"I am one of the committee," was the reply, "and, being a shoemaker, I thought these shoes would afford me a reasonable pretext for advertising you, madame."
At this moment M. Beauharnais entered the room, and Josephine, weeping, threw herself into his arms. "You see my husband," she said to the shoemaker.
"I have the honor of knowing him," was the reply.
Beauharnais proudly refuses to attempt an escape.
M. Beauharnais wished to reward the young man on the spot for his magnanimous and perilous deed of kindness. The offer was respectfully but decisively declined. To the earnest entreaties of Josephine and the young man that he should immediately secure his safety by his flight or concealment, he replied,
"I will never flee; with what can they charge me? I love liberty. I have borne arms for the Revolution."
"But you are a noble," the young man rejoined, "and that, in the eye of the Revolutionists, is a crime—an unpardonable crime. And, moreover, they accuse you of having been a member of the Constitutional Assembly."
"That," said M. Beauharnais, "is my most honorable title to glory. Who would not be proud of having proclaimed the rights of the nation, the fall of despotism, and the reign of laws?"
"What laws!" exclaimed Josephine. "It is in blood they are written."