harge me? I love liberty. I have
borne arms for the Revolution."

"But you are a noble," the young man rejoined, "and that, in the eye of
the Revolutionists, is a crime--an unpardonable crime. And, moreover,
they accuse you of having been a member of the Constitutional Assembly."

"That," said M. Beauharnais, "is my most honorable title to glory. Who
would not be proud of having proclaimed the rights of the nation, the
fall of despotism, and the reign of laws?"

"What laws!" exclaimed Josephine. "It is in blood they are written."

"Madame," exclaimed the philanthropic young Jacobin, with a tone of
severity, "when the tree of liberty is planted in an unfriendly soil,
it must be watered with the blood of its enemies." Then, turning to M.
Beauharnais, he said, "Within an hour it will no longer be possible to
escape. I wished to save you, because I believe you innocent. Such was
my duty to humanity. But if I am commanded to arrest you--pardon me--I
shall do my duty; and you will acknowledge the patriot."

The young shoemaker withdrew, and Josephine in vain entreated her
husband to attempt his escape. "Whither shall I flee?" he answered. "Is
there a vault, a garret, a hiding-place into which the eye of the tyrant
Robespierre does not penetrate? We must yield. If I am condemned, how
can I escape? If I am not condemned, I have nothing to fear."

About two hours elapsed when three members of the Revolutionary
Committee, accompanied by a band of armed men, broke into the house. The
young shoemaker was one of this committee, and with firmness, but with
much urbanity, he arrested M. Beauharnais. Josephine, as her husband was
led to prison, was left in her desolated home. And she found herself
indeed deserted and alone. No one could then manifest any sympathy with
the proscribed without periling life. Josephine's friends, one by one,
all abandoned her. The young shoemaker alone, who had arrested her
husband, continued secretly to call with words of sympathy.

Josephine made great exertions to obtain the release of her husband, and
was also unwearied in her benefactions to multitudes around her who, in
those days of lawlessness and of anguish, were deprived of property, of
friends, and of home. The only solace she found in her own grief was in
ministering to the consolation of others. Josephine, from the kindest of
motives, but very injudiciously, deceived her children in reference to
their father's arrest, and led them to sup