Queen Hortense | Page 9

to the wound in his face, from which blood
poured in streams. The death-sentences signed by himself now drank
his own blood, and he had nothing but a rag of a tricolor, thrown him
by a compassionate sans-culotte, with which to bind up the great,
gaping wound on his head. As he sat there in the midst of the
blood-saturated papers, bleeding, groaning, and complaining, an old

National Guard, with outstretched arms, pointing to this ghastly object,
cried: "Yes, Robespierre was right. There is a Supreme Being!"
This period of blood and terror was now over; Robespierre was dead;
Théroigne de Méricourt was no longer the Goddess of Reason, and
Mademoiselle Maillard no longer Goddess of Liberty and Virtue.
Women had given up representing divinities, and desired to be
themselves again, and to rebuild in the drawing-rooms of the capital, by
means of their intellect and grace, the throne which had gone down in
the revolution.
Madame Tallien, Madame Récamier, and Madame de Staël,
reorganized society, and all were anxious to obtain admission to their
parlors. To be sure, these entertainments and reunions still wore a
sufficiently strange and fantastic appearance. Fashion, which had so
long been compelled to give way to the carmagnole and red cap,
endeavored to avenge its long banishment by all manner of caprices
and humors, and in doing so assumed a political, reactionary aspect.
_Coiffures à la Jacobine were now supplanted by coiffures à la victime
and au repentir_. In order to exhibit one's taste for the fine arts, the
draperies of the statues of Greece and ancient Rome were now worn.
Grecian fêtes were given, at which the black soup of Lycurgus was duly
honored, and Roman feasts which, in splendor and extravagance,
rivalled those of Lucullus. These Roman feasts were particularly in
vogue at the palace of Luxembourg, where the directors of the republic
had now taken up their residence, and where Madame Tallien exhibited
to the new French society the new wonders of luxury and fashion. Too
proud to wear the generally-adopted costume of the Grecian republic,
Madame Tallien chose the attire of the Roman patrician lady; and the
gold-embroidered purple robes, and the golden tiara in her black,
shining hair, gave to the charming and beautiful daughter of the
republic the magnificence of an empress. She had also drawn around
her a splendid court. All eagerly pressed forward to pay their respects
to and obtain the good will of the mighty wife of the mighty Tallien.
Her house was the great point of attraction to all those who occupied
prominent positions in Paris, or aspired to such. While in the parlors of
Madame Récamier, who, despite the revolution, had remained a

zealous royalist, the past and the good time of the Bourbons were
whispered of, and witty and often sanguinary bon mots at the expense
of the republic uttered--while in Madame de Staël's parlors art and
science had found an asylum--Madame Tallien and court lived for the
present, and basked in the splendor with which she knew how to invest
the palace of the dictators of France.
In the mean while, Viscountess Josephine Beauharnais had been living,
with her children, in quiet retirement, a prey to sad memories. A day
came, however, when she was compelled to tear herself from this last
consolation of the unhappy, the brooding over the sorrows and losses of
the past, or see her children become the victims of misery and want.
The time had come when she must leave her retirement, and step, as a
petitioner, before those who had the power to grant, as a favor, that
which was hers by right, and restore to her, at least in part, her
sequestered estate. Josephine had known Madame Tallien when she
was still Madame de Fontenay, and it now occurred to her that she
might assist her in her attempt to recover the inheritance of her father.
Madame Tallien, the "Merveilleuse de Luxembourg," also called by her
admirers, "Notre-dame de Thermidor," felt much nattered at being
called on by a real viscountess, who had filled a distinguished position
at the court of King Louis. She therefore received her with great
amiability, and endeavored to make the charming and beautiful
viscountess her friend. But Josephine found that estates were more
easily lost than recovered. The republic, one and indivisible, was
always ready to take, but not to give; and, even with the kindly offices
of Madame Tallien freely exerted in her behalf, it was some time before
Josephine succeeded in recovering her estate. In the mean time, she
really suffered want, and she and her children were compelled to bear
the hardships and mortifications which poverty brings in its train. But
true friends still remained to her in her misery; friends who, with true
delicacy, furnished her with