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
Staël'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.