Queen Hortense | Page 9

no longer Goddess of Liberty and Virtue. Women had given up representing divinities, and desired to be themselves again, and to rebuild in the drawing-rooms of the capital, by means of their intellect and grace, the throne which had gone down in the revolution.
Madame Tallien, Madame Récamier, and Madame de Sta?l, reorganized society, and all were anxious to obtain admission to their parlors. To be sure, these entertainments and reunions still wore a sufficiently strange and fantastic appearance. Fashion, which had so long been compelled to give way to the carmagnole and red cap, endeavored to avenge its long banishment by all manner of caprices and humors, and in doing so assumed a political, reactionary aspect. _Coiffures à la Jacobine were now supplanted by coiffures à la victime and au repentir_. In order to exhibit one's taste for the fine arts, the draperies of the statues of Greece and ancient Rome were now worn. Grecian fêtes were given, at which the black soup of Lycurgus was duly honored, and Roman feasts which, in splendor and extravagance, rivalled those of Lucullus. These Roman feasts were particularly in vogue at the palace of Luxembourg, where the directors of the republic had now taken up their residence, and where Madame Tallien exhibited to the new French society the new wonders of luxury and fashion. Too proud to wear the generally-adopted costume of the Grecian republic, Madame Tallien chose the attire of the Roman patrician lady; and the gold-embroidered purple robes, and the golden tiara in her black, shining hair, gave to the charming and beautiful daughter of the republic the magnificence of an empress. She had also drawn around her a splendid court. All eagerly pressed forward to pay their respects to and obtain the good will of the mighty wife of the mighty Tallien. Her house was the great point of attraction to all those who occupied prominent positions in Paris, or aspired to such. While in the parlors of Madame Récamier, who, despite the revolution, had remained a zealous royalist, the past and the good time of the Bourbons were whispered of, and witty and often sanguinary bon mots at the expense of the republic uttered--while in Madame de Sta?l's parlors art and science had found an asylum--Madame Tallien and court lived for the present, and basked in the splendor with which she knew how to invest the palace of the dictators of France.
In the mean while, Viscountess Josephine Beauharnais had been living, with her children, in quiet retirement, a prey to sad memories. A day came, however, when she was compelled to tear herself from this last consolation of the unhappy, the brooding over the sorrows and losses of the past, or see her children become the victims of misery and want. The time had come when she must leave her retirement, and step, as a petitioner, before those who had the power to grant, as a favor, that which was hers by right, and restore to her, at least in part, her sequestered estate. Josephine had known Madame Tallien when she was still Madame de Fontenay, and it now occurred to her that she might assist her in her attempt to recover the inheritance of her father. Madame Tallien, the "Merveilleuse de Luxembourg," also called by her admirers, "Notre-dame de Thermidor," felt much nattered at being called on by a real viscountess, who had filled a distinguished position at the court of King Louis. She therefore received her with great amiability, and endeavored to make the charming and beautiful viscountess her friend. But Josephine found that estates were more easily lost than recovered. The republic, one and indivisible, was always ready to take, but not to give; and, even with the kindly offices of Madame Tallien freely exerted in her behalf, it was some time before Josephine succeeded in recovering her estate. In the mean time, she really suffered want, and she and her children were compelled to bear the hardships and mortifications which poverty brings in its train. But true friends still remained to her in her misery; friends who, with true delicacy, furnished her with the prime necessities of life--with food and clothing for herself and children. In general, it was characteristic of this period that no one felt humiliated by accepting benefits of this kind from his friends. Those who had lost all had not done so through their own fault; and those who had saved their property out of the general wreck could not attribute their fortune to their own merit or wisdom, but merely to chance. They therefore considered it a sacred duty to divide with those who had been less fortunate; and the latter would point with pride to the poverty which proved that they had been true to themselves and principle, and