22. The First Interview

In the midst of these joys and amusements of the new-growing Paris, the storm of the thirteenth Vendemiaire launched forth its destructive thunderbolts, and another rent was made in the lofty structure of the republic. The royalists, who had cunningly frequented these bals a la victime, to weave intrigues and conspiracies, found their webs scattered, and the republic assumed a new form.

Napoleon with his sword had cut to pieces the webs and snares of the royalists as well as of the revolutionists, and France had to bow to the constitution. In the Tuileries now sat the Council of the Elders; in the Salle du Manege sat the Five Hundred; and in the palace of Luxemburg resided the five directors of the republic.

On the thirteenth Vendemiaire Paris had passed through a crisis of its revolutionary disease; and, to prevent its falling immediately into another, it permitted the newly-appointed commander-in-chief of the army of the interior of France, General Napoleon Bonaparte, to have every house strictly searched, and to confiscate all weapons found.

Even into the house of the Viscountess de Beauharnais, in the rue Chantereine, came the soldiers of the republic to search for secreted weapons. They found there the sword of Alexandre de Beauharnais, which certainly Josephine had not hidden, for it was the chief ornament of her son's room. When Eugene, on the next Saturday, came to Paris from St. Germain, as he did every week, to pass the Sunday in his mother's house, to his great distress he saw vacant on the wall the place where the sword of his father had been hanging. With trembling voice and tears in her eyes his mother told him that General Bonaparte, the new commander-in-chief, had ordered the sword to be carried away by his soldiers.

A cry of anger and of malediction was Eugene's answer; then with flaming eyes and cheeks burning with rage he rushed out, despite the supplications of his affrighted and anxious mother. Without pausing, without thinking--conscious only of this, that he must have again his father's sword, he rushed on. It was impossible, thought he, that the republic which had deprived his father of the honors due to him, his property, his money--that now, after his death, she should also take away his sword.

He must have this sword again! This was Eugene's firm determination, and this made him bold and resolute. He rushed into the palace where the general-in-chief, Bonaparte, resided, and with daring vehemence demanded an interview with the general; and, as the door-keeper hesitated, and even tried to push away the bold boy from the door of the drawing-room, Eugene turned about with so much energy, spoke, scolded, and raged so loudly and so freely, that the noise reached even the cabinet where General Bonaparte was. He opened the door, and in his short, imperious manner asked the cause of this uproar; and when the servant had told him, with a sign of the hand he beckoned the young man to come in.

Eugene de Beauharnais entered the drawing-room with a triumphant smile, and the eye of General Bonaparte was fixed with pleasure on the beautiful, intelligent countenance, on the tall, powerful figure of the fifteen-year-old boy. In that strange, soft accent which won hearts to Napoleon, he asked Eugene his business. The young man's cheeks became pallid, and with tremulous lips and angry looks, the vehement eloquence of youth and suffering, Eugene spoke of the loss he had sustained, and of the pain which had been added to it by despoiling him of the sword of his father, murdered by the republic.

At these last words of Eugene, Bonaparte's brow was overshadowed, and an appalling look met the face of the brave boy.

"You dare say that the republic has murdered your father?" asked he, in a loud, angry voice.

"I say it, and I say the truth!" exclaimed Eugene, who did not turn away his eyes from the flaming looks of the general. "Yes, the republic has murdered my father, for it has executed him as a criminal, as a traitor to his country, and he was innocent; he ever was a faithful servant of his country and of the republic."

"Who told you that it was so?" asked Bonaparte, abruptly.

"My heart and the republic itself tell me that my father was no traitor," exclaimed Eugene, warmly. "My mother loved him much, and she regrets him still. She would not do so had he been a traitor, and then the republic would not have done what it has done--it would not have returned to my mother the confiscated property of my father, but would, had he been considered guilty, have gladly kept it back."

The grave countenance of Bonaparte was overspread by a genial smile, and his eyes rested with the expression of innermost sympathy on the son of Josephine.

"You think, then, that the republic gladly keeps what it has?" asked he.

"I see that it gladly takes what belongs not to it," exclaimed Eugene, eagerly. "It has taken away my father's sword, which belonged to me, his son, and my mother has made me swear on that sword to hold my father's memory sacred, and to strive to be like him."

"Your mother is, it seems, a very virtuous old lady," said Bonaparte, in a friendly tone.

"My mother is a virtuous, young, and beautiful lady," said Eugene, sturdily; "and I am certain, general, that if you knew her, you would not in your heart have caused her so much pain."

"She has, then, suffered much on account of this sword being taken away?" asked Bonaparte, interested.

"Yes, general, she has wept bitterly over this our loss, as I have. I cannot bear to see my mother weep; it breaks my heart. I therefore implore you to give me back my father's sword; and I swear to you that when I am a man, I will carry that sword only for the defence of my country, as my father had done."

General Bonaparte nodded kindly to the boy. "You are a brave defender of your cause," said he, "and I cannot refuse you--I must do as you wish."

He gave orders to an ordnance officer present in the room to bring General de Beauharnais's sword; and when the officer had gone to fetch it, Bonaparte, in a friendly and sympathizing manner, conversed with the boy. At last the ordnance officer returned, and handed the sword to the general.

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