It was a nobleman, an aristocrat, who had dared oppose the democratic Convention, and hence the welcome pretext was found to begin the long-wished-for conflict against the aristocrats. One of the deputies of the Mountain made the motion to remove from all public offices, from the army, from the cabinet, all noblemen. Another accused General de Beauharnais, as well as all officers from amongst the nobility, of moderate tendencies, and requested at the same time that a list of all officers from the nobility, and now in the army, should be laid before the Convention.
But on this very day a letter from the general reached the Convention. In this letter he expressed the hope of a speedy rescue of Mayence; he announced that he had completed the organization of his forces and all his preparations, and that soon from the camps of Vicembourg and Lauterburg he would advance against Mayence.
This letter was received by the Convention with loud acclamations, and so took possession of all minds that they passed over the motion of hostility against the nobility, to the order of the day.
Had General de Beauharnais accomplished his purpose—had he succeeded in relieving the garrison besieged in Mayence, now sorely pressed, and in delivering them, this horrible decree which caused so much blood to flow, this decree against the nobility, would never have appeared, and France would have been spared many scenes of cruelty and horror.
Beauharnais hoped still to effect the rescue. Trusty messengers from Mayence had brought him the news that the garrison held on courageously and bravely, and that they could hold their ground a few days longer. Dispatch was therefore necessary; and if in a few days they could be re-enforced, then they would be saved, provided the other generals should advance with their troops in time to attack the Austrian and Prussian forces lying round about Mayence. The French had already succeeded in obtaining some advantages over the enemy; and General de Beauharnais could triumphantly announce to the Convention that, on the 22d of July, a warm encounter with the Prussians had taken place at St. Anna’s chapel, and that he had forced the Prussians to a retreat with considerable loss.
The Convention received this news with jubilant shouts, and already trusted in the sure triumph of the French armies against the united forces of Prussia and Austria. If in these days of joyous excitement some one had dared renew the motion to dismiss Beauharnais from his command because he was a nobleman, the mover would undoubtedly have been considered an enemy of his country.
How much attention in these happy days was paid to the general’s wife—how busy were even the most fanatical republicans, the dreaded ones of the Mountain, to flatter her, to give expression to their enthusiastic praises of the general who was preparing for the arms of the republic so glorious a triumph!
Josephine now came every day to be present in the gallery at the sessions of the Convention, and her gracious countenance radiated a cheerful smile when the minister of war communicated to the Assembly the newly-arrived dispatches which announced fresh advantages or closer approaches of General Beauharnais. By degrees a new confidence filled the heart of Josephine, and the gloomy forebodings, which so long had tormented her, began to fade away.
In the session of the 28th of July, Barrere, with a grave, solemn countenance, mounted the tribune and with a loud, sad voice announced to the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, that a courier had just arrived bringing the news that, on the 23d of July, Mayence, in virtue of an unjust capitulation, had fallen.
A loud, piercing shriek, which issued from the gallery, broke the silence with which the Assembly had received this news. It was Josephine who had uttered this cry—Josephine who was carried away fainting from the hall. She awoke from her long swoon only to shed a torrent of tears, to press her children to her heart, as if desirous to screen them from the perils of death, which now, said her own forebodings, were pressing on from all sides.