believed that the house of Austria was the obstacle to that universal European peace which would make this possible. As Richelieu’s agent, therefore, this modern Peter the Hermit manœuvred at the diet of Regensburg (1630) to thwart the aggression of the emperor, and then advised the intervention of Gustavus Adolphus, reconciling himself to the use of Protestant armies by the theory that one poison would counteract another. Thus the monk became a war minister, and, though maintaining a personal austerity of life, gave himself up to diplomacy and politics. He died in 1638, just as the cardinalate was to be conferred upon him. The story that Richelieu visited him when on his deathbed and roused the dying man by the words, “Courage, Father Joseph, we have won Breisach,” is apocryphal.
See Fagniez, Le Père Joseph et Richelieu (1894), a work based largely on original and unpublished sources. Father Joseph, according to this biography, would seem not to have lectured Richelieu in the fashion of the legends, whatever his moral influence may have been in strengthening Richelieu’s hands.
JOSEPHINE (Marie Rose Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie)
(1763–1814), empress of the French, was born in
the island of Martinique on the 23rd of June 1763, being the
eldest of three daughters of Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie,
lieutenant of artillery. Her beauty and grace, though of a
languid Creole style, won the affections of the young officer the
vicomte de Beauharnais, and, after some family complications,
she was married to him. Their married life was not wholly
happy, the frivolity of Josephine occasioning her husband
anxiety and jealousy. Two children, Eugène and Hortense,
were the fruit of the union. During Josephine’s second residence
in Martinique, whither she proceeded to tend her mother,
occurred the first troubles with the slaves, which resulted from
the precipitate action of the constituent assembly in emancipating
them. She returned to her husband, who at that time
entered into political life at Paris. Her beauty and vivacity
won her many admirers in the salons of the capital. As the
Revolution ran its course her husband, as an ex-noble, incurred
the suspicion and hostility of the Jacobins; and his ill-success
at the head of a French army on the Rhine led to his arrest and
execution. Thereafter Josephine was in a position of much
perplexity and some hardship, but the friendship of Barras and
of Madame Tallien, to both of whom she was then much attached,
brought her into notice, and she was one of the queens of
Parisian society in the year 1795, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s
services to the French convention in scattering the malcontents
of the capital (13 Vendémiaire, or October 5, 1795) brought
him to the front. There is a story that she became known to
Napoleon through a visit paid to him by her son Eugène in order
to beg his help in procuring the restoration of his father’s sword,
but it rests on slender foundations. In any case, it is certain
that Bonaparte, however he came to know her, was speedily
captivated by her charms. She, on her side, felt very little
affection for the thin, impecunious and irrepressible suitor; but
by degrees she came to acquiesce in the thought of marriage,
her hesitations, it is said, being removed by the influence of
Barras and by the nomination of Bonaparte to the command
of the army of Italy. The civil marriage took place on the
9th of March 1796, two days before the bridegroom set out for
his command. He failed to induce her to go with him to Nice
and Italy.
Bonaparte’s letters to Josephine during the campaign reveal the ardour of his love, while she rarely answered them. As he came to realize her shallowness and frivolity his passion cooled; but at the time when he resided at Montebello (near Milan) in 1797 he still showed great regard for her. During his absence in Egypt in 1798–1799, her relations to an officer, M. Charles, were most compromising; and Bonaparte on his return thought of divorcing her. Her tears and the entreaties of Eugène and Hortense availed to bring about a reconciliation; and during the period of the consulate (1799–1804) their relations were on the whole happy, though Napoleon’s conduct now gave his consort grave cause for concern. His brothers and sisters more than once begged him to divorce Josephine, and it is known that, from the time when he became first consul for life (August 1802) with large powers over the choice of a successor, he kept open the alternative of a divorce. Josephine’s anxieties increased on the proclamation of the Empire (May 18, 1804); and on the 1st of December 1804, the eve of the coronation at Notre Dame, she gained her wish that she should be married anew to Napoleon with religious rites. Despite her care, the emperor procured the omission of one formality, the presence of the parish priest; but at the coronation scene Josephine appeared radiant with triumph over her envious relatives. The august marriages contracted by her children Eugène and Hortense seemed to establish her position; but her ceaseless extravagance and, above all, the impossibility that she should bear a son strained the relations between Napoleon and Josephine. She complained of his infidelities and growing callousness. The end came in sight after the campaign of 1809, when Napoleon caused the announcement to be made to her that reasons of state compelled him to divorce her. Despite all her pleadings he held to his resolve. The most was made of the slight technical irregularity at the marriage ceremony of the 1st of December 1804; and the marriage was declared null and void.
At her private retreat, La Malmaison, near Paris, which she had beautified with curios and rare plants and flowers, Josephine closed her life in dignified retirement. Napoleon more than once came to consult her upon matters in which he valued her tact and good sense. Her health declined early in 1814, and after his first abdication (April 11, 1814) it was clear that her end was not far off. The emperor Alexander of Russia and Frederick William III. of Prussia, then in Paris, requested an interview with her. She died on the 24th of May 1814. Her friends, Mme de Rémusat and others, pointed out that Napoleon’s good fortune deserted him after the divorce; and it is certain that the Austrian marriage clogged him in several ways. Josephine’s influence was used on behalf of peace and moderation both in internal and in foreign affairs. Thus she begged Napoleon not to execute the duc d’Enghien and not to embroil himself in Spanish affairs in 1808.
See M. A. Le Normand, Mémoires historiques et secrets de Joséphine (2 vols., 1820); Lettres de Napoléon à Joséphine (1833); J. A. Aubenas, Hist. de l’impératrice Joséphine (2 vols., 1858–1859); J. Turquan, L’Impératrice Joséphine (2 vols., 1895–1896); F. Masson, Joséphine (3 vols., 1899–1902); Napoleon’s Letters to Josephine (1796–1812), translated and edited by H. F. Hall (1903). Also the Memoirs of Mme. de Rémusat and of Bausset, and P. W. Sergeant, The Empress Josephine (1908). (J. Hl. R.)
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS (c. 37–c. 95?), Jewish historian and
military commander, was born in the first year of Caligula
(37-38). His father belonged to one of the noblest priestly
families, and through his mother he claimed descent from the
Asmonaean high priest Jonathan. A precocious student of the
Law, he made trial of the three sects of Judaism—Pharisees,
Sadducees and Essenes—before he reached the age of nineteen.
Then, having spent three years in the desert with the hermit
Banus, who was presumably an Essene, he became a Pharisee.
In 64 he went to Rome to intercede on behalf of some priests,
his friends, whom the procurator Felix had sent to render account
to Caesar for some insignificant offence. Making friends with
Alityrus, a Jewish actor, who was a favourite of Nero, Josephus
obtained an introduction to the empress Poppaea and effected
his purpose by her help. His visit to Rome enabled him to
speak from personal experience of the power of the Empire,
when he expostulated with the revolutionary Jews on his return
to Palestine. But they refused to listen; and he, with all the
Jews who did not fly the country, was dragged into the great
rebellion of 66. In company with two other priests, Josephus
was sent to Galilee under orders (he says) to persuade the ill-affected to lay down their arms and return to the Roman allegiance, which the Jewish aristocracy had not yet renounced.
Having sent his two companions back to Jerusalem, he organized
the forces at his disposal, and made arrangements for the government of his province. His obvious desire to preserve law and order excited the hostility of John of Giscala, who endeavoured vainly to remove him as a traitor to the national
