The Convention received this news with jubilant shouts, and already trusted in the sure triumph of the French armies against the united forces of Prussia and Austria.  If in these days of joyous excitement some one had dared renew the motion to dismiss Beauharnais from his command because he was a nobleman, the mover would undoubtedly have been considered an enemy of his country.

How much attention in these happy days was paid to the general’s wife—­how busy were even the most fanatical republicans, the dreaded ones of the Mountain, to flatter her, to give expression to their enthusiastic praises of the general who was preparing for the arms of the republic so glorious a triumph!

Josephine now came every day to be present in the gallery at the sessions of the Convention, and her gracious countenance radiated a cheerful smile when the minister of war communicated to the Assembly the newly-arrived dispatches which announced fresh advantages or closer approaches of General Beauharnais.  By degrees a new confidence filled the heart of Josephine, and the gloomy forebodings, which so long had tormented her, began to fade away.

In the session of the 28th of July, Barrere, with a grave, solemn countenance, mounted the tribune and with a loud, sad voice announced to the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, that a courier had just arrived bringing the news that, on the 23d of July, Mayence, in virtue of an unjust capitulation, had fallen.

A loud, piercing shriek, which issued from the gallery, broke the silence with which the Assembly had received this news.  It was Josephine who had uttered this cry—­Josephine who was carried away fainting from the hall.  She awoke from her long swoon only to shed a torrent of tears, to press her children to her heart, as if desirous to screen them from the perils of death, which now, said her own forebodings, were pressing on from all sides.

Josephine was not deceived:  this calamitous news, all at once, changed the whole aspect of affairs, gave to the Convention and to the republic another attitude, and threw its dark shadows over the unfortunate general who had undertaken to save Mayence, and had not been able to fulfil his word.

Surely this was not his fault, for General Dubayet had capitulated before it had been possible for Beauharnais to accomplish the rescue.  No one therefore ventured to accuse him, but undeserved misfortune always remains a misfortune in the eyes of those who had counted upon success; and the Convention could never forgive the generals from whom they had expected so much, and who had not met these expectations.

These generals had all been men of the aristocracy.  As there was no reason to accuse them on account of their unsuccessful military operations, it was necessary to attack them with other weapons, and seek a spot where they could be wounded.  This spot was their name, their ancestors, who in the eyes of the republican Convention rose up like embodied crimes behind their progeny, to accuse the guilty.