephine's fame
consists not that she was a princess, an empress anointed by the
hands of the pope himself, but that she was a noble and true wife,