BONAPARTE'S FIRST MARRIAGE.

Meantime circumstances, which we will relate according to his own
statement, introduced Bonaparte to an acquaintance, which was destined
to have much influence on his future fate. A fine boy, of ten or twelve
years old, presented himself at the levee of the general of the
interior, with a request of a nature unusually interesting. He stated
his name to be Eugene Beauharnois, son of the ci-devant Vicomte de
Beauharnois, who, adhering to the revolutionary party, had been a
general in the republican service upon the Rhine, and falling under the
causeless suspicion of the committee of public safety, was delivered to
the revolutionary tribunal, and fell by its sentence just four days
before the overthrow of Robespierre. Eugene was come to request of
Bonaparte, as general of the interior, that his father's sword might be
restored to him. The prayer of the young supplicant was as interesting
as his manners were engaging, and Napoleon felt so much interest in him,
that he was induced to cultivate the acquaintance of Eugene's mother,
afterwards the empress Josephine.

The lady was a Creolian, the daughter of a planter in St. Domingo. Her
name at full length was Marie Joseph Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She had
suffered her share of revolutionary miseries. After her husband, General
Beauharnois, had been deprived of his command, she was arrested as a
suspected person, and detained in prison till the general liberation,
which succeeded the revolution of the 9th Thermidor. While in
confinement, Madame Beauharnois had formed an intimacy with a companion
in distress, Madame Fontenai, now Madame Tallien, from which she derived
great advantages after her friend's marriage. With a remarkably graceful
person, amiable manners, and an inexhaustible fund of good-humour,
Madame Beauharnois was formed to be an ornament to society. Barras, the