“‘Ah! that is true,—I had forgotten. Well, my dear, you shall be maid of honor; I promise you the situation.’
“Upon this the tears of those ladies flowed more abundantly; for they thought, on seeing my coolness at such a crisis, that misfortune had affected my reason. Such, ladies, is the truth about this so celebrated prophecy. The end gives me but little inquietude. I live here peacefully in retirement; I have no concern with politics; I endeavor to do all the good in my power; and thus I hope to die calmly in my bed.”
After the death of the Vicomte de Beauharnais on the scaffold, his wife Josephine, who had also been imprisoned by the Jacobins, was at length condemned to die.
A few days before her terrible doom was to have been sealed, Josephine and Madame de Fontenay, also a prisoner, were standing together at the barred window of their prison. M. Tallien, a man of much influence with the rising power which was opposing the tyranny of Robespierre, was in love with Madame de Fontenay, and daily walked past the convent of the Carmelites, where Josephine and the other ladies of high birth were imprisoned.
Observing M. Tallien, Madame de Fontenay made a sign for him to draw near, and she then dropped from the window a piece of cabbage-leaf, in which she had enclosed the following note:—
“My trial is decreed; the result is certain. If you love me as you say, urge every means to save France and me.”
Roused by the danger of her whom he loved, M. Tallien proceeded to the convention, and making an impassioned and eloquent speech, denouncing Robespierre, he turned the tide of popular opinion against the tyrant, and in a short time Robespierre’s head fell under the bloody guillotine, where he had already caused so many thousands to perish.
The manner in which Josephine received the news of her enemy’s death was strange and interesting. It was the day before that upon which it had been decreed that Madame de Beauharnais should be put to death. Josephine was standing at the window of her prison, calmly gazing upon the outward world, while her fellow-prisoners were weeping around, overcome with the thought of the terrible doom which awaited their loved friend. But Josephine’s fortitude did not desert her, and she was endeavoring to comfort her mourning companions, when her attention was arrested by a woman in the street below, who seemed trying to give her some information by various strange signs.
At first the woman held up her robe, pointing to it several times. Josephine called out through the grated window, “Robe?” and the woman eagerly made a sign of assent; and picking up a stone, which in French is pierre, she held it up. Josephine cried out, “Pierre?” and the woman joyfully nodded, and then pointed first to her robe and then to the stone. Whereupon Josephine wonderingly exclaimed, “Robespierre?” and the woman again assented with every mark of delight, and continued to draw her hand around her throat, making the signs of cutting off a head. The glad cry soon resounded through the prison, “Robespierre is dead!”
Thus was the axe lifted from the neck of Josephine, and she soon walked forth free, saying smilingly to her friends:—