to be led to the guillotine. Under these circumstances he wrote the following farewell letter to his wife:
Letter from Beauharnais.
"I have yet a few minutes to devote to affection, tears, and regret, and then I must wholly give myself up to the glory of my fate and to thoughts of immortality. When you receive this letter, my dear Josephine, your husband will have ceased to live, and will be tasting true existence in the bosom of his Creator. Do not weep for him. The wicked and senseless beings
of Josephine to examine the children, hoping to extort from them some evidence against their father. Josephine, in a letter to her aunt, thus describes this singular scene:
Domiciliary visit.
"You would hardly believe, dear aunt, that my children have just undergone a long and minute examination.