The revolution was there, and nothing could keep back the torrent of blood, fire, enthusiasm, and hatred.  Already the Third Estate had solemnly proclaimed its separation from Old France, from the ancient monarchy of the lilies, since that monarchy had abandoned the large assembly-hall where the States-General held their sessions, and in which the nobility and the clergy still imagined they were able to maintain the balance of power against the despised Third Estate.  The Tiers Etat had, in the ballroom, converted itself into the National Assembly, and with enthusiasm had all these deputies of the third class sworn on the 17th of June, 1789, “never to part one from the other until they had given a constitution to France.”

Alexandre de Beauharnais, deputy from Blois, had passed with his colleagues into the ballroom, had with them taken the fatal oath; in the decisive night of the 4th of August he, with burning enthusiasm, had renounced all the privileges of the nobility, all his feudal rights; and, breaking with the past, with all its family traditions and customs, had passed, with all the passion and zest of his nine-and-twenty years, into the hostile camp of the people and of liberty.

The revolution, which moved onward with such rash and destructive strides, had drawn Alexandre de Beauharnais more and more into its flood.  It had converted the king’s major into an enthusiastic speaker of the Jacobins, then into the secretary of the National Assembly, and finally into its president.

The monarchy was not yet powerless; it fought still with all the bitterness of despair, of the pains of death, against its foes; it still found defenders in the National Assembly, in the faithful regiments of the Swiss and of the guards, and in the hearts of a large portion of the people.  The passions of parties were let loose one against another; and Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, stood naturally in the first rank of those who were threatened by the attacks of the royalists.

Yes, Alexandre de Beauharnais was in danger!  Since Josephine knew this, there was for her but one place which belonged to her, to which she could lay claim—­the place at her husband’s side.

How could she then have withstood his appeals, his prayers?  How could she then have remained in the solitude and stillness of Martinique, when her husband was now in the fight, in the very struggle?  She had, now that fate claimed it, either to share her husband’s triumphs, or to bring him comfort if he fell.

The intercessions of her family, even the tears of her mother, could no longer retain Josephine; at the side of her husband, the father of her two children, there was her place!  No one could deprive her of it, if she herself wished to occupy it.

She was entitled to it, she was still the wife of the Viscount de Beauharnais.  The Parliament, which had pronounced its verdict against the demands of a divorce from the viscount, had, in declaring Josephine innocent, condemned her husband to receive into his house his wife, if she desired it; or else, in case she waived this right, to pay her a fixed annual income.