were on the confines of Syria. I took upon me the office of conciliator, which I had before discharged with success. I represented to him the dangers to be apprehended from the publicity and scandal of such an affair; and that the moment when his grand views might possibly be realized, was not the fit time to entertain France and Europe with the details of adultery. I spoke to him of Hortense and Eugenie, to whom he was much attached. Reflection, seconded by his ardent affection for Josephine, brought about a complete reconciliation. After these three days of conju gal misunderstanding, their happiness was never afterwards disturbed by a similar

cause."

It was, however, by other causes. Notwithstanding their admiration and affection for each other, Josephine and Napoleon were exceedingly unlike. Josephine's heart was quite too much for her head. Bonaparte's scheming head was always a great overbalance for his natural goodness of heart. He was simple in his tastes and rigidly economical; she was luxurious and excessively extravagant. "What scenes have I not witnessed," says Bourrienne, "when the moment for paying the milliners' bill arrived! She always kept back one half of their claims, and the discovery of this exposed her to new reproaches. How many tears did she shed which might have been easily spared!" The hatred of Pauline, and of the females generally of the Bonaparte family for Josephine, may be readily understood, without supposing that she gave by her conduct any real occasion for it; but it is not so easy to explain, without supposing something objectionable in her conduct, the strong prejudice against her, which appears to have been entertained by Joseph and Lucien, whose reputation for amiability of character is hardly inferior to her

own.

Another great source of domestic uneasiness was, that Josephine failed to bear Napoleon any children-a misfortune which led finally to her divorce.

At St. Helena, Napoleon, while giving her great credit in many particulars, accused her of a troublesome and foolish jealousy-and it would seem from the statements of Bourrienne, Josephine's firm friend, though he does not conceal some of her weakness, not without grounds. Indeed, Bourrienne informs us that she went so far as to be jealous of her own daughter, Hortense, and of Napoleon's own sister, Pauline, with not the slightest foundation for it beyond the malignant interpretation

placed by some impudent scandal-mongers upon the just and natural affection which Napoleon felt for those two fascinating young women, of whom he was so near a relative.

Napoleon also intimated at St. Helena, that Josephine, as she could have no children of her own, was desirous of passing off." by a great political fraud," a supposititious child as hers. in order to furnish an heir to the empire. But to this story Bourrienne gives no credit; on the other hand, he charges a similar and even a more objectionable proposition upon Lucien, which he makes Josephine reject with indignation. But this statement, too, must be taken in connection with the fact, that Bourrienne exhibits throughout his memoirs great hostility to Napoleon's brothers, especially to Lucien, whom, in this connection, he charges with a zeal for making Napoleon an hereditary ruler, a charge not by any means in accordance with Lucien's relations to Napoleon after he became emperor.

The following letter to Joseph, written not long after the reconciliation with Josephine, expresses Napoleon's opinion on certain points of conjugal duty, while, at the same time, it strongly indicates the antipathy he always felt for Madame de Stäel, whom he soon banished from Paris, and made an object of petty persecutions whenever he had an opportunity:

"March 19th, 1830. M. de Stael is in the

deepest poverty, and his wife gives dinners and balls. If you still visit her, would it not be well to persuade her to make her husband an allowance of from 1000 to 2000 francs a month? Or have we already reached the time when not only decency, but duties even more sacred than those which unite parents and children. may be trampled under foot, without the world's being scandalized ? Let us give Madame de Stael the benefit of judging her morals as if she were a man; but would a man who had inherited M. Necker's fortune [M. Necker, however, was still alive, nor did he die till four years after], and who had long enjoyed the privileges attached to a distinguished name, and who allowed his wife to remain in abject poverty, whilst he lived in luxury-would such a man be received in society?"

It may be observed that the Bonapartes were what are called marrying people. The early marriages of Joseph and Napoleon have been already mentioned. Lucien, too, had married (in 1795) still younger than either, the object of his choice being Mademoiselle Boyer, sister of an innkeeper, at St. Maximin, a small

town a few leagues distant from Marseilles, at which Lucien had been stationed in August, 1793, as an officer in the commissariat department. Though without birth or fortune, this young lady had great beauty and amiability, and Lucien lived very happily with her, and had a daughter or two by her. After

her death he married, in 1803, at Paris, Madame Jobertau, the widow of a stockbroker. Scandal reports that he had become attached to and intimate with her previous to the death of her husband, who was sent on the St. Domingo expedition (to be presently mentioned), to get him out of the way, and that Lucien, immediately on news of his death, hastened to marry the charming widow, already on the point of becoming a mother. But Napoleon, by this time Consul for life, had no longer any idea of marrying for love. He had little or no objection that Lucien should run away with M. Jobertau's wife, he himself having done the same thing in Egypt. But for Lucien to make an honest woman of her by marriage was, in his opinion, a high-handed outrage against the dignity and prospects of the Bonaparte family.

Lucien, as a member of the Council of Five Hundred, in which he had been one of the leading orators, had greatly aided Napoleon in upsetting the Directory on the famous 18th of Brumaire, and raising himself to the head of the executive government as First Consul. Subsequently he served his brother as ambassador to Spain, where he negotiated the retrocession of Louisiana to France. As a member of the Tribunate, and afterwards as a senator, he had even aided him in becoming Consul for life. But his opposition to Napoleon's imperial designs, and his refusal to divorce his wife, with whom he lived very happily, in order to form some princely alliance, brought on a quarrel between the brothers, in consequence of which, Lucien, in 1804, about the time that Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor, retired to Rome, where he resided as a private citizen during the next six years, surrounded by an increasing family, to which he was greatly attached, and in which he took great pleasure. His

eldest son by this second marriage was Charles Lucien Bonaparte, the distinguished naturalist, still alive, and known as the Prince of Canino, who afterwards married Joseph's second and sole surviving daughter and heiress; and it was

to their eldest son that Joseph left all his papers.

Nor was Napoleon any better pleased with the marriage of his eldest sister, first known, while at the school of St. Cyr, as Marianne, afterwards as Christine, and, finally, as Eliza. In the early dawn of the fortunes of the Bonapartes, if not, indeed, previously to their dawning, she had, with her mother's consent, but without asking Napoleon's, married a retired Corsican officer, a Captain Bacciochi-a respectable man, doubtless, or he would not have had her mother's endorsement-but who did not make up by abilities for his lack of family and fortune. How much Napoleon was displeased with this marriage may be seen in the following letter of his sister's, given by Bourrienne :

"AJACCIO, Aug. 6th, 1797. "GENERAL:-Suffer me to write to you, and to call you by the name of brother.

My first child was born at a time when you were much incensed against us. I trust she may soon caress you, and so make you forget the pain my marriage has occasioned you. My second child was still-born. Obliged to quit Paris by your order, I miscarried in Germany. In a month's time I hope to present you with a nephew. A favorable time and other circumstances incline me to hope my next will be a boy, and I promise you I will make a soldier of him; but I wish him to bear your name, and that you should be his godfather. I trust you will not refuse your sister's request. Will you send, for this purpose, your power of attorney to Bacciochi, or whomsover you think fit? I myself will be the godmother. I shall expect, with impatience, your consent.

"Because we are poor, let that not cause you to despise us; for after all you are our brother; mine are the only children that call you uncle, and we all love you more than we do the favors of fortune. Perhaps I may one day succeed in convincing you of the love I bear you. "Your affectionate sister,

"CHRISTINE BONAPARTE." "P. S. Do not fail to remember me to your wife, whom I strongly desire to be acquainted with. They told me at Paris I was very like her. If you recollect my features, you can judge."

In the sketch of his early life, with which the Memoirs du Roi Joseph commence, Joseph describes his eldest sister as much more like Napoleon, both in person and character, than either of their other sisters.

Napoleon having assumed, May 18th, 1804, the imperial crown, gave to Joseph the title of Grand Elector, and to Louis that of Constable. The next year he transformed the Cisalpine republic into the kingdom of Italy, of which he

made himself king, and Eugene Beauharnais viceroy, and about the same time he converted the republic of Lucca into a principality, to be held as a fief of France, and of which he made his eldest sister and her husband duchess and duke. Three years afterwards, having seized the kingdom of Etruriaoriginally created by himself while still First Consul, out of the dukedom of Tuscany, for the benefit of a branch of the Spanish Bourbons, in exchange for the retrocession of Louisiana, being the first crown of his manufacture-he gave that country, with the title of Grand Duchess of Tuscany, to his eldest sister, who, under the new name of Eliza, ruled over it with a truly masculine spirit, reviewing her troops in person, and in all respects treating her husband as a mere cypher; and, in fact, there had been no mention of him in her patent of appointment.

Some of the letters already given show Napoleon's interest in finding what he esteemed a suitable husband for Pauline, the second and most beautiful of his sisters, of whom he was very fonda great coquette, and a woman who claimed the privilege of being her own judge of the proprieties-but with many fascinating, and, indeed, amiable qualities. She was married, with his consent, after he had put his veto on several other suitors, to General Le Clerc, whom, as a means of making his fortune, he sent, after the peace of Amiens, with an army to reoccupy St. Domingo. In that island, and in Guadaloupe, slavery had been abolished by the agents of the Convention, as a means of inducing the blacks to cooperate in preventing the planters from throwing those colonies into the hands of the English. That experiment had succeeded; but, as a consequence of it, Toussaint and other black generals held in those colonies an almost independent authority. No sooner, however, was the peace of Amiens proclaimed, than Napoleon fitted out two fleets and armies, for the purpose, not only of reoccupying these colonies in the name of France, but of re-establishing slavery there, to which possibly his marriage with Josephine-whose sympathies, being herself a creole, were doubtless with the ancient régime of those islands-might, perhaps, have aided to incline him. The command of the expedition against Guadaloupe, with the prospect of proceeding thence

to occupy Louisiana, was offered to Bernadotte, who, however, did not accept it. In a letter from Napoleon to Joseph, Jan. 6, 1802, making this offer, he mentions that "missions to the colonies are desired by the most distinguished generals." The command of the expedition to Hayti was given to Le Clerc, as a "fine opportunity," in the words of Bourrienne, for "filling his purse." Pauline, much against her will, was compelled to accompany the expedition. Le Clerc effected a landing, obtained the submission of the inhabitants by false pretenses, and succeeded in kidnapping Toussaint, who was sent to France, where he died in prison. But soon, with a large part of his troops, he died of the yellow fever, and the intentions of the French having been openly proclaimed, the remnants of the French army only escaped the fury of the insurgent blacks by surrendering to an English naval force.

Pauline, however, did not long remain a widow, She was married, in 1803, to a scion of the noble Italian family of Borghese. This new husband, who had early attached himself to the French interest in Italy, was made, in 1805, a prince of the French empire, afterwards Duke of Guastella, and finally governorgeneral of the department beyond the Alps, under which name were included Piedmont and Genoa, which had been annexed to France-a government first given to Louis Bonaparte, who was removed from it to be made king of Holland. In this capacity, Prince Borghese fixed himself at Turin, where he and Pauline held a sort of court. He was also an officer in the French army, in which he rose to be a general of division.

Mu

Of Caroline, the youngest sister, Napoleon said at St. Helena, that, though she was in childhood the fool and Cinderella of the family, yet that she grew up a clever and beautiful woman. rat first saw her at the house of her brother Joseph-who, during Napoleon's Italian campaign, was ambassador at Rome-and a mutual attachment was speedily formed between them. Murat, for a time in disgrace with Napoleon, for a fault committed at the siege of Mantua, had greatly distinguished himself in Egypt, and on the 19th of Brumaire had rendered especially good service by heading the grenadiers, that, at the point of the bayonet, drove the

Council of Five Hundred from their Hall of Session, and brought the Directorial government to a close. Soon after he was married to Caroline. According to Bourrienne, Napoleon made some objection, on the ground of Murat's being an innkeeper's son; but he was influenced by Josephine to give his consent, which he did the more readily, as Josephine's interest in promoting this marriage seemed to give the lie to the gossip which represented him as one of the gallants of whom she was too fond. Napoleon, though already First Consul, could only afford his sister a dowry of thirty thousand francs, with one of Josephine's necklaces for a wedding present. The day after he proclaimed himself Emperor, he made Murat a marshal, as he did seventeen others of his principal generals.

In Jan., 1802, Louis Bonaparte married Hortense Beauharnais, a match also brought about by Josephine, and that, too, in spite of the indifference of Louis and the repugnance of Hortense-who was in love with Duroc, afterwards the imperial chamberlain. Josephine hoped thus to strengthen herself against the hostility evinced to her by other members of the Bonaparte family; but this marriage proved an unhappy

one, and after having three children, the parties separated. The eldest son died in infancy. The second grew to manhood, and married Joseph's eldest daughter, but died soon after, as did also his wife. Hortense's third son is the present emperor of France.

Jerome, the youngest brother, whose character was formed after the fortune of the family had been made, was as sad, dissipated, extravagant a dog, as if he had been born an hereditary prince. His brother, whose letters evince a partiality for him, and who, perhaps, liked him none the less for these princely peccadilloes, put him into the navy, and during a visit to the United States in that capacity, in December, 1803, while yet only nineteen, he married Miss Patterson, of Baltimore. Napoleon was very much offended with this marriage, and refused to recognize it; and neither Lucien nor Jerome, on account of their unsatisfactory marriages, were mentioned in the decree which settled the order of succession to the empire.

But here, having raised Napoleon to the imperial throne, and married off all his brothers and sisters, we shall stop to take breath, deferring to another article the account of Napoleon's family relations after he became emperor.

I

HAD been drawing up a diagram of my family-tree. Not such a tree as we usually see displayed, its single stem rooted in some ancient individual, who, in Old England, is probably some comrade of Norman William, or, in New England, some fellow-religionist of Elder Brewster and Miles Standish; a tree which, branching out into ramification after ramification, becomes a perfect maze of boughs and twigs, on the terminal bud of one of which is the proper place of the proud possessor of this family-chart.

Such a diagram may illustrate the collateral relationship of one's family, but not at all his ancestry. For it shows, at any past generation, but a single ancestor, from whom, in the fourth previous remove, we can derive but one-sixteenth of our descent, while, in the fifth and sixth removes, our interest in him is reduced to one-thirty-second or one-sixtyfourth part. In those generations, respectively, we had sixteen, thirty-two, and sixty-four ancestors and ancestresses, from each of whom we may be presumed to have derived an equal sixteenth, thirty-second, or sixty-fourth part of the traits of person or character, which make up our individuality.

And it is a poor source of satisfaction to know that one descends in a specified arbitrary line-say through eldest sons -from one personage of respectability, while every other progenitor in the same degree may have been a scamp.

If my four grandparents were of the families of Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson, is there any reason why I should attach myself to the pedigree of the Smiths exclusively; because, as I can bear but one name, that happens to be the one which I inherit under certain conventional customs of soceity? Nothing can be more absurd. The only sensible practice is to reverse the family-tree; and so I did considering myself the trunk, and my progenitors the roots, at which I had been digging and exploring with much zeal and some satisfaction, by the aid of piles of old faded letters, a couple of family bibles, and a collection of epitaphs, gleaned from the red-sandstone monuments in the old burying-grounds of Connecticut and New Jersey.

It was clear enough that my four grandparents-of four families which

were obscurely active in the revolutionary war, spending their energies, their little fortunes, and some of their lives in the service-bore names of English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh derivation. The next generations were not so distinctly made out; but, among many plain and respectable people of British and Hibernian origin, I found intermingled, names unmistakably Low Dutch, from the early colonists of New Amsterdam; Germans, from immigrants from the Palatinate; and French, from the Huguenot settlers, who came to New York and New Jersey in the seventeenth century. I soon followed back these traces until I found them, as it were, freshly printed on the shores of the ocean, and hit upon clues connecting me across the water with their European localities. Further investigations detected, among my ancestors, a line of English baronets and squires, running back to the time of Edward I.; Scotch and Irish forefathers, whose connections were lost among the forgotten clans of the mountains and the morasses; Swainsons, who were evidently sons of some Sweyn, sea-pirate, from Scandinavia; Alstons, probably descended from a Saxon Athelstan; a Fitzroy, which implied some bend-sinister sort of claim to good blood in an irregular way-but so far back that the romance of the story had survived its scandal; and a dozen other varying patronymics, which, from their etymology, or some known circumstance relating to them, authorized me to believe that in the plaited and intertwisted skein of my ancestry could I trace threads drawn from almost every nation-from Ireland to Bohemia, and from Norway to the shores of the Medi

terranean.

Meditating on the subject, I fell into a mathematical calculation of the number of forefathers and foremothers I had had during a long period, say of five hundred years; and by a simple process, satisfied myself that in the fifteenth previous generation, say A.D. 1346, about the time the Black Prince was campaigning in Picardy, I must have had thirtytwo thousand then living progenitors. Of these, most were probably English, though some of them must have been Frenchmen, fighting zealously against my British ancestors; while others were Dutchmen, or farmers on the fertile