nd I have read many, Alexandre Beauharnais
was an ill-conditioned cruel prig. This excellent son with "fine and
noble qualities" had not been long at Martinique before he associated
himself with a lady of questionable virtue, who was much older than
he. This person's dislike to Josephine caused her to pour into his
willing ears and receptive mind scandalous stories of his childwife's
love intrigues before she left her native island. This gave Alexandre
a fine opportunity of writing a letter to her, disclaiming the
paternity of Hortense, and accusing her of intrigues with "an officer
in the Martinique regiment, and another man who sailed in a ship
called the _Caesar_." He declares he knows the contents of her letters
to her lovers, and "swears by the Heaven which enlightens him that the
child is another's, and that strange blood flows in its veins," and
"it shall never know his shame"; and so the virtuous Alexandre goes
rambling on, until he comes to the slashing finish in the good old
style that persons similarly situated adopt to those whom they have
grievously injured. He soars between elegant politeness and old-time
aristocratic ferocity: "Goodbye, madam, this is the last letter you
will receive from your desperate and unhappy husband." Then comes the
inevitable postscript, with an avenging bite embodying the spirit of
murder. He is to be in France soon if his health does not break down
under the load she has cast upon him. He warns her to be out of the
house on his arrival, because, if she is not, "she will find in him a
tyrant." The whole letter is indicative of a low-down unworthy scamp,
a mere collection of transparent verbiage, intended as a means of
ridding himself of a woman he had nothing in common with, and a cover
to his own unfaithfulness.

But whatever may be the interpretation of his motives, on his coming
back to Paris he kept his word. Conjugal relations were not renewed.
His family were indignant at the treatment Josephine was receiving at
the hands of this pompous libertine, and he assures her that of "the
two, she is not the one to be most pitied."

M. Masson declares that there was never a reconciliation, and that
they lived apart, but met in society, and spoke to one another, mainly
about their children's education. Josephine caused him to withdraw
before her lawyer the gross and unfounded charges he had made against
her and to agree to a satisfactory allowance.

Alexandre, finding soldiering d