Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/785

J S J S 751 protection of the German states against Austrian ambition. After the conclusion of the treaty of Teschen, Joseph made it one of the chief objects of his foreign policy to form an enduring alliance between Austria and Russia ; and in 1788, in association with Catherine II., he declared war against Turkey. He did not live to see the end cf this war, which brought him little honour. On the 20th of February 1790 he died, deeply disappointed that he had been able to achieve so few of the objects with which he had begun his reign. He was twice married, first to the Princess Marie Louise of Parma, afterwards to the Princess Marie Josephe of Bavaria. His only daughter died in childhood, so that he was succeeded by his brother Leopold II. Notwithstanding the defeat of so many of bis plans, his reign marked an epoch in the history of Austria ; and the interest still excited by his name was shown by the enthusiasm with which the people of Austria celebrated in 1880 the centenary of his accession as sole ruler. On the pedestal of his statue in Vienna, erected by Francis I. in 1807, are these words: "Josepho secundo, qui saluti publicae vixit non diu, sed totus." (j. si.) JOSEPHINE (1763-1814), empress of the French, was born at Trois-Ilets, Martinique, on the 23d of June 1703, and was the eldest of three daughters born to Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, lieutenant in the artillery, and his wife Rose-Claire Des Vergers cle Sannois. She was educated at a local convent, from which she was withdrawn in her fifteenth year, knowing how to dance, sing, and embroider, but little else. An aunt, resident in France, was godmother to the second son of the Marquis de Beauharnais, once the governor of Martinique ; and she suggested a marriage between her god-child and niece. After much negotiation between the families, in which the second and youngest daughters were both preferred to Josephine, her father carried her to Havre in 1779, she being already described to her aunt and the Beauharnais as possessing a fine complexion, beautiful arms and eyes, and with a sweet voice and a remarkable taste for music alto gether " tres-avancee et forme e pour son age." On the 13th of December she was married to the Vicomte Alexandre Beauharnais at ISToisy-le-Grand. Her son Eugene was born at a time when her relations with her husband were embittered by jealousy ; and after the birth of her daughter Hortense-Euge nie he sought a separation, but, though he carried his request to the parliament, his petition was dismissed. Josephine went back to her parents in June 1783, and was with them when the Revolution broke out. At the request of the vicomte she returned, however, to France in 1790. He was then a member of the constituent assembly, receiving at his house the chiefs of the constitu tional party ; and Josephine was admired by all of them for her dignity, simplicity, and sweetness. As the crisis became more acute, her husband thought it prudent to withdraw to Ferte-Bsauharnais, in Sologne, where he left his family when he went to command the army of the Rhine. After his execution by order of the Convention, Josephine was reduced to great straits, and not till the end of 1795 did regular remittances from Martinique begin again. She was living in the Rue Chautereine, Paris, in a house of her own, when she paid her first visit to Napoleon, to thank him for restoring the sword of her husband. She was in the full flower of her womanhood ; Napoleon was at once drawn to her ; on the 9th of March 1796 they were married. In twelve days he left her to take command of the army in Italy ; but in June, at his earnest request, she joined him at Milan and W2nt on to Brescia. After the peace of Ldoben they lived at Monte- bello near Milan, and Josephine was for some time the queen of a court frequented by great officers and diploma tists. Having visited Rome, she went back to Paris, and at her house assembled the most distinguished men of the day. During the expedition to Egypt she moved between the capital and Plombieres ; but she had her first quarrel with Napoleon on his return, because, by an oversight, she omitted meeting him. Social duties of the most brilliant and difficult sort began to accumulate round her during the consulate. At the palace of the Luxembourg and the Tuileries her drawing-room was again the centre of attraction in Paris ; her receptions were ruled by the old traditions of regal ceremony, and there was an endless round of fetes, entertainments, and plays. Her beauty and amiability won upon everybody; and when she wanted rest she retired to Malmaison, a country seat she had bought, and amused herself with a variety of light studies in botany and natural history. Rumours now began to reach her that Napoleon, in despair of offspring, meant to sue for a divorce. She had long known that his relatives were trying to undermine her position ; and even when she knelt beside him at Notre Dame, and received the triple unction at the ceremony which crowned her empress, she knew it to be a concession wrung from him. After the coronation he gave her less and less of his society. It was not, however, until the winter of 1809 that he deliberately proposed to dissolve the connexion, He divorced her with much show of tenderness, and she retired to Malmaison with an annual grant of two million francs for her establishment. Her affection for Napoleon, and her anxiety for his success, remained strong to the hour of her death, on May 24, 1814; and but for his inordinate ambition he would never have sought to live apart from her. She often provoked him by a certain mild duplicity in her character ; she was extravagant and super stitious ; yet, to fulfil the high destiny to which she was called, she brought much gentleness, courage, and sweet ness, qualities which carried her through her reverses with admirable dignity. See Aubenas, Histoire de Vlmptratricc Josephine, 1858-59. JOSEPHUS, FLAVITJS, the well-known historian of the Jews, was born at Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of Caligula ; the precise date is uncertain, but it lies some where between September 13, 37, and March 16, 38 A.D. His early advantages were very considerable. His father Matthias belonged to one of the best priestly families in the city, while on his mother s side he was descended from Jonathan, the first Hasmouean high priest. The position of his parents procured for him a careful education, and such was his progress (at least if his own account of himself is to be believed) that at the age of fourteen he was often consulted by the high priests and prominent citizens on difficult points of Jewish law. At sixteen he resolved upon an experimental study of the doctrines of the three leading sects, or schools of philosophy, as he prefers to consider them ; and, hearing that Banus, a celebrated Essene, was living in the wilderness with the rigorous asceticism of a hermit, he joined him and remained under his teaching for three years. Returning to Jerusalem at the age of nineteen, he definitively joined the Pharisees, to whom he continued ever after to adhere. In 64 A.D. (jBt. 26) he undertook a journey to Rome to intercede for some priests of his acquaintance whom Felix the procurator had sent thither as prisoners to be tried on some trifling charges. Landing safely at Puteoli after a narrow escape from death by shipwreck in the Adriatic, he gained the friendship of Alityrus, a famous Jewish mime of the day, and a favourite of Nero ; by this means he not only obtained the pardon of his friends, but was also loaded with many valuable gifts by the empress Poppsea. On reaching Judsea again he found his countrymen bent at all hazards on throwing off the Roman yoke ; knowing well the resources of Rome, and the hopelessness of successfully