peculiar to woman,
trembled on her lips, and, in a gentle, touching voice, she said: "Was
I not right, my friend, when I shrank back in terror from the thought of
becoming an empress[18]?"

[Footnote 18: Josephine's own narrative. See Bourrienne, vol. iii., p.
342, _et seq_.]

Napoleon made no reply. He turned away and wept. But these farewell
tears of his love could not change Josephine's fate; the emperor had
already determined it irrevocably. His demand of the hand of the
Archduchess Marie Louise had already been acceded to in Vienna. Nothing
now remained to be done but to remove Josephine from the throne, and
elevate a new, a legitimate empress, to the vacant place!

The emperor could not and would not retrace his steps. He assembled
about him all his brothers, all the kings, dukes, and princes, created
by his mighty will, and in the state-chambers of the Tuileries, in the
presence of his court and the Senate, the emperor appeared; at his side
the empress, arrayed for the last time in all the insignia of the
dignity she was about to lay aside forever.

for the legitimate dynasty. But the people and the
army had still preserved their old love for the emperor, and the
proclamation of Prince Schwartzenberg, read by Bauvineux in the streets,
was listened to in silence. True, the royalists cried, _"Vive le roi!"_
at the end of this reading, but the people remained indifferent
and mute.

This sombre silence alarmed Countess Ducayla; it seemed to indicate a
secret discontent with the new order of things. She felt that this
sullen people must be inflamed, and made to speak with energy and
distinctness. To awaken enthusiasm by means of words and proclamations
had been attempted in vain; now the countess determined to attempt to
arouse them by another means--to astonish them by the display of a
striking symbo

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anxious and doubting
capital: "The emperor has been received by the people in Grenoble with
exultation, and the troops that were to have been led against him have,
together with their chieftain, Charles de Labedoyere, gone over to the
emperor. The gates of the city were thrown open, and the people advanced
to meet him with shouts of welcome and applause; and now Napoleon stood
no longer at the head of a little body of troops, but at the head of a
small army that was increasing with every hour."

The government still endeavored, through its officials and through the
public press, to make the Parisians disbelieve this intelligence.

But the government had lost faith in itself. It heard the old, the hated
cry, "Vive l'empereur!" resounding through the air; it heard the
fluttering of the victorious battle-flags of Marengo, Arcola, Jena, and
Austerlitz! The Emperor Napoleon was still the conquering hero, who
swayed destiny and compelled it to declare for him.

A perfect frenzy of dismay took possession of the royalists; and when
they learned that Napoleon had already arrived in Lyons, that its
inhabitants had received him with enthusiasm, and that its garrison had
also declared for him, their panic knew no bounds.

and to conquer them by contempt, instead of
giving them new life by combating and contradicting them.

She herself entertained such contempt for calumny that she never allowed
anything abusive to be said in her presence that would injure any one in
her estimation. When, on one occasion, while she was still Queen of
Holland, a lady of Holland took occasion to speak ill of another lady,
on account of her political opinions, the queen interrupted her, and
said: "Madame, here I am a stranger to all parties, and receive all
persons with the same consideration, for I love to hear every one well
spoken of; and I generally receive an unfavorable impression of those
only who speak ill of others[43]."

[Footnote 43: Cochelet, vol. i., p. 378.]

And, strange to say, she herself was ever the object of calumny and
accusation.

to his will, and follow the empress with her children, he would
immediately take his children into his own custody, by virtue of his
authority as husband and father.

At this threat, the queen sprang up like an enraged lioness from her
lair. With glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes she commanded that her
children should be at once brought to her, and then, pressing her two
boys to her heart with passionate tenderness, she exclaimed: "Tell the
king that I shall leave the city within the hour!"

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ALLIES IN PARIS.

he holds firmly in check with the reins.

A beautiful copy of this great painting hung in the parlor of the
duchess; and to this she now pointed while narrating the history of the
emperor's passage over the Great St. Bernard with an army, a feat never
before performed except by Hannibal and Caesar, and perhaps never to be
performed again.

As she concluded her narrative, an almost angry expression flitted
across the young prince's countenance. Rising from his seat, and holding
himself perfectly erect, he exclaimed: "Oh, mamma, I shall also cross
the Alps some day, as the emperor did!"

And while thus speaking, a glowing color suffused his face; his lips
trembled, and the feverish beating of his heart was quite audible.

Hortense turned in some anxiety to her friend Louise de Cochelet, and
begged her in a low voice to soothe the child with the recital of some
merry narrative. As Louise looked around the room thoughtfully and
searchingly, a cup that stood on the mantel-piece arrested her gaze. She
hastened to the mantel, took the cup, and returned with it to little
Louis Napoleon.

had been the former possessor of the great forests of Chantilly.

"The step-daughter of the Emperor Napoleon, Queen Hortense," replied the
man, with perfect indifference. "The people continued to speak of her
here for a long time; it was said that she was wandering about in the
country in disguise, but for the last few years nothing has been heard
of her, and I do not know what has become of her."

"She is surely dead, the poor queen," said Hortense, with so sad a smile
that her son turned pale, and his eyes filled with tears.

From Chantilly they wandered on to Ermenonville and Morfontaine, for
Hortense desired to show her son all the places she had once seen in the
days of fortune with the emperor and her mother. These places...

with.
Louis XVIII. smiled, and continued: "You, my dear sir, are a marshal of
France. I appoint you to this dignity."

"Sire," said Eugene, bowing profoundly, "I am much obliged to your
majesty for your kind intentions, but the misfortune of the rank to
which destiny has called me will not allow me to accept the high title
with which you honor me. I thank you very much, but I must
decline it[34]."

[Footnote 34: Memoires d'une Femme de Qualite, vol. i., p. 267.]

The king's stratagem had thus come to grief, and Eugene left the royal
presence with flying colors. He was not under the necessity of accepting
benefits from the King of France, for his step-father, the King of
Bavaria, made Eugene a prince of the royal house of Bavaria, and created
for him the duchy of Leuchtenberg. Hither Eugene retired, and lived
there, surrounded by his wife and children, in peace and tranquillity,
until death tore him from the arms of his sorrowing family, in the
year 1824.

CHAPTER III.

MADAME DE STAEL.

with diamonds, on the head of her
eldest son. "Would you like me less if I were poor, and wore no
diamonds, but merely a plain black dress? Would you love me less then?"

"No, _maman_!" exclaimed the boy, almost angrily, and little Louis
Napoleon, who sat in his mother's lap, repeated in his shrill little
voice: "No, _maman_!"

The queen smiled. "Diamonds and dress do not constitute happiness, and
we three would love each other just as much if we had no jewelry, and
were poor. But tell me, Napoleon, if you had nothing, and were entirely
alone in the world, what would you do for yourself?"

"I would become a soldier," cried Napoleon, with sparkling eyes, "and I
would fight so bravely that I should soon be made an officer."

"And you, Louis, what would you do to earn your daily bread?"

The little fellow had listened earnestly to his brother's words, and
seemed to be thinking over them still. Perhaps he felt that the knapsack
and musket were too heavy for his little shoulders, and that he was, as
yet, too weak to become a soldier.

"I," said he, a