with unaffected interest to their tales of sorrow, weep with 
them, and often interposed in behalf that their tasks might 
be lighter or that a play-day might be allowed them; thus, 
she was as much beloved and admired in the cabin of the poor 
egroes as she was in her uncle’s parlor, where intelligence 
and refinement were assembled. She displayed this same 
character throughout her whole career, being Josephine on 
the throne, Josephine surrounded by the sable maidens of 
artinique, and Josephine moving in queenly splendor in the 
palaces of Versailles, with all the courtiers of Europe revoly- 
ing around her, she displayed the same traits of character, while 
y ron unaffected kindness won the hearts of the lovely and 
exalted. y 
In 1794, when about three hundred thousand innocest vie- 
tims of the Revolution crowded the prisons of France, unhappy 
Captives awaiting their hour of execution, who were aot the 
ignorant, debased, degraded, but the noblest, purest, most 
refined of the citizens of the Republic, during this Reign of 
error, the innocent Josephine was imprisoned in the Convent 
of Carmelites. This place was a vast, gloomy pile, so capacious 
in its halls, chapel, cells, and its subterranean dungeons, that at 
one time nearly ten thousand prisoners were immured within 
its frowning walls. In every part of this building the floors 
were still deeply stained with the blood of the recent massa- 
cres. The infuriated men and women, being intoxicated with 
Tum rage, who had broken into the prison, dragged multitudes 
of their victims, many of whom were priests, into the chapel, 
that they might, in derision of religion poniard them before 
the altar. Hence, Josephine was placed in the chapel of the 
convent, where she found one hundred and sixty men and 
women as the sharers of her an. tea? & Here the natural buoy- 
ancy of disposition led her to be c eerful, entertaining, be a 
Person who caused many of the imprisoned to be gay, happy, 
and amiable to one another. At this time she wrote cheering 
etters to her husband and children, while her smiling counte- 
nance and words of kindness animated with new courage 
the grief-stricken and despairing who surrounded her, where- 
upon she became an immediate and universal favorite with the 
inmates of the prison, for her instinctive tact enabled her to 
approach all acceptably, whatever their rank or character. 
is being the case, she was an influence among the prison- 
ers, where she rei ed, as everywhere else, over the hearts of 
willing subjects. War composure, her cheerfulness, her clear, 
melodious voice, all, caused her to be selected to read, each 
oy, to the ladies, the journal of the preceding day. 
ortense, the daughter of Josephine, being impetuous and 
unreflecting, became so im atient to see her mother, that one 
morning i 3 secretly left her aunt’s house, and, in a market 
16 
