Download or read book The Empress Josephine; Napoleon's Enchantress Volume 2 written by Philip Walsingham Sergeant and published by Theclassics.Us. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXXII THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE THE story of Josephine has been brought to an end. It only remains for us to make a brief review of her principal characteristics, as they appear in the course of the tale, in order that we may be able to say, if possible, how it was that she succeeded in attaining a position in history to which neither her intellect nor any surpassing physical beauty gave her claims. That she had no such claims it would perhaps be hardly necessary to repeat, except to emphasise the strangeness of what time and men's love of romance have done for a woman who for more than thirty out of her fifty-one years of life was utterly obscure. And first with regard to her beauty, the practical unanimity of observers actuated by very different personal feelings toward her is most striking. The portraits of her are innumerable, for she had VOL. II 625 19 an inordinate love of being painted, and sat to GeYard, Isabey, Prudhon, Gros, David, and many others, while busts and medallions abound. Few of these portraits give a very pleasing impression. When we come to the written descriptions, what we are apt to remember is the rouged and powdered face, with the closelipped smile that concealed the badness of the teeth behind, and the wonderful elaboration of the chestnut hair on the top of the head. Not even in the earliest days of her second marriage are we allowed to forget that it is a carefully preserved woman past her prime--for she was a Creole and over thirty--upon whom we are looking. The freshness had gone, and artifice has come in to supply the deficiencies of nature. But, when this has been said, a high tribute has to be paid to the result which Josephine achieved with what remained to her. Her smile is always charming, in...