g and St. Pelagie, at that time, only left
their prisons to mount the scaffold. Alone, deprived of all help,
avoided by all whom they had once known and loved, the two children were
threatened with misery, want, and even with hunger, for the estate of
their parents had been confiscated, and, in the same hour in which
Josephine was conducted to prison, the entrances and doors of their
dwelling were sealed, and the poor children left to find a sheltering
roof for themselves. But yet they were not entirely helpless, not quite
friendless, for a friend of Josephine, a Madame Ho1stein, had the
courage to come to the rescue, and take the children into her
own family.

But it was necessary to go to work cautiously and wisely, in order to
avoid exciting the hatred and vengeance of those who, coming from the
scum of the people, were now the rulers of France. An imprudent word, a
look, might suffice to cast suspicion upon, and render up to the
guillotine, this good Madame Ho1stein, this courageous friend of the two
children. It was in itself a capital crime that she had taken the
children of the accused into her house, and it was therefore necessary
to adopt every means of conciliating the authorities. It was thought
necessary that Hortense should, in company with her protectress, attend
the festivals and patriotic processions, that were renewed at every
decade in honor of the one and indivisible republic, but she was never
required to take an active part in these celebrations. She was not
considered worthy to figure among the daughters of the people; she had
not yet been forgiven for being the daughter of a viscount, of an
imprisoned _ci-devant._ Eugene had been apprenticed to a carpenter, and
the son of the viscount was now often seen walking through the streets
in a blouse, carrying a board on his shoulder or a saw under his arm.

While the children of the accused were thus enjoying temporary security,
the future of their parents was growing darker and darker, and not only
the life of the general, but also that of his wife, was now seriously
endangered. Josephine had been removed from the prison of St. Pelagie to
that of the Carmelites, and this brought her a step nearer the scaffold.
But she did not tremble for herself, she thought only of her children
and her husband; she wrote affectionate letters to the former, which she
bribed her jailer to forward to their destination, but all her efforts
to place herself in communicatio