Josephine sighed, and, with tears in her eyes, submitted to her husband's will; she sent a faithful messenger to St. Martin to bring back Eugene and Hortense. But the Princess von Hohenzollern would not trust the children to any one; she had sworn to her friend Josephine to watch over them, never to let them go out of her sight, and she wished to keep her oath until such time as she could restore the children to their mother. She therefore returned herself to Paris, to bring back Eugene and Hortense to Josephine; and this journey, so short and so insignificant in itself, was nevertheless the occasion that the Princess von Hohenzollern remained in France; that her brother, the Prince von Salm, should mount the scaffold! The favorable moment for emigration was lost through this delay; the journey to Paris had attracted the eyes of the authorities to the doings of the princess and of her brother, the contemplated journey to England was discovered, and the incarceration of the Prince von Salm and of his sister was the natural consequence. A few months after, the prince paid with his life the contemplated attempt to migrate; his sister, the Princess von Hohenzollern, was saved from the guillotine through accident.

Meanwhile, Josephine had at least her children safely returned, and, in the quietude and solitude of Fontainebleau, she awaited with beating heart the future developments of events; she saw increase every day the dangers which threatened her, her family, and, above all things, her husband.

Mayence was still besieged by the Austrian and Prussian forces. General Beauharnais had not completed the organization of his army so as to press onward to the rescue of the besieged, whose perils increased every day. But whilst, in unwearied activity, he urged on the preliminary operations, a courier arrived, who brought to the general his appointment to the office of minister of war, and required his immediate presence in Paris, there to assume his new dignity.

Alexandre de Beauharnais had the courage to answer with a declination the office. He entreated the Convention to make another choice, for he considered himself more competent to serve his country against the coalition of tyrants, among his companions-in- arms, than to be minister of war amid revolution's storms.

The Convention pardoned his refusal for the sake of the patriotic sentiments which he had expressed. But this refusal was to have, not only for the general, but also for all the aristocracy of France, the most fatal results. Some of the most fanatical members of the Mountain party ever considered as an audacious resistance to the commands of the Convention this refusal of Alexandre de Beauharnais, to accept the office which the highest powers of the land offered him.

It was a nobleman, an aristocrat, who had dared oppose the democratic Convention, and hence the welcome pretext was found to begin the long-wished-for conflict against the aristocrats. One of the deputies of the Mountain made the motion to remove from all public offices, from the army, from the cabinet, all noblemen. Another accused General de Beauharnais, as well as all officers from amongst the nobility, of moderate tendencies, and requested at the same time that a list of all officers from the nobility, and now in the army, should be laid before the Convention.

But on this very day a letter from the general reached the Convention. In this letter he expressed the hope of a speedy rescue of Mayence; he announced that he had completed the organization of his forces and all his preparations, and that soon from the camps of Vicembourg and Lauterburg he would advance against Mayence.

This letter was received by the Convention with loud acclamations, and so took possession of all minds that they passed over the motion of hostility against the nobility, to the order of the day.

Had General de Beauharnais accomplished his purpose—had he succeeded in relieving the garrison besieged in Mayence, now sorely pressed, and in delivering them, this horrible decree which caused so much blood to flow, this decree against the nobility, would never have appeared, and France would have been spared many scenes of cruelty and horror.

Beauharnais hoped still to effect the rescue. Trusty messengers from Mayence had brought him the news that the garrison held on courageously and bravely, and that they could hold their ground a few days longer. Dispatch was therefore necessary; and if in a few days they could be re-enforced, then they would be saved, provided the other generals should advance with their troops in time to attack the Austrian and Prussian forces lying round about Mayence. The French had already succeeded in obtaining some advantages over the enemy; and General de Beauharnais could triumphantly announce to the Convention that, on the 22d of July, a warm encounter with the Prussians had taken place at St. Anna's chapel, and that he had forced the Prussians to a retreat with considerable loss.

The Convention received this news with jubilant shouts, and already trusted in the sure triumph of the French armies against the united forces of Prussia and Austria. If in these days of joyous excitement some one had dared renew the motion to dismiss Beauharnais from his command because he was a nobleman, the mover would undoubtedly have been considered an enemy of his country.

How much attention in these happy days was paid to the general's wife—how busy were even the most fanatical republicans, the dreaded ones of the Mountain, to flatter her, to give expression to their enthusiastic praises of the general who was preparing for the arms of the republic so glorious a triumph!

Josephine now came every day to be present in the gallery at the sessions of the Convention, and her gracious countenance radiated a cheerful smile when the minister of war communicated to the Assembly the newly-arrived dispatches which announced fresh advantages or closer approaches of General Beauharnais. By degrees a new confidence filled the heart of Josephine, and the gloomy forebodings, which so long had tormented her, began to fade away.

In the session of the 28th of July, Barrere, with a grave, solemn countenance, mounted the tribune and with a loud, sad voice announced to the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, that a courier had just arrived bringing the news that, on the 23d of July, Mayence, in virtue of an unjust capitulation, had fallen.

A loud, piercing shriek, which issued from the gallery, broke the silence with which the Assembly had received this news. It was Josephine who had uttered this cry—Josephine who was carried away fainting from the hall. She awoke from her long swoon only to shed a torrent of tears, to press her children to her heart, as if desirous to screen them from the perils of death, which now, said her own forebodings, were pressing on from all sides.

Josephine was not deceived: this calamitous news, all at once, changed the whole aspect of affairs, gave to the Convention and to the republic another attitude, and threw its dark shadows over the unfortunate general who had undertaken to save Mayence, and had not been able to fulfil his word.

Surely this was not his fault, for General Dubayet had capitulated before it had been possible for Beauharnais to accomplish the rescue. No one therefore ventured to accuse him, but undeserved misfortune always remains a misfortune in the eyes of those who had counted upon success; and the Convention could never forgive the generals from whom they had expected so much, and who had not met these expectations.

These generals had all been men of the aristocracy. As there was no reason to accuse them on account of their unsuccessful military operations, it was necessary to attack them with other weapons, and seek a spot where they could be wounded. This spot was their name, their ancestors, who in the eyes of the republican Convention rose up like embodied crimes behind their progeny, to accuse the guilty.

The Jacobin Club, a short time after the capture of Mayence, began again in an infuriated session the conflict against the nobility, and the fanatical Hebert moved:

"All the noblemen who serve in the army, in the magistracy, in any public office, must be driven away and dismissed. The people must require this, the people themselves! They must go in masses to the Convention, and after exposing the crimes and the treachery of the aristocrats, must insist on their expulsion. The people must not leave the Convention, it must remain in permanent session, there until it is assured that its will is carried out."

The multitude with loud, jubilant tones cried, "Yes. yes, that is what we want, let us go to the Convention! No more nobility! the nobles are our murderers!"

The next day, the Jacobins, accompanied by thousands of shouting women and infuriated men, went to the Convention to make known its will in the name of the people. The Convention received their petition and decreed the exile and the dissolution of the nobility, and delivered to the punishment of the law the guilty subject who would dare use the name of noble.

General de Beauharnais saw full well the blow aimed at him, and at all the officers from the nobility in the army; he foresaw that they would not stop at these measures; that soon he and his companions of fate would be accused and charged with treason, as had been already done to General Custine, and to so many others who had paid with their lives their tried loyalty to the republic. He wanted to anticipate the storm, and sent in his resignation. As the Convention left his petition unanswered, he renewed it, and as it remained still ineffective, he gladly, forced to this measure by sickness, transferred his command to General Landremont. The Convention had then to grant him leave of absence, and, as it maintained him in his rank, they ordered him back to Paris.

At last Josephine saw her husband again, for whom during the last few months she had suffered so much anxiety and pain. At last she was enabled to bring to her children the father for whom every evening they had prayed God to guard him from foes abroad and from foes at home. As a gift sent again by Heaven, she received her husband and entreated him to save himself with his family from revolution's yawning abyss, which was ready to swallow them all, and to go away with his own into a foreign land, as his brother had done, who for some months past had been in Coblentz with the Prince d'Artois.

But Alexandre de Beanharnais rejected with something like anger these tearful supplications of his wife. He was not blinded to the dangers which threatened him, but he wanted to meet them bravely; true to the oath he had taken to the republic and to his country, he wished as a dutiful son to remain near her, even if his allegiance had to be paid with his death.

Josephine, on the bosom of her husband, wept hot, burning tears as he communicated to her his irrevocable decision not to leave France, but in the depths of her heart she experienced a noble satisfaction to find her husband so heroic and so brave, and, offering him her hand, said with tears in her eyes:

"It is well—we remain; and if we must go to the scaffold, we will at least die together."

The general, with his wife and children, retired to his small property, Ferte-Beauharnais, where he longed to obtain rest during a few happy months of quietude.

But the fearful storms which had agitated France in her innermost life, now raged so violently that each household, each family, trembled; there was neither peace nor rest in the home nor in the hearts of men.

The Convention, threatened from outside by failures and defeats—for the capture of Mayence by the Prussians and Austrians had been followed by the capture of Toulon in September by the English—the Convention wanted to consolidate at least its internal authority, and to terrify by severe measures those who, on account of the misfortunes on the frontiers, might hope for a fresh change of affairs in the interior, and who might help it to pass.

Consequently the Convention issued a decree ordering all dismissed or destitute soldiers to return in four-and-twenty hours to their respective municipalities, under pain of ten years in chains, and at the same time forbade them to enter Paris or to approach the capital nearer than ten leagues.

A second decree ordered the formation of a revolutionary army in Paris, to which was assigned the duty of carrying out the decrees of the Convention.

Finally a third decree, which appeared on the 17th of September, ordered the arrest and punishment of all suspected persons.

This decree thus characterized the suspected ones: "All those who, by their conduct, their relations, their discourses, their writings, had shown themselves the adherents of tyranny, of federalism, the enemies of liberty, much more all the ex-nobles, men, women, fathers, brothers, sons or daughters, sisters or brothers, or agents of the migrated ones, all who had not invariably exhibited and proved their adherence to the revolution."

With this decree the days of terror had reached their deepest gloom; with this decree began the wild, bloody hunting down of aristocrats and ci-devants; then began suspicions, accusations which needed no evidence to bring the accused to the guillotine; then were renewed the dragonnades of the days of Louis XIV., only that now, instead of Protestants, the nobles were hunted down, and hunted down to death. The night of the St. Bartholomew, the night of the murderess Catharine de Medicis and of her mad son Charles IX., found now in France its cruel and bloody repetition; only this night of horror was prolonged during the day, and shrank not back from the light.

The sun beamed upon the pools of blood which flowed through the streets of Paris, and packs of ferocious dogs in large numbers lay in the streets, and fed upon this blood, which imparted to these once tamed creatures their natural wildness. The sun beamed on the scaffold, which, like a threatening monster, lifted itself upon the Place de la Revolution, and the sun beamed upon the horrible axe, which every day out off so many noble heads, and ever glittering, ever menacing, rose up from the midst of blood and death.

The sun also shone upon the day in which Marie Antoinette, like her husband, ascended the scaffold, to rest at last in the grave from all her dishonor and from the agonies of the last years.

This day was the 16th of October, 1793. For the last four months, Marie Antoinette had longed for this day as for a long-expected bliss; four months ago she had been led from the prison of the Temple into the Conciergerie, and she knew that the prisoners of the Conciergerie only left it to obtain the freedom which men do not give, but which God gives to the suffering ones, the freedom of death.

Marie Antoinette longed for this liberty, and for this deliverance of death. How distant behind were the days of happiness, of joyous youth, far behind in infinite legendary distance! How long since this tall, grave figure, with its proud and yet affable countenance, had lost all similarity to the charming Queen Marie Antoinette, around whom had fluttered the genii of beauty, of youth, of love, of happiness; who once in Trianon had represented the idyl of a pastoral queen; who, in the exuberance of joy, had visited in disguise the public opera-ball; who imagined herself so secure amid the French people as to believe she could dispense with the protection of "Madame Etiquette;" who then was applauded by all France with jubilant acclamations, and who now was persecuted with mad anger!

No, the queen of that day, Marie Antoinette, who, in the golden halls of Versailles and of the Tuileries, received the homage of all France, and who, with smiling grace and face radiant with happiness, responded to all this homage; she had no resemblance with Louis Capet's widow, who now stands before the tribunal of the revolution, and gravely, firmly gives her answers to the proposed questions.

She has also made her toilet for this day; but how different is this toilet of the Widow Capet from that which once Marie Antoinette had worn to be admired!

Then could Marie Antoinette, the frivolous, fortunate daughter of bliss, shut herself up in her boudoir for long hours with her confidante the milliner, Madame Bertier, to devise some new ball- dress, some new fichu, some new ornament for her robes; then could Leonard, for this queen with her wondrous blond hair, tax all the wealth of his science and of his imagination; to invent continually new coiffures and new head-dresses wherewith to adorn the beautiful head of the Queen Marie Antoinette, on whose towering curls clustered tufts of white plumes; or else diminutive men-of-war unfurled the net-work of their sails; or else, for variety's sake, on that royal head was arranged a garden, a parterre adorned with flowers and fruits, with butterflies and birds of paradise.

The Widow Capet needs no milliner now; she needs no friseur now for her toilette. Her tall, slim figure is draped in a black woollen dress, which the republic at her request has granted her to mourn her beheaded husband; her neck and shoulders, once the admiration of France, are now covered with a white muslin kerchief, which in pity Bault, her attendant at the jail, has given her. Her hair is uncovered, and falls in long natural curls on either side of her transparent, blanched cheeks. This hair needs no powder now; the long sleepless nights, the anxious days, have covered it with their powder forever, and the thirty-eight-year-old widow of Louis Capet wears on her head the gray hairs of a seventy-year-old woman.

In this toilet, Marie Antoinette stands before the tribunal of the revolution from the 6th to the 13th day of October. There is nothing royal about her, nothing but her look and the proud attitude of her figure.

And the people who fill the galleries in closely-packed masses, and who weary not to gaze on the queen in her humiliation, in her toilet of anguish, the people claim constantly that Marie Antoinette will rise from her rush-woven seat; that she will allow herself to be stared at by these masses of people, whom curiosity and not compassion have brought there.

Once, as at the call from the public in the galleries, she rose up, the queen sighed: "Ah, will not the people soon be tired of my sufferings?" [Footnote: Marie Antoinette's own words.—See Goncourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 404.]

Another time her dry, blanched lips murmured, "I thirst." But no one near her dares have compassion on this sigh of agony from the queen; each looks embarrassed at his neighbor; not one dares give a glass of water to the thirsty woman.

One of the gendarmes has at last the courage to do so, and Marie Antoinette thanks him with a look which brings tears in the eyes of the gendarme, and which may perchance cause his death to-morrow under the guillotine as a traitor!

The gendarmes who guard the queen have alone the courage to show pity!

One night, as she is led from the hall of trial to her prison, Marie Antoinette becomes so exhausted, so overpowered, that staggering, she murmurs, "I can see no longer! I can go no farther! I cannot move!"

One of the gendarmes walking alongside of her offers his arm, and supported by it Marie Antoinette totters up the three stone steps which lead into the prison.

At last, at four o'clock in the morning, on the 15th of August, the jury have given their verdict. It runs: "Death!—execution by the guillotine!"

Marie Antoinette has heard the verdict with unmoved composure, whilst the noise from the excited crowd in the galleries is suddenly hushed as by a magic spell, and even the faces of the infuriated fish women turn pale!

Marie Antoinette alone has remained calm; grave and cool she rises from her seat and herself opens the balustrade to leave the hall and return to her prison.

And then at last, on the morning of the 16th of October, her sorrows will end, and Marie Antoinette can find refuge in the grave! Her soul is almost joyous and serene; she has suffered so much, and for her to sink into death is truly blessedness!

She has passed the undisturbed hours of the night in writing to her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and this letter is also the queen's testament. But the widow of Louis Capet has no riches, no treasures, no property to will; she has nothing left which belongs to her— nothing but her love, her tears, her farewell salutations. These she leaves behind to all those who have loved her. She takes leave of her relatives, her brothers and sisters, and cries out to them a farewell.

"I had friends," she continues; "the thought of being forever separated from them, and your grief for my death, are my deepest sorrow; you will at least know that to the last moment I have remembered you."

Then, when Marie Antoinette has finished this letter, some of whose characters here and there are disfigured by her tears, she thinks of leaving to her children a last token of remembrance—one which the executioner's hand has not desecrated.

The only ornament which remains is her long hair, whose silver-gray locks are the tearful history of her sufferings.

Marie Antoinette with her own hands despoils herself of this last ornament; she cuts off her long hair behind the head, so as to leave it as a last token to her children, to her relatives and friends. Then, after having taken her spiritual farewell of life, she prepares herself for the last great ceremony of her existence, for death.

She feels exhausted, weary unto death, and she strengthens herself for this last toilsome journey, that she may worthily pass through it.

Marie Antoinette needs food, and with courageous mind she eats a chicken's wing which has been brought to her. After having eaten, she makes her last toilet, the toilet of death.

The wife of the jailer, at the queen's request, gives her one of her own chemises, and Marie Antoinette puts it on. Then she clothes herself with the garments which she has worn during her days of trial before the tribunal of the revolution, only over the black woollen dress, which she has often mended and patched with her own hand, she puts on a mantle of white needlework. Around her neck she ties a small plain kerchief of white muslin, and, as it is not allowed her to mount the scaffold with uncovered head, she puts on it the round linen hood which the peasant-women used to wear. Black stockings cover her feet, and over them she draws shoes of black woollen stuff.

Her toilet is now ended—earthly things have passed away! Ready to meet death, the queen lays herself down on her bed and sleeps.

She still sleeps when she is notified that a priest is there, ready to come in, if she will confess.

But Marie Antoinette has already unveiled her heart to God; she will have none of these priests of reason, whom the republic has ordained, after having exiled or murdered with the guillotine the priests of the Church.

"As I cannot do as I please," she has written to Madame Elizabeth, in her farewell letter, "so must I endure it if a priest is sent to me; but I now declare that I will tell him not a word, that I will consider him entirely as a stranger to me."

And Marie Antoinette held her word. She forbids not the priest Girard to come in, but she answers in the negative when he asks her if she will receive from him the consolations of religion.

She paces her small cell to and fro, to warm herself, for her feet are stiff with cold. As seven o'clock strikes, the door opens.

It is the executioner of Paris, Samson, who enters.

A slight tremor runs through the queen's frame. "You come very early, sir," murmurs she, "could you not delay somewhat?"

As Samson replies in the negative, Marie Antoinette assumes again a calm, cold attitude. She drinks without any reluctance the cup of chocolate which has been brought to her from a neighboring cafe. Proudly, calmly, she allows her hands to be bound with strong ropes behind her back.

At eleven o'clock she finally leaves her room to descend the corridor, and to mount into the wagon which waits for her before the gate of the Conciergerie.

No one guides her on the way; no one bids her a last farewell; no one shows a sympathizing or sad countenance to the departing one.

Alone, between two rows of gendarmes posted on both sides of the corridor, the queen walks forward; behind her is Samson, holding in his hand the end of the rope; the priest and the two assistants of the executioner follow him.

On the path of Death—such is the suite of the queen, the daughter of an emperor!

Perchance at this hour thousands were on their knees to offer to God their heart-felt prayers for Marie Antoinette, whom in the silence of the soul they still call "the queen;" perchance many thousand compassionate hearts pour out warm tears of sympathy for her who now ascends into the miserable wagon, and sits on a plank which ropes have made firm to both sides of the vehicle. But those who pray and weep have retired into the solitude of their rooms, for God alone must receive their sighs and see their tears. The eyes which follow the queen on her last journey must not weep; the words which are shouted at her must betray no compassion.

Paris knows that this is the hour of the queen's execution, and the Parisian crowd is ready, it is waiting. In the streets, in the windows of the houses, on the roofs, the people have stationed themselves in enormous masses; they fill the whole Place de la Revolution with their dark, destructive forms.

Now resound the drums of the National Guard posted before the Conciergerie. The large white horse, which draws the chariot in which Marie Antoinette sits backward, at the side of the priest, is driven onward by the man who swings on its back. Behind her in the wagon is Samson and his assistants.

The queen's face is white; all blood has left her cheeks and lips, but her eyes are red; they have wept so much, unfortunate queen! She weeps not now. Not one tear dims her eye, which pensively and calmly soars above the crowd, then is lifted up to the very roofs of the houses, then again is slowly lowered, and seems to stare over the human heads away into infinite distance.

Calm and pensive as the eye is the queen's countenance, her lips are nearly closed, no nervous movement on her face tells whether she suffers, whether she feels, whether she notices those tens of thousands of eyes which are fixed on her, cold, curious, sarcastic! And yet Marie Antoinette sees every thing! She sees yonder woman who lifts up her child; she sees how this child with his tiny hands sends a kiss to the queen! Suddenly a nervous agitation passes over the queen's features, her lips tremble, and her eyes are obscured with a tear! This first, this single token of human sympathy has revived the heart of the queen and awakened her from her torpor.

But the people are bent upon this, that Marie Antoinette shall not reach the end of her journey with this last comfort of pity. They press on, howling and shouting, scorning and jubilant, nearer and nearer to the wagon; they sing sarcastic songs on Madame Veto, they clap hands, and point at her with the finger of scorn.

She, however, is calm; her look, cold and indifferent, runs over the crowd; only once it flames up with a last angry flash as she passes by the Palais Royal, where Philippe Egalite, the ex-Duke d'Orleans, resides, as she reads the inscription which he had placed at the gate of his palace.

At noon the chariot reaches at last its destination. It stops at the foot of the scaffold, and Marie Antoinette alights from the wagon, and then calm and erect ascends the steps of the scaffold.

Her lips have not opened once on this awful journey; they now have no word of complaint, of farewell! The only farewell which she has yet to say on earth is told by her look—by a look which is slowly directed yonder to the Tuileries—it is the farewell to past memories—it deepens the pallor on the cheeks, it opens her lips to a painful sigh. She then bows her head—a momentary, breathless silence follows. Samson lifts up the white head, which once had been the head of the Queen of France, and the people cry and shout, "Long live the republic!"



CHAPTER XIII.

THE ARREST.

Uninterruptedly had the guillotine for the last three months of the year 1793 continued its destructive work of murder, and the noblest and worthiest heads had fallen under this reaper of Death. No personal merit, no nobility of character, no age, no youth, could hope to escape the death-instrument of the revolution when a noble name stood up as accuser. Before this accuser every service was considered as nothing; it was enough to be an aristocrat, a ci- devant, to be suspected, to be dragged as a criminal before the tribunal of the revolution, and to be condemned.

The execution of the queen was followed by that of the Girondists; and this brilliant array of noble and great men was followed in the next month by names no less noble, no less great. It was an infuriated chase of the aristocrats as well as of the officers, of all the military persons who, in the unfortunate days of Toulon and of Mayence, had been in the army, and who had been dismissed, or whose resignation had been accepted.

The aristocrats were tracked in their most secret recesses, and not only were they punished, but also those who dared screen them from the avenging hand of the republic. The officers were recognized under every disguise, and the very fact that they had disguised themselves or remained silent as to their true character was a crime great enough to be punished with the guillotine.

More than twenty generals were imprisoned during the last months of the year 1793, and many more paid with their lives for crimes which they had never committed, and which had existence only in the heated imagination of their accusers. Thus had General Houchard fallen; he was followed in the first days of the new year of 1794 by the Generals Luckner and Biron.

Alexandre de Beauharnais had served under Luckner, he had been Biron's adjutant, he had been united with General Houchard in the unfortunate attempt to relieve Mayence. It was therefore natural that he should be noticed and espied. Besides which, he was an aristocrat, a relative of many of the emigres, the brother of the Count de Beauharnais, who was now residing in Coblentz with the Count d'Artois, and it had not been forgotten what an important part Alexandre de Beauharnais had played in the National Assembly; it was well known that he belonged to the moderate party, that he had been the friend of the Girondists.

Had the Convention wished to forget it, the informers were there to remind them of it. Alexandre de Beauharnais was denounced as suspected, and this denunciation was followed, in the first days of January, by an arrest. He was taken to Paris, and at first shut up in the Luxemburg, where already many of his companions-in-arms were incarcerated.

Josephine was not in Ferte-Beauharnais when the emissaries of the republic came to arrest her husband. She was just then in Paris, whither she had gone to seek protection and assistance for Alexandre at the hands of influential acquaintances; in Paris she learned the arrest of her husband.

The misfortune, which she had so long expected and foreseen, was now upon her and ready to crush her and the future of her children. Her husband was arrested—that is to say, he was condemned to die.

At this thought Josephine rose up like a lioness; the indolence, the dreamy quietude of the creole, had suddenly vanished, and Josephine was now a resolute, energetic woman, anxious to risk every thing, to try every thing, so as to save her husband, the father of her children. She now knew no timidity, no trembling, no fear, no horror; every thing in her was decision of purpose; keen, daring action. Letters, visits, petitions, and even personal supplications, every thing was tried; there was no humiliation before which she shrank. For long hours she sat in the anterooms of the tribunal of the revolution, of the ministers who, however much they despised the aristocrats, imitated their manners, and made the people wait in the vestibule, even as the ministers of the tyrant had done; with tears, with all the eloquence of love, she entreated those men of blood and terror to give her back her husband, or at least not to condemn him before he had been accused, and to furnish him with the means of defence.

But those new lords and rulers of France had no heart for compassion; Robespierre, Marat, Danton, could not be moved by the tears which a wife could shed for an accused husband. They had already witnessed so much weeping, listened to so many complaints, to so many cries of distress, their eyes were not open for such things, their ears heard not.

France was diseased, and only by drawing away the bad blood could she be restored to health, could she be made sound, could she rise up again with the strength of youth! And Marat, Danton, Robespierre, were the physicians who were healing France, who were restoring her to health by thus horribly opening her veins. Marat and Danton murdered from bloodthirsty hatred, from misanthropy and vengeance; Robespierre murdered through principle, from the settled fanatical conviction, that France was lost if all the old corrupt blood was not cleansed away from her veins, so as to replenish them with youthful, vitalizing blood.

Robespierre was therefore inexorable, and Robespierre now ruled over France! He was the dictator to whom every thing had to bow; he was at the head of the tribunal of revolution; he daily signed hundreds of death-warrants; and this selfsame man, who once in Arras had resigned his office of judge because his hand could not be induced to sign the death-warrant of a convicted criminal [Footnote: See "Maximilian Robespierre," by Theodore Mundt, vol. i.]—this man, who shed tears over a tame dove which the shot of a hunter had killed, could, with heart unmoved, with composed look, sit for long hours near the guillotine on the tribune of the revolution, and gaze with undimmed eyes on the heads of his victims falling under the axe.

He was now at the summit of his power; France lay bleeding, trembling at his feet; fear had silenced even his enemies; no one dared touch the dreaded man whose mere contact was death; whose look, when coldly, calmly fixed on the face of any man, benumbed his heart as if he had read his sentence of death in the blue eyes of Robespierre.

At the side of Robespierre sat the terrorists Fouquier-Tinville and Marat, to whom murder was a delight, blood-shedding a joy, who with sarcastic pleasure listened unmoved to the cries, to the tearful prayers of mothers, wives, children, of those sentenced to death, and who fed on their tears and on their despair.

With such men at the head of affairs it was natural that the reign of terror should still be increasing in power, and that with it the number of the captives in the prisons should increase.

In the month of January, 1794, the list of the incarcerated within the prisons of Paris ran up to the number of 4,659; in the month of February the number rose up to 5,892; in the beginning of April to 7,541; and at the end of the same month it was reckoned that there were in Paris eight thousand prisoners. [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire de la Revolution Francaise," vol. vi., p. 41]

The greater the number of prisoners, the more zealous was the tribunal of the revolution to get rid of them; and with satisfaction these judges of blood saw the new improvements made in the guillotine, and which not only caused the machine to work faster, but also prevented the axe from losing its edge too soon by the sundering of so many necks.

"It works well," exclaimed Fouquier-Tinville, triumphantly; "to-day we have fifty sentenced. The heads fall like poppy-heads!"

And these fifty heads falling like poppy-heads, were not enough for his bloodthirstiness.

"It must work better still," cried he; "in the next decade, I must have at least four hundred and fifty poppy-heads!"

And then, as if inspired by a joyous and happy thought, his gloomy countenance became radiant with a grinning laughter, and, rubbing his hands with delight, he continued: "Yes, I must have four hundred and fifty! Then, if we work on so perseveringly, we will soon write over our prison-gates, 'House to let!'" [Footnote: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine."]

They worked on perseveringly, and the vehicles which carried the condemned to execution rolled every morning with a fresh freight through the streets of Paris, where the guillotine, with its glaring axe, awaited them.

The month of April, as already said, had brought the number of prisoners in Paris to eight thousand; the month of April had therefore more executions to engrave with its bloody pen into the annals of history. On the 20th of April fell on the Place de la Revolution the heads of fourteen members of the ex-Parliament of Paris; the next day followed the Duke de Villeroy, the Admiral d'Estaing, the former Minister of War Latour du Pin, the Count de Bethune, the President de Nicolai. One day after, the well-laden wagon drove from the Conciergerie to the Place de la Revolution; in it were three members of the Constituent Assembly, and to have belonged to it was the only crime they were accused of. Near these three sat the aged Malesherbes, with his sister; the Marquis de Chateaubriand, with his wife; the Duchess de Grammont, and Du Chatelet. It will be seen that the turn for women had now come; for those women who were now led to the execution had committed no other crime than to be the wives or the relatives of emigrants or of accused persons, than to bear names which had shone for centuries in the history of France.

Josephine also had an ancient aristocratic name; she also was related to the migrated ones, the wife of an accused, of a prisoner! And she wearied the tribunal of the revolution constantly with petitions, with visits, with complaints. They were tired of these molestations, and it was so easy, so convenient to shield one's self against them! There was nothing else to do but to arrest Josephine; for once a prisoner, she could no longer—in anterooms, where she would wait for hours; in the street before the house-door, where she would stand, despite rains and winds—she could no longer trouble the rulers of France, and beseech them with tears and prayers for her husband's freedom. The prisoner could no more write petitions, or move heaven and earth for her husband's sake.

The Viscountess de Beauharnais was arrested. On the 20th of April, as she happened to be at the proper authority's office to obtain a pass according to the new law, which ordered all ci-devants to leave Paris in ten days, Josephine was arrested and led into the Convent of the Carmelites, which for two years had served as a prison for the bloody republic, and from which so many of its victims had issued to mount the wagon which led them to the guillotine.

Amid this wretchedness there was one sweet joy. Alexandre de Beauharnais had no sooner heard of the arrest of his wife, than he asked as a favor from the tribunal of the revolution to be removed into the same prison where his wife was. In an incomprehensible fit of merciful humor his prayer was granted; he was transferred to the Convent of the Carmelites, and if the husband and wife could not share the same cell, yet they were within the same walls, and could daily (through the turnkeys, who had to be bribed by all manner of means, by promises, by gold, as much as could be gathered together among the prisoners) hear the news.

Josephine was united to her husband. She received daily from him news and messages; she could often, in the hours when the prisoners in separate detachments made their promenades in the yard and in the garden, meet Alexandre, reach him her hand, whisper low words of trust, of hope, and speak with him of Eugene and Hortense, of these dear children who, now deserted by their parents, could hope for protection and safety only from the faithfulness and love of their governess, Madame Lanoy. The thought of these darling ones of her heart excited and troubled Josephine, and all the pride and courage with which she had armed her heart melted into tears of anxiety and into longings for her deserted children.

But Madame Lanoy with the most faithful solicitude watched over the abandoned ones; she had once sworn to Josephine that if the calamity, which Josephine had constantly anticipated, should fall upon her and upon her husband, she would be to Hortense and Eugene a second mother; she would care for them and protect them as if they were her own children. And Madame Lanoy kept her promise.

To place them beyond the dangers which their very name made imminent, and also perhaps to give by means of the children evidence of the patriotic sentiments of the parents, Madame Lanoy left with the children the viscount's house, where they had hitherto resided, and occupied with both of them a small shabby house, where she established herself as seamstress. The little eleven-year-old Hortense, the daughter of the Citizeness Beauharnais, was now the assistant of the Citizeness Lanoy, at the trade of seamstress. Eugene was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker; a leather apron was put on, and then with a plank under his arm, and carrying a plane in his hand, he went through the streets to the workshop of the cabinet- maker, and every one lauded the patriotic sentiments of the Citizeness Lanoy, who tried to educate the brood of the ex- aristocrats into orderly and moral beings.

Eugene and Hortense fell rapidly and understandingly into the plan of their faithful governess; they transformed themselves in their language, in their dress, in their whole being and appearance, into little republicans, full of genuine patriotism. Like their cousin, Emile de Beauharnais, whose mother (the wife of the elder brother of the Viscount de Beauharnais) had already for a long time languished in prison, they attended the festivals which had for its object the glorification of the republic, and, alongside of the Citizeness Lanoy, the little milliner Hortense followed the procession of her quarter of the city, perhaps to awaken thereby the good-will of the authorities in favor of her imprisoned parents.

Then, when Madame Lanoy thought this good-will had been gained, she made a step further, and undertook to have the children present to the Convention a petition for their parents. This petition ran thus:

"Two innocent children appeal to you, fellow-citizens, for the freedom of their dear mother—their mother against whom no reproach can be made but the misfortune of being born in a class from which, as she has proven, she ever felt completely estranged, for she has ever surrounded herself with the best patriots, the most distinguished men of the Mountain. After she had on the 26th of Germinal requested a pass in order to obey the law, she was arrested on the evening of that day without knowing the cause. Citizen representatives, you cannot be guilty of oppressing innocence, patriotism, and virtue. Give back to us unfortunate children our life. Our youth is not made for suffering." Signed: EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS, aged twelve years, and HORTENSE BEAUHARNAIS, aged eleven years. [Footnote: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," par Aubenas.]

To this complaint of two deserted children no more attention was paid than to the cries of the dove which the hawk carries away in its claws, but perhaps the innocent touching words of the petition had awakened compassion in the heart of some father.

It is true no answer was given to the petition of the children, but the Citizeness Lanoy was allowed to take the children of the accused twice a week into the reception-room of the Carmelite Convent, that there they might see and speak to their mother.

This was a sweet comfort, an unhoped-for joy, as well to Josephine as to her husband; for if he was not permitted to come into the lower room and see the children, yet he now saw them through the eyes of his wife, and through her he received the wishes of their tender affection.

What happiness for Josephine, who loved her children with all the unrestrained fondness of a Creole! what happiness to see her Eugene, her Hortense, and to be permitted to speak to them! How much they had to say one to another, how much to communicate one to the other!

It is true much had to be passed in silence if they would not excite the anger of the turnkey, who was always present at the meeting of the children with their mother. Strict orders had been given that Josephine should never whisper one word to the children, or speak to them of the events of the day, of what was going on beyond the prison walls. The least infringement of this rule was to be punished by debarring the children from having any further conversation with their mother.

And yet they had so much to say; they needed her advice so much, so as to know what future steps they might take to accomplish their mother's freedom! They had so much to tell to Josephine about relatives and friends, and above all so much to say about what was going on outside of the prison! But how bring her news? how speak to their mother? how receive her message in such a way that the jailer's ears could not know what was said?

Love is full of invention. It turns every thing into subserviency to its end. Love once turned the dove into a carrier; love made Josephine's children find out a new mail-carrier—it made them invent the lapdog mail.

Josephine, like all Creoles, had, besides her love for flowers, botany, and birds, a great fondness for dogs. Never since the earliest days of her childhood had Josephine been seen in her room, at the promenade, or in her carriage, without one of these faithful friends and companions of man, which share with the lords of creation all their good qualities and virtues, without being burdened with their failings. The love, the faithfulness, the cunningness of dogs are virtues, wherewith they successfully rival man, and the dogs boast only of one quality which amongst men is considered a despicable vice, namely, the canine humbleness which these animals practise, without egotism, without calculation, whilst man practises it only when his interest and his selfishness make it seem advantageous.

Two years before, a friend of Josephine had given her a small, young model of the then fashionable breed of dogs, a small lapdog, and at once Josephine had made a pet of the little animal, which had been recommended to her as the progeny of a rare and genuine race of lapdogs. It is true the little Fortune had not fulfilled what had been promised; he had not grown up exactly into a model of beauty and loveliness. With small feet, a long body of a pale yellow rather than red, a thick, double, flat nose, this lapdog had nothing of its race but the black face, and the tail in the shape of a corkscrew. Besides all this, he was undoubtedly of a surly, quarrelsome disposition, and he preferred the indolent and ease of his cushion to either a promenade with Josephine or to a game with her children.

But since Josephine was no more there, since her beautiful hands no more presented him his food, a change had come over Fortune's character; he had awakened from the effeminacy of happiness to full activity. The children had but to say, "We are going to mamma," and at once Fortune would spring up from his cushion with a cheerful bark, and run out into the streets, describing circles and performing joyous leaps. Fortune, as soon as the reception-room of the prison was opened, was always the first to rush in, barking loudly at the jailer; then, when his spite was over, to run with all the signs of passionate tenderness toward his mistress; then he would surround her with caresses, and leap, bark, and whine, until she noticed him, until she should have kissed and embraced the children, and then taken him up in her arms.

But one day, as the door of the reception-room opened, and Eugene and Hortense entered with Madame Lanoy, Fortune's loud barking trumpet sounded not, and he sprang not forward toward Josephine. He walked on gravely with measured steps at the side of Madame Lanoy, who led him with a string which she had fastened to his collar. With important, thoughtful mien, he gazed resignedly and gravely at his mistress, and even for his hated foe the jailer he had but a dull growl, which he soon repressed.

Josephine was somewhat alarmed at this change in Fortune's demeanor, and after she had welcomed, taken to her bosom and kissed her darling children, after she had saluted the good Madame Lanoy, she inquired why Fortune was so sad and why he was led as a captive.

"Because he is so wild and unruly, mamma," said Eugene, with a peculiar smile, "because he wants always to be the first to salute you, and because he barks so loud that we cannot possibly for some time hear what our dear mamma has to say."

"And then, in the street, he is so wicked and troublesome," cried Hortense, with eagerness, "and he always begins quarrelling and fighting with every dog which passes by, and we must stand there and wait for him when we are so anxious to see our dear mamma."

"For all these reasons," resumed Madame Lanoy, with slow, solemn intonation, "for all these reasons we have thought it necessary to chain Fortune and to tighten up his collar."

"And you have done quite well, citizeness," growled the turnkey, "for I had already thought of silencing forever the abominable lapdog if he again barked at me so."

Josephine said nothing, but the peculiar smile she had noticed on her children's face had passed, at the words of Madame Lanoy, over Josephine's radiant countenance, and she now with her pet names called Fortune to her, to press him to her heart, to pat him, and by all these caresses to make amends for his having his collar somewhat tightened.

But whilst thus petting him, and tenderly smoothing down his sleek fur, her slim fingers quickly and cautiously passed under the wide collar of Fortune. Then her eyes were rapidly directed toward the jailer. He was engaged in animated conversation with Madame Lanoy, who knew how to make him talk, by inquiring after the health of his little sick daughter.

A second time Josephine's fingers were passed under Fortune's collar—for she had well understood the words of Madame Lanoy—with a woman's keen instinct she understood why Fortune's collar had been drawn closer about him. She had felt the thin, closely-folded paper, which was tied up with the string in the dog's collar, and she drew it out rapidly, adroitly to hide it in her hand. She then called Hortense and Eugene, and whilst she talked with them, she slowly and carefully, under pretext of adjusting more closely the kerchief round her neck, secreted the paper in her bosom.

The jailer had seen nothing; he was telling Madame Lanoy, with all the pride of a kind father, that all the prisoners were anxious about his little Eugenie; that all, more than once a day, inquired how it fared with the little one; that she was the pet of the prisoners, who were so delighted to have the child with them, and for long hours to jest and play with her. Unfortunate captives, who nattered the child, and feigned love for it, so as to move the father's heart, and instil into it a little compassion for their misfortune!

When Eugene and Hortense came the next time with their faithful Lanoy, Fortune was again led by the string as a prisoner, and this time Josephine was still more affectionate than before. She not only welcomed him at his entrance, and lifted him up in her arms, but she was yet, if possible, more affectionate toward him at the time of departure, and embraced him, and tried if the collar had not been buckled on too tightly, if the string which was tied round it did not hurt him too much. And whilst she examined this, Eugene was telling the jailer that he was now a worthy apprentice of a cabinet- maker, and that he hoped one day to be a useful citizen of the republic. The jailer was listening to him with a complacent smile, and had no suspicion that at this moment Josephine's cunning fingers were making sure with the string under the collar the note in which she gave an answer to the other note that she had before found under the collar of Fortune. [Footnote: "Souvenirs d'un Sexagenaire," par M.L. Arnould, vol. iii., p. 3.]

From this day, Josephine knew every thing of importance in Paris; from this time she could point out to her children the means to pursue so as to win to their parents influential and powerful friends, so that they might one day be delivered from their captivity. Fortune was love's messenger between Josephine and her children; a beam of happiness had penetrated both cells, where lived Alexandre de Beauharnais and Josephine, and they owed this gleam only to the lapdog mail.



CHAPTER XIV.

IN PRISON.

Since France had become a democratic republic, since the differences in rank were abolished, and liberty, equality, and fraternity alone prevailed, the aristocracy was either beyond the frontiers of France or else in the prisons. Outside of the prison were but citoyens and citoyennes; inside of the prison were yet dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses; there, behind locks and bars, the aristocracy was represented in its most glorious and high-sounding names.

And there also, within these walls, was the proud, strict dame, whom Marie Antoinette had once, to her misfortune, driven away from the Tuileries, and who had not been permitted to possess a single foot of ground in all France—there, within the prison with the aristocrats, lived also Madame Etiquette. She had to leave the Tuileries with the nobility, and with the nobility she had entered into the prisons of the Conciergerie and of the Carmelite Convent. There she ruled with the same authority and with the same gravity as once in happier days she had done in the king's palace.

The republic had mixed together the prisoners without any distinction, and in the hall, where every morning they gathered together to attend to the roll-call of the condemned who were to report for the guillotine; in the narrow rooms and cells, where they passed the rest of the day, the republic had made no distinction between all these inmates of the prison, dukes and simple knights, duchesses and baronesses, princesses of the blood and country nobility of inferior degree. But etiquette was there to remedy this unseemliness of fate and to re-establish the natural order of things—etiquette, which had enacted rules and laws for the halls of kings, enforced them also in the halls of prisons. Only for the ladies of the most ancient nobility, the duchesses and princesses of the blood, in the prison-rooms, as once in the king's halls, the small stool (tabouret) was reserved, and they were privileged to occupy the rush-bottomed seats which were in the prisons, and which now replaced the tabouret. No lady of inferior rank would consent to sit down in their presence unless these ladies of superior rank had expressly requested and entitled their inferior companions of misfortune to do so. When, at the appointed hour, the halls were abandoned for the general promenade in the yards of the Conciergerie, or in the small cloistered gardens of the Carmelites, this recreation was preceded by a ceremony which shortened its already short hour by at least ten minutes: the ladies and the gentlemen, according to their order, rank, and nobility, placed themselves in two rows on either side of the outer door, and between them passed on first in ceremonial order of rank, as at a court- festival, the ladies and gentlemen who at court were entitled to the high and small levees, as well as to the tabouret, and to the kissing of the queen's hand. As they passed, each bowed low, and then, with the same due observance of rank, as was customary at court, the ladies and gentlemen of inferior titles followed two by two, when the higher nobility had passed. [Footnote: "Souvenirs de la Marquise de Crequi," vol. v].

It was yet the court-society which was assembled here in the rooms and cells of the prison; only this court-society, this aristocracy, had no more King Louis to do homage unto, but they served another king, they bowed low before another queen! This king to whom the nobility of France belonged was Death; this queen to which proud heads bowed low was the Guillotine!

It was King Death who now summoned the aristocrats to his court; the scaffold was the hall of festivity where solemn homage was made to this king. It would therefore have been against all etiquette to crowd into this hall of festivity with beclouded countenance; this would have diminished the respect due to King Death, if he had not been approached with full-court ceremonial, and with the serene, easy smile of a courtier. To die, to meet death was now a distinction, an honor for which each almost envied the other. When at ten o'clock in the morning the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his loud, croaking voice, as Death's harbinger, the names of those whose death-warrants had been yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would have immediately to leave the hall, to mount the wagons which were already waiting at the prison's gate to drive them to the guillotine.

While the jailer read his list, suspense and excitement were visible on all faces, but no one would have so deeply lowered himself as to betray fear or anguish when his name fell from the lips of the jailer. The smile remained on the lip, friends and acquaintances were bidden farewell with a cheerful salutation, and with easy, unaffected demeanor they quitted the hall to mount the fatal vehicle.

To die gracefully was now considered as much bon ton as it had been once fashionable gracefully to enter the ballroom and do obeisance to the king; contempt and scorn would have followed him who might have exhibited a sorrowful mien, hesitation, or fear.

One morning the jailer had read his list, and sixteen gentlemen and ladies of the aristocracy had consequently to leave the hall of the Conciergerie to enter both wagons now ready at the gate. As they were starting for the fatal journey a second turnkey appeared, to say that through some accident only one of the wagons was ready, and that consequently only eight of the sentenced ones could be driven to the guillotine. This meant that the accident nullified eight death-warrants and saved the lives of eight sentenced persons. For it was not probable that these eight persons would next morning be honored with an execution. Their warrants were signed, their names had been called; neither the tribunal of the revolution nor the jailer could pay special attention whether their heads had fallen or not. The next day would bring on new condemnations, new lists, new distinctions for the wagons, new heads for the guillotine. Whoever, on the day appointed for the execution, missed the guillotine, could safely reckon that his life was saved; that henceforth he was amongst the forgotten ones, of whom a great number filled the prisons, and who expected their freedom through some favorable accident.

To-day, therefore, only eight of the sixteen condemned were to mount the wagon. But who were to be the favored ones? The two turnkeys, with cold indifference, left the choice to the condemned. Only eight could be accommodated in the wagon, they said, and it was the same who went or who remained. "Make your choice!"

A strife arose among the sixteen condemned ones—not as to who might remain behind, but as to those who might mount into the wagon.

The ladies declared that, according to the rules of common politeness, which allowed ladies to go first, the choice belonged to them; the gentlemen objected to this motion of the ladies on the plea that to reach the guillotine steps had to be ascended, and as etiquette required that in going up-stairs the gentlemen should always precede the ladies, they were also now entitled to go first and to mount the steps of the scaffold before the ladies. At last all had to give way to the claims of the Duchess de Grammont, who declared that at this festival as at every other the order of rank was to be observed, and that she, as well as all the gentlemen and ladies of superior rank, had the undisputed privilege now, as at all other celebrations, to take the precedency.

No one ventured to oppose this decision, and the Duchess de Grammont, proud of the victory won, was the first to leave the room and mount the wagon.

Another time the turnkey began to read the list: every one listened with grave attention, and at every call a clear, cheerful "Here I am!" followed.

But after the jailer, with wearied voice, had many times repeated a name from his list, the accustomed answer failed. No one came forward, no one seemed to be there to lay claim to that name and to the execution. The jailer stopped a few minutes, and as all were dumb, he continued, indifferent and unmoved, to call out the names.

"We will then have only fifteen heads to deliver to-day," said he, after reading the list, "for there must have been a mistake. One of the names is false, or else the person to whom it belongs has already been delivered."

"It is probably but a blunder of the pen!" exclaimed a handsome young man who, smiling, stepped out of the crowd of listeners and passed on to the side where the victims stood. "You read Chapetolle. There is no such name here. The hand of the writer was probably tired of writing the numerous lists of those who are sentenced to death, and he has therefore written the letters wrong. My name is Chapelotte, and I am the one meant by Chapetolle."

"I do not know," said the jailer, "but it is certain that sixteen sentenced ones ought to go into the wagons, and that only fifteen have reported themselves in a legal way."

"Well, then, add me in an illegal manner to your fifteen," said the young man, smiling. "Without doubt it is my name they intended to write. I do not wish to save my life through a blunder in writing, and who knows if another time I may find such good company as to-day in your chariot? Allow me then to journey on with my friends."

The jailer had no reason to refuse him this journey, and he had the satisfaction besides of being thus able to deliver sixteen sentenced prisoners to the guillotine.

Such was the society of the aristocrats, among whom Josephine lived the long, dreary days of her imprisonment. The cell she occupied was shared by two companions of misfortune, the Duchess de Aguillon and the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who afterward became Madame Tallien, so distinguished and renowned for her beauty and wit. Therese de Fontenay knew, and every one knew, that she was already sentenced, even if her sentence was not yet written down and countersigned. It was recorded in the heart of Robespierre. He had sentenced her, without any concealment. She had but a few weeks more to endure the martyrdom, the anguish of hope and of expectation. She was his secure victim; Robespierre needed not hasten the fall of this beautiful head, which was the admiration of all who saw it. This beauty was the very crime which Robespierre wanted to punish, for with this beauty, Therese de Fontenay, who then resided in Bordeaux with her husband, had captivated the old friend and associate in sentiments of Robespierre, the fanatical Tallien; with this beauty she had converted the man of blood and terror into a soft, compassionate being, inclined to pardon and to mercy toward his fellow-beings.

Tallien had been sent as commissionnaire from the Convention to Bordeaux, and there with inexorable severity he had raged against the unfortunate merchants, from whom he exacted enormous assessments, and whom he sentenced to the guillotine if they refused, or were unable to pay. But suddenly love changed the bloodthirsty tiger into a sensitive being, and the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who had become acquainted with Tallien in the prison of Bordeaux, had worked a complete change in his whole being. For the first time this man, who unmoved had condemned to death King Louis and the Girondists, found on his lips the word "pardon;" for the first time the hand which had signed so many death-warrants wrote the order to let a prisoner go free.

This prisoner was Therese de Fontenay, the daughter of the Spanish banker Cabarrus, and she rewarded him for the gift of her life with a smile which forever made him her captive. From this time the death-warrants were converted into pardons from his lips, and for every pardon Therese thanked him with a sweet smile, with a glowing look of love.

But this leniency was looked upon as criminal by the tribunal of terror in Paris. They recalled the culprit who dared pardon instead of punishing; and if Robespierre did not think himself powerful enough to send Tallien as a traitor and as an apostate to the scaffold, he punished him for his leniency by separating from him Therese de Fontenay, who had abandoned the husband forced upon her, and who had followed Tallien to Paris, and Robespierre had sent her to prison.

There, at the Carmelites', was Therese de Fontenay; she occupied the same cell as Josephine; the same misfortune had made them companions and friends. They communicated one to the other their hopes and fears; and when Josephine, with tears in her eyes, spoke to her friend of her children, of her deep anguish, for they were alone and abandoned in the world outside of the prison walls, whilst their unfortunate pitiable mother languished in prison, Therese comforted and encouraged her.

"So long as one lives there is hope," said Therese, with her enchanting smile. "Myself, who in the eyes of you all am sentenced to death, hope—no, I hope not—I am convinced that I will soon obtain my freedom. And I swear that, as soon as I am free, I will stir heaven and earth to procure the liberty of my dear friend Josephine and of her husband the Viscount de Beauharnais, and to give back to the poor orphaned children their parents."

Josephine answered with an incredulous smile, and a shrugging of the shoulders; and then Therese's very expressive countenance glowed, and her large, black eyes flashed deeper gleams.

"You have no faith in me, Josephine," she said, vehemently; "but I repeat to you, I will soon obtain my freedom, and then I will procure your liberty and that of your husband."

"But how will you obtain that?" asked Josephine, shaking her head.

"I will ruin Robespierre," said Therese, gravely.

"In what do your means of ruining him consist?"

"In this letter here," said Therese, as she drew out of her bosom a small paper folded up. "See, this sheet of paper; it consists but of a few lines which, since they would not furnish me with writing- materials, I have written with my blood on this sheet of paper, which I found yesterday in the garden during the promenade. The turnkey will give this letter to-day to Tallien. He has given me his word, and I have promised him that Tallien will recompense him magnificently for it. This letter will ruin Robespierre and make me free, and then I will procure the freedom of the Viscount and of the Viscountess de Beauharnais."

"What then, in that letter is the magic word which is to work out such wonders?"

Therese handed the paper to her friend.

"Read," said she, smiling.

Josephine read: "Therese of Fontenay to the citizen Tallien. Either in eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be a curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to risk his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his sake meets death—who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed he must destroy the bloodthirsty fiend or be ruined by him. Therese de Fontenay will ever love her Tallien if he delivers her; she will hate him, even in death, if he sacrifices her to Robespierre's blood-greediness!"

"If, through mishap, Robespierre should receive this letter, then you and Tallien are lost," sighed Josephine.

"But Tallien, and not Robespierre, will receive it, and I am saved," exclaimed Therese. "Therefore, my friend, take courage and be bold. Wait but eight days patiently. Let us wait and hope."

"Yes, let us wait and hope," sighed Josephine. "Hope and patience are the only companions of the captive."



CHAPTER XV.

DELIVERANCE.

Meanwhile the patience of the unfortunate prisoners of the Carmelite convent were to be subjected to a severe trial; and the very next day after this conversation with Therese de Fontenay, Josephine believed that there was no more hope for her, that she was irrevocably lost, as her husband was lost. For three days she had not seen the viscount, nor received any news from him. Only a vague report had reached her that the viscount was no longer in the Carmelite convent, but that he had been transferred to the Conciergerie.

This report told the truth. Alexandre de Beauharnais had once more been denounced, and this second accusation was his sentence of death. For some time past the fanatical Jacobins had invented a new means to find guilty ones for the guillotine, and to keep the veins bleeding, so as to restore France to health. They sent emissaries into the prisons to instigate conspiracies among the prisoners, and to find out men wretched enough to purchase their life by accusing their prison companions, and by delivering them over to the executioner's axe. Such a spy had been sent into that portion of the prison where Beauharnais was, and he had begun his horrible work, for he had kindled discord and strife among the prisoners, and had won a few to his sinister projects. But Beauharnais's keen eye had discovered the traitor, and he had loudly and openly denounced him to his fellow-prisoners. The next day, the spy disappeared from the prison, but as he went he swore bloody vengeance on General de Beauharnais. [Footnote: "Memoires du Comte de Lavalette," vol. i., p. 175.]

And he kept his word; the next morning De Beauharnais was summoned for trial, and the gloomy, hateful faces of his judges, their hostile questions and reproaches, the capital crimes they accused him of, led him to conclude that his death was decided upon, and that he was doomed to the guillotine.

In the night which followed his trial, Alexandre de Beauharnais wrote to his wife a letter, in which he communicated to her his sad forebodings, and bade her farewell for this life. The next day he was transferred to the Conciergerie—that is to say, into the vestibule of the scaffold.

This letter of her husband, received by Josephine the next day after her conversation with Therese de Fontenay, ran thus:

"The fourth Thermidor, in the second year of the republic. All the signs of a kind of trial, to which I and other prisoners have been subjected this day, tell me that I am the victim of the treacherous calumny of a few aristocrats, patriots so called, of this house. The mere conjecture that this hellish machination will follow me to the tribunal of the revolution gives me no hope to see you again, my friend, no more to embrace you or our children. I speak not of my sorrow: my tender solicitude for you, the heartfelt affection which unites me to you, cannot leave you in doubt of the sentiments with which I leave this life.

"I am also sorry to have to part with my country, which I love, for which I would a thousand times have laid down my life, and which I no more can serve, but which beholds me now quit her bosom, since she considers me to be a bad citizen. This heart-rending thought does not allow me to commend my memory to you; labor, then, to make it pure in proving that a life which has been devoted to the service of the country, and to the triumph of liberty and equality, must punish that abominable slanderer, especially when he comes from a suspicious class of men. But this labor must be postponed; for in the storms of revolution, a great people, struggling to reduce its chains to dust, must of necessity surround itself with suspicion, and be more afraid to forget a guilty man than to put an innocent one to death.

"I will die with that calmness which allows man to feel emotion at the thought of his dearest inclinations—I will die with that courage which is the distinctive feature of a free man, of a clear conscience, of an exalted soul, whose highest wishes are the prosperity and growth of the republic.

"Farewell, my friend; gather consolation from my children; derive comfort in educating them, in teaching them that, by their virtues and their devotion to their country, they obliterate the memory of my execution, and recall to national gratitude my services and my claims. Farewell to those I love: you know them! Be their consolation, and through your solicitude for them prolong my life in their hearts! Farewell! for the last time in this life I press you and my children to my heart!—ALEXANDRE BEAUHARNAIS."

Josephine had read this letter with a thousand tears, but she hoped still; she believed still in the possibility that the gloomy forebodings of her husband would not be realized; that some fortunate circumstance would save him or at least retard his death.

But this hope was not to be fulfilled. A few hours after receiving this letter the turnkey brought to the prisoners the bulletin of the executions of the preceding day. It was that day Josephine's turn to read this bulletin to her companions. She therefore began her sad task; and, as slowly and thoughtfully she let fall name after name from her lips, here and there the faces of her hearers were blanched, and their eyes filled with tears.

Suddenly Josephine uttered a piercing cry, and sprang up with the movement of madness toward the door, shook it in her deathly sorrow, as if her life hung upon the opening of that door, and then she sank down fainting.

Unfortunate Josephine! she had seen in the list of those who had been executed the name of General Beauharnais, and in the first excitement of horror she wanted to rush out to see him, or at least to give to his body the parting kiss.

On the sixth Thermidor, in the year II., that is, on the 24th of July, 1794, fell on the scaffold the head of the General Viscount de Beauharnais. With quiet, composed coolness he had ascended the scaffold, and his last cry, as he laid his head on the block, was, "Long live the republic!"

In the wagon which drove him to the scaffold, he had found again a friend, the Prince de Salm-Kirbourg, who was now on his way to the guillotine, and who had risked his life in bringing back to Paris the children of Josephine.

His bloodthirsty enemies had not enough of the head of General Beauharnais; his wife's head also should fall, and the name of the traitor of his country was to be extinguished forever.

Two days after the execution of her husband, the turnkey brought to Josephine the writ of her accusation, and the summons to appear before the tribunal of the revolution—a summons which then had all the significancy of a death-warrant.

Josephine heard the summons of the jailer with a quiet, easy smile; she had not even a look for the fatal paper which lay on her bed. Near this bed stood the physician, whom the compassionate republic, which would not leave its prisoners to die on a sick-bed, but only on the scaffold, had sent to Josephine to inquire into her illness and afford her relief.

With indignation he eagerly snatched the paper from the bed, and, returning it back to the jailer, exclaimed: "Tell the tribunal of the revolution that it has nothing more to do with this woman! Disease will bring on justice here, and leave nothing to do for the guillotine. In eight days Citoyenne Beauharnais is dead!" [Footnote: Aubenas, "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 235.]

This decision of the physician was transmitted to the tribunal, which resolved that the trial of Madame Beauharnais would be postponed for eight days, and that the tribunal would wait and see if truly death would save her from the guillotine.

Meanwhile, during these eight days, events were to pass which were to give a very different form to the state of things, and impart to the young republic a new, unexpected attitude.

Robespierre ruled yet, he was the feared dictator of France! But Tallien had received the note of his beautiful, fondly-loved Therese, and he swore to himself that she should not ascend the scaffold, that she should not curse him, that he would possess her, that he would win her love, and destroy the fiend who stood in the way of his happiness, whose blood-streaming hands were every day ready to sign her death-warrant.

On the very same day in which he received the letter of Therese, he conversed with a few trusty friends, men whom he knew detested Robespierre as much as himself, and who all longed for an occasion to destroy him. They planned a scheme of attack against the dictator who imperilled the life of all, and from whom it was consequently necessary to take away life and power, so as to be sure of one's life. It was decided to launch an accusation against him before the whole Convention, to incriminate him as striving after dominion, as desirous of breaking the republic with his bloody hands, and ambitious to exalt himself into dictator and sovereign. Tallien undertook to fulminate this accusation against him, and they all agreed to wait yet a few days so as to gain amongst the deputies in the Convention some members who would support the accusation and give countenance to the conspirators. On the ninth Thermidor this scheme was to be carried out; on the ninth Thermidor, Tallien was to thunder forth the accusation against Robespierre and move his punishment!

This enterprise, however, seemed a folly, an impossibility, for at this time Robespierre was at the height of his power, and fear weighed upon the whole republic as a universal agony. No one dared oppose Robespierre, for a look from his eye, a sign from his hand sufficed to bring death, to lead to the scaffold.

The calm, peaceful, and united republic for which Robespierre had toiled, which had been the ultimate end of his bloodthirstiness, was at last there, but this republic was built upon corpses, was baptized with streams of blood and tears. And now that the republic had given up all opposition, now that she bowed, trembling under the hand of her conqueror, now, Robespierre wanted to make her happy, he wanted to give her what the storms of past years had ravished from her—he wanted to give the republic a God! On the tribune of the Convention, on this tribune which was his throne, rose Robespierre, to tell with grave dignity to the republic that there was a Supreme Being, that the soul of man was immortal. Then, accompanied by the Convention, he proceeded to the Champ de Mars, to inaugurate the celebration of the worship of a Supreme Being as his high-priest. But amid this triumph, on his way to the Champ de Mars, Robespierre the conqueror had for the first time noticed the murmurs of the Tarpeian rock; he had noticed the dark, threatening glances which were directed at him from all sides. He felt the danger which menaced him, and he was determined to remove it from his person by annihilating those who threatened.

But already terror had lost its power, no one trembled before the guillotine, no one took pleasure in the fall of the axe, in the streams of blood, which empurpled the Place de la Revolution. The fearful stillness of death hung round the guillotine, the people were tired of applauding it, and now and then from the silent ranks of the people thundered forth in threatening accents the word "tyrant!" which, as the first weapon of attack, was directed against Robespierre, who, on the heights of the tribune, was throned with his unmoved, calm countenance.

Robespierre felt that he must strike a heavy, decisive blow against his foes and annihilate them. On the eighth Thermidor, he denounced a plot organized by his enemies for breaking up the Convention. Through St. Just he implicated as leaders of this conspiracy some eminent members of the committees, and requested their dismissal. But the time was past when his motions were received with jubilant acclamations, and unconditionally obeyed. The Convention decided to submit the motion of Robespierre to a vote, and the matter was postponed to the next morning's session.

In the night which preceded the contemplated action of the Convention, Robespierre went to the Jacobin Club and requested assistance against his enemies in the Convention. He was received with enthusiasm, and a general uprising of the revolutionary element was decided upon, and organized for the following morning.

The same night, Tallien, his friends and adherents, met together, and the mode of attack for the following day, the ninth Thermidor, was discussed, and the parts assigned to each.

The prisoners in the Carmelite convent did not of course suspect any thing of the events which were preparing beyond the walls of their prison. Even Therese de Fontenay was low-spirited and sad; for this day, the ninth Thermidor, was the last day of respite fixed by her to Tallien for her liberty.

This was also the last day of respite which had saved Josephine from the tribunal of the revolution, through the decision of her physician. Death had spared her head, but now it belonged to the executioner. The captives feared the event, and they were confirmed in this fear by the jailer, who, on the morning of the ninth Thermidor, entered the room which Josephine, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, and Therese de Fontenay occupied, and who removed the camp-bed which Josephine had hitherto used as a sofa, to give it to another prisoner.

"How," exclaimed the Duchess d'Aiguillon, "do you want to give this bed to another prisoner? Is Madame de Beauharnais to have a better one?"

The turnkey burst into a coarse laugh. "Alas! no," said he, with a significant gesture, "Citoyenne Beauharnais will soon need a bed no more."

Her friends broke into tears; but Josephine remained composed and quite. At this decisive moment a fearful self-possession and calmness came over her; all sufferings and sorrow appeared to have sunk away, all anxiety and care seemed overcome, and a radiant smile illumined Josephine's features, for, through a wondrous association of ideas, she suddenly remembered the prophecy of the negro-woman in Martinique.

"Be calm, my friends," said she, smiling; "weep not, do not consider me as destined to the scaffold, for I assure you I am going to live: I must not die, for I am destined to be one day the sovereign of France. Therefore, no more tears! I am the future Queen of France!"

"Ah!" exclaimed the Duchess d'Aiguillon, half angry and half sad, "why not at once appoint your state dignitaries?"

"You are right," said Josephine, eagerly; "this is the best time to do so. Well, then, my dear duchess, I now appoint you to be my maid of honor, and I swear it will be so."

"My God! she is mad!" exclaimed the duchess, and, nearly fainting, she sank upon her chair.

Josephine laughed, and opened the window to admit some fresh air. She perceived there below in the street a woman making to her all manner of signs and gestures. She lifted up her arms, she then took hold of her dress, and with her hand pointed to her robe.

It was evident that she wished through these signs and motions to convey some word to the prisoners, whom perhaps she knew, for she repeatedly took hold of her robe with one hand, and pointed at it with the other.

"Robe?" cried out Josephine interrogatively.

The woman nodded in the affirmative, then took up a stone, which she held up to the prisoner's view.

"Pierre?" ask Josephine.

The woman again nodded in the affirmative, and then placed the stone (pierre) in her robe, made several times the motion of falling, then of cutting off the neck, and then danced and clapped her hands.

"My friends," cried Josephine, struck with a sudden thought, "this woman brings us good news, she tells us Robespierre est tombe." (Robespierre has fallen.)

"Yes, it is so," exclaimed Therese, triumphantly; "Tallien has kept his word; he conquers, and Robespierre is thrust down!"

And, overpowered with joy and emotion, the three women, weeping, sank into each other's arms.

They now heard from without loud cries and shouts. It was the jailer, quarrelling with his refractory dog. The dog howled, and wanted to go out with his master, but the jailer kicked him back, saying: "Away, go to the accursed Robespierre!"

Soon joyous voices resounded through the corridor; the door of their cell was violently opened, and a few municipal officers entered to announce to the Citizeness Madame Fontenay that she was free, and bade her accompany them into the carriage waiting below to drive her to the house of Citizen Tallien. Behind them pressed the prisoners who, from the reception-room, had followed the authorities, to entreat them to give them the news of the events in Paris.

There was now no reason for the municipal authorities to make a secret of the events which at this hour occupied all Paris, and which would soon be welcomed throughout France as the morning dawn of a new day.

Robespierre had indeed fallen! Tallien and his friends had in the Convention brought against the despot the accusation that he was striving for the sovereign power, and that he had enthroned a Supreme Being merely to proclaim himself afterward His visible representative, and to take all power in his own hands. When Robespierre had endeavored to justify himself, he had been dragged away from the speaker's tribune; and, as he defended himself, Tallien had drawn a dagger on Robespierre, and was prevented from killing the tyrant by a few friends, who by main force turned the dagger away. Immediately after this scene, the Convention decided to arrest Robespierre and his friends Couthon and St. Just; and the prisoners, among whom Robespierre's younger brother had willingly placed himself, were led away to the Luxemburg. [Footnote: The next day, on the tenth Thermidor, Robespierre, who in the night had attempted to put an end to his life with a pistol, was executed with twenty-one companions. His brother was among the number of the executed.]

The prisoners welcomed this news with delight; for with the fall of Robespierre, had probably sounded for them the hour of deliverance, and they could hope that their prison's door would soon be opened, not to be led to the scaffold, but to obtain their freedom.

Therese de Fontenay, with the messengers sent by Tallien, left the Carmelite cloisters to fulfil the promise made by her to Tallien in her letter, to become his wife, and to pass at his side new days of happiness and love.

She embraced Josephine tenderly as she bade her farewell, and renewed to her the assurance that she would consider it her dearest and most sacred duty to obtain her friend's liberty.

In the evening of the same day, Josephine's camp-bed was restored to her; and, stretching herself upon it with intense delight, she said smilingly to her friends: "You see, I am not yet guillotined; I will be Queen of France." [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine," ch. xxxiii.]

Therese de Fontenay, now Citoyenne Tallien, kept her word. Three days after obtaining her liberty, she came herself to fetch Josephine out of prison. Her soft, mild disposition had resumed its old spell over Tallien, whom the Convention had appointed president of the Committee of Safety. The death-warrants signed by Robespierre were annulled, and the prisons were opened, to restore to hundreds of accused life and liberty. The bloody and tearful episode of the revolution had closed with the fall of Robespierre, and on the ninth Thermidor the republic assumed a new phase.

Josephine was free once more! With tears of bliss she embraced her two children, her dear darlings, found again! In pressing her offspring to her heart with deep, holy emotion, she thought of their father, who had loved them both so much, who had committed to her the sacred trust of keeping alive in the hearts of his children love for their father.

Encircling still her children in her arms, she bowed them on their knees; and, lifting up to heaven her eyes, moist with tears, she whispered to them: "Let us pray, children; let us lift up our thoughts to heaven, where your father is, and whence he looks down upon us to bless his children."

Josephine delayed not much longer in Paris, where the air was yet damp with the blood of so many murdered ones; where the guillotine, on which her husband had died, lifted yet its threatening head. She hastened with her children to Fontainebleau, there to rest from her sorrows on the heart of her father-in-law, to weep with him on the loss they both had suffered.

The dream of her first youth and of her first love had passed away, and to the father of her beheaded husband Josephine returned a widow; rich in gloomy, painful experiences, poor in hopes, but with a stout heart, and a determination to live, and to be at once a father and a mother to her children.



BOOK II.

THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.

CHAPTER XVI.

BONAPARTE IN CORSICA.

The civil war which for four years had devastated France had also with its destruction and its terrors overspread the French colonies, and in Martinique as well as in Corsica two parties stood opposed to each other in infuriated bitterness—one fighting for the rights of the native land, the other for the rights of the French people, for the "liberty, equality, and fraternity" which the Convention in Paris had adopted for its motto, since it delivered to the guillotine, on the Place de la Revolution, the heads of those who dared lay claim for themselves to this liberty of thought so solemnly proclaimed.

In Corsica both parties fought with the same eagerness as in France, and the execution of Louis XVI. had only made the contest more violent and more bitter.

One of these parties looked with horror on this guillotine which had drunk the blood of the king, and this party desired to have nothing in common with this French republic, with this blood-streaming Convention which had made of terror a law, and which had destroyed so many lives in the name of liberty.

At the head of this party stood the General Pascal Paoli, whom the revolution had recalled to his native isle from his exile of twenty years, and who objected that Corsica should bend obediently under the blood-stained hand of the French Convention, and whose wish it was that the isle should be an independent province of the great French republic.

To exalt Corsica into a free, independent republic had been the idea of his whole life. For the sake of this idea he had passed twenty years in exile; for, after having made Corsica independent of Genoa, he had not been able to obtain for his native isle that independence for which he had fought with his brave Genoese troops. During eight years he had perseveringly maintained the conflict—during eight years he had been the ruler of Corsica, but immovable in his republican principles; he had rejected the title of king, which the Corsican people, grateful for the services rendered to their fatherland, had offered him. He had been satisfied to be the first and most zealous servant of the island, which, through his efforts, had been liberated from the tyrannical dominion of Genoa. But Genoa's appeal for assistance had brought French troops to Corsica; the Genoese, harassed and defeated everywhere by Paoli's brave troops, had finally transferred the island to France. This was not what Paoli wanted—this was not for what he had fought!

Corsica was to be a free and independent republic; she was to bow no more to France than to Genoa; Corsica was to be free.

In vain did the French government make to General Paoli the most brilliant offers; he rejected them; he called the Corsicans to the most energetic resistance to the French occupation; and when he saw that opposition was in vain, that Corsica had to submit, he at least would not yield, and he went to England.