Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering against Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the news that, on the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given birth to a daughter at Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft emotions, by milder sentiments of reconciliation.

Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be on the defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but that he now must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own guiltiness, he must accuse his wife of guilt.  She had offered herself as the price of his reconquered freedom; and the viscount, overcome with love, anger, and jealousy, was anxious to become worthy of this price.

He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother’s head with the curse of shame.  He accused, without listening to any justification, and, with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate separation, an immediate divorce.  Vain were the expostulations, the prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin.  Vain were the tears, the assurances of innocence from Josephine.  The tears of an injured woman, the prayers of his sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the whisperings and the seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard, who had secretly accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an unconditional sway.

The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation from his wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most shameless accusations.

Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had awaited the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped, through the voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself, saw herself suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest.  Two years of suffering were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous process, which exposed her person to the idle and malicious tongues of the Parisians.

She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of God and to the justice of the Parliament.  During the time of the process she withdrew, according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street Grenelle, St. Germain.  However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de Beauharnais, her husband’s father, bringing her the children, who, during the time of the unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy, under the guardianship of their grandfather and of a worthy governess.  The members of her husband’s family rivalled each other in their manifestations of affection to a woman so much injured and so incriminated, and openly before the world they declared themselves against the viscount, who, blinded by passion and entirely in the chains of this ensnaring woman, was justifying the innocency of his wife by his own indiscreet demeanor—­by the public exhibition of his passion for Madame de Gisard, and thus caused the accusations launched against Josephine to recoil upon his own head.