Page:History of the Empress Josephine (3).pdf/5

 force seized my hand. She appeared to be under the greatest agitation. Amused at these absurdities, as thonght them, I allowed her to proceed, saying, 'So you discover something extraordinary in my destiny?'-'Yes'- 'Is happiness or misfortune to be my lot?'-'misfortune. Ah, stop!-and happiness too.'-'You take care not to commit yourself, my good dame; your oracles are not the most intelligible.'-'I am not permitted to render them more clear,' said the woman raising her eyes with a mysterious expression towards heaven. 'But to the point,' replied I, for my curiosity began to be excited; 'What read you concerning me in the futnre?' 'You will not believe me if I speak.' 'Yes indeed, I assure you. Come, my good mother, What am I fear and hope?' 'On your own head be it then; listen: you will be married soon; that union will not be happy; yon will become a widow, And then-then you will be queen of France! Some happy years will be yours; but you will die in an hospital amid civil commotion.'

We have already stated that Josephine was arrested; and the merited hut dreadful end of Robesierre alone saved Madame de Beauharnois, with about seventy others, destined for the usual morning sacrifice to the deities of Reason and Revolution. Had we not heard her own confession, it might be deemed altogether incredible that under such circumstances, Josephine's thoughts should involuntarily revert to, and dwell upon, the singular prediction which has been reported in the commencement of these memoirs. "In spite of myself," said the empress, long after, to her ladies, “I incessantly revolved in my mind this prophecy. Accustomed thus to exercise my imagination, every thing that had been told me, for some time, began to appear less absurd, and finally terminated in