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.