These recollections of the first terrible days of her youth kept Hortense from feeling the pride and arrogance of good fortune, preserved to her modest, unassuming tone of mind, prevented her from entertaining any overweening or domineering propensity in her day of prosperity, or from seeming cast down and hopeless when adversity came. She never lulled herself with the idea of good fortune that could not pass away, but her remembrances kept her eyes wide open, and hence, when misfortune came, it did not take her by surprise, but found her armed and ready to confront it.

Nevertheless, she drank in the pleasure of these prosperous days in full draughts, delighted as she was to see the mother, of whom she was so fond, surrounded by such a halo of glory and gratified love; and in the name of her murdered father she thanked General Bonaparte with double fervor, from the bottom of her heart, for having been the means of procuring for her mother, who had suffered so deeply in her first wedded life, so magnificent a glow of splendor and happiness in her second marriage.

In the mean while, new days of storm and tumult were at hand to dispel this brief period of tranquil enjoyment. A fresh revolution convulsed all France, and, ere long, Paris was divided into two hostile camps, burning to begin the work of mutual annihilation. On one side stood the democratic republicans, who looked back with longing regret to the days of terrorism and bloodshed, perceiving, as they did, that tranquillity and protracted peace must soon wrest the reins of power from their grasp, and therefore anxiously desiring to secure control through the element of intimidation. This party declared that liberty was in danger, and the Constitution threatened; they summoned the sans-culottes and the loud-mouthed republicans of the clubs to the armed defence of the imperilled country, and pointed with menacing hands at Bonaparte as the man who wished to overthrow the republic, and put France once more in the bonds of servitude.

On the other side stood the discreet friends of the country, the republicans by compulsion, who denounced terrorism, and had sworn fidelity to the republic, only because it was under this reptile disguise alone that they could escape the threatening knife of the guillotine. On this side were arrayed the men of mind, the artists and poets who hopefully longed for a new era, because they knew that the days of terror and of the tyrannical democratic republic had brought not merely human beings, but also the arts and sciences, to the scaffold. With them, too, were arrayed the merchants and artisans, the bankers, the business-men, the property-owners, all of whom wanted to see the republic at least established upon a more moderate and quiet foundation, in order to have confidence in its durability and substantial character, and to commence the works of peace with a better assurance of success. And at the head of these moderate republicans stood Bonaparte.

The 18th Brumaire of the year 1798 was the decisive day. It was a fearful struggle that then began afresh—a struggle, however, in which little blood was spilt, and not men but principles were slaughtered.

The Council of Elders, the Council of the Five Hundred, the Directory, and the Constitution of the year III., fell together, and from the ruins of the bloody and ferocious democratic republic arose the moderate, rational republic of the year 1798. At its head were the three consuls, Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and Lebrun.

On the day following, the 18th Brumaire, these three consuls entered the Luxembourg, amid the plaudits of the people, and slept, as conquerors, in the beds of the Directory of yesterday.

From that day forward a new world began to take shape, and the forms of etiquette which, during the ascendency of the democratic republic, had slunk away out of sight into the darkest recesses of the Luxembourg and the Tuileries, began to reappear, slowly and circumspectly, 'tis true, in broad daylight. People were no longer required, in accordance with the spirit of equality, to ignore all distinctions of condition and culture, by the use of the words "citizen" and "citizeness;" or, in the name of brotherhood, to endure the close familiarities of every brawling street ruffian; or, in the name of liberty, to let all his own personal liberty and inclination be trampled under foot.

Etiquette, as I have said, crept forth from the dark corners again; and the three consuls, who had taken possession of the Luxembourg, whispered the word "monsieur" in each other's ears, and greeted Josephine and her daughter, who were installed in the apartments prepared for them in the palace on the next day, with the title of "madame." Yet, only a year earlier, the two words "monsieur" and "madame" had occasioned revolt in Paris, and brought about bloodshed. A year earlier General Augereau had promulged the stern order of the day in his division, that, "whoever should use the word 'monsieur' or 'madame,' orally or in writing, on pretext whatever, should be deprived of his rank, and declared incapable of ever again serving in the army of the republic[7]."

[Footnote 7: Bourrienne, vol. i., p. 229.]

Now, these two proscribed words made their triumphant entry, along with the three consuls, into the palace of the Luxembourg, which had been delivered from its democratic tyrants.

Josephine was now, at least, "Madame" Bonaparte, and Hortense was "Mademoiselle" Beauharnais. The wife of Consul Bonaparte now required a larger retinue of servants, and a more showy establishment. Indeed, temerity could not yet go so far as to speak of the court of Madame Bonaparte and the court ladies of Mademoiselle Hortense; they had still to be content with the limited space of the diminutive Luxembourg, but they were soon to be compensated for all this, and, if they still had to call each other monsieur and madame, they could, a few years later, say "your highness," "your majesty," and "monseigneur," in the Tuileries.

The Luxembourg Palace was soon found to be too small for the joint residence of the three consuls, and too confined for the ambition of Bonaparte, who could not brook the near approach of the other two men who shared the supreme control of France with him. Too it was also for the longings that now spoke with ever louder and stronger accents in his breast, and pushed him farther and farther onward in this path of splendor and renown which, at first, had seemed to him but as the magic mirage of his dreams, but which now appeared as the glittering truth and reality of his waking hours. The Luxembourg was then too small for the three consuls, but they had to go very circumspectly and carefully to work to prepare the way to the old royal palace of the Bourbons. It would not do to oust the representatives of the people, who held their sessions there, too suddenly; the distrustful republicans must not be made to apprehend that there was any scheme on foot to revolutionize France back into monarchy, and to again stifle the many-headed monster of the republic under a crown and a sceptre. It was necessary, before entering the Tuileries, to give the French people proof that men might still be very good republicans, even although they might wish to be housed in the bedchamber of a king.

Hence, before the three consuls transferred their quarters to the Tuileries, the royal palace had to be transformed to a residence worthy of the representatives of the republic. So, the first move made was to set up a handsome bust of the elder Brutus—a war-trophy of Bonaparte's, which he had brought with him from Italy—in one of the galleries of the Tuileries; and then David had to carve out some other statues of the republican heroes of Greece and Rome and place them in the saloons. A number of democratic republicans, who were defeated and exiled on the 13th Vendemiaire, were permitted to return to France, and news of the death of WASHINGTON, the noblest and wisest of all republicans, arriving just at that time, Bonaparte ordered that the whole army should wear the badge of mourning for ten days. Black bands were worn on the arm, and sable streamers waved from the standards, in honor of the deceased republican hero.

However, when these ten days were past, and France and her army had sufficiently expressed their regret, the three consuls entered the Tuileries through the grand portal, on the two sides of which towered aloft two liberty-poles that still bore the old inscription of the republic of 1792. On the tree to the right was the legend "August 10, 1792," and on the one to the left, "Royalty in France is overthrown and will never rise again." It was between these two significant symbols that Bonaparte first strode into the Tuileries. It was a very long and imposing procession of carriages which moved that day toward the palace, through the streets of the capital. They only lacked the outward pomp and magnificence which rendered the latter fetes of the empire so remarkable. With the exception of the splendid vehicle in which the three consuls rode, and which was drawn by the six grays presented by the Emperor of Austria, there were but few good equipages to be seen. France of the new day had not had the opportunity to build any state-coaches, and those of old France had been too shamefully misused to admit of their ever serving again; for it would be out of the question to employ, in this solemn procession of the three consuls, the state-carriages of the old aristocracy, that had served as the vehicles in which the democratic republic had transported dead dogs to their place of deposit. Such had been the fact in the September days of the year 1793.

The unclaimed dogs of the fugitive or slaughtered aristocracy at that time wandered without masters, by thousands, through the streets and slaked their thirst with the blood which flowed down from the guillotine and dyed the ground with the purple of the new system of popular liberty.

The smell of the fresh blood and the ghastly sustenance which the guillotine yielded them had restored the animals to their original savage propensities, and hence those who had been so fortunate as to escape the murderous axe of the sans-culottes had now to apprehend the danger of falling a victim to the sharp teeth of these wild blood-hounds; and as the ferocious brutes knew no difference between aristocrats and republicans, but fell upon both with equal fury, it became necessary, at last, to annihilate these new foes of the republic. So, the Champs Elysees were surrounded with troops, and the dogs were driven into the Rue Royale and the Place Royale, where they were mowed down by musketry. On that one day the dead carcasses of more than three thousand dogs lay about in the streets of Paris, and there they continued to fester for three days longer, because a dispute had arisen among the city officials as to whose duty it was to remove them. At length the Convention undertook that task, and intrusted the work to representative Gasparin, who was shrewd enough to convert the removal of the dead animals into a republican ceremony. These were the dogs of the ci-devants and aristocrats that were to be buried, and it was quite proper, therefore, that they should receive aristocratic honors.

Gasparin, acting upon this idea, caused all the coaches of the fugitive and massacred aristocracy to be brought from their stables, and the carcasses of the dogs were flung into these emblazoned and escutcheoned vehicles of old France. Six grand coaches that had belonged to the king opened the procession, and the tails, heads, bodies and legs of the luckless quadrupeds could be seen behind the glittering glass panels heaped together in wild disorder[8].

[Footnote 8: Memoires of the Marchioness de Crequi, vol. viii, p. 10.]

After this public canine funeral celebration of the one and indivisible republic, the gilded state-coaches could not be consistently used for any human and less mournful occasion, and hence it was that the consular procession to the Tuileries was so deficient in carriages, and that public hacks on which the numbers were defaced had to be employed.

With the entry of Bonaparte into the Tuileries the revolution was at an end. He laid his victorious sword across the gory, yawning chasm which had drunk the blood of both aristocrats and democrats; and of that sword he made a bridge over which society might pass from one century to the other, and from the republic to the empire.

As Bonaparte was walking with Josephine and Hortense through the Diana Gallery on the morning after their entry into the Tuileries, and was with them admiring the statuary he had caused to be placed there, both of the ladies possessing much artistic taste, he paused in front of the statue of the younger Brutus, which stood close to the statue of Julius Caesar. He gazed long and earnestly at both of the grave, solemn faces; but, suddenly, as though just awaking from a deep dream, he sharply raised his head, and, laying his hand with an abrupt movement upon Josephine's shoulder, as he looked up at the statue of Brutus with blazing, almost menacing glances, said in a voice that made the hearts of both the ladies bound within their bosoms:

"It is not enough to be in the Tuileries: one must remain there. And whom has not this palace held? Even street thieves and conventionists have occupied it! Did not I see with my own eyes how the savage Jacobins and cohorts of sans-culottes surrounded the palace and led away the good King Louis XVI. as a prisoner! Ah! never mind, Josephine; have no fear for the future! Let them but dare to come hither once more[9]!"

[Footnote 9: Bourrienne, vol. vi, p. 3.]

And, as Bonaparte stood there and thus spoke in front of the statues of Brutus and Julius Caesar, his voice re-echoed like angry thunder through the long gallery, and made the figures of the heroes of the dead republic tremble on their pedestals.

Bonaparte lifted his arm menacingly toward the statue of Brutus, as though he would, in that fierce republican who slew Caesar, challenge all republican France, whose Caesar and Augustus in one he aspired to be, to mortal combat.

The revolution was closed. Bonaparte had installed himself in the Tuileries with Josephine and her two children. The son and daughter of General Beauharnais, whom the republic had murdered, had now found another father, who was destined to avenge that murder on the republic itself.

The revolution was over!



BOOK II.

THE QUEEN OF HOLLAND.

CHAPTER I.

A FIRST LOVE.

With the entry of Bonaparte into the Tuileries, the revolution closed, and blissful days of tranquillity and gay festivity followed. Josephine and Hortense were the cynosure of all these festivals, for they were, likewise, the animating centre whence the grace and beauty, the attractive charm, and the intellectual significance of them all, proceeded.

Hortense was passionately fond of dancing, and no one at "the court of Josephine" tripped it with such gracefulness and such enchanting delicacy as she. Now, as the reader will observe, people already began to speak of the "court" of Madame Bonaparte, the powerful wife of the First Consul of France. Now, also, audiences were held, and Josephine and Hortense already had a court retinue who approached them with the same subserviency and humility as though they had been princesses of the blood.

Madame Bonaparte now rode with her daughter through the streets of Paris in a richly-gilded coach, under a military escort, and wherever the populace caught a glimpse of them they greeted the wife and daughter of the first consul with applauding shouts.

Bonaparte's coachmen and servants had now a livery, and made their appearance in green coats with gold embroidery and galloons. There were chamberlains and lackeys, grooms and outriders; splendid dinners and evening parties were given, and the ambassadors of foreign powers were received in solemn audience; for, now, all the European states had recognized the French Republic under the consulate, and, as Bonaparte had concluded peace with England and Austria, these two great powers also sent envoys to the court of the mighty consul.

Instead of warlike struggles, the Tuileries now witnessed contentions of the toilet, and powder or no powder was one of the great questions of etiquette in which Josephine gave the casting vote when she said that "every one should dress as seemed best and most becoming to each, but yet endeavor to let good taste pervade the selection."

For some time, meanwhile, Hortense had participated with less zest than formerly in the amusements and parties of the day; for some time she had seemed to prefer being alone more than in previous years, and held herself aloof in the quiet retirement of her own apartments, where the melancholy, tender, and touching melodies which she drew from her harp in those lonely hours seemed to hold her better converse than all the gay and flattering remarks that she was accustomed to hear in her mother's grand saloons.

Hortense sought solitude, for to solitude alone could she confide what was weighing on her heart; to it alone could she venture to confess that she was in love, and with all the innocent energy, all the warmth and absolute devotion of a first attachment. How blissful were those hours of reverie, of expectant peering into the future, which seemed to promise the rising of another sun of happiness to her beaming gaze! For this young girl's passion had the secret approbation of her mother and her step-father, and both of them smilingly pretended not to be, in the least degree, aware of the tender understanding that subsisted between Hortense and General Duroc, Bonaparte's chief adjutant; only that, while Josephine took it to be the first tender fluttering of a young girl's heart awaking to the world, Bonaparte ascribed a more serious meaning to it, and bestowed earnest thought upon the idea of a union between Hortense and his friend. He was anxious, above all other things, to give Duroc a more important and imposing status, and therefore sent him as ambassador to St. Petersburg, to convey to the Emperor Alexander, who had just ascended his father's throne, the congratulations and good wishes of the First Consul of France.

The poor young lovers, constantly watched as they were, and as constantly restrained by the rules of an etiquette which was now becoming more and more rigid, had not the consolation accorded to them of exchanging even one last unnoticed pressure of the hand, one last tender vow of eternal fidelity, when they took leave of each other. But they hoped in the future, and looked forward to Duroc's return, and to the precious recompense that Bonaparte had significantly promised to his friend. That recompense was the hand of Hortense Until then, they had to content themselves with that sole and sweetest solace of all parted lovers, the letters that they interchanged, and which Bourrienne, Bonaparte's secretary, faithfully and discreetly transmitted.

"Nearly every evening," relates Bourrienne, in his Memoires, "I played a game of billiards with Mademoiselle Hortense, who was an adept at it. When I said, in a low tone to her, 'I have a letter,' the game would cease at once, and she would hasten to her room, whither I followed her, and took the letter to her. Her eyes would instantly fill with tears of emotion and delight, and it was only after a long lapse of time that she would go down to the saloon whither I had preceded her[10]."

[Footnote 10: Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 319.]

Hortense, thus busied only with her young lover and her innocent dreams of the future, troubled herself but little concerning what was taking place around her, and did not perceive that others were ready to make her young heart the plaything of domestic and political intrigue.

Bonaparte's brothers, who were jealous of the sway that the beautiful and fascinating Josephine still exerted over the first consul, as in the first days of their wedded life, were anxious, by separating Hortense from her mother, to deprive Josephine of one of the strongest supports of her influence, and thus, by isolating Josephine, bring themselves nearer to their brother. They well knew the affection which Bonaparte, who was particularly fond of children, entertained for those of his wife, and they also knew that Eugene and Hortense had, one day, not by their entreaties or their tears, but by their mere presence, prevented Josephine and Bonaparte from separating.

This was at the time when the whisperings of his brothers and of Junot had succeeded in making Bonaparte jealous on his return from Egypt.

At that time, Bonaparte had resolved to separate from a woman, against whom, however, his anger was thus fiercely aroused, simply because he was so strongly attached to her; and when Bourrienne implored him, at least, to hear Josephine before condemning her, and to see whether she could not clear herself, or he could not forgive her, he had replied:

"I forgive her? Never! Were I not sure of myself this time, I would tear my heart out and throw it into the fire!" And, as Bonaparte spoke, his voice trembling the while with rage, he clutched his breast with his hand as though he would indeed rend it to pieces. This scene occurred in the evening, but, when Bourrienne came into the office next morning, Bonaparte stepped forward to meet him with a smile on his face, and a little confused.

"Now, Bourrienne," said he, "you will be content—she is here! Don't suppose that I have forgiven her—no not at all! No, I reproached her vehemently, and sent her away. But, what would you have?—when she left me, weeping, I went after her, and, as she descended the stairs with her head drooping, I saw Eugene and Hortense, who went with her, sobbing violently. I have not the heart to look unmoved on any one in tears. Eugene had accompanied me to Egypt, and I have accustomed myself to regard him as my adopted son; he is so gallant, so excellent a young man. Hortense is just coming out into the world of society, and every one who knows her speaks well of her. I confess, Bourrienne, that the sight of her moved me deeply, and the sobbing of those two poor children made me sad as well. I said to myself, 'Shall they be the victims of their mother's fault?' I called Eugene back. Hortense turned round and, along with Josephine, followed her brother. I saw the movement, and said nothing. What could I do? One cannot be a mortal man without having his hours of weakness!"

"Be assured, general," exclaimed Bourrienne, "that your adopted children will reward you for it!"

"They must do so, Bourrienne—they must do so; for it is a great sacrifice that I have made for them[11]!"

[Footnote 11: Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 119.]

This sacrifice, however, had its recompense immediately, for Josephine had been able to set herself right, and Bonaparte had joyfully become convinced that the accusations of his jealous brothers had been unjust.

Hence it was that Bonaparte's brothers wished to re move Hortense, since they knew that she was her mother's main stay; that she, with her gentle, amiable disposition, her tact and good sense, her penetrating and never-failing sagacity, stood like a wise young Mentor at the side of her beautiful, attractive, impulsive, somewhat vain, and very extravagant mother.

It would be easier to set Josephine aside were Hortense first removed; and Josephine they wanted to get out of the way because she interfered with the ambitious designs of Bonaparte's brothers. Since they could not become great and celebrated by their own merits, they desired to be so through their illustrious brother; and, in order that they might become kings, Bonaparte must, above all things, wear a crown. Josephine was opposed to this project; she loved Bonaparte enough to fear the dangers that a usurpation of the crown must bring with it, and she had so little ambition as to prefer her present brilliant and peaceful lot to the proud but perilous exaltation to a throne.

For this reason, then, Josephine was to be removed, and Bonaparte must choose another wife—a wife in whose veins there should course legitimate royal blood, and who would, therefore, be content to see a crown upon the head of her consort.



CHAPTER II.

LOUIS BONAPARTE AND DUROC.

The brothers of Bonaparte went diligently to work then, above all things, to get Hortense out of the way. They told Bonaparte of the burning love of the young couple, of the letters which they sent to each other, and proposed to him that Duroc should be transferred to the Italian army with a higher command, and that Hortense should then be given to him. They persuaded the unsuspecting, magnanimous hero, who was easy to deceive in these minor matters and thus easy because he was occupied with grand designs and grand things; they persuaded him to keep the proposed union a secret for the present, and then on Duroc's early return to surprise the young couple and Josephine alike.

But Josephine had, this time, seen through the plans of her hostile brothers-in-law. She felt that her whole existence, her entire future, was imperilled, should she not succeed in making friends and allies in the family of Bonaparte itself. There was only one of Bonaparte's brothers who was not hostile to her, but loved her as the wife of his brother, to whom he was, at that time, still devoted with the most enthusiastic and submissive tenderness.

This one was Bonaparte's brother Louis, a young man of serious and sedate disposition, more of a scholar than a warrior, more a man of science than fit for the council-chamber and the drawing-room. His was a reserved, quiet, somewhat timid character, which, notwithstanding its apparent gentleness, developed an inflexible determination and energy at the right, decisive moment, and then could not be shaken by either threats or entreaties. His external appearance was little calculated to please, nay, was even somewhat sinister, and commanded the respect of others only in moments of excitement, through the fierce blaze of his large blue eyes, that seemed rather to look inward than outward.

Louis Bonaparte was one of those deep, self-contained, undemonstrative, and by no means showy natures which are too rarely understood, because, in the noisy bustle of life, we have not the time and do not take the pains to analyze them. Only a sister or a mother is in a position to comprehend and love men of this stamp, because the confidential home relations of long years have revealed to them the hidden bloom of these sensitive plants which shrink back and close their leaves at every rude contact of the world. But rarely, however, do they find a loving heart outside, for, since their own hearts are too timid to seek for love, no one gives himself the trouble to discover them.

The young brother of her husband, now scarcely twenty-four, was the one who seemed destined in Josephine's eyes to afford her a point of support in the Bonaparte family.

Madame Letitia loved him more tenderly than she did any of them, next to her Napoleon, since he was the petted darling of the whole family of brothers, who had no fear of him, because he was neither egotistical nor ambitious enough to cross their plans, but quietly allowed them to have their way, and only asked that they would also leave him undisturbed to follow out his own quiet and unobtrusive inclinations. He was the confidant of his young and beautiful sisters, who were always sure to find in him a discreet counsellor, and never a betrayer. Finally, he was the one of the whole circle of brothers toward whom Napoleon felt the sincerest and warmest inclination, because he could not help esteeming him for his noble qualities, and because he was never annoyed by him as he was by his other brothers; for the ambition and the avarice of Jerome, Joseph, and Lucien, were even then a source of displeasure and chagrin to Bonaparte.

"Were any one to hear with what persistency my brothers demand fresh sums of money from me, every day, he would really think that I had consumed from them the inheritance their father left," said Bonaparte, one day, to Bourrienne, after a violent scene between him and Jerome, which had ended, as they all did, in Jerome getting another draft on the private purse of the first consul.

Louis, however, never asked for money, but always appeared thankfully content with whatever Bonaparte chose to give him, unsolicited, and there never were any wranglings with tradesmen on his account, or any debts of his to pay.

This last circumstance was what filled Josephine with a sort of respectful deference for her young step-brother. He understood how to manage his affairs so well as never to run up debts, and this was a quality that was so sorely lacking in Josephine, that she could never avoid incurring debt. How many bitter annoyances, how much care and anxiety had not her debts cost her already; how often Bonaparte had scolded her about them; how often she had promised to do differently, and make no more purchases until she should be in a condition to pay at once!

But this reform was to her thoughtless and magnanimous nature an impossibility; and however greatly she may have feared the flashing eyes and thundering voice of her husband when he was angered, she could not escape his wrath in this one point, for in that point precisely was it that the penitent sinner continually fell into fresh transgression—and again ran into debt!

Louis, however, never had debts. He was as cautious and regular as her own Hortense, and therefore, thought Josephine, these two young, careful, thoughtful temperaments would be well adapted to each other, and would know how to manage their hearts as discreetly as they did their purses.

So she wished to make a step-son of Louis Bonaparte, in order to strengthen her own position thereby. Josephine already had a premonitory distrust of the future, and it may sometimes have happened that she took the mighty eagle that fluttered above her head for a bird of evil omen whose warning cry she frequently fancied that she heard in the stillness of the night.

The negress at Martinique had said to her, "You will be more than a queen." But now, Josephine had visited the new fortune-teller, Madame Villeneuve, in Paris, and she had said to her, "You will wear a crown, but only for a short time."

Only for a short time! Josephine was too young, too happy, and too healthful, to think of her own early death. It must, then, be something else that threatened her—a separation, perhaps. She had no children, yet Bonaparte so earnestly desired to have a son, and his brothers repeated to him daily that this was for him a political necessity.

Thus Josephine trembled for her future; she stretched out her hands for help, and in the selfishness of her trouble asked her daughter to give up her own dreams of happiness, in order to secure the real happiness of her mother.

Yet Hortense was in love; her young heart throbbed painfully at the thought of not only relinquishing her own love, but of marrying an unloved man, whom she had never even thought of, and had scarcely noticed. She deemed it impossible that she could be asked to sacrifice her own beautiful and blessed happiness, to a cold-blooded calculation, an artificial family intrigue; and so, with all the enthusiasm of a first love, she swore rather to perish than to forego her lover.

"But Duroc has no fortune and no future to offer you," said Josephine. "What he is, he is only through the friendship of Bonaparte. He has no estate, no importance, no celebrity. Were Bonaparte to abandon him he would fall back into nothingness and obscurity again."

Hortense replied, smiling through her tears: "I love him, and have no other ambition than to be his wife."

"But he? Do you think that he too has no other ambition than to become your husband? Do you think that he loves you for your own sake alone?"

"I know it," said the young girl, with beaming eyes; "Duroc has told me that he loved me, and me only. He has sworn eternal fidelity and love to me. Both of us ask for nothing more than to belong to each other."

Josephine shrugged her shoulders almost compassionately.

"Suppose," she rejoined, "that I were to affirm that Duroc is willing to marry you, only because he is ambitious, and thinks that Bonaparte would then advance him the more rapidly?"

"It is a slander—it is impossible!" exclaimed Hortense, glowing with honest indignation; "Duroc loves me, and his noble soul is far from all selfish calculation."

"And if I were to prove the contrary to you?" asked Josephine, irritated by her daughter's resistance, and made cruel by her alarm for her own fortunes.

Hortense turned pale, and her face, which had been so animated, so beautiful, a moment before, blanched as though the icy chill of death had passed over it.

"If you can prove to me," she said, in a hollow tone, "that Duroc loves me only through ambitious motives, I am ready to give him up, and marry whom you will."

Josephine triumphed. "Duroc gets back to-day from his journey," she replied, "and in three days more I will give you the proof that he does not love you, but the family alliance which you present."

Hortense had heard only the first of her mother's words: "Duroc returns to-day." What cared she for all the rest? She should see him again—she should read consolation and love's assurance in his handsome manly face; not that she needed this to confirm her confidence, for she believed in him, and not the shadow of a doubt obscured her blissful greeting.

Meanwhile, Josephine's pretty hands were busy drawing the meshes of this intrigue tighter every moment. She absolutely required a supporting ally in the family, against the family itself; and for this reason Louis must become the husband of Hortense.

Bonaparte himself was against this union, and was quite resolved to marry Duroc to his step-daughter. But Josephine managed to shake his resolve, by means of entreaties, representations, caresses, and little endearments, and even succeeded in such eloquent argument to show that Duroc did not cherish any love whatever for Hortense, but wanted to make an ambitious speculation out of her, that Bonaparte resolved, at least, to put his friend to the test, and, if Josephine turned out to be right, to marry Hortense to his own brother.

After this last interview with Josephine, Bonaparte went back into his office, where he found Bourrienne, as ever, at the writing-desk.

"Where is Duroc?" he hastily asked.

"He has gone out—to the opera, I think."

"So soon as he returns tell him that I have promised him Hortense—that he shall marry her. But I want the wedding to take place in two days, at the farthest. I give Hortense five hundred thousand francs, and I appoint Duroc to the command of the eighth military division. On the day after his wedding he shall start with his wife for Toulon, and we shall live apart. I will not have a son-in-law in my house; and, as I want to see these matters brought to an end, at last, let me know to-day whether Duroc accepts my propositions."

"I don't think that he will, general."

"Very good! Then, in that case, Hortense shall marry my brother Louis."

"Will she consent?"

"She will have to consent, Bourrienne."

Duroc came in at a late hour that evening, and Bourrienne told him, word for word, the ultimatum of the first consul.

Duroc listened to him attentively; but, as Bourrienne went on with his communication, his countenance grew darker and darker.

"If such be the case," he exclaimed at last, when Bourrienne had got through, "if Bonaparte will do nothing more than that for his son-in-law, I must forego a marriage with Hortense, however painful it may be to do so: and then, instead of going to Toulon, I can remain in Paris." And, as he ceased to speak, Duroc took up his hat, without a trace of excitement or concern, and departed.

That same evening, Josephine received from her husband his full consent to the marriage of her daughter to Louis Bonaparte.

On that very evening, too, Josephine informed her daughter that Duroc had not withstood the test, and that he had now relinquished her, through ambition, as, through ambition, he had previously feigned to love her.

Hortense gazed at her mother with tearless eyes. She had not a word of complaint or reproach to utter; she was conscious merely that a thunder-bolt had just fallen, and had forever dashed to atoms her love, her hopes, her future, and her happiness.

But she no longer had the strength and the will to escape the evil that had flung its meshes around her; she submitted meekly to it. She had been betrayed by love itself; and what cared she now for her future, her embittered, bloomless, scentless life, when he had deceived her —he, the only one whom she had loved?

The next morning Hortense stepped, self-possessed and smiling, into Josephine's private cabinet, and declared that she was ready to fulfil her mother's wishes and marry Louis Bonaparte.

Josephine clasped her in her arms, with exclamations of delight. She little knew what a night of anguish, of wailing, of tears, and of despair, Hortense had struggled through, or that her present smiling unconcern was nothing more than the dull hopelessness of a worn-out heart. She did not see that Hortense smiled now only in order that Duroc should not observe that she suffered. Her love for him was dead, but her maidenly pride had survived, and it dried her tears, and conjured up a smile to her struggling lips; it, too, enabled her to declare that she was ready to accept the husband whom her mother might present to her.

Thus, Josephine had accomplished her purpose; she had made one of Bonaparte's brothers her son. Now there remained the question whether she should attain her other aim through that son, and whether she should find in him a support against the intrigues of the other brothers of the first consul.



CHAPTER III.

CONSUL AND KING.

There was only two days' interval between the betrothal of the young couple and their wedding; and on the 7th of January, 1802, Hortense was married to Louis Bonaparte, the youngest brother but one of the first consul. Bonaparte, who contented himself with the civil ceremony, and had never given his own union with Josephine the sanction of the Church, was less careless and unconcerned with regard to this youthful alliance, which had, indeed, great need of the blessing of Heaven, in order to prove a source of any good fortune to the young couple. Perhaps he reasoned that the consciousness of the indissoluble character of their union would lead them to an honorable and upright effort for a mutual inclination; perhaps it was because he simply wished to render their separation impossible. Cardinal Caprara was called into the Tuileries, after the civil ceremony concluded, and had to bestow the blessing of God and of the Church upon the bride and bridegroom.

Yet, not one word or one glance had thus far been interchanged by the young couple. It was in silence that they stepped, after the ceremonies were over, into the carriage that bore them to their new home, in the same small residence in the Rue de la Victoire which her mother had occupied in the first happy weeks of her youthful union with Bonaparte.

Now, another young, newly-married pair were making their entry into this dwelling, but love did not enter with them; affection and happiness did not shine in their faces, as had been the case with Bonaparte and Josephine. The eyes of Hortense were dimmed with tears, and the countenance of her young husband was dark and gloomy. For, on his side, he, too, felt no love for this young woman; and, as she never forgave him for having accepted her hand, although he knew that she loved another, he, in like manner, could never forgive her having consented to be his wife, although he had not been the one to solicit it, and although he had never told her that he loved her. Both had bowed to the will of him who gave the law, not merely to all France, but also to his own family, and who had already become the lord and master of the republic. Both had married through obedience, not for love; and the consciousness of this compulsion rose like an impassable wall between these two otherwise tender and confiding young hearts. In the consciousness of this compulsion, too, they would not even try to love one another, or find in each other's society the happiness that they were forbidden to seek elsewhere.

Pale and mournful, in splendid attire, but with a heavy heart, did Hortense make her appearance at the fetes which were given in honor of her marriage; and it was with a beclouded brow and averted face that Louis Bonaparte received the customary congratulations. While every one around them exhibited a cheerful and joyous bearing, while parties were given in their honor, and people danced and sang, the young couple only, of all present, were dull and sad. Louis avoided speaking to Hortense, and she turned her gaze away from him, possibly so that he might not read in it her deep and angry aversion.

But she had to accept her lot; and, since she was thus indissolubly bound up with another, she had to try to live with that other. Hortense, externally so gentle and yielding, so full of maiden coyness and delicacy, nevertheless possessed a strong and resolute soul, and, in the noble pride of her wounded heart, was unwilling to give any one the right to pity her. Her soul wept, but she restrained her tears and still tried to smile, were it only that Duroc might not perceive the traces of her grief upon her sunken cheeks. She had torn this love from her heart, and she rebuked herself that it had left a wound. She laid claim to happiness no more; but her youth, her proud self-respect, revolted at the idea of continuing to be the slave of misfortune henceforth, and so she formed her firm resolve, saying to herself, with a melancholy smile, "I must manage to be happy, without happiness. Let me try!"

And she did try. She once more arrayed herself in smiles, and again took part in the festivities which now were filling the halls of St. Cloud, Malmaison, and the Tuileries, and which, too, were but the dying lay of the swan of the republic, or, if you will, the cradle-song of reviving monarchy.

For things were daily sweeping nearer and nearer to that great turning-point, at which the French people would have to choose between a seeming republic and a real monarchy. France was already a republic but in name; the new, approaching monarchy was, indeed, but a new-born, naked infant as yet, but only a bold hand was wanting, that should possess the determined courage to clothe it with ermine and purple, in order to transform the helpless babe into a proud, triumphant man.

That courage Bonaparte possessed; but he had, also, the higher courage to advance carefully and slowly. He let the infant of monarchy, that lay there naked and helpless at his feet, shiver there a little longer; but, lest it should freeze altogether, he threw over it, for the time being, the mantle of his "consulship for life." Beneath it, the babe could slumber comfortably a few weeks longer, while waiting for its purple robes.

Bonaparte was now, by the will of the French people, consul for life. He stood close to the steps of a throne, and it depended only upon himself whether he would mount those steps, or whether, like General Monk, he would recall the fugitive king, and restore to him the sceptre of his forefathers. The brothers of Bonaparte desired the first; Josephine implored Heaven for the latter alternative. She was too completely a loving woman only, to long for the chilly joys of mere ambition; she was too entirely occupied with her personal happiness, not to fear every danger that menaced it. Should Bonaparte place a crown upon his head, he would also have to think of becoming the founder of a dynasty; and in order to strengthen and fortify his position, he would have to place a legitimate heir by his side. Josephine had borne her husband no children; and she knew that his brothers had, more than once, proposed to him to dissolve his childless union, and replace it with the presence of a young wife. Hence, Bonaparte's assumption of royal dignity meant a separation from her; and Josephine still loved him too well, and too much with a young wife's love, to take so great a sacrifice upon her.

Moreover, Josephine was at heart a royalist, and considered the Count de Lille, who, after so many agitations and wanderings, had found an asylum at Hartwell, in England, the legitimate King of France.

The letters which the Count de Lille (afterward King Louis XVIII.) had written to Bonaparte, had filled Josephine's heart with emotion, and, with a kind of apprehensive foreboding, she had conjured her husband to, at least, give the brother of the beheaded king a mild and considerate answer. Yes, she had even ventured to beseech Bonaparte to comply with the request that Louis had made, and give him back the throne of his ancestors. But Bonaparte had laughed at this suggestion, as he would at some childish joke; for it had never entered into his head that any one could seriously ask him to lay his laurels and his trophies at the foot of a throne, which not he, but a member of that Bourbon family whom France had banished forever, should ascend.

Louis had written to Bonaparte: "I cannot believe that the victor at Lodi, Castiglione, and Arcola—the conqueror of Italy and Egypt—would not prefer real glory to mere empty celebrity. Meanwhile, you are losing precious time. We can secure the glory of France; I say we, because I have need of Bonaparte in the work, and because he cannot complete it without me."

But Bonaparte already felt strong enough to say, not "we," but "I," and to complete his work alone. Therefore, he replied to the Count de Lille: "You cannot desire your return to France, for you would have to enter it over a hundred thousand corpses; sacrifice your personal interests to the tranquillity and happiness of France. History will pay you a grateful acknowledgment."

Louis had said in his letter to Bonaparte, "Choose your own position, and mark out what you want for your friends." And Bonaparte did choose his position; but unfortunately for the Count de Lille, it was the very one which the latter had wished to reserve for himself.

Josephine would have been glad to vacate the king's place for him, could she but have retained her husband by so doing. She had no longings for a diadem which, by-the-way, her beautiful head did not require in order to command admiration.

"You cannot avoid being a queen or an empress, one of these days," said Bourrienne to her, on a certain occasion.

Josephine replied, with tears: "Mon Dieu! I am far from cherishing any such ambition. So long as I live, to be the wife of Bonaparte—of the first consul—is the sum total of my wishes! Tell him so; conjure him not to make himself king[12]."

[Footnote 12: Bourrienne, vol. v., p. 47.]

But Josephine did not content herself with requesting Bourrienne to tell her husband this; she had the courage to say so to him herself.

One day she went into Napoleon's cabinet, and found him at breakfast, and unusually cheerful and good-humored. She had entered without having been announced, and crept up on tiptoe to her husband, who sat with his back turned toward her, and had not yet noticed her. Lightly throwing her arm around his neck, and letting herself sink upon his breast, and then stroking his pale cheeks and glossy brown hair, with an expression of unutterable love and tenderness, she said:

"I implore you, Bonaparte, do not mount the throne. Your wicked brother Lucien will urge you to it, but do not listen to him."

Bonaparte laughed. "You are a little goose, poor Josephine," he said. "It's the old dowagers of the Faubourg St. Germain, and your La Rochefoucauld, more than all the rest, who tell you these wonderful stories; but you worry me to death with them. Come, now, don't bother me about them any more!"

Bonaparte had put off Josephine with a laugh and a jesting word, but he nevertheless conversed earnestly and seriously with his most intimate personal friends on the subject of his assuming the crown. In the course of one of these interviews, Bourrienne said to him:

"As first consul, you are the leading and most famous man in all Europe; whereas, if you place the crown upon your head, you will be only the youngest in date of all the kings, and will have to yield precedence to them."

Bonaparte's eyes blazed up with fiercer fire, and, with that daring and imposing look which was peculiar to him in great and decisive moments, he responded:

"The youngest of the kings! Well, then, I will drive all the kings from their thrones, and found a new dynasty: then, they will have to recognize me as the oldest prince of all."



CHAPTER IV.

THE CALUMNY.

The union of Hortense with Bonaparte's brother had not been followed by such good results for her as Josephine had anticipated. She had made a most unfortunate selection, for Louis Bonaparte was, of all the first consul's brothers, the one who concerned himself the least about politics, and was the least likely to engage in any intrigue. Besides, this alliance had materially diminished the affection which Louis had always previously manifested for Josephine. He blamed her, in the depths of his noble and upright heart, for having been so egotistic as to sacrifice the happiness of her daughter to her own personal welfare; he blamed her, too, for having forced him into a marriage which love had not concluded, and, although he never sided with her enemies, Josephine had, at least, lost a friend in him.

The wedded life of this young couple was something unusually strange. They had openly confessed the repulsion they felt for each other, and reciprocally made no secret of the fact that they had been driven into this union against their own wishes. In this singular interchange of confidence, they went so far as to commiserate each other, and to condole with one another as friends, over the wretchedness they endured in their married bondage.

They said frankly to each other that they could never love; that they detested one another: but they so keenly felt a mutual compassion, that out of that very compassion—that very hatred itself—love might possibly spring into being.

Louis could already sit for hours together beside his wife, busied with the effort to divert her with amusing remarks, and to drive away the clouds that obscured her brow; already, too, Hortense had come to regard it as her holiest and sweetest duty to endeavor to compensate her husband, by her kindly deportment toward him, and the delicate and attentive respect that distinguished her bearing, for the unhappiness he felt beside her; already had both, in fine, begun to console each other with the reflection that the child which Hortense now bore beneath her heart would, one day, be to them a compensation for their ill-starred marriage and their lost freedom.

"When I present you with a son," said Hortense, smiling, "and when he calls you by the sweet name of 'father,' you will forgive me for being his mother."

"And when you press that son to your heart—when you feel that you love him with boundless affection," said Louis, "you will pardon me for being your husband, and you will cease to hate me, at least, for I will be the father of your darling child."

Had sufficient time been allotted to these young, pure, and innocent hearts, to comprehend one another, they would have overcome their unhappiness, and love would have sprung up at last from hatred. But the world was pitiless to them; it had no compassion for their youth and their sufferings; with cruel hands it dashed away this tender blossoming of nascent affection, which was beginning to expand in their hearts. Josephine had wedded Hortense to her brother-in-law in order to secure in him an ally in the family, and to keep her daughter by her side; and now that daughter was made the target of insidious attacks and malicious calumnies—now another plan was adopted in order to remove Hortense from the scene. The conspirators had not succeeded in their designs by means of a matrimonial alliance, so they would now try the effect of calumny.

They went about whispering from ear to ear that Bonaparte had married his step-daughter to his brother, simply because he was attached to her himself, and had been jealous of Duroc.

These slanders were carried so far as to hint that the child whose birth Hortense expected was more nearly related to Bonaparte than merely through the fact that his step-daughter was his brother's wife.

This was an infernal but skilfully-planned calumny; for those who devised it well knew how Bonaparte detested the merest suspicion of such immorality, how strict he was in his own principles, and how repulsive it therefore would be to him to find himself made the object of such infamous slanders.

The conspirators calculated that, in order to terminate these evil rumors, the first consul would send his brother and Hortense away to a distance, and that the fated Josephine, being thus isolated, could also be the more readily removed. Thus Bonaparte, being separated from his guardian angel, would no longer hear her whispering:

"Bonaparte, do not ascend the throne! Be content with the glory of the greatest of mankind! Place no diadem upon thy brows; do not make thyself a king!"

In Paris, as I have said, these shameful calumnies were but very lightly whispered, but abroad they were only the more loudly heard. Bonaparte's enemies got hold of the scandalous story, and made a weapon of it with which to assail him as a hero.

One morning Bonaparte was reading an English newspaper which had always been hostile to him, and which, as he well knew, was the organ of Count d'Artois, then residing at Hartwell. As he continued to read, a dark shadow stole over his face, and he crumpled the paper in his clinched fist with a sudden and vehement motion. Then as suddenly again his countenance cleared, and a proud smile flitted across it. He had his master of ceremonies summoned to his presence, and bade him issue the necessary invitations for a court ball to be given, on the evening of the next day, at St. Cloud. He then went to Josephine to inform her in person of the projected fete, and to say that he wished her to tell Hortense, who had been ailing for some time, that he particularly desired her to be present.

Hortense had been too long accustomed to obey her step-father's requests, to venture a refusal. She rose, therefore, from her couch on which she had been in the habit, for weeks past, of reclining, busied with her own dreams and musings, and bade her waiting women prepare her attire for the ball. Still she felt unwell, and seriously burdened by this festive attire, which harmonized so little with her feelings, and was so far from becoming to her figure, for she was only a few weeks from her confinement; but with her gentle and yielding disposition she did not venture, even in thought, to murmur at the compulsion imposed upon her by her step-father's command. She therefore repaired, at the appointed hour, to the ball at St. Cloud. Bonaparte stepped forward to meet her with a friendly smile, and, instead of thanking her for coming at all, earnestly urged her to dance.

Hortense gazed at him with amazement. She knew that hitherto Bonaparte had always sought to avoid the sight of a woman in her condition; he had frequently said that he thought there was nothing more indecent than for a female to join in the dance under such circumstances, and now it was he who asked her to do that very thing.

For this reason Hortense hesitated at first to comply, but Bonaparte grew only the more pressing and vehement in his request.

"You know how I like to see you dance, Hortense," he said, with his irresistible smile; "so do this much for me, even if you take the floor only once, and that for but a single contredance."

And Hortense, although most reluctant, although blushing with shame at the idea of exposing herself in such unseemly shape to the gaze of all, obeyed and joined the dances.

This took place in the evening—how greatly surprised, then, was Hortense when next morning she found, in the paper that she usually read, a poem, extolling her performance in words of ravishing flattery, and referring to the fact that, notwithstanding her advanced state of pregnancy, she had consented to tread a measure in the contredance, as a peculiar trait of amiability!

Hortense, however, far from feeling flattered by this very emphatic piece of verse, took it as an affront, and hastened at once to the Tuileries, to complain to her mother, and to ask her how it was possible that, so early as the very next morning, there could be verses published in the newspapers concerning what had taken place at the ball on the preceding evening.

Bonaparte, who happened to be with Josephine when Hortense came in, and was the first to be questioned by her, gave her only an evasive and jocose reply, and withdrew. Hortense then turned to her mother, who was leaning over on the divan, her eyes reddened with weeping and her heart oppressed with grief. To her, Bonaparte had given no evasive answer, but had told the whole truth, and Josephine's heart was at that moment too full of wretchedness, too overladen with this fresh and bitter trouble, for her possibly to retain it within her own breast.

Hortense insisted upon an explanation, and her mother gave it. She told her that Bonaparte had got the poet Esmenard to write the verses beforehand, and that it was for this reason that he had urged her to dance; that he had ordered the ball for no other purpose than to have her dance, and have the poem that complimented her and referred to her pregnancy published in the next day's paper.

Then, when Hortense, in terror, begged to be informed of the ground for all these proceedings, Josephine had the cruel courage to tell her of the slanders that had been circulated in reference to herself and Bonaparte, and to say that he had arranged the poem, the ball, and her participation in the dance, because, on the preceding day, he had read in an English journal the calumnious statement that Madame Louis Bonaparte had safely given birth to a vigorous and healthy child some weeks previously, and he wished in this manner to refute the malicious statement.

Hortense received this fresh wound with a cold smile of scorn. She had not a word of anger or indignation for this unheard-of injury, this shameless slander; she neither wept nor complained, but, as she rose to take leave of her mother, she swooned away, and it required hours of exertion to restore her to consciousness.

A few weeks later, Hortense was delivered of a dead male infant, and so passed away her last dream of happiness; for thus was destroyed the hope of a better understanding between her and her husband.

Hortense rose from her sick-bed with a firm, determined heart. In those long, lonely days that she had passed during her confinement, she had the time and opportunity to meditate on many things, and keenly to estimate her whole present position and probable future. She had now become a mother, without having a child; yet the resolute energy of a mother remained to her. The youthful, gentle, dreamy, enthusiastic girl had now become transformed into a determined, active, energetic woman, that would no longer bow submissively to the blows of fortune, but would meet them with an open and defiant brow. Since her fate could not be changed, she accepted it, all the while resolved no longer to bend to its yoke, but to subdue it, and try to be happy by force of resolution; and, since a charming, peaceful, and harmonious fireside at home was denied her, to at least make her house a pleasant gathering-point for her friends—for men of scientific and artistic attainments, for poets and singers, for painters and sculptors, and for men of learning. Ere long, all Paris was talking about Madame Louis Bonaparte's drawing-rooms, the agreeable and elegant entertainments that were given there, and the concerts there arranged, in which the first singers of the day executed pieces that Hortense had composed, and Talma recited, with his wonderful, sonorous voice, the poems that she had written. Every one was anxious for admission to these entertainments, in which the participants not merely performed their parts, but greatly enjoyed themselves as well; where the guests indulged in no backbiting or abuse, but found more worthy and elevated subjects of conversation; where, in fine, they could admire the works of poets and artists, and enjoy the newly, awakened intellectual spirit of the age.

Hortense had firmly made up her mind that, since she had resigned herself to accept the burden of existence, she would strive to render it as agreeable as possible, and not to see any of its hateful and repulsive features, but to turn away from them with a noble and disdainful pride. She had never even referred to the frightful calumnies which her mother had privately made known to her, nor had she deemed any defence or proof of her innocence at all necessary. She felt that there were certain accusations against which to even undertake defence is to admit their possibility, and which, therefore, could only be combated by silence. The slanders that had been flung at her lay in a plane so far beneath her, that they could not rise high enough to reach her, but fell powerless at her feet, whence she did not deem it even worth her while to thrust them.

But Bonaparte continued to feel outraged and wounded by this vile story, and it annoyed him deeply to learn that these rumors were still spread abroad, and that his foes still bestirred themselves to keep him ever on the alert, and, if possible, to dim the lustre of his gloriously-won laurels by the shadow of an infamous crime.

"There are still rumors abroad of a liaison between me and Hortense," said he one day to Bourrienne. "They have even invented the most repulsive stories concerning her first infant. At the time, I thought that these calumnies were circulated among the public because the latter go earnestly desired that I might have a child to inherit my name. But it is still spoken of, is it not?"

"Yes, general, it is still spoken of; and I confess that I did not believe this calumny would be so long continued."

"This is really abominable!" exclaimed Bonaparte, his eyes flashing with anger. "You, Bourrienne, you best know what truth there is in it. You have heard and seen all; not the smallest circumstance could escape you. You were her confidant in her love-affair with Duroc. I expect you to clear me of this infamous reproach if you should some day write my history. Posterity shall not associate my name with such infamy. I shall depend on you, Bourrienne, and you will at least admit that you have never believed in this abominable calumny?"

"No, never, general."

"I shall rely on you, Bourrienne, not only on my own account, but for the sake of poor Hortense. She is, without this, unhappy enough, as is my brother also. I am concerned about this, because I love them both, and because this very circumstance gives color to the reports which idle chatterboxes have circulated regarding my relations to her. Therefore, bear this in mind when you write of me hereafter."

"I shall do so, general; I shall tell the truth, but, unfortunately, I can not compel the world to believe the truth."

Bourrienne has, at all events, kept his word, and spoken the truth. With deep indignation he spurns the calumny with which it has been attempted to sully the memory of Bonaparte and Hortense, even down to our time; and, in his anger, he even forgets the elegant and considerate language of the courteous diplomat, which is elsewhere always characteristic of his writings.

"He lies in his throat," says Bourrienne, "who asserts that Bonaparte entertained other feelings for Hortense than those a step-father should entertain for his step-daughter! Hortense entertained for the first consul a feeling of reverential fear. She always spoke to him tremblingly. She never ventured to approach him with a petition. She was in the habit of coming to me, and I then submitted her wishes; and only when Bonaparte received them unfavorably did I mention the name of the petitioner. 'The silly thing!' said the first consul; 'why does she not speak to me herself? Is she afraid of me?' Napoleon always entertained a fatherly affection for her; since his marriage, he loved her as a father would have loved his child. I, who for years was a witness of her actions in the most private relations of life, I declare that I have never seen or heard the slightest circumstance that would tend to convict her of a criminal intimacy. One must consider this calumny as belonging to the category of those which malice so willingly circulates about those persons whose career has been brilliant, and which credulity and envy so willingly believe. I declare candidly that, if I entertained the slightest doubt with regard to this horrible calumny, I would say so. But Bonaparte is no more! Impartial history must not and shall not give countenance to this reproach; she should not make of a father and friend a libertine! Malicious and hostile authors have asserted, without, however, adducing any proof, that a criminal intimacy existed between Bonaparte and Hortense. A falsehood, an unworthy falsehood! And this report has been generally current, not only in France, but throughout all Europe. Alas! can it, then, be true that calumny exercises so mighty a charm that, when it has once taken possession of a man, he can never be freed from it again?"



CHAPTER V.

KING OR EMPEROR.

Josephine's entreaties had been fruitless, or Bonaparte had, at least, only yielded to them in their literal sense. She had said: "I entreat you, do not make yourself a king!" Bonaparte did not make himself king, he made himself emperor. He did not take up the crown that had fallen from the head of the Bourbons; he created a new one for himself—a crown which the French people and Senate had, however, offered him. The revolution still stood a threatening spectre behind the French people; its return was feared, and, since the discovery of the conspiracy of Georges, Moreau, and Pichegru, the people anxiously asked themselves what was to become of France if the conspirators should succeed in murdering Bonaparte; and when the republic should again be sent adrift, without a pilot, on the wild sea of revolution. The people demanded that their institutions should be securely established and maintained, and believed that this could only be accomplished by a dynasty—by a monarchical form of government. The consulate for life must therefore be changed into an hereditary empire. Had not Bonaparte himself said: "One can be emperor of a republic, but not king of a republic; these two terms are incompatible!" They desired to make Napoleon emperor, because they flattered themselves that in so doing they should still be able to preserve the republic.

On the 18th of May, of the year 1804, the plan that had been so long and carefully prepared was carried into execution. On the 18th of May, the Senate repaired to St. Cloud, to entreat Bonaparte, in the name of the people and army, to accept the imperial dignity, and exchange the Roman chair of a consul for the French throne of an emperor.

Cambaceres, the late second consul of the republic, stood at the head of the Senate, and upon him devolved the duty of imparting to Bonaparte the wishes of the French people. Cambaceres—who, as a member of the Convention, had voted for the condemnation of Louis XVI., in order that royalty should be forever banished from French soil—this same Cambaceres, was now the first to salute Bonaparte with "imperial majesty," and with the little word, so full of significance, "sire." He rewarded Cambaceres, for this by writing to him on the game day, and appointing him high constable of the empire, as the first act of his imperial rule. In this letter, the first document in which Bonaparte signed himself merely Napoleon, the emperor retained the republican style of writing. He addressed Cambaceres, as "citizen consul," and followed the revolutionary method of reckoning time, his letter being dated "the 20th Floreal, of the year 12."

The second act of the emperor, on the first day of his new dignity, was to invest the members of his family also with new dignities, and to confer upon them the rank of Princes of France, with the title "imperial highness." Moreover, he made his brother Joseph prince elector, and his brother Louis connetable. On the same day it devolved upon Louis, in his new dignity, to present the generals and staff officers to the emperor, and then to conduct them to the empress—the Empress Josephine.

The prophecy of the negress of Martinique was now fulfilled. Josephine was "more than a queen." But Josephine, in the midst of the splendor of her new dignity, could only think, with an anxious heart, of the prophecy of the clairvoyante of Paris, who had told her, "You will wear a crown, but only for a short time." She felt that this wondrous fortune could not last long—that the new emperor would have to do as the kings or old had done, and sacrifice his dearest possession to Fate, in order to appease the hungry demons of vengeance and envy; and that he would, therefore, sacrifice her, in order to secure the perpetuity of his fortune and dynasty.

It was this that weighed down the heart of the new empress, and made her shrink in alarm from her new grandeur. It was, therefore, with a feeling of deep anxiety that she took possession of the new titles and honors that Fate had showered upon her, as from an inexhaustible horn of plenty. With a degree of alarm, and almost with shame, she heard herself addressed with the titles with which she had addressed the Queen of France years before, in these same halls, when she came to the Tuileries as Marquise de Beauharnais, to do homage to the beautiful Marie Antoinette. She had died on the scaffold and now Josephine was the "majesty" that sat enthroned in the Tuileries, her brilliant court assembled around her, while in a retired nook of England the legitimate King of France was leading a lonely and gloomy life.

Josephine, as we have said, was a good royalist; and, as empress, she still mourned over the fate of the unfortunate Bourbons, and esteemed it her sacred duty to assist and advise those who, true to their principles and duties, had followed the royal family, or had emigrated, in order that they might, at least, not be compelled to do homage to the new system. Her purse was always at the service of the emigrants; and, if Josephine continually made debts, in spite of her enormous monthly allowance, her extravagance was not alone the cause, but also her kindly, generous heart; for she was in the habit of setting apart the half of her monthly income for the relief of poor emigrants, and, no matter how great her own embarrassment, or how pressing her creditors, she never suffered the amount devoted to the relief of misfortune and the reward of fidelity to be applied to any other purpose[13].

[Footnote 13: Memoires sur la reine Hortense, par le Baron van Schelten, vol. i., p. 145.]

Now that Josephine was an empress, her daughter, the wife of the High Constable of France, took the second position at the brilliant court of the emperor. The daughter of the beheaded viscount was now a "Princess of France," an "imperial highness," who must be approached with reverence, who had her court and her maids of honor, and whose liberty and personal inclinations, as was also the case with her mother, were confined in the fetters of the strict etiquette which Napoleon required to be observed at the new imperial court.

But neither Josephine nor Hortense allowed herself to be blinded by this new splendor. A crown could confer upon Josephine no additional happiness; glittering titles could neither enhance Hortense's youth and beauty, nor alleviate her secret misery. She would have been contented to live in retirement, at the side of a beloved husband; her proud position could not indemnify her for her lost woman's happiness.

But Fate seemed to pity the noble, gentle being, who knew how to bear misery and grandeur with the same smiling dignity, and offered her a recompense for the overthrow of her first mother's hope—a new hope—she promised to become a mother again.

Josephine received this intelligence with delight, for her daughter's hope was a hope for her too. If Hortense should give birth to a son, the gods might be reconciled, and misfortune be banished from the head of the empress. With this son, the dynasty of the new imperial family would be assured; this son could be the heir of the imperial crown, and Napoleon could well adopt as his own the child who was at the same time his nephew and his grandson.

Napoleon promised Josephine that he would do this; that he would rather content himself with an adopted son, in whom the blood of the emperor and of the empress was mixed, than be compelled to separate himself from her, from his Josephine. Napoleon still loved his wife; he still compared with all he thought good and beautiful, the woman who shed around his grandeur the lustre of her grace and loveliness.

When the people greeted their new emperor with loud cries of joy and thunders of applause, Napoleon, his countenance illumined with exultation, exclaimed: "How glorious a music is this! These acclamations and greetings sound as sweet and soft as the voice of Josephine! How proud and happy I am, to be loved by such a people[14]!"

[Footnote 14: Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 288.]

But his proud ambition was not yet sated. As he bad once said, upon entering the Tuileries as first consul, "It is not enough to be in the Tuileries; one must also remain there"—he now said: "It is not enough to have been made emperor by the French people; one must also have received his consecration as emperor from the Pope of Rome."

And Napoleon was now mighty enough to give laws to the world; not only to bend France, but also foreign sovereigns, to his will.

Napoleon desired for his crown the papal consecration; and the Pope left the holy city and repaired to Paris, to give the new emperor the blessing of the Church in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. This was a new halo around Napoleon's head—a new, an unbounded triumph, which he celebrated over France, over the whole world and its prejudices, and over all the dynasties by the "grace of God." The Pope came to Paris to crown the emperor. The German emperors had been compelled to make a pilgrimage to Rome, to receive the papal benediction, and now the Pope made a pilgrimage to Paris to crown the French emperor, and acknowledge the son of the Revolution as the consecrated son of the Church. All France was intoxicated with delight at this intelligence; all France adored the hero, who made of the wonders of fiction a reality, and converted even the holy chair at Rome into the footstool of his grandeur. Napoleon's journey with Josephine through France, undertaken while they awaited the Pope's coming, was, therefore, a single, continuous triumph. It was not only the people who received him with shouts of joy, but the Church also sang to him, everywhere, her sanctus, sanctus, and the priests received him at the doors of their churches with loud benedictions, extolling him as the savior of France. Everywhere, the imperial couple was received with universal exultation, with the ringing of bells, with triumphal arches, and solemn addresses of welcome, the latter partaking sometimes of a transcendental nature.

"God created Bonaparte," said the Prefect of Arras, in his enthusiastic address to the emperor—"God created Bonaparte, and then He rested." And Count Louis of Narbonne, at that time not yet won over by the emperor, and not yet grand-marshal of the imperial court, whispered, quite audibly: "God would have done better had He rested a little sooner!"

Finally, the intelligence overran all France, that the wonder, in which they had not yet dared to believe, had become reality, and that Pope Pius VII. had crossed the boundaries of France, and was now approaching the capital. The Holy Father of the Church, that had now arisen victoriously from the ruins of the revolution, was everywhere received by the people and authorities with the greatest honor. The old royal palace at Fontainebleau had, by order of the emperor, been refurnished with imperial magnificence, and, as a peculiarly delicate attention, the Pope's bedchamber had been arranged in exact imitation of his bedchamber in the Quirinal at Home. The emperor, empress, and their suite, now repaired to Fontainebleau, to receive Pope Pius VII. The whole ceremony had, however, been previously arranged, and understanding had with the Pope concerning the various questions of etiquette. In conformity with this prearranged ceremony, when the couriers announced the approach of the Pope, Napoleon rode out to the chase, to give himself the appearance of meeting the Pope accidentally on his way. The equipages and the imperial court had taken position in the forest of Nemours. Napoleon, however, attired in hunting-dress, rode, with his suite, to the summit of a little hill, which the Pope's carriage had just reached. The Pope at once ordered a halt, and the emperor also brought his suite to a stand with a gesture of his hand. A brief interval of profound silence followed. All felt that a great historical event was taking place, and the eyes of all were fastened in wondering expectation on the two chief figures of this scene—on the emperor, who sat there on his horse, in his simple huntsman's attire; and on the Pope, in his gold-embroidered robes, leaning back in his equipage, drawn by six horses.

As Napoleon dismounted, the Pope hastened to descend from his carriage, hesitating a moment, however, after he had already placed his foot on the carriage-step; but Napoleon's foot had already touched the earth. Pius could, therefore, no longer hesitate; he must make up his mind to step, in his white, gold-embroidered satin slippers, on the wet soil, softened by a shower of rain, that had fallen on the previous day. The emperor's hunting-boots were certainly much better adapted to this meeting in the mud than the Pope's white satin slippers.

Emperor and Pope approached and embraced each other tenderly; then, through the inattention of the coachmen, seemingly, the imperial equipage was set in motion, and, in its rapid advance, interrupted this tender embrace. It seemed to be the merest accident that the emperor stood on the right, and the Pope on the left side of the equipage, that had now been brought to a stand again. The two doors of the carriage were simultaneously thrown open by the lackeys; at the same time, the Pope entered the carriage on the left, and the emperor on the right side, both seating themselves side by side at the same time. This settled the question of etiquette. Neither had preceded the other, but the emperor occupied the seat of honor on the Pope's right.

The coronation of the imperial pair took place on the 2d of December, 1804, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Not only all Paris, but all France, was in motion on this day. An immense concourse of people surged to and fro in the streets; the windows of all the houses were filled with richly-adorned and beautiful women, the bells were ringing in all the churches, and joyous music, intermixed with the shouts of the people, was heard in every direction. For a moment, however, these shouts were changed into laughter, and that was when the papal procession approached, headed by an ass led by the halter, in accordance with an ancient custom of Rome. While the Pope, with the high dignitaries of the Church, repaired to the cathedral to await there the coming of the imperial couple, Napoleon was putting on the imperial insignia in the Tuileries, enveloping himself in the green velvet mantle, bordered with ermine, and thickly studded with brilliants, and arraying himself in the whole glittering paraphernalia of his new dignity. When already on the point of leaving the Tuileries with his wife, who stood at his side in her imperial attire, Bonaparte suddenly gave the order that the notary Ragideau should be called to the palace, as he desired to see him at once.

A messenger was at once sent, in an imperial equipage, to bring him from his dwelling, and in a quarter of an hour the little notary Ragideau entered the cabinet of the empress, in which the imperial pair were alone, awaiting him in their glittering attire.

His eyes beaming, a triumphant smile on his lips, Napoleon stepped forward to meet the little notary. "Well, Master Ragideau," said he, gayly, "I have had you called, merely to ask you whether General Bonaparte really possesses nothing besides his hat and his sword, or whether you will now forgive Viscountess Beauharnais for having married me;" and, as Ragideau looked at him in astonishment, and Josephine asked the meaning of his strange words, Bonaparte related how, while standing in Ragideau's antechamber on a certain occasion, he had heard the notary advising Josephine not to marry poor little Bonaparte; not to become the wife of the general, who possessed nothing but his hat and his sword.

The notary's words had entered the ambitious young man's heart like a dagger, and had wounded him deeply. But he had uttered no complaint, and made no mention of it; but to-day, on the day of his supreme triumph, to-day the emperor remembered that moment of humiliation, and, arrayed with the full insignia of the highest earthly dignity, he accorded himself the triumph of reminding the little notary that he had once advised Josephine not to marry him, because of his poverty.

The poor General Bonaparte had now transformed himself into the mighty Emperor Napoleon. Then he possessed nothing but his hat and his sword, but now the Pope awaited him in the cathedral of Notre-Dame, to place the golden imperial crown on his head.



CHAPTER VI.

NAPOLEON'S HEIR.

Hortense had not been able to take any part in the festivities of the coronation; but another festivity had been prepared for her in the retirement of her apartments. She had given birth to a son; and in this child the happy mother found consolation and a new hope.

Josephine, who had assumed the imperial crown with a feeling of foreboding sadness, received the intelligence of the birth of her grandson with exultation. It seemed to her that the clouds that had been gathering over her head were now dissipated, and that a day of unclouded sunshine now smiled down upon her. Hortense had assured her mother's future; she had given birth to a son, and had thus given a first support to the new imperial dynasty. There was now no longer a reason why Napoleon should entertain the thoughts of a separation, for there was a son to whom he could one day bequeath the imperial throne of France.

The emperor also seemed to be disposed to favor Josephine's wishes, and to adopt his brother's son as his own. Had he not requested the Pope to delay his departure for a few days, in order to baptize the child? The Pope performed this sacred rite at St. Cloud, the emperor holding the child, and Madame Letitia standing at his side as second witness. Hortense now possessed an object upon which she could lavish the whole wealth of love that had until now lain concealed in her heart. The little Napoleon Charles was Hortense's first happy love; and she gave way to this intoxicating feeling with the most intense delight.

Josephine's house was now her home in the fullest sense of the word; she no longer shared her home with her husband, and could now bestow her undivided love and care upon her child. Louis Napoleon, the Grand-Constable of France, had been appointed Governor of Piedmont by Napoleon; and Hortense, owing to her delicate health, had not been compelled to accompany him, but had been permitted to remain in her little house in Paris, which she could exchange when summer came for her husband's new estate, the castle of Saint-Leu.

But the tranquillity which Josephine enjoyed with her child in this charming country-resort was to be of short duration. The brother and sister-in-law of the emperor could not hope to be permitted to lead a life of retirement. They were rays of the sun that now dazzled the whole world; they must fulfil their destiny, and contribute their light to the ruling sun.

An order of Napoleon recalled the constable, who had returned from Piedmont a short time before, and repaired to Saint-Leu to see his son, to Paris. Napoleon had appointed his brother to a brilliant destiny; the Constable of France was to become a king. Delegates of the Republic of Batavia, the late Holland, had arrived in Paris, and requested their mighty neighbor, the Emperor Napoleon, to give them a king, who should unite them with the glittering empire, through the ties of blood. Napoleon intended to fulfil their wishes, and present them with a king, in the person of his brother Louis.

But Louis was rather appalled than dazzled by this offer, and refused to accept the proposed dignity. In this refusal he was also in perfect harmony with his wife, who did all in her power to strengthen his resolution. Both felt that the crown which it was proposed to place on their heads would be nothing more than a golden chain of dependence; that the King of Holland could be nothing more than the vassal of France; and their personal relations to each other added another objection to this political consideration.

In Paris, husband and wife could forget the chain that bound them together; there they were in the circle of their friends, and could avoid each other. The great, glittering imperial court served to separate and reconcile the young couple, who had never forgiven themselves for having fettered each other in this involuntary union. In Paris they had amusements, friends, society; while in Holland they would live in entire dependence on each other, and hear continually the rattling of the chain with which each had bound the other to the galley of a union without love.

Both felt this, and both were, therefore, united in the endeavor to ward off this new misfortune that was suspended over their heads, in the form of a kingly crown.

But how could they resist successfully the iron will of Napoleon? Hortense had never had the courage to address Napoleon directly on the subject of her wishes and petitions, and Josephine already felt that her wishes no longer exercised the power of earlier days over the emperor. She therefore avoided interceding where she was not sure of being successful.

At the outset, Louis had the courage to resist his brother openly; but Napoleon's angry glance annihilated his opposition, and his gentle, yielding nature was forced to succumb. In the presence of the deputation of the Batavian Republic, that so ardently longed for a sceptre and crown, Napoleon appealed to his brother Louis to accept the crown which had been freely tendered him, and to be to his country a king who would respect and protect its liberties, its laws, and its religion.

With emotion, Louis Bonaparte declared himself ready to accept this crown, and to be a good and true ruler to his new country.

And to keep this oath faithfully was from this time the single and sacred endeavor to which he devoted his every thought and energy. The people of Holland having chosen him to be their king, he was determined to do honor to their choice; having been compelled to give up his own country and nationality, he determined to belong to his new country with his whole heart and being—to become a thorough Hollander, as he could no longer remain a Frenchman.

This heretofore so gentle and passive nature now developed an entirely new energy; this dreamer, this pale, silent brother of the emperor, was now suddenly transformed into a bold, self-reliant man of action, who had fixed his gaze on a noble aim, and was ready to devote all the powers of his being to its attainment. As King of Holland, he desired, above all, to be beloved by his subjects, and to be able to contribute to their welfare and happiness. He studied their language with untiring diligence, and made himself acquainted with their manners and customs, for the purpose of making them his own. He investigated the sources of their wealth and of their wants, and sought to develop the former and relieve the latter. He was restless in his efforts to provide for his country, and to merit the love and confidence which his subjects bestowed on him.

His wife also exerted herself to do justice to her new and glittering position, and to wear worthily the crown which she had so unwillingly accepted. In her drawing-rooms she brought together, at brilliant entertainments, the old aristocracy and the new nobility of Holland, and taught the stiff society of that country the fine, unconstrained tone, and the vivacious intellectual conversation of Parisian society. It was under Hortense's fostering hand that art and science first made their way into the aristocratic parlors of Holland, giving to their social reunions a higher and nobler importance.

And Hortense was not only the protectress of art and science, but also the mother of the poor, the ministering angel of the unhappy, whose tears she dried, and whose misery she alleviated—and this royal pair, though adored and blessed by their subjects, could not find within their palaces the least reflection of the happiness they so well knew how to confer upon others without its walls. Between these two beings, so gentle and yielding to others, a strange antipathy continued to exist, and not even the birth of a second, and of a third, son could fill up the chasm that separated them.

And this chasm was soon to be broadened by a new blow of destiny. Hortense's eldest, the adopted son of Napoleon, the presumptive heir to his throne, the child that Napoleon loved so dearly that he often played with him for hours on the terraces of St. Cloud, the child Josephine worshipped, because its existence seemed to assure her own happiness, the child that had awakened the first feeling of motherly bliss in Hortense's bosom, the child that had often even consoled Louis Bonaparte for the unenjoyable present with bright hopes for the future—the little Napoleon Charles died in the year 1807, of the measles.

This was a terrific blow that struck the parents, and the imperial pair of France with equal force. Napoleon's eyes filled with tears when this intelligence was brought him, and a cry of horror escaped Josephine's lips.

"Now I am lost!" she murmured in a low voice; "now my fate is decided. He will put me away."

But after this first egotistical outburst of her own pain, she hastened to the Hague to weep with her daughter, and bring her away from the place associated with her loss and her anguish. Hortense returned with the empress to St. Cloud; while her husband, who had almost succumbed to his grief, was compelled to seek renewed health in the baths of the Pyrenees. The royal palace at the Hague now stood desolate again; death had banished life and joy from its halls; and, though the royal pair were subsequently compelled to return to it, joy and happiness came back with them no more.

King Louis had returned from the Pyrenees in a more gloomy and ill-natured frame of mind than ever; a sickly distrust, a repulsive irritability, had taken possession of his whole being, and his young wife no longer had the good-will to bear with his caprices, and excuse his irritable disposition. They were totally different in their views, desires, inclinations, and aspirations; and their children, instead of being a means of reuniting, seemed to estrange them the more, for each insisted on considering them his or her exclusive property, and in having them educated according to his or her views and wishes.