M. Mathiesen met her wishes with a generous pleasure, and through him Josephine received sufficient sums of money to protect her from further embarrassments and anxieties, at least until her mother, who was on the eve of selling a portion of her plantation, could send her some money.
On her return from her business-journey to Hamburg, as she was no longer a poor widow without means, she adopted the courageous resolution of leaving her asylum and returning to dangerous and deserted Paris, there to prepare for her son an honorable future, and endeavor to procure for her daughter an education suited to her rank and capacities.
At the end of the year 1795, Josephine returned with her two children to Paris, which one year before she had left so sorrowfully and so dispirited.
What changes had been wrought during this one year! How the face of things had been altered! The revolution had bled to death. The thirteenth Vendemiaire had scattered to the winds the seditious elements of revolution, and the republic was beginning quietly and peacefully to grow into stature. The Convention, with its Mountain, its terrorists, its Committee of Safety, its persecutions and executions, had outlived its power, which it had consigned to the pages of history with so many tears and so much blood. In a strange contradiction with its own bloody deeds, it celebrated the last day of its existence by a law which, as a farewell to the thousand corpses it had sacrificed to the revolution, it had printed on its gory brow. On the day of its dissolution the Convention gave to France this last law: “Capital punishment is forever abolished.” [Footnote: Norvins, “Histoire de Napoleon,” vol. i., p. 82.]
With this farewell kiss, this love-salutation to the France of the future, to the new self-informing France, the Convention dissolved itself, and in its stead came the Council of Elders, the Council of Five Hundred, and lastly the Directory, composed of five members, among whom had been elected the more eminent members of the Convention, namely, Barras and Carnot.
Josephine’s first movement in Paris was to find the lovely friend whom she made in the Carmelite prison, and to whom she in some measure owed her life, to visit Therese de Fontenay and see if the heart of the beautiful, celebrated woman had in its days of happiness and power retained its remembrances of those of wretchedness and mortal fears.
Therese de Fontenay was now the wife of Tallien, who, elected to the Council of the Five Hundred, continued to play an influential and important part, and therefore had his court of flatterers and time-serving friends as well as any ruling prince. His house was one of the most splendid in Paris; the feasts and banquets which took place there reminded one, by their extravagant magnificence, of the days of ancient Rome, and that this remembrance might still be more striking, ladies in the rich, costly costumes of patrician matrons of ancient Rome appeared at those festivities not unworthy of a Lucullus. Madame Tallien—in the ample robe of wrought gold of a Roman empress, shod with light sandals, from which issued the beautiful naked feet, and the toes adorned with costly rings, her exquisitely moulded arms ornamented with massive gold bracelets; her short curly hair fastened together by a gold bandelet, which rose over the forehead in the shape of a diadem, bejewelled with precious diamonds; the mantle of purple, fringed with gold and placed on the shoulders—was in this costume of such a wonderful beauty, that men gazed at her with astonishment and women with envy.
And this beautiful woman, often worshipped and adored, though sometimes slandered, had amid her triumphs kept a faithful remembrance of the past. She received Josephine with the affection of a true friend. In her generosity she allowed her no time to proffer any request, but came forward herself with offers to intercede for her friend, and to use all the means at her disposal, omitting nothing that would help Josephine to recover her fortune, her lost property. With all the eagerness of true love she took the arm of her friend and led her to Tallien, and with the enchanting smile and attitude of a commanding princess she told him that he must help Josephine to become happy again, that every thing he could do for her would be rewarded by an increasing love; that if he did not do justice to Josephine, she would punish him by her anger and coldness.
Tallien listened with complacency to the praiseworthy commands of his worshipped Therese, and promised to use all his influence to have justice done to the will of the sacrificed General de Beauharnais. He himself accompanied Josephine to Barras, that she might present her application to him personally and request at his hands restitution of her property. She was received by Barras, as well as by the other four directors, with the greatest politeness; each promised to attend to her case and to return to the widow and to the children of Alexandre de Beauharnais the property which had been so unjustly taken from them.
It is true, weeks and months of waiting and uncertainty passed away, but Josephine had hope for a comforter; she had, besides, her beautiful friend Therese Tallien, who with affectionate eloquence endeavored to instil courage into Josephine, and by her constant petitions and prayers did not allow the Directory, amid its many important affairs of government, to forget the case of the poor young widow. Therese took care also that Josephine should appear in society at the receptions and balls given by the members of the new government; and when made timid through misfortune, and depressed at heart by the uncertainty of her narrow lot, she desired to keep aloof from these rejoicings, Therese knew how to convince her that she must sacrifice her love of retirement to her children; that it was her duty to accept the invitations of the Directory, so as to keep alive their interest and favor in her behalf; and that, were she to retreat into solitude and obscurity, she would thereby imperil her future and that of her children.