An authentic portrait engraved exclusively for the Court Magazine.

VOL XIX.

N. 93 of the series of ancient portraits.

N11, Carey street Lincoln's Inn, London.

1840

THE COURT, LADY'S MAGAZINE,

MONTHLY CRITIC, AND, MUSEUM.

A Family Journal

OF ORIGINAL TALES, REVIEWS OF LITERATURE, THe fine artS, MUSIC, DRAMA, FASHIONS, &c., &c.

UNDER TRE DISTINGUISHED PATRONAGE OF

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

MEMOIR OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE,

FIRST WIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

Illustrated by a full-length authentic Portrait, No. 93 of the series, beautifully colored from the original by Isabey; including Anecdotes of the Imperial Family.

(This portrait the binder will have to transpose from the December number.)

THE first effect produced upon the mind, in perusing the history of the subject of our present memoir, must be combined admiration and astonishment at the wonderful dispensations of Providence, as exemplified throughout the eventful life of the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. That the daughter of a simple West India planter was predestined to become empress of a great nation, does, indeed, seem strange; yet to the fulfilment of such a destiny was Marie Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie appointed. Some there were amongst the superstitious colonists, who prophesied that the little stranger was born to greater things than passing her life in her native island, and two circumstances seemed to her own parents to justify these predictions; the first of which was, her having been born with her head wrapped in that uncommon membrane termed a caul,* and the next that by a singular coincidence her entrance into this world was announced by the roll of the drum, by salvos of artillery, by the enthusiastic rejoicings of her countrymen, not, it must be confessed, in honor of M. de Tascher de la Pagerie having had a second daughter born to him, but in consequence of the enfranchisement of their country, the treaty that restored Martinico to France having been signed on the identical day of her birth, viz., the 24th of June, 1763.

In most countries this seems to be considered, however absurdly, an omen of future prosperity. A-JANUARY, 1841.