John Abbott - Josephine

Josephine arrived in France. She was received most cordially by her husband. Sorrowful experience had taught him the value of a home, and the worth of a pure and a sanctified love. Josephine again folded her idolized Eugene in her arms, and the anguish of past years was forgotten in the blissful enjoyments of a reunited family. These bright and happy days were, however, soon again clouded. The French Revolution was now in full career. The king and queen were in prison. All law was prostrate. M. Beauharnais, at the commencement of the Revolution, had most cordially espoused the cause of popular liberty. He stood by the side of La Fayette a companion and a supporter. His commanding character gave him great influence. He was elected a deputy to the Constituent Assembly, and took an active part in its proceedings. Upon the dissolution of this Assembly, or States-General, as it was also called, as by vote none of its members were immediately re-eligible, he retired again to the army; but when the second or Legislative Assembly was dissolved and the National Convention was formed, he was returned as a member, and at two successive sessions was elected its president.

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 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.

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."

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."

"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.

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."

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."

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.

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."