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,