THE SWORD OF THE VICOMTE DE BEAUHARNAIS  
After events like these, when cannon have thundered in the public squares and blood has run in the streets of the capital, society is always thrown into a turmoil from which it takes a long time to recover.
Although the 14th Vendémiaire had sufficed to remove the most noticeable traces of the combat as well as the corpses, the people continued for a long time to discuss that terrible day, which had resulted in restoring to the Convention threatened with destruction—that is to say, to the Revolution and its authors—the power which they needed to establish those institutions, fear of which had produced the event which we have just related.
The Convention understood so thoroughly on the morning of the 14th that its power was fully restored, that it did not trouble itself as to what had become of the Sectionaries, who had disappeared without leaving any trace of their passage other than the blood they had shed, and which had disappeared during the following day, if not from the memories of the citizens, at least from the pavement of the streets.
They contented themselves with dismissing the staff of the National Guard, disbanding the chasseurs and grenadiers, who were almost all young men, placing the National Guard under the orders of Barras, or rather his young colleague, Bonaparte, to whom the former had abandoned almost all the active part of the work. They also commanded the disarming of the Section Le Peletier, and the Section[Pg 337] Théatre Fran?ais, and finally formed three commissions to try the leading members of the Sectionists, who had almost entirely disappeared.
Anecdotes of the day were related for some time—this day which was destined to leave so lasting and bloody an impression upon the minds of Parisians. The magnificent words which had fallen from the lips of the wounded, or rather from the wounds themselves, on that day of supreme patriotism, were repeated and extolled. They told how the wounded, who had been carried to the Convention in the Salle des Victoires, which had been transformed into a hospital, had been cared for by the gentle hands of the wives and daughters of the members of the Convention, who assumed the r?le of Sisters of Charity.
They praised Barras for choosing his second with such unerring judgment at the first glance, and that second, who, unknown to them on the previous evening, had burst upon them like a god from the midst of thunder and lightning.
Descending from this brilliant pedestal, Bonaparte remained general of the interior; and to be within reach of the staff, who had their headquarters on the Boulevard des Capucines, in what had formerly been the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he took two rooms in the H?tel de la Concorde, Rue Neuve-des-Capucines.
A young man was introduced into the room which he used for a study, under the name of Eugene de Beauharnais.
Although he was already besieged by petitioners, Bonaparte had not yet reached the point of drawing a sharp line as to whom he would or would not receive. Besides, the name of Beauharnais awakened only pleasing memories. He therefore gave orders that the young man was to be admitted.
For those of our readers who have already seen him at Strasbourg some three years earlier, it will suffice to say that he was a handsome young man of sixteen or seventeen years of age.
He had large eyes, thick black hair, red lips, white teeth, and aristocratic hands and feet—a mark of distinction which[Pg 338] the general immediately noticed—and apart from the embarrassment inseparable from a first interview, he had that attractive modesty which is so becoming in youth, above all when its possessor appears as a supplicant.
From the time he entered the room Bonaparte watched him attentively, which did not tend to lessen Eugene's timidity.
But suddenly shaking the feeling off as if it were unworthy of him, he raised his head, and, drawing himself up, said: "After all, I do not see why I should hesitate to proffer a request which is both pious and loyal."
"I am listening," said Bonaparte.
"I am the son of the Vicomte de Beauharnais."
"Of the citizen-general," corrected Bonaparte gently.
"Of the citizen-general, if you............