a tranquil
spirit, she passed into the room where her children were sleeping. As
she fixed her eyes upon them, so sweetly lost in slumber, and thought of
the utter abandonment to which they were doomed, her heart throbbed with
anguish, and tears, of such bitterness as are seldom shed upon earth,
filled her eyes. She bent over her daughter, and imprinted a mother's
farewell kiss upon her forehead. The affectionate child, though asleep,
clasped her arms around her mother's neck, and, speaking the thoughts of
the dream passing through her mind, said "Come to bed. Fear nothing.
They shall not take you away this night. I have prayed to God for you."

The tumult in the outer hall continually increasing, Josephine, fearful
of awaking Hortense and Eugene, cast a last lingering look of love upon
them, and, withdrawing from the chamber, closed the door and entered her
parlor. There she found a band of armed men, headed by the brutal wretch
who had so unfeelingly examined her children. The soldiers were hardened
against every appeal of humanity, and performed their unfeeling office
without any emotion, save that of hatred for one whom they deemed to be
an aristocrat. They seized Josephine rudely, and took possession of all
the property in the house in the name of the Republic. They dragged
their victim to the convent of the Carmelites, and she was immured in
that prison, where, but a few months before, more than eight thousand
had been massacred by the mob of Paris. Even the blackest annals of
religious fanaticism can record no outrages more horrible than those
which rampant infidelity perpetrated in these days of its temporary
triumphs.

When Eugene and Hortense awoke, they found themselves indeed alone in
the wide world. They were informed by a servant of the arrest and the
imprisonment of their mother. The times had long been so troubled, and
the children were so familiar with the recital of such scenes of
violence, that they were prepared to meet these fearful perplexities
with no little degree of discretion. After a few tears, they tried to
summon resolution to act worthily of their father and mother. Hortense,
with that energy of character which she manifested through her whole
life, advised that they should go to the Luxembourg, where their father
was confined, and demand admission to share his imprisonment. Eugene,
with that caution which characterized him when one of the leaders in the
army of Napoleon, and when viceroy