WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 134, 15 September 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

HAPOLEON AND HIS LOVE. It has just turned the hundred years since Napoleon divorced Josephine. Perhaps the ladies will bear with me if I j gossip a little about the equally cele- j brated case (says a writer in an ex- j change). Napoleon had not learned to j beware of widows. Before he laid siege 1 to Josephine he had been infatuated 1 with another widow, old enough to be! his mother—Madame Permon. H|is brother Jerome was to marry one of her daughters, and Pauline, his sister, one of her sons, and he would have the mother! iSlie laughed at him, and escaped a place in history. But Napoleon was generous. He helped her to escape from Paris, and recognised a great enemy of his disguised as a servant, but said nothing. Then he met the bewitching widow, the Countess Beauharr.'.is, aged thirty-four. Her associates and her reputation were none of the best, but they had abolished the .Decalogue in Paris just then. He fell desperately in love, but she didn't, though she consented to marry Mm. There was no religious ceremony in those days. They went to an official to enter their names. The registrar wasj well known to Josephine, and she went! in first. Napoleon heard him say: "What, that fellow! He has nothing but •his cloak and sword!" Some years later, at their coronation, Napoleon caused this official to foe placed in the front row, and as he was about to place the crown on Josephine's head he paused a moment and looked at the registrar. Next day he sent for him. He came trembling, but Napoleon laughingly advised him not to speak so loud when people came to get married, and sent the man away with a good, easy billet. A day or two after his marriage, Napoleon had to leave Paris .to take command of the beaten and disorganised army of Italy. His amazing career had begun. Victory followed victory a& fast as couriers could carry the news. In the course of a year or so he won sixteen or eighteen great battles and innumerable lesser fights, and destroyed three armies greater than his own. In the midst of it all he wrote Josephine every day wild and passionate love-letters. He might fight all day, march all night, fight all next day, and march again in the night, but Josephine was not forgotten. He would write ten long despatches, and still send ten sheets to her. She loved his fame, but only tolerated him. She had a giddy time in Paris, where she laughed at his letters for their'intensity, betrayed his confidence, and sold his secrets. Her letters to him were short and cold. He urged her to come to Italy. She made excuses. When he pressed hard she lied. Happy would it have been for them both if her tale had been true, for an heir would have saved her and have made him a better man. Ultimately she went to Milan and kept a regal court there. Napoleon was often away, and just about as often Lieutenant Charles was there. Charles was young, handsome, and gay, whilst Napoleon was serious, cadaverous, and had a disease of the skin. He forbade Charles the house, but did not deal harshly with her. Once, consumed by a desire to see her, he rode all night from his camp, and arriving in the early hours had the mortification of finding that she had gone to a. distant ball—with Charles. He rode back, but packed Charles out of Italy. In Paris he received promotion —it was thought through Josephine's influence. Napoleon continued to idolise her. but soon he was sent to Ecrypt. Josephine was left in a fine establishment, and resumed her gay Parisian life. Soon word was sent +o Napoleon that Charles was spending most of his time at Josephine's house. From that time the conqueror relaxed his own morals. Things went so far in j Paris tint one of the Directorate told her that shp ought to divorce Napoleon and marry Charles. When the futurs Empero* ref-urned to Paris she set out to meet- him to forestall her enemies. Hp lier and found the house df>serte-. Tn his ragie he listened to his brothers, who told what they knew. "I'll divorce her," he exclaimed. Next day the brothers called to make further arrangements, and found Josephine sitting on his knee and nestling in his arms. She was a bewitching woman.

Napoleon loved Tier stiil. A year or so later, when, as First Consul, hj" was returnijig from smashing the Austrians at Marenoro- 'i Q was "rented with tumultuous "Listen, Bourrienne," he said, "it is the praise of France —sweet to me as the voice of Josephine." Still he did not love her with the wild boyish passion which had amused her years hefore. Nemesis had overtaken her. She now became infatuated herself, and worshipped the place where his shadow had been, while he slowly grew more distant. She felt disaster coming. At the great meeting of royalties at Erfurth Napoleon sounded the Czar about his sister. The princess was in the care of her mother, who immediately engaged heT to a Grand Duke. Still the divorce went on. Napoleon broke the matter to Josephine himself. She wept and prayed and embraced his knees. But he had steeled himself, and did not relent. He must have an heir; so he rang for assistance, and carried her to her own npartments. She accepted the inevitable, and by-and-Jbye ' expressed a wish that ihe might marry an Austrian princess. During the campaign of Wagram in 1109 he had seen the Archduchess Maria Louise, but had said nothing. Near the end of the year he instructed his ambassador at St. Petersburg to ask for the hand of the Czar's younger sister, and to get an answer within two days. Time wa,s precious. He was counting the minutes. The Czar consulted his mother, who was obstinate, and pleas of the lady's youth took the place of a direct answer. Now Napoleon had mauled Austria in ITOfi. in 1W). in IfiOS, and again in 1800. She badly needed rest and security. Yet here was a new dan<rer. The conqueror was aiming at a family alliance with

Russia, who had been Austria's chief supporter. It would be well at any cost to blow a barrier between these two autocrats. Metterran was the man to do it. He encouraged Napoleon to look towards Austria. A man who is counting the minutes doe's not lose time. It is true the Russian affair was not concluded, but the man of destiny did not stand on etiquette. He applied for the hand of Maria Louise,, and it was granted. It was a master stroke. They knew the ludv was sacrificed. But the cause was great and good. Austria would now enjoy peace till she saw her chance, while the Czar could not but feel insulted by the 'backhand treatment meted out to his sister. He might dissemble for a time, but there would be no further friendship for a time. So reasoned Metternich, and he was right. Josephine enjoyed a handsome allowance, and Napoleon visited her now and then. Her children married well and held good positions. For some reason, probably because Napoleon waa hated as the public enemy, the divorced Empress has been glorified as martyr and a noble character. But she was no better than the bad times in which she lived. The play "Royal Divorce" presents an entirely false view of the whole matter. For example, she was represented as the ever-L'thful one who wept on his neck as he departed for St. Helena. As a matter of fact, she had been in her 'grave soriie time before that event. The new Empress was an insipid doll, with no stroke of character in her.. She was not reinstated in the Austrian Court after the fall of her husband. She had been sacrificed. She had no wish to follow him into exile, and was too shallow to know that he was one of the world's great men. She married her | chamberlain as soon as she was at libj erty to do so.

NOTES. j In a comparison between American and English girlhood the London Times has something to say incidentally, about the American 'man. By nature, we are assured, the American girl is colder and less emotional than the English girl, and her attitude towards men is one' of unfailing good comradeship. Yet at the same time women are considered by American .men as a race apart, who must be placed on a pedestal and propitiated by much attention and many offerings. In a sense the chivalric instinct is almost too deeply implanted in the American man, and in many of his ideas concerning women he is, although he would be horrified to be told so, curiously medieval. And here again we come upon one of those deep lines of cleavage which divide the American ideals of womanhood from the English. In England, before marriage, the man and the girl see comparatively little of each other, but after marriage the common life is a necessity, and the woman must be prepared to study his interests and to make them more or less her own. In America, before marriage, the man and the girl are excellent friends and comrades, enjoying much freedom in their intercourse; after marriage the two seem to lead separate lives. The man is wholly wrapped up in his business, and the woman, when her work in the house is over, devotes most oi her energies to the pursuit of social

pleasure. In fact, they cannot really be said to lead a common life. To a large extent this is the man's fault; for as a rule he considers his wife such a delicate object that she is, so to speak, put under a glass case, atid all cares and worries and even rightful responsibilities are carefully kept from her. She takes no active part in the iian's everyday life, for she is often completely ignorant of his financial position, and is absolutely dependent upon him for every penny. The idea of marriage settlements or a definite allowance is abhorrent to the American mind; and yet, when all is said and done, the American woman, with all her independence, is the most dependent of women; for is not he who holds the purse strings after all the'real master? The new Vicereine of India, Lady Hardinge, is well suited to her position, according to an exchange. She has now been married for twenty years, but no one would guess it who looked at her fair face and youthful appearance. She has seen a great deal of the world and of society. Like a good wife, she fol- | lowed her husband in his diplomatic wanderings, and made a real success of her position in Paris and St. Petersburg. And she has always 'been in high favour with Royalty, and for some years has been a Woman of the Bed-chamber to Queen Alexandra. Her elder son, ! Edward, is a godchild of the late King, and her only girl, the ten-year-old Miaa Diamond Hardinge, received her jewel name at the express wish of his late 1 Majesty, who desired that the baby should be named after his horse, Diamond Jubilee, that won the Derby in the year of her birth, 1900. | The Freilch League for the Protection] of Birds is greatly concerned about the vast slaughter of birds caused by the fashion for "Chantecler" hats, writes the Paris correspondent of a London journal. The league asserts that 300,000,000 birds are killed yearly, for the adornment of women. Last year a single London merchant is asserted to have sold 32,000 humming-birds. Oddly enough, the Society for the (Protection of Animals this year presented its animal "grand prix" to M. Rostand, the author of "Chantecler." i The Sydney Bulletin says: "As a frocker Miss Grace Palotta has no superior on the English stage. Perhaps it is that the woman 'makes' the frock; but other women cannot be expected to accept that theory. Miss Grace Palotta is bewitching'.y graceful, and has a charm of personality not to be resisted."