Before God's altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de
Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she
loved the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had
no duties which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice
of her heart and braved public opinion.

She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country
residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de
Beauharnais, with his two sons and their tutor.

The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and
there, during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness
de Renaudin, the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the
friend, the confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely
devoted to study, to the arts, to the sciences, and to household
pleasures.

Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de
Beauharnais had grown up under the care of their maternal friend:
they had been through their collegiate course, had been one year
students at Heidelberg, had returned, had been through the drill of
soldier and officer, a mere form which custom then imposed on young
men of high birth; and the younger son Alexander, the godchild of
the Baroness de Renaudin, had scarcely passed his sixteenth year
when he received his commission as sub-lieutenant.

A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the
Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy
love excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen
years, and awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely