Josephine

Jacobins and Girondists

The people, having obtained an entire victory over monarchy and aristocracy, beheaded the king and queen, and drove the nobles from the realm. France was now divided into two great parties. The Jacobins were so called from an old cloister in which they at first held their meetings. All of the lowest, most vicious, and the reckless of the nation belonged to this party. They seemed disposed to overthrow all law, human and divine. Marat, Danton, and Robespierre were the blood-stained leaders of this wild and furious faction. The Girondists, their opponents, were so called from the department of the Gironde, from which most of the leaders of this party came. They wished for a republic like that of the United States, where there should be the protection of life, and property, and liberty, with healthy laws sacredly enforced.

The Jacobins triumphant

The conflict between the two parties was long and terrible. The Jacobins gained the victory, and the Girondists were led to the guillotine. M. Beauharnais was an active member of the Girondist party, of which Madame Roland was the soul, and he perished with them. Many of the Girondists sought safety in concealment and retreat. M. Beauharnais, conscious of his political integrity, proudly refused to save his life by turning his back upon his foes.

Fearful commotions

One morning Josephine was sitting in her parlor, in a state of great anxiety in reference to the fearful commotion of the times, when a servant announced that some one wished to speak to her. A young man of very gentle and prepossessing appearance was introduced, with a bag in his hand, in which were several pairs of shoes.

"Citizen," said the man to Josephine, "I understand that you want socks of plum gray."

Josephine looked up in surprise, hardly comprehending his meaning, when he approached nearer to her, and, in an under tone, whispered, "I have something to impart to you, madame."

"Explain yourself," she eagerly replied, much alarmed; "my servant is faithful."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "my life is at stake in this matter."

"Go, Victorine," said Josephine to her servant, "and call my husband."

The warning

As soon as they were alone, the young man said, "There is not a moment to lose if you would save M. Beauharnais. The Revolutionary Committee last night passed a resolution to have him arrested, and at this very moment the warrant is making out."

Alarm of Josephine

"How know you this?" she demanded, trembling violently.

"I am one of the committee," was the reply, "and, being a shoemaker, I thought these shoes would afford me a reasonable pretext for advertising you, madame."

At this moment M. Beauharnais entered the room, and Josephine, weeping, threw herself into his arms. "You see my husband," she said to the shoemaker.

"I have the honor of knowing him," was the reply.

Beauharnais proudly refuses to attempt an escape

M. Beauharnais wished to reward the young man on the spot for his magnanimous and perilous deed of kindness. The offer was respectfully but decisively declined. To the earnest entreaties of Josephine and the young man that he should immediately secure his safety by his flight or concealment, he replied,

"I will never flee; with what can they charge me? I love liberty. I have borne arms for the Revolution."

"But you are a noble," the young man rejoined, "and that, in the eye of the Revolutionists, is a crime – an unpardonable crime. And, moreover, they accuse you of having been a member of the Constitutional Assembly."

"That," said M. Beauharnais, "is my most honorable title to glory. Who would not be proud of having proclaimed the rights of the nation, the fall of despotism, and the reign of laws?"

"What laws!" exclaimed Josephine. "It is in blood they are written."

"Madame," exclaimed the philanthropic young Jacobin, with a tone of severity, "when the tree of liberty is planted in an unfriendly soil, it must be watered with the blood of its enemies." Then, turning to M. Beauharnais, he said, "Within an hour it will no longer be possible to escape. I wished to save you, because I believe you innocent. Such was my duty to humanity. But if I am commanded to arrest you – pardon me – I shall do my duty; and you will acknowledge the patriot."

Entreaties of Josephine

The young shoemaker withdrew, and Josephine in vain entreated her husband to attempt his escape. "Whither shall I flee?" he answered. "Is there a vault, a garret, a hiding-place into which the eye of the tyrant Robespierre does not penetrate? We must yield. If I am condemned, how can I escape? If I am not condemned, I have nothing to fear."

Arrest of Beauharnais

About two hours elapsed when three members of the Revolutionary Committee, accompanied by a band of armed men, broke into the house. The young shoemaker was one of this committee, and with firmness, but with much urbanity, he arrested M. Beauharnais. Josephine, as her husband was led to prison, was left in her desolated home. And she found herself indeed deserted and alone. No one could then manifest any sympathy with the proscribed without periling life. Josephine's friends, one by one, all abandoned her. The young shoemaker alone, who had arrested her husband, continued secretly to call with words of sympathy.

Beneficence of JosephineThe children deceived

Josephine made great exertions to obtain the release of her husband, and was also unwearied in her benefactions to multitudes around her who, in those days of lawlessness and of anguish, were deprived of property, of friends, and of home. The only solace she found in her own grief was in ministering to the consolation of others. Josephine, from the kindest of motives, but very injudiciously, deceived her children in reference to their father's arrest, and led them to suppose that he was absent from home in consequence of ill health. When at last she obtained permission to visit, with her children, her husband in prison, they detected the deceit. After returning from the prison after their first interview, Hortense remarked to her mother that she thought her father's apartment very small, and the patients very numerous. She appeared for a time very thoughtful, and then inquired of Eugene, with an anxious expression of countenance,

"Do you believe that papa is ill? If he is, it certainly is not the sickness which the doctors cure."

"What do you mean, my dear child?" asked Josephine. "Can you suppose that papa and I would contrive between us to deceive you?"

"Pardon me, mamma, but I do think so."

"Why, sister," exclaimed Eugene, "how can you say so?"

"Good parents," she replied, "are unquestionably permitted to deceive their children when they wish to spare them uneasiness. Is it not so, mamma?"

Josephine was not a little embarrassed by this detection, and was compelled to acknowledge that which it was no longer possible to conceal.

IndiscretionsArrest of Josephine

In the interview which M. Beauharnais held with his wife and his children, he spoke with some freedom to his children of the injustice of his imprisonment. This sealed his doom. Listeners, who were placed in an adjoining room to note down his words, reported the conversation, and magnified it into a conspiracy for the overthrow of the republic. M. Beauharnais was immediately placed in close confinement. Josephine herself was arrested and plunged into prison, and even the terrified children were rigidly examined by a brutal committee, who, by promises and by threats, did what they could to extort from them some confession which would lead to the conviction of their parents.

Josephine takes leave of her sleeping childrenA mother's tears

Josephine, the morning of her arrest, received an anonymous letter, warning her of her danger. It was at an early hour, and her children were asleep in their beds. But how could she escape? Where could she go? Should she leave her children behind her – a mother abandon her children! Should she take them with her, and thus prevent the possibility of eluding arrest? Would not her attempt at flight be construed into a confession of guilt, and thus compromise the safety of her husband? While distracted with these thoughts, she heard a loud knocking and clamor at the outer door of the house. She understood too well the significance of those sounds. With a great effort to retain a tranquil spirit, she passed into the room where her children were sleeping. As she fixed her eyes upon them, so sweetly lost in slumber, and thought of the utter abandonment to which they were doomed, her heart throbbed with anguish, and tears, of such bitterness as are seldom shed upon earth, filled her eyes. She bent over her daughter, and imprinted a mother's farewell kiss upon her forehead. The affectionate child, though asleep, clasped her arms around her mother's neck, and, speaking the thoughts of the dream passing through her mind, said "Come to bed. Fear nothing. They shall not take you away this night. I have prayed to God for you."

Brutality of the soldiersJosephine dragged to the Carmelites

The tumult in the outer hall continually increasing, Josephine, fearful of awaking Hortense and Eugene, cast a last lingering look of love upon them, and, withdrawing from the chamber, closed the door and entered her parlor. There she found a band of armed men, headed by the brutal wretch who had so unfeelingly examined her children. The soldiers were hardened against every appeal of humanity, and performed their unfeeling office without any emotion, save that of hatred for one whom they deemed to be an aristocrat. They seized Josephine rudely, and took possession of all the property in the house in the name of the Republic. They dragged their victim to the convent of the Carmelites, and she was immured in that prison, where, but a few months before, more than eight thousand had been massacred by the mob of Paris. Even the blackest annals of religious fanaticism can record no outrages more horrible than those which rampant infidelity perpetrated in these days of its temporary triumphs.

Forlorn condition of the childrenThey find a protector

When Eugene and Hortense awoke, they found themselves indeed alone in the wide world. They were informed by a servant of the arrest and the imprisonment of their mother. The times had long been so troubled, and the children were so familiar with the recital of such scenes of violence, that they were prepared to meet these fearful perplexities with no little degree of discretion. After a few tears, they tried to summon resolution to act worthily of their father and mother. Hortense, with that energy of character which she manifested through her whole life, advised that they should go to the Luxembourg, where their father was confined, and demand admission to share his imprisonment. Eugene, with that caution which characterized him when one of the leaders in the army of Napoleon, and when viceroy of Italy, apprehensive lest thus they might in some way compromise the safety of their father, recalled to mind an aged great-aunt, who was residing in much retirement in the vicinity of Versailles, and suggested the propriety of seeking a refuge with her. An humble female friend conducted the children to Versailles, where they were most kindly received.

Gloomy forebodings of Beauharnais and Josephine

When the gloom of the ensuing night darkened the city, M. Beauharnais in his cheerless cell, and Josephine in her prison still stained with the blood of massacre, wept over the desolation of their home and their hopes. They knew not the fate of their children, and their minds were oppressed with the most gloomy forebodings. On the ensuing day, Josephine's heart was cheered with the tidings of their safety. Such was the second terrific storm which Josephine encountered on life's dark waters.

Chapter IV.

Scenes in Prison

A.D. 1794Convent of the CarmelitesQuality of the prisoners

The Convent of the Carmelites, in which Josephine was imprisoned, had acquired a fearful celebrity during the Reign of Terror. It was a vast and gloomy pile, so capacious in its halls, its chapel, its cells, and its subterranean dungeons, that at one time nearly ten thousand prisoners were immured within its frowning walls. In every part of the building the floors were still deeply stained with the blood of the recent massacres. The infuriated men and women, intoxicated with rum and rage, who had broken into the prison, dragged multitudes of their victims, many of whom were priests, into the chapel, that they might, in derision of religion, poniard them before the altar. About three hundred thousand innocent victims of the Revolution now crowded the prisons of France. These unhappy captives, awaiting the hour of their execution, were not the ignorant, the debased, the degraded, but the noblest, the purest, the most refined of the citizens of the republic. Josephine was placed in the chapel of the convent, where she found one hundred and sixty men and women as the sharers of her captivity.

Cheerfulness of JosephineReading the daily journalScenes from the prison windows

The natural buoyancy of her disposition led her to take as cheerful a view as possible of the calamity in which the family was involved. Being confident that no serious charge could be brought against her husband, she clung to the hope that they both would soon be liberated, and that happy days were again to dawn upon her reunited household. She wrote cheering letters to her husband and to her children. Her smiling countenance and words of kindness animated with new courage the grief-stricken and the despairing who surrounded her. She immediately became a universal favorite with the inmates of the prison. Her instinctive tact enabled her to approach all acceptably, whatever their rank or character. She soon became prominent in influence among the prisoners, and reigned there, as every where else, over the hearts of willing subjects. Her composure, her cheerfulness, her clear and melodious voice, caused her to be selected to read, each day, to the ladies, the journal of the preceding day. From their windows they could see, each morning, the carts bearing through the streets their burden of unhappy victims who were to perish on the scaffold. Not unfrequently a wife would catch a glimpse of her husband, or a mother of her son, borne past the grated windows in the cart of the condemned. Who can tell the fear and anguish with which the catalogue of the guillotined was read, when each trembling heart apprehended that the next word might announce that some loved one had perished? Not unfrequently a piercing shriek, and a fainting form falling lifeless upon the floor, revealed upon whose heart the blow had fallen.

Anecdote of Hortense

Hortense, impetuous and unreflecting, was so impatient to see her mother, that one morning she secretly left her aunt's house, and, in a market cart, traveled thirty miles to Paris. She found her mother's maid, Victorine, at the family mansion, where all the property was sealed up by the revolutionary functionaries. After making unavailing efforts to obtain an interview with her parents, she returned the next day to Fontainebleau. Josephine was informed of this imprudent act of ardent affection, and wrote to her child the following admirable letter:

Letter from Josephine to Hortense

"I should be entirely satisfied with the good heart of my Hortense were I not displeased with her bad head. How is it, my daughter, that, without permission from your aunt, you have come to Paris? This was very wrong! But it was to see me, you will say. You ought to be aware that no one can see me without an order, to obtain which requires both means and precautions. And, besides, you got upon M. Dorcet's cart, at the risk of incommoding him and retarding the conveyance of his merchandise. In all this you have been very inconsiderate. My child! observe, it is not sufficient to do good; you must also do good properly. At your age, the first of all virtues is confidence and docility toward your relations. I am therefore obliged to tell you that I prefer your tranquil attachment to your misplaced warmth. This, however, does not prevent me from embracing you, but less tenderly than I shall do when I learn that you have returned to your aunt."

Mitigation of severityJosephine appeals to the Committee

There was at this time, for some unknown reason, a little mitigation in the severity with which the prisoners were treated, and Josephine was very sanguine in the belief that the hour of their release was at hand. Emboldened by this hope, she wrote a very earnest appeal to the Committee of Public Safety, before whom the accusations against M. Beauharnais would be brought. The sincerity and frankness of the eloquent address so touched the feelings of the president of the committee, that he resolved to secure for Josephine and her husband the indulgence of an interview. The greatest caution was necessary in doing this, for he periled his own life by the manifestation of any sympathy for the accused.

She is summoned to trialThe unexpected interviewFeeling manifested by Beauharnais

The only way in which he could accomplish his benevolent project was to have them both brought together for trial. Neither of them knew of this design. One morning Josephine, while dreaming of liberty and of her children, was startled by the unexpected summons to appear before the Revolutionary tribunal. She knew that justice had no voice which could be heard before that merciless and sanguinary court. She knew that the mockery of a trial was but the precursor of the sentence, which was immediately followed by the execution. From her high hopes this summons caused a fearful fall. Thoughts of her husband and her children rushed in upon her overflowing heart, and the tenderness of the woman for a few moments triumphed over the heroine. Soon, however, regaining in some degree her composure, she prepared herself, with as much calmness as possible, to meet her doom. She was led from her prison to the hall where the blood-stained tribunal held its session, and, with many others, was placed in an ante-room, to await her turn for an examination of a few minutes, upon the issues of which life or death was suspended. While Josephine was sitting here, in the anguish of suspense, an opposite door was opened, and some armed soldiers led in a group of victims from another prison. As Josephine's eye vacantly wandered over their features, she was startled by the entrance of one whose wan and haggard features strikingly reminded her of her husband. She looked again, their eyes met, and husband and wife were instantly locked in each other's embrace. At this interview, the stoicism of M. Beauharnais was entirely subdued – the thoughts of the past, of his unworthiness, of the faithful and generous love of Josephine, rushed in a resistless flood upon his soul. He leaned his aching head upon the forgiving bosom of Josephine, and surrendered himself to love, and penitence, and tears.

Trial of M. Beauharnais and JosephineHopes cherished

This brief and painful interview was their last. They never met again. They were allowed but a few moments together ere the officers came and dragged M. Beauharnais before the judges. His examination lasted but a few minutes, when he was remanded back to prison. Nothing was proved against him. No serious accusation even was laid to his charge. But he was a noble. He had descended from illustrious ancestors, and therefore, as an aristocrat, he was doomed to die. Josephine was also conducted into the presence of this sanguinary tribunal. She was the wife of a nobleman. She was the friend of Marie Antoinette. She had even received distinguished attentions at court. These crimes consigned her also to the guillotine. Josephine was conducted back to her prison, unconscious of the sentence which had been pronounced against her husband and herself. She even cherished the sanguine hope that they would soon be liberated, for she could not think it possible that they could be doomed to death without even the accusation of crime.

Each evening there was brought into the prison a list of the names of those who were to be led to the guillotine on the ensuing morning. A few days after the trial, on the evening of the 24th of July, 1794, M. Beauharnais found his name with the proscribed who were to be led to the scaffold with the light of the next day. Love for his wife and his children rendered life too precious to him to be surrendered without anguish. But sorrow had subdued his heart, and led him with prayerfulness to look to God for strength to meet the trial. The native dignity of his character also nerved him to meet his fate with fortitude.

Beauharnais's last letter to JosephineBrutality of the executioners

He sat down calmly in his cell, and wrote a long, affectionate, and touching letter to his wife. He assured her of his most heartfelt appreciation of the purity and nobleness of her character, and of her priceless worth as a wife and a mother. He thanked her again and again for the generous spirit with which she forgave his offenses, when, weary and contrite, he returned from his guilty wanderings, and anew sought her love. He implored her to cherish in the hearts of his children the memory of their father, that, though dead, he might still live in their affections. While he was writing, the executioners came in to cut off his long hair, that the ax might do its work unimpeded. Picking up a small lock from the floor, he wished to transmit it to his wife as his last legacy. The brutal executioners forbade him the privilege. He, however, succeeded in purchasing from them a few hairs, which he inclosed in his letter, and which she subsequently received.

Removal of the guillotineExecution of M. Beauharnais

In the early dawn of the morning, the cart of the condemned was at the prison door. The Parisians were beginning to be weary of the abundant flow of blood, and Robespierre had therefore caused the guillotine to be removed from the Place de la Revolution to an obscure spot in the Faubourg St. Antoine. A large number of victims were doomed to die that morning. The carts, as they rolled along the pavements, groaned with their burdens, and the persons in the streets looked on in sullen silence. M. Beauharnais, with firmness, ascended the scaffold. The slide of the guillotine fell, and the brief drama of his stormy life was ended.

Josephine becomes informed thereofHer grief

While the mutilated form of M. Beauharnais was borne to an ignoble burial, Josephine, entirely unconscious of the calamity which had befallen her, was cheering her heart with the hope of a speedy union with her husband and her children in their own loved home. The morning after the execution, the daily journal, containing the names of those who had perished on the preceding day, was brought, as usual, to the prison. Some of the ladies in the prison had received the intimation that M. Beauharnais had fallen. They watched, therefore, the arrival of the journal, and, finding their fears established, they tried, for a time, to conceal the dreadful intelligence from the unconscious widow. But Josephine was eagerly inquiring for the paper, and at last obtaining it, she ran her eye hastily over the record of executions, and found the name of her husband in the fatal list. She fell senseless upon the floor. For a long time she remained in a swoon. When consciousness returned, and with it a sense of the misery into which she was plunged, in the delirium of her anguish she exclaimed, "Oh God! let me die! let me die! There is no peace for me but in the grave."

Her despair

Her friends gathered around her. They implored her to think of her children, and for their sake to prize a life she could no longer prize for her own. The poignancy of her grief gradually subsided into the calm of despair. A sleepless night lingered slowly away. The darkness and the gloom of a prison settled down upon her soul. The morning dawned drearily. A band of rough and merciless agents from the Revolutionary Assembly came to her with the almost welcome intelligence that in two days she was to be led to the Conciergerie, and from thence to her execution. These tidings would have been joyful to Josephine were it not for her children. A mother's love clung to the orphans, and it was with pain inexpressible that she thought of leaving them alone in this tempestuous world – a world made so stormy, so woeful, by man's inhumanity to his fellow-man.

Preparations for the execution of JosephineShe becomes cheerfulCredulity of Josephine

The day preceding the one assigned for her execution arrived. The numerous friends of Josephine in the prison hung around her with tears. The heartless jailer came and took away her mattress, saying, with a sneer, that she would need it no longer, as her head was soon to repose upon the soft pillow of the guillotine. It is reported that, as the hour of execution drew nearer, Josephine became not only perfectly calm, but even cheerful in spirit. She looked affectionately upon the weeping group gathered around her, and, recalling at the moment the prediction of the aged negress, gently smiling, said, "We have no cause for alarm my friends; I am not to be executed. It is written in the decrees of Fate that I am yet to be Queen of France." Some of her friends thought that the suppressed anguish of her heart had driven her to delirium, and they wept more bitterly. But one of the ladies, Madame d'Aiguillon, was a little irritated at pleasantry which she deemed so ill timed. With something like resentment, she asked, "Why, then, madame, do you not appoint your household?" "Ah! that is true," Josephine replied. "I had forgotten. Well, you, my dear, shall be my maid of honor. I promise you the situation." They both lived to witness the strange fulfillment of this promise. Josephine, however, who, from the circumstances of her early life, was inclined to credulity, afterward declared that at the time her mind reposed in the full confidence that in some way her life would be saved, and that the prediction of the negress would be virtually realized.