ition with
that of the slaves on the adjoining plantations, and exulted in view of
their own enjoyments. M. and Madame Renaudin often visited their cabins,
spoke words of kindness to them in their hours of sickness and sorrow,
encouraged the formation of pure attachments and honorable marriage
among the young, and took a lively interest in their sports. The slaves
loved their kind master and mistress most sincerely, and manifested
their affection in a thousand simple ways which touched the heart.

Josephine imbibed from infancy the spirit of her uncle and aunt. She
always spoke to the slaves in tones of kindness, and became a universal
favorite with all upon the plantations. She had no playmates but the
little negroes and she united with them freely in all their sports.
Still, these little ebon children of bondage evidently looked up to
Josephine as to a superior being. She was the queen around whom they
circled in affectionate homage. The instinctive faculty, which Josephine
displayed through life, of winning the most ardent love of all who
met her, while, at the same time, she was protected from any undue
familiarity, she seems to have possessed even at that early day. The
children, who were her companions in all the sports of childhood, were
also dutiful subjects ever ready to be obedient to her will.

The social position of M. Renaudin, as one of the most opulent and
influential gentlemen of Martinique, necessarily attracted to his
hospitable residence much refined and cultivated society. Strangers from
Europe visiting the island, planters of intellectual tastes, and ladies
of polished manners, met a cordial welcome beneath the spacious roof of
this abode, where all abundance was to be found. Madame Renaudin had
passed her early years in Paris, and her manners were embellished with
that elegance and refinement which have given to Parisian society such a
world-wide celebrity. There was, at that period, much more intercourse
between the mother country and the colonies than at the present day.
Thus Josephine, though reared in a provincial home, was accustomed, from
infancy, to associate with gentlemen and ladies who were familiar with
the etiquette of the highest rank in society, and whose conversation was
intellectual and improving.

It at first view seems difficult to account for the high degree of
mental culture which Josephine displayed, when, seated by the side of
Napoleon, she was the Empress of France. Her rem