e unhappily fulfilled; and he
himself, merely on account of belonging to the aristocracy, was
denounced by his own troops, and deprived of his commission by
authority, arrested, brought to Paris, and thrown into prison. It was
during his imprisonment that the vicomte had the most affecting proofs
of the attachment of Josephine: all the energies of her mind and of her
strong affection were bent on obtaining his liberty; no means she could
devise were left untried; she joined her own supplications to the
solicitations of friends, to whom she had appealed in her emergency; she
endeavored, in the most touching manner, to console and cheer him. But
the gratification of soothing him by her presence and endearments was
soon denied, for she was seized, and taken as a prisoner to the convent
of the Carmelites. A few weeks passed, and the unfortunate vicomte was
brought to trial, and condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal.
Though natural tears fell at thoughts of parting from his wife and
children, and leaving them unprotected in the world, his courage never
forsook him to the last.

When the account of his execution reached Josephine she fainted away,
and was for a long time alarmingly ill. It was while in prison, and
every moment expecting to be summoned before the revolutionary tribunal,
that Josephine cut off her beautiful tresses, as the only gift which she
had to leave her children, for all the family estates in Europe had been
seized, and the destruction of property at St. Domingo had cut off all
supplies from that quarter. Yet, amidst her anxieties, her afflictions,
and her dangers, her fortitude never forsook her, and her example and
her efforts to calm them, to a degree supported the spirits of her
fellow-prisoners. Josephine herself ascribed her firmness to her
implicit trust in the prediction of an old negress which she had
treasured in her memory from childhood. Her trust, indeed, in the
inexplicable mysteries of divination was sufficiently proved by the
interest with which she is said to have frequently applied herself
during her sad hours of imprisonment to learn her fortune from a pack of
cards. Mr. Alison mentions, that he had heard of the prophecy of the
negress in 1801, long before Napoleon's elevation to the throne.
Josephine herself, Mr. Alison goes on to say, narrated this
extraordinary passage in her life in the following terms:

"One morning the jailer entered the chamber where I slept with the