tched arms welcome the sorrowful, yet glad return.

Beauharnais failed to get his divorce. The court said "no cause for
action." He awoke, stared stupidly about, felt the need of sympathy in his
hour of undoing, and looked for--Josephine.

She was gone.

He tried absinthe, gambling, hot dissipation; but he could not forget. He
had sent away his granary and storehouse; his wand of wealth and heart's
desire. Two ways opened for peace, only two: a loaded pistol--or get her
back.

First he would try to get her back, and the pistol should be held in
reserve in case of failure.

Josephine forgave and came back; for a good woman forgives to seventy
times seven.

Beauharnais met her with all the tenderness a lover could command. The
ceremony of marriage was again sacredly solemnized. They retired to the
country and with their two children lived three of the happiest months
Josephine ever knew; at least Josephine said so, and the fact that she
made the same remark about several other occasions is no reason for
doubting her sincerity. Then they moved back to Paris.

Beauharnais sobered his ambitions, and kept good hours. He was a soldier
in the employ of the king, but his sympathies were with the people. He was
a Republican with a Royalist bias, but some said he was a Royalist with a
Republican bias.

Josephine looked after her household, educated her children, did much
charitable work, and knew what was going on in the State.

But those were troublous times. Murder was in the air and revolution was
rife. That mob of a hundred thousand women had tramped out to Versailles
and brought the king back to Paris. He had been beheaded, and Marie
Antoinette had followed him. The people were in power and Beauharnais had
labored to temper their wrath with reason. He had even been Chairman of
the Third Convention. He called himself Citizen. But the fact that he was
of noble birth was remembered, and in September of Seventeen Hundred
Ninety-three, three men called at his house. When Josephine looked out of
the window, she saw by the wan light of the moon a file of soldiers
standing stiff and motionless.

She knew the time had come. They marched Citizen Beauharnais to the
Luxembourg.

In a few feverish months, they came back for his wife. Her they placed in
the nunnery of the Carmelites--that prison where, but a few months before,
a mob relieved the keepers of their vigils by killing all their charges.

Robespierre was supreme.