eauharnais. The bride landed on
October twentieth, and the ceremony took place on December thirteenth.
The young vicomte brought his wife home to a suitable establishment in
the capital. Two children were born to them--Eugene and Hortense; but
before the birth of the latter the husband quarreled with his wife,
for reasons that have never been known. The court granted a
separation, with alimony, to Mme. de Beauharnais, who some years later
withdrew to her father's home in Martinique. Her husband sailed to
America with the forces of Bouille, and remained there until the
outbreak of the Revolution, when he returned, and was elected a deputy
to the States-General.

Becoming an ardent republican, he was several times president of the
National Assembly, and his house was an important center of influence.
In 1790 M. Tascher died, and his daughter, with her children, returned
to France. It was probably at her husband's instance, for she at once
joined him at his country-seat, where they continued to live, as
"brother and sister," until Citizen Beauharnais was made commander of
the Army of the Rhine. As the days of the Terror approached, every man
of noble blood was more and more in danger. At last Beauharnais's turn
came; he too was denounced to the Commune, and imprisoned. Before long
his wife was behind the same bars. Their children were in the care of
an aunt, Mme. Egle, who had been, and was again to be, a woman of
distinction in the social world, but had temporarily sought the
protection of an old acquaintance, a former abbe, who had become a
member of the Commune. The gallant young general was not one of the
four acquitted out of the batch of forty-nine among whom he was
finally summoned to the bar of the revolutionary tribunal. He died on
June twenty-third, 1794, true to his convictions, acknowledging in his
farewell letter to his wife a fraternal affection for her, and
committing solemnly to her charge his own good name, which she was to
restore by proving his devotion to France. The children were to be her
consolation; they were to wipe out the disgrace of his punishment by
the practice of virtue and--civism!

During her sojourn in prison Mme. Beauharnais had made a most useful
friend. This was a fellow-sufferer of similar character, but far
greater gifts, whose maiden name was Cabarrus, who was later Mme. de
Fontenay, who was afterward divorced and, having married Tallien, the
Convention deputy at Bordeaux, became r