Unfortunate Josephine! she had seen in the list of those who had
been executed the name of General Beauharnais, and in the first
excitement of horror she wanted to rush out to see him, or at least
to give to his body the parting kiss.
On the sixth Thermidor, in the year II., that is, on the 24th of
July, 1794, fell on the scaffold the head of the General Viscount de
Beauharnais. With quiet, composed coolness he had ascended the
scaffold, and his last cry, as he laid his head on the block, was,
"Long live the republic!"
In the wagon which drove him to the scaffold, he had found again a
friend, the Prince de Salm-Kirbourg, who was now on his way to the
guillotine, and who had risked his life in bringing back to Paris
the children of Josephine.
His bloodthirsty enemies had not enough of the head of General
Beauharnais; his wife's head also should fall, and the name of the
traitor of his country was to be extinguished forever.
Two days after the execution of her husband, the turnkey brought to
Josephine the writ of her accusation, and the summons to appear
before the tribunal of the revolution--a summons which then had all
the significancy of a death-warrant.
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