ll banner,
with its folds shaded the head of his father. "We then embraced each
other," says Josephine, "mingling tears with smiles, and the most
amiable disorder succeeded to the ceremonial of inauguration."

The fascination of Josephine's person and address drew multitudes of
friends around her, and her society was ever coveted. As time softened
the poignancy of her past sorrows, she mingled more and more in the
social circles of that metropolis where pleasure and gayety ever reign.
The terrible convulsions of the times had thrown the whole fabric of
society into confusion. Great efforts were now made to revive the
festivities of former days. Two centers of society were naturally
established. The first included that in which Josephine moved. It was
composed of the remains of the ancient nobility, who had returned to
Paris with the fragments of their families and their shattered fortunes.
Rigid economy was necessary to keep up any appearance of elegance.
But that polish of manners which almost invariably descends from an
illustrious ancestry marked all their intercourse. The humiliations
through which the nobles had passed had not diminished the exclusiveness
of their tastes. The other circle was composed of merchants and bankers
who had acquired opulence in the midst of the confiscations and storms
of revolution. The passion for display was prominent in all their
assemblies, as is necessarily the case with those whose passport to
distinction is wealth.

At the theaters and all the places of public festivity, there were
presented studied memorials of the scenes of horror through which
all had recently passed. One of the most fashionable and brilliant
assemblies then known in Paris was called _The Ball of the Victims_. No
one was admitted to this assembly who had not lost some near relative by
the guillotine. The most fashionable style of dressing the hair was
jocosely called "a la guillotine." The hair was arranged in the manner
in which it had been adjusted by the executioner for the unimpeded
operation of the ax. And thus, with songs, and dances, and
laughter-moving jokes, they commemorated the bloody death of their
friends.

A new insurrection by the populace of Paris was at this time planned
against the Convention. The exasperated people were again to march upon
the Tuilleries. The members were in extreme consternation. The mob could
bring tens of thousands against them, well armed with muskets and heavy
artill