The sections were defeated; the people, conquered by the Convention, had to recognize its authority; they were no more the sovereigns of France; they had found a ruler before whom they must bow.

This ruler was yet called the Convention, but behind the Convention stood another ruler—­General Bonaparte!

It was he who had defeated the people, who had secured the authority to the Convention, and it was therefore natural that it should be thankful and exhibit its gratitude.  General Bonaparte, in acknowledgment for the great services done to his country, was by the Convention appointed commander-in-chief of the army of the interior, and thus suddenly he saw himself raised from degrading obscurity to pomp and influence, surrounded by a brilliant staff, installed in a handsome palace by virtue of his office as chief officer, entitled to and justified in maintaining an establishment wherein to represent worthily the dignity of his new position.

The 13th Vendemiaire, which dethroned the sovereign people, brought General Bonaparte a step nearer to the throne.

CHAPTER XX.

The widow Josephine beauharnais.

Meanwhile Josephine had passed the first months of her newly-obtained freedom in quiet contentment with her children in Fontainebleau, at the house of her father-in-law.  Her soul, bowed down by so much misery and pain, needed quietness and solitude to allow her wounds to cease bleeding and to heal; her heart, which had experienced so much anguish and so many deceptions, needed to rest on the bosom of her children and her relatives, so as to be quickened into new life.  Only in the solitude and stillness of Fontainebleau did she feel well and satisfied; every other distraction, every interruption of this quiet, orderly existence brought on a nervous trembling, which mastered her whole body, as if some other adversity was about to break upon her.  The days of terror which she had passed in Paris, and especially the days she had outlived in prison, were ever fresh before her mind, and tormented her with their reminiscences alike in her vigils and in her dreams.

She wanted to hear nothing of the world’s events, nothing from Paris, the mention of which place filled her with fear and horror; and with tears in her eyes she entreated her father-in-law to omit all mention of the political changes and revolutions which took place there.

But, alas! the politics from which Josephine fled, to which she closed her ears, rushed upon her against her will—­they came to her in the shape of want and privation.