ARREST OF M. BEAUHARNAIS AND JOSEPHINE.
A.D. 1786-A.D. 1793
Sadness of Josephine.--Dissipation of Beauharnais.--Repentance of
Beauharnais.--Josephine returns to France.--The jewels.--Anecdote of the
old shoes.--Hortense without shoes.--The kind old sailor.--The shoes
made.--Eventful life of Hortense.--Marriage of Hortense.--Queen of
Holland.--Death of Hortense.--Meeting of Josephine and Beauharnais.--
Influential character of Beauharnais.--Jacobins and Girondists.--The
Jacobins triumphant.--Fearful commotions.--The warning.--Alarm of
Josephine.--Beauharnais proudly refuses to attempt an escape.--
Entreaties of Josephine.--Arrest of Beauharnais.--Beneficence of
Josephine.--The children deceived.--Indiscretions.--Arrest of
Josephine.--Josephine takes leave of her sleeping children.--A mother's
tears.--Brutality of the soldiers.--Josephine dragged to the
Carmelites.--Forlorn condition of the children.--They find a
protector.--Gloomy forebodings of Beauharnais and Josephine.
Josephine remained in Martinique three years. She passed her time in
tranquil sadness, engaged in reading, in educating Hortense, and in
unwearied acts of kindness to those around her. Like all noble minds,
she had a great fondness for the beauties of nature. The luxuriant
groves of the tropics, the serene skies which overarched her head, the
gentle zephyrs which breathed through orange groves, all were congenial
with her pensive spirit. The thought of Eugene, her beautiful boy, so
far from her, preyed deeply upon her heart. Often she retired alone to
some of those lonely walks which she loved so well, and wept over her
alienated husband and her lost child.
M. Beauharnais surrendered himself for a time, without restraint, to
every indulgence. He tried, in the society of sin and shame, to forget
his wife and his absent daughter. He, however, soon found that no friend
can take the place of a virtuous and an affectionate wife. The memory
of Josephine's gentleness, and tenderness, and love came flooding back
upon his heart. He became fully convinced of his injustice to her, and
earnestly desired to have her restored again to him and to his home. He
sent communications to Josephine, expressive of his deep regret for the
past, promising amendment for the future, assuring her of his high
appreciation of her elevated and honorable character, and imploring her
to return with Hortense, thus to reunite the divided and sorrow-stricken
household. It was indeed a gratification to Josephine to receive from
her husband the acknowledgment that she had never ceased to deserve his
confidence. The thought of again pressing Eugene to her bosom filled a
mother's heart with rapture. Still, the griefs which had weighed upon
her were so heavy, that she confessed to her friends that, were it not
for the love which she bore Eugene, she would greatly prefer to spend
the remnant of her days upon her favorite island. Her friends did every
thing in their power to dissuade her from leaving Martinique. But a
mother's undying love triumphed, and again she embarked for France.
In subsequent years, when surrounded by all the splendors of royalty,
she related to some of the ladies of her court, with that unaffected
simplicity which ever marked her character, the following incident,
which occurred during this voyage. The ladies were admiring some
brilliant jewels which were spread out before them. Josephine said to
them, "My young friends, believe me, splendor does not constitute
happiness. I at one time received greater enjoyment from the gift of a
pair of old shoes than all these diamonds have ever afforded me." The
curiosity of her auditors was, of course, greatly excited, and they
entreated her to explain her meaning.
"Yes, young ladies," Josephine continued, "of all the presents I ever
received, the one which gave me the greatest pleasure was _a pair of old
shoes, and those, too, of coarse leather_. When I last returned to
France from Martinique, having separated from my first husband, I was
far from rich. The passage-money exhausted my resources, and it was not
without difficulty that I obtained the indispensable requisites for our
voyage. Hortense, obliging and lively, performing with much agility
the dances of the negroes, and singing their songs with surprising
correctness, greatly amused the sailors, who, from being her constant
play-fellows, had become her favorite society. An old sailor became
particularly attached to the child, and she doted upon the old man. What
with running, leaping, and walking, my daughter's slight shoes were
fairly worn out. Knowing that she had not another pair, and fearing I
would forbid her going upon deck, should this defect in her attire be
discovered, Hortense carefully concealed the disaster. One day I
experienced the distress of seeing her return from the deck leaving
every foot-mark in blood. When examining how matters stood, I found her
shoes literally in tatters, and her feet dreadfully torn by a nail. We
were as yet not more than half way across the ocean, and it seemed
impossible to procure another pair of shoes. I felt quite overcome at
the idea of the sorrow my poor Hortense would suffer, as also at the
danger to which her health might be exposed by confinement in my
miserable little cabin. At this moment our good friend, the old sailor,
entered and inquired the cause of our distress. Hortense, sobbing all
the while, eagerly informed him that she could no more go upon deck,
for her shoes were worn out, and mamma had no others to give her.
'Nonsense,' said the worthy seaman, 'is that all? I have an old pair
somewhere in my chest; I will go and seek them. You, madam, can cut
them to shape, and I will splice them up as well as need be.' Without
waiting for a reply, away hastened the kind sailor in search of his old
shoes; these he soon after brought to us with a triumphant air, and they
were received by Hortense with demonstrations of the most lively joy. We
set to work with all zeal, and before the day closed my daughter could
resume her delightful duties of supplying their evening's diversion
to the crew. I again repeat, never was present received with greater
thankfulness. It has since often been matter of self-reproach that I did
not particularly inquire into the name and history of our benefactor. It
would have been gratifying for me to have done something for him when
afterward means were in my power."
Poor Hortense! most wonderful were the vicissitudes of her checkered
and joyless life. We here meet her, almost an infant, in poverty and
obscurity. The mother and child arrive in Paris on the morning of that
Reign of Terror, the story of which has made the ear of humanity to
tingle. Hortense is deprived of both her parents, and is left in
friendlessness and beggary in the streets of Paris. A charitable
neighbor cherished and fed her. Her mother is liberated, and married to
Napoleon; and Hortense, as daughter of the emperor, is surrounded with
dazzling splendor, such as earth has seldom witnessed. We now meet
Hortense, radiant in youthful beauty, one of the most admired and
courted in the midst of the glittering throng, which, like a fairy
vision, dazzles all eyes in the gorgeous apartments of Versailles and
St. Cloud. Her person is adorned with the most costly fabrics and the
most brilliant gems which Europe can afford. The nobles and princes of
the proudest courts vie with each other for the honor of her hand. She
is led to her sumptuous bridals by Louis Bonaparte, brother of the
emperor; becomes the spouse of a king, and takes her seat upon the
throne of Holland. But in the midst of all this external splendor she
is wretched at heart. Not one congenial feeling unites her with
the companion to whom she is bound. Louis, weary of regal pomp and
constraint, abdicates the throne, and Hortense becomes unendurably weary
of her pensive and unambitious spouse. They agree to separate; each to
journey along, unattended by the other, the remainder of life's
pilgrimage. Hortense seeks a joyless refuge in a secluded castle, in
one of the most retired valleys of Switzerland. The tornado of
counter-revolution sweeps over Europe, and all her exalted friends and
towering hopes are prostrated in the dust. Lingering years of
disappointment and sadness pass over her, and old age, with its
infirmities, places her upon a dying bed. One only child, Louis
Napoleon, since President of the French Republic, the victim of
corroding ambition and ceaselessly-gnawing discontent, stands at her
bed-side to close her eyes, and to follow her, a solitary and lonely
mourner, to the grave. The dream of life has passed. The shadow has
vanished away. Who can fathom the mystery of the creation of such a
drama?
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."
[Illustration: THE WARNING.]
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."
"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.
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, 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."
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.
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.
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.