THE SIBYL
As she had told the young general, Madame de Beauharnais found Madame Tallien waiting for her.
Madame Tallien (Thérèse Cabarus) was, as everybody knows, the daughter of a Spanish banker. She was married to M. Davis de Fontenay, a councillor of the parliament of Bordeaux, but was soon divorced from him. This was at the beginning of '94, when the Terror was at its height.
Thérèse Cabarus wished to rejoin her father, who was in Spain, in order to escape the evils of which proscription was the least. Arrested at the gates of the city, she was brought before Tallien, who fell passionately in love with her at first sight. She made use of this passion to save a great number of victims. At this time love was the most powerful opponent of its rival, death.
Tallien was recalled, and Thérèse Cabarus followed him to Paris, where she was arrested; from the depths of her prison she brought about the 9th Thermidor, after which she was free.
It will be remembered that her first care had been to secure the liberty of her companion in prison, Josephine de Beauharnais.
From that time the two women had been inseparable. One woman only in Paris disputed the palm of beauty with them; and that woman was Madame Récamier.
This evening, as we know, they had decided to go to the fashionable sibyl, Mademoiselle Lenormand, disguised as maids, and under assumed names. In a twinkling the two great ladies were transformed into two charming grisettes.
Their lace caps fell over their eyes, and the hood of a little silk mantle hid the head; clad in short dresses of India muslin, and bravely shod with shoes with paste buckles and stockings embroidered with pink and green, which their skirts did not hide, they jumped into a hired carriage, which they had ordered to stop at the great gate of the house No. 11, Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins. Then, in a trembling voice, like that of all women who are doing something out of the ordinary, Madame de Beauharnais said to the driver: "Rue du Tournon, No. 7."
The carriage stopped at the place indicated, the driver got down from his seat, opened the door, received his fare, and knocked at the house-door, which was opened at once.