Heaven took pity on the agony of the unhappy Duchess of St. Leu. It heard the prayer of her anxious mother's heart, and permitted mother and son to escape the dangers that menaced them at every step in Italy.
At Antibes they succeeded in crossing the French boundary without being recognized. They were now in their own country--inla belle France, which they still loved and proudly called their mother, although it had forsaken and discarded them. The death-penalty threatened the Bonapartes who should dare to set foot on French soil. But what cared they for that? Neither Hortense nor her son thought of it. They only knew that they were in their own country. They inhaled with delight the air that seemed to them better and purer than any other; with hearts throbbing with joy, they listened to the music of this beautiful language that greeted them with the sweet native melodies.
At Cannes they passed the first night. What recollections did this place recall to Hortense! Here it was that Napoleon had landed on his return from Elba to France; from Cannes he had commenced his march to Paris with a handful of soldiers, and had arrived there with an army. For the people had everywhere received him with exultation; the regiments that had been sent out against the advancing general had everywhere joyously gone over to his standard. Charles de Labédoyère, this enthusiastic adherent of the emperor, had been the first to do this. He was to have advanced against the emperor from Grenoble; but, with the exulting cry, "Vive l'empereur!" the entire regiment had gone over to its adored chieftain. Labédoyère had paid dearly for the enthusiasm of those moments; for, the for-the-second-time restored Bourbons punished his fidelity with death. Like Marshal Ney, Charles de Labédoyère was also shot; like the emperor himself, he paid for the triumph of the hundred days with his liberty and with his life!
Of all these names and events of the past, Hortense thought, while enjoying the first hours of repose in their room at an hotel in Cannes. Leaning back in her chair, her large eyes gazing dreamily at the ceiling above her, she told the attentive prince of the days that had been, and spoke to him of the days in which they were now living--of these days of humiliation and obscurity--of those days in which the French nation had risen, and, shaking its lion's mane, hurled the Bourbons from their ancestral throne, and out of the land they had hitherto proudly called their own. On driving out the Bourbons, the people had freely chosen another king--not the King of Rome, who, in Vienna, as Duke of Reichstadt, had been made to forget the brilliant days of his childhood--not the son of the Emperor Napoleon. The people of France had chosen the Duke of Orleans as their king, and Louis Philippe's first act had been to renew the decree of banishment which the Bourbons had fulminated against the Bonapartes, and which declared it to be a capital crime if they should ever dare to set foot on the soil of France.
"The people acted freely and according to their own will," said Hortense, with a sad smile, as she saw her son turn pale, and wrinkles gather on his brow. "Honor the will of the people, my son! In order to reward the emperor for his great services to the country, the people of France had unanimously chosen him their emperor. The people who give have also the right to take back again. The Bourbons, who consider themselves the owners of France, may reclaim it as an estate of which they have been robbed by the house of Orleans. But the Bonapartes must remember that they derived all their power from the will of the people. They must be content to await the future expression of its will, and then submit, and conform themselves to it[62]."
[62]The duchess's own words. See La Reine Hortense en Italie, Suisse, France, etc., p. 79.
Louis Napoleon bowed his head and sighed. He must conform to the will of the people; cautiously, under a borrowed name, he must steal into the land of his longing and of his dreams; he must deny his nationality, and be indebted, for his name and passport, to the country that had bound his uncle, like a second Prometheus, to the rock, and left him there to die! But he did it with a sorrowful, with a bleeding heart; he wandered with his mother, who walked heavily veiled at his side, from place to place, listening to her reminiscences of the great past. At her relation of these reminiscences, his love and enthusiasm for the fatherland, from which he had so long been banished, burned brighter and brighter. The sight, the air of this fatherland, had electrified him; he entertained but one wish: to remain in France, and to serve France, although in the humble capacity of a private soldier.
One day Louis Napoleon entered his mother's room with a letter in his hand, and begged her to read it. It was a letter addressed to Louis Philippe, in which Louis Napoleon begged the French king to annul his exile, and to permit him to enter the French army as a private soldier.
Hortense read the letter, and shook her head sadly. It wounded her just pride that her son, the nephew of the great emperor, should ask a favor of him who had not hesitated to make the most of the revolution for himself, but had nevertheless lacked the courage to help the banished Bonapartes to recover their rights, and enable them to return to their country. In his ardent desire to serve France, Louis Napoleon had forgotten this insult of the King of France.
"My children," says Hortense, in her memoirs, "my children, who had been cruelly persecuted by all the courts, even by those who owed every thing to the emperor, their uncle, loved their country with whole-souled devotion. Their eyes ever turned toward France, busied with the consideration of institutions that might make France happy; they knew that the people alone were their friends; the hatred of the great had taught them this. To conform to the will of the people with resignation was to them a duty, but to devote themselves to the service of France was their hearts' dearest wish. It was for this reason that my son had written to Louis Philippe hoping to be permitted to make himself useful to his country in some way."
Hortense advised against this venturous step; and when she saw how much this grieved her son, and observed his eyes filling with tears, she begged that he would at least wait and reflect, and postpone his decision until their arrival in Paris.
Louis Napoleon yielded to his mother's entreaties, and in silence and sadness these two pilgrims continued their wandering through the country and cities, that to Hortense seemed transformed into luminous monuments of departed glory.
In Fontainebleau Hortense showed her son the palace that had been the witness of the greatest triumphs and also of the most bitter grief of his great uncle. Leaning on his arm, her countenance concealed by a heavy black veil, to prevent any one from recognizing her, Hortense walked through the chambers, in which she had once been installed as a mighty and honored queen, and in which she was now covertly an exile menaced with death. The servants who conducted her were the same who had been there during the days of the emperor! Hortense recognized them at once; she did not dare to make herself known, but she nevertheless felt that she, too, was remembered there. She saw this in the expression with which the servants opened the rooms she had once occupied; she heard it in the tone in which they mentioned her name! Every thing in this palace had remained as it then was! There was the same furniture in the rooms which the imperial family had occupied after the peace of Tilsit, and in which they had given such brilliantfêtes, and received the homage of so many of the kings and princes of Europe, all of whom had come to implore the assistance and favor of their vanquisher! There were also the apartments which the pope had occupied, once voluntarily; subsequently, under compulsion. Alas! and there was also the little cabinet, in which the emperor, the once so mighty and illustrious ruler of Europe, had abdicated the crown which his victories, his good deeds, and the love of the French people, had placed on his head! And, finally, there were also the chapel and the altar before which the Emperor Napoleon had stood god-father to his nephew Louis Napoleon! All was still as it had been, except that the garden, that Hortense and her mother had laid out and planted, had grown more luxuriant, and now sang to the poor banished pilgrim with its rustling tree-tops a melancholy song of her long separation from her home!
The sorrowing couple wandered on, and at last arrived before the gates of Paris. At this moment, Hortense was a Frenchwoman, a Parisian only, and, forgetting every thing else, all her grief and sufferings, she sought only to do the honors of Paris for her son. She ordered the coachman to drive them through the boulevards to the Rue de la Paix, and then to stop at the first good hotel. This was the same way over which she had passed sixteen years before, escorted by an Austrian officer. Then she had quitted Paris by night, driven out in a measure by the allies, who so much feared her, the poor, weak woman with her little boys, that troops had been placed under arms at regular intervals on her way, in order, as it was given out, to secure her safe passage. Now, after sixteen years, Hortense returned to Paris by the same route, still exiled and homeless, at her side the son who was not only menaced by the French decree of banishment, but also by the Austrian edict of proscription.
But yet she was once more in Paris, once more at home, and she wept with joy at beholding once more the streets and places about which the memories of her youth clustered.
By a strange chance, it was at the "Hôtel de Hollande" that the former Queen of Holland descended from her carriage, and took up her residence, holding thus, in a measure, her entrance into Paris, under the fluttering banner of the past. In the littleHôtel de Hollande, the Queen of Holland took possession of the apartments of the first floor, which commanded a view of the boulevard and the column of thePlace Vendôme."Say to the column on thePlace Vendômethat I am dying, because I cannot embrace it," the Duke de Reichstadt once wrote in the album of a French nobleman, who had succeeded, in spite of the watchful spies, who surrounded the emperor's son, in speaking to him of his father and of the empire. This happiness, vainly longed for by the emperor's son, was at least to be enjoyed by his nephew.
Louis Napoleon could venture to show himself. In Paris he was entirely unknown, and could therefore be betrayed by no one. He could go down into the square and hasten to the foot of theVendômecolumn, and in thought at least kneel down before the monument that immortalized the renown and grandeur of the emperor. Hortense remained behind, in order to perform a sacred duty, imposed on her, as she believed, by her own honor and dignity.
She was not willing to sojourn secretly, like a fugitive criminal, in the city that in the exercise of its free will had chosen itself a king, but not a Bonaparte. She was not willing to partake of French hospitality and enjoy French protection by stealth; she was not willing to go about in disguise, deceiving the government with a false pass and a borrowed name. She had the courage of truth and sincerity, and she resolved to say to the King of France that she had come, not to defy his decree of banishment by her presence, not for the purpose of intriguing against his new crown, by arousing the Bonapartists from their sleep of forgetfulness by her appearance, but solely because there was no other means of saving her son; because she must pass through France with him in order to reach England.
Revolution, which so strangely intermingles the destinies of men, had surrounded the new king almost entirely with the friends and servants of the emperor and of the Duchess of St. Leu. But, in order not to excite suspicion against these, Hortense now addressed herself to him with whom she had the slightest acquaintance and whose devotion to the Orleans family was too well known to be called in doubt by her undertaking. Hortense therefore addressed herself to M. de Houdetot, the adjutant of the king, or rather, she caused her friend Mlle. de Massuyer to write to him. She was instructed to inform the count that she had come to Paris with an English family, and was the bearer of a commission from the Duchess of St. Leu to M. de Houdetot.
M. de Houdetot responded to her request, and came to theHôtel de Hollandeto see Mlle. Massuyer. With surprise and emotion, he recognized in the supposititious English lady the Duchess of St. Leu, who was believed by all the world to be on the way to Malta, and for whom her friends (who feared the fatigue of so long a journey would be too much for Hortense in her weak state of health) had already taken steps to obtain for her permission to pass through France on her way to England.
Hortense informed Count Houdetot of the last strokes of destiny that had fallen upon her, and expressed her desire to see the king, in order to speak with him in person about the future of her son.
M. de Houdetot undertook to acquaint the king with her desire, and came on the following day to inform the duchess of the result of his mission. He told the duchess that the king had loudly lamented her boldness in coming to France, and the impossibility of his seeing her. He told her, moreover, that, as the king had a responsible ministry at his side, he had been compelled to inform the premier of her arrival, and that Minister Casimir Perrier would call on her during the day.
A few hours later, Louis Philippe's celebrated minister arrived. He came with an air of earnest severity, as it were to sit in judgment upon the accused duchess, but her artless sincerity and her gentle dignity disarmed him, and soon caused him to assume a more delicate and polite bearing.
"I well know," said Hortense in the course of the conversation, "I well know that I have broken a law, by coming hither; I fully appreciate the gravity of this offence; you have the right to cause me to be arrested, and it would be perfectly just in you to do so!"--Casimir Perrier shook his head slowly, and replied: "Just, no! Lawful, yes[63]!"
[63]La Reine Hortense: Voyage en Italie, etc., p. 110.
The visit which Casimir Perrier had paid the duchess seemed to have convinced him that the fears which the king and his ministry had entertained had really been groundless, that the step-daughter of Napoleon had not come to Paris to conspire and to claim the still somewhat unstable throne of France for the Duke de Reichstadt or for Louis Napoleon, but that she had only chosen the way through France, in the anxiety of maternal love in order to rescue her son.
In accordance with this conviction, Louis Philippe no longer considered it impossible to see the Duchess of St. Leu, but now requested her to call. Perhaps the king, who had so fine a memory for figures and money-matters, remembered that it had been Hortense (then still Queen of Holland) who, during the hundred days of the empire in 1815, had procured for the Duchess Orleans-Penthièvre, from the emperor, permission to remain in Paris and a pension of two hundred thousand francs per annum; that it had been Hortense who had done the same for the aunt of the present king, the Duchess of Orleans-Bourbon. Then, in their joy over an assured and brilliant future, these ladies had written the duchess the most affectionate and devoted letters; then they had assured Hortense of their eternal and imperishable gratitude[64]. Perhaps Louis Philippe remembered this, and was desirous of rewarding Hortense for her services to his mother and his aunt.
[64]La Reine Hortense: Voyage en Italie, etc., p. 185.
He solicited a visit from Hortense, and, on the second day of her sojourn in Paris, M. de Houdetot conducted the Duchess of St. Leu to the Tuileries, in which she had once lived as a young girl, as the step-daughter of the emperor; then as Queen of Holland, as the wife of the emperor's brother; and which she now beheld once more, a poor, nameless pilgrim, a fugitive with shrouded countenance, imploring a little toleration and protection of those to whom she had once accorded toleration and protection.
Louis Philippe received the Duchess of St. Leu with all the elegance and graciousness which the "Citizen King" so well knew how to assume, and that had always been an inheritance of his house, with all the amiability and apparent open-heartedness beneath which he so well knew how to conceal his real disposition. Coming to the point at once, he spoke of that which doubtlessly interested the duchess most, of the decree of banishment.
"I am familiar," said the king, "with all the pains of exile, and it is not my fault that yours have not been alleviated." He assured her that this decree of banishment against the Bonaparte family was a heavy burden on his heart; he went so far as to excuse himself for it by saying that the exile pronounced against the imperial family was only an article of the same law which the conventionists had abolished, and the renewal of which had been so vehemently demanded by the country! Thus it had seemed as though he had uttered a new decree of banishment, while in point of fact he had only renewed a law that had already existed under the consulate of Napoleon. "But," continued the king with exultation, "the time is no longer distant when there will be no more exiles; I will have none under my government!"
Then, as if to remind the duchess that there had been exiles and decrees of banishment at all times, also under the republic, the consulate, and the kingdom, he spoke of his own exile, of the needy and humiliating situation in which he had found himself, and which had compelled him to hire himself out as a teacher and give instruction for a paltry consideration.
The duchess had listened to the king with a gentle smile, and replied that she knew the story of his exile, and that it did him honor.
Then the duchess informed the king that her son had accompanied her on her journey, and was now with her in Paris; she also told him that her son, in his glowing enthusiasm for his country, had written to the king, begging that he might be permitted to enter the army.
"Lend me the letter," replied Louis Philippe; "Perrier shall bring it to me, and, if circumstances permit, I shall be perfectly willing to grant your son's request; and it will also give me great pleasure to serve you at all times. I know that you have legitimate claims on the government, and that you have appealed to the justice of all former ministries in vain. Write out a statement of all that France owes you, and send itto me alone. I understand business matters, and constitute myself from this time on yourchargé d'affaires[65]. The Duke of Rovigo," he continued, "has informed me that the other members of the imperial family have similar claims. It will afford me great pleasure to be of assistance to all of you, and I shall interest myself particularly for the Princess de Montfort[66]."
[65]The king's own words. See Voyage en Italie, etc., p. 201.
[66]The Princess de Montfort was the wife of Jerome, the sister of the King of Würtemberg, and a cousin of the Emperor of Russia.
Hortense had listened to the king, her whole face radiant with delight. The king's beneficent countenance, his friendly smile, his hearty and cordial manner, dispelled all doubt of his sincerity in Hortense's mind. She believed in his goodness and in his kindly disposition toward herself; and, in her joyous emotion, she thanked him with words of enthusiasm for his promised benefits, never doubting that it was his intention to keep his word.
"Ah, sire!" she exclaimed, "the entire imperial family is in misfortune, and you will have many wrongs to redress. France owes us all a great deal, and it will be worthy of you to liquidate these debts."
The king declared his readiness to do every thing. He who was so fond of taking in millions and of speculating, smilingly promised, in the name of France, to disburse millions, and to pay off the old state debt!
The duchess believed him. She believed in his protestations of friendship, and in his blunt sincerity. She allowed him to conduct her to his wife, the queen, and was received by her and Madame Adelaide with the same cordiality the king had shown. Once only in the course of the conversation did Madame Adelaide forget her cordial disposition. She asked the duchess how long she expected to remain in Paris, and when the latter replied that she intended remaining three days longer, Madame exclaimed, in a tone of anxious dismay: "So long! Three days still! And there are so many Englishmen here who have seen your son in Italy, and might recognize you here!"
But Fate itself seemed to delay the departure of the duchess and her son. On returning home from her visit to the Tuileries, she found her son on his bed in a violent fever, and the physician who had been called in declared that he was suffering from inflammation of the throat.
Hortense was to tremble once more for the life of a son, and this son was the last treasure Fate had left her.
Once more the mother sat at the bedside of her son, watching over him, lovingly, day and night. That her son's life might be preserved was now her only wish, her only prayer; all else became void of interest, and was lost sight of. She only left her son's side when Casimir Perrier came, as he was in the habit of doing daily, to inquire after her son's condition in the name of the king, and to request the duchess to name the amount of her claims against France, and to impart to him all her wishes with regard to her future. Hortense now had but one ardent wish--the recovery of her son; and her only request was, that she might be permitted to visit the French baths of the Pyrenees during the summer, in order to restore her failing health.
The minister promised to procure this permission of the king, and of the Chambers, that were soon to be convened. "In this way we shall gradually become accustomed to your presence," observed Casimir Perrier. "As far as you are personally concerned, we shall be inclined to throw open the gates of the country to you. But with your son it is different, his name will be a perpetual obstacle in his way. If he should really desire at any time to take service in the army, it would be, above all, necessary that he should lay aside his name. We are in duty bound to consider the wishes of foreign governments: France is divided into so many parties, that a war could only be ruinous, and therefore your son must change his name, if--"
But now the duchess, her cheeks glowing, blushing with displeasure and anger, interrupted him. "What!" exclaimed she, "lay aside the noble name with which France may well adorn itself, conceal it as though we had cause to be ashamed of it?"
Beside herself with anger, regardless, in her agitation, even of the suffering condition of her son, she hastened to his bedside, to inform him of the proposition made to her by Louis Philippe's minister.
The prince arose in his couch, his eyes flaming, and his cheeks burning at the same time with the fever-heat of disease and of anger.
"Lay aside my name!" he exclaimed. "Who dares to make such a proposition to me? Let us think of all these things no more, mother. Let us go back to our retirement. Ah, you were right, mother: our time is passed, or it has not yet come!"
Excitement had made the patient worse, and caused his fever to return with renewed violence. Hortense was now inseparable from his bedside; she herself applied ice to his burning throat, and assisted in applying the leeches ordered by the physician. But this continuous anxiety and excitement, all these troubles of the present, and sad remembrances of the past, had at last exhausted the strength of the delicate woman; the flush of fever now began to show itself on her cheeks also, and the physician urged her to take daily exercise in the open air if she desired to avoid falling ill.
Hortense followed his advice. In the evening twilight, in plain attire, her face concealed by a heavy black veil, she now daily quitted her son's bedside, and went out into the street for a walk, accompanied by the young Marquis Zappi. No one recognized her, no one greeted her, no one dreamed that the veiled figure that walked so quietly and shyly was she who, as Queen of Holland, had formerly driven through these same streets in gilded coaches, hailed by the joyous shouts of the people.
But, in these wanderings through Paris, Hortense also lived in her memories only. She showed the marquis the dwelling she had once occupied, and which had for her a single happy association: her sons had been born there. With a soft smile she looked up at the proudfaçadeof this building, the windows of which were brilliantly illumined, and in whose parlors some banker or ennobled provision-dealer was now perhaps giving a ball; pointing to these windows with her slender white hand, she said: "I wished to see this house, in order to reproach myself for having been unhappy in it; yes, I then dared to complain even in the midst of so much splendor; I was so far from dreaming of the weight of the misfortune that was one day to come upon me[67]."
[67]The duchess's own words: see Voyage, etc., p. 225.
She looked down again and passed on, to seek the houses of several friends, of whom she knew that they had remained faithful; heavily veiled and enveloped in her dark cloak she stood in front of these houses, not daring to acquaint her friends with her presence, contented with the sweet sense of being near them!
When, after having strengthened her heart with the consciousness of being near friends, she passed on through the streets, in which she, the daughter of France, was now unknown, homeless, and forgotten!--no, not forgotten!--as she chanced to glance in at a store she was just passing, she saw in the lighted window her own portrait at the side of that of the emperor.
Overcome by a sweet emotion, Hortense stood still and gazed at these pictures. The laughing, noisy crowd on the sidewalk passed on, heedless of the shrouded woman who stood there before the shop-window, gazing with tearful eyes at her own portrait. "It seems we are still remembered," whispered she, in a low voice. "Those who wear crowns are not to be envied, and should not lament their loss; but is it possible that the love of the people, to receive which is so sweet, has not yet been wholly withdrawn from us?"
The profound indifference with which France had accepted the exile of the Bonapartes had grieved her deeply. She had only longed for some token of love and fidelity in order that she might go back into exile consoled and strengthened. And now she found it. France proved to her through these portraits that she was not forgotten.
Hortense stepped with her companion into the store to purchase the portraits of herself and of the emperor; and when she was told that these portraits were in great demand, and that many of them were sold to the people, she hardly found strength to repress the tears of blissful emotion that rose from her heart to her eyes. She took the portraits and hastened home, to show them to her son and to bring to him with them the love-greetings of France. While the duchess, her thoughts divided between the remembrances of the past and the cares and troubles of the present, had been sojourning in Paris for twelve days, all the papers were extolling the heroism of the duchess in having saved her son, and of her having embarked at Malta in order to take him to England.
Even the king's ministerial council occupied itself with this matter, and thought it proper to make representations to his majesty on the subject. Marshal Sebastiani informed the king that the Duchess of St. Leu, to his certain knowledge, had landed at Corfu. With lively interest he spoke of the fatiguing journey at sea that the duchess would be compelled to make, and asked almost timidly if she might not be permitted to travel through France.
The king's countenance assumed an almost sombre look, and he replied, dryly: "Let her continue her journey." Casimir Perrier bowed his head over the paper that lay before him, in order to conceal his mirth, and minister Barthe availed himself of the opportunity to give a proof of his eloquence and of his severity, by observing that a law existed against the duchess, and that a law was a sacred thing that no one should be permitted to evade.
But the presence of the duchess, although kept a secret, began to cause the king and his premier Casimir Perrier more and more uneasiness. The latter had already once informed her through M. de Houdetot that her departure was absolutely necessary and must take place at once, and he had only been moved to consent to her further sojourn by the condition of the prince, whose inflammation of the throat had rendered a second application of leeches necessary.
They were now, however, on the eve of a great and dangerous day, of the 5th of May[68]. The people of Paris were strangely moved, and the new government saw with much apprehension the dawn of this day of such great memories for France. There seemed to be some justification for this apprehension. Since the break of day, thousands of people had flocked to the column on thePlace Vendôme. Silently and gravely they approached the monument, in order to adorn with wreaths of flowers the eagles, or to lay them at the foot of the column, and then to retire mournfully.
[68]The anniversary of Napoleon's death.
Hortense stood at the window of her apartment, looking on with folded hands and tears of bliss at the impressive and solemn scene that was taking place on thePlace Vendômebeneath, when suddenly a violent knocking was heard at her door, and M. de Houdetot rushed in, a pale and sorrowful expression on his countenance.
"Duchess," said he breathlessly, "you must depart immediately, without an hour's delay! I am ordered to inform you of this. Unless the life of your son is to be seriously endangered, you must leave at once!"
Hortense listened to him tranquilly. She almost pitied the king--the government--to whom a weak woman and an invalid youth could cause such fear. How great must this fear be, when it caused them to disregard all the laws of hospitality and of decency! What had she done to justify this fear? She had not addressed herself to the people of France, in order to obtain help and protection for her son--for the nephew of the emperor; cautiously and timidly she had concealed herself from the people, and, far from being disposed to arouse or agitate her country, she had only made herself known to the King of France in order to solicit protection and toleration at his hands.
She was distrusted, in spite of this candor; and her presence, although known to no one, awakened apprehensions in those in authority. Hortense pitied them; not a word of complaint or regret escaped her lips. She sent for her physician at once; and, after informing him that she must necessarily depart for London, she asked him if such a journey would endanger her son's life. The physician declared that, while he could have desired a few days more of repose, the prince would nevertheless, with proper care and attention, be able to leave on the following day.
"Inform the king that I shall depart to-morrow," said Hortense; and, while M. de Houdetot was hastening to the king with this welcome intelligence, the duchess was making preparations for the journey, which she began with her son early on the following morning.
In four days they reached Calais, where they found the ship that was to convey them to England in readiness to sail. Hortense was to leave her country once more as a fugitive and exile! She was once more driven out, and condemned to live in a foreign country! Because the French people still refused to forget their emperor, the French kings hated and feared the imperial family. Under the old Bourbons, they had been hated; Louis Philippe, who had attained his crown through the people, felt that it was necessary to flatter the people, and show some consideration for their sympathies. He declared to the people that he entertained the most profound admiration for their great emperor, and yet he issued a decree of banishment against the Bonapartes; he ordered that theVendômecolumn, with its bronze statue of the emperor, should be adorned, and at the same time his decree banished the daughter and the nephew of the emperor from France, and drove them back into a foreign country.
Hortense went, but she felt, in the pain it caused her, that she was leaving her country--the country in which she had friends whom she had not seen again; the country in which lay her mother's grave, which she had not dared to visit; and, finally, the grave of her son! She once more left behind her all the remembrances of her youth--all the places she had loved; and her regret and her tears made known how dear these things still were to her; that the banished and homeless one was still powerless to banish the love of country from her heart, and that France was still her home!
The sojourn of the Duchess of St. Leu in England where she arrived with her son after a stormy passage, was for both a succession of triumphs and ovations. The high aristocracy of London heaped upon her proofs of esteem, of reverence, and of love; every one seemed anxious to atone for the severity and cruelty with which England had treated the emperor, by giving proofs of their admiration and respect for his step-daughter. All these proud English aristocrats seemed desirous of proving to the duchess and her son that they were not of the same disposition as Hudson Lowe, who had slowly tormented the chained lion to death with petty annoyances.
The Duchess of Bedford, Lord and Lady Holland, and Lady Grey, in particular, were untiring in their efforts to do the honors of their country to Hortense, and to show her every possible attention. But Hortense declined their proffered invitations. She avoided all publicity; she feared, on her own and her son's account, that the tattle of the world and the newspapers might once more draw down upon her the distrust and ill-will of the French government. She feared that this might prevent her returning with her son, through France, to her quiet retreat on the Lake of Constance, in Switzerland, to her charming Arenenberg, where she had passed so many delightful and peaceful years of repose and remembrance.
Hortense was right. Her sojourn in England excited, as soon as it became known, in every quarter, care, curiosity, and disquiet. All parties were seeking to divine the duchess's intention in residing in London. All parties were convinced that she entertained plans that might endanger and frustrate their own. The Duchess de Berri, who resided in Bath, had come to London as soon as she heard of the arrival of the Duchess of St. Leu, in order to inquire into Hortense's real intention. The bold and enterprising Duchess de Berri was preparing to go to France, in order to call the people to arms for herself and son, to hurl Louis Philippe from his usurped throne, and to restore to her son his rightful inheritance. They, therefore, thought it perfectly natural that Hortense should entertain similar plans for her son; that she, too, should purpose the overthrow of the French king in order to place her own son, or the son of the emperor, the Duke de Reichstadt, on the throne.
On the other hand, it had been endeavored to persuade Prince Leopold, of Coburg, to whom the powers of Europe had just offered the crown of Belgium, that the Duchess of St. Leu had come to England in order to possess herself of Belgium by acoup d'état, and to proclaim Louis Napoleon its king. But this wise and magnanimous prince laughed at these intimations. He had known the duchess in her days of magnificence, and he now hastened to lay the same homage at the foot of the homeless woman that he had once devoted to the adored and powerful Queen of Holland. He called on the duchess, conversed with her of her beautiful and brilliant past, and told her of the hopes which he himself entertained for the future. Deeply bowed down by the death of his beloved wife, Princess Charlotte of England, it was his purpose to seek consolation in his misfortune by striving to make his people happy. He had therefore accepted the crown tendered him by the people, and was on the point of departing for Belgium.
While taking leave of the duchess, after a long and cordial conversation, he remarked, with a gentle smile: "I trust you will not take my kingdom away from me on your journey through Belgium?"
While the new government of France, as well as the exiled Bourbons, suspected the Duchess of St. Leu and her son of entertaining plans for the subversion of the French throne, the imperialists and republicans were hoping that Hortense's influence might be exerted upon the destinies of France. Everywhere in France as well as in England, the people were of the opinion that the new throne of Louis Philippe had no vitality, because it had no support in the heart of the people. The partisans of the Bourbons believed that France longed for the grandson of St. Louis, for its hereditary king, Henry V.; the imperialists were convinced that the new government was about to be overthrown, and that France was more anxious than ever to see the emperors son, Napoleon II., restored. The republicans, however, distrusted the people and the army, and began to perceive that they could only attain the longed-for republican institutions under a Bonaparte. They therefore sent their secret emissaries as well to the Duke de Reichstadt as to Louis Napoleon.
The Duke de Reichstadt, to whom these emissaries proposed that he should come to France and present himself to the people, replied: "I cannot go to France as an adventurer; let the nation call me, and I shall find means to get there."
To the propositions made to him, Louis Napoleon replied that he belonged to France under all circumstances; that he had proved this by asking permission to serve France, but he had been rejected. It would not become him to force to a decision by acoup d'étatthe nation whose decrees he would ever hold sacred.
Hortense regarded these efforts of the imperialists and of the republicans to win her son to their purposes with a sorrowful and anxious heart. She hoped and longed for nothing more than the privilege of living in retirement with her memories; she felt exhausted and sobered by the few steps she had already taken into the great world; she, who had ever felt the most tender sympathy for the misfortunes of others, and the most ardent desire to alleviate them--she had nowhere found in her misfortune any thing but injustice, indifference, and calumny.
Hortense longed to be back at Arenenberg, in her Swiss mountains. Thither she desired to return with her son, in order that she might there dream with him of the brilliant days that had been, and sing with him the exalted song of her remembrances! If the French government should permit her to journey with her son through France, she could easily and securely reach the Swiss Canton of Thurgau, where her little estate, Arenenberg, lay under the protection of the republic; the daughter of the emperor would there be certain to find peace and repose!
The duchess there wrote to M. de Houdetot, begging him to procure for her from the French government a passport, permitting her to travel through France under some assumed name. It was promised her after long hesitation, but under the condition that she should not commence her journey until after July, until after the first anniversary of the coronation of Louis Philippe.
Hortense agreed to this, and received on the first of August a passport, which permitted her, as Madame Arenenberg, to pass through France with her son in order to return to her estate in Switzerland.
It was at first the duchess's intention, notwithstanding the unquiet movements that were taking place in the capital, to journey through Paris, for the very purpose of proving, by her quiet and uninterested demeanor, that she had no share whatever in these movements and riots.
But, on informing Louis Napoleon of her intention, he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes: "If we go to Paris, and if I should see the people sabred before my eyes, I shall not be able to resist the inclination to place myself on its side[69]!"
[69]La Reine Hortense, p. 276.
Hortense clasped her son anxiously in her arms, as if to protect him from all danger, on her maternal heart. "We shall not go to Paris," said she, "we will wander through France, and pray before the monuments of our happiness!"
On the 7th of August the Duchess of St. Leu left England with her son, Louis Napoleon, and landed after a pleasant passage at Boulogne.
Boulogne was for Hortense the first monument of her happiness, at the foot of which she wished to pray! There, during the most brilliant period of the empire, she had attended the militaryfêtes, in the midst of which the emperor was preparing to go forth to encounter new dangers, and to reap, perhaps, new renown. A high column designated the place where these camp-festivals had once taken place. It had been erected under the empire, but under the restoration the name of Louis XVIII. had been inscribed on it.
Accompanied by the prince, the Duchess of St. Leu ascended this column, in order to show him from its summit the beautiful and flourishing France, that had once been her own and through which they must now pass with veiled countenances and borrowed names. From there she pointed out to him the situation of the different camps, the location of the imperial tent, then the place where the emperor's throne had stood, and where he had first distributed crosses of the legion of honor among the soldiers.
With a glowing countenance and in breathless attention, Louis Napoleon listened to his mother's narrative. Hortense, lost in her recollections, had not noticed that two other visitors, a lady and a gentleman, were now also on the platform and had listened to a part of her narrative. As the duchess ceased speaking, they approached to tell her with what deep interest they had listened to her narrative of the most glorious period of French history. They were a young married couple from Paris, and had much to relate concerning the parties who were now arrayed against each other in France, and who made the future of the country so uncertain.
In return for Hortense's so eloquent description of the past, they now told her of abon motof the present that was going the rounds of Parisian society. It was there said that the best means of satisfying everybody and all parties would be, to convert France into a republic and to give it three consuls, the Duke of Reichstadt, the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bordeaux. "But," added they, "it might easily end in the first consul's driving out the other two, and making himself emperor."
Hortense found the courage to answer this jest with a smile, but she hastened to leave the place and to get away from the couple, who had perhaps recognized her, and told them of thebon motwith a purpose.
Sadly and silently, mother and son returned to their hotel, which was situated on the sea-side, and commanded a fine view of the surging, foaming waters of the channel and of the lofty column of the empire.
They both stepped out on the balcony. It was a beautiful evening; the setting sun shed its purple rays over the surface of the sea. Murmuring and in melodioustacethe foaming waves rolled in upon the beach; on another side, the lofty column, glowing in the light of the setting sun, towered aloft like a pillar of fire, a memorial monument of fire!
Hortense, who for some time had been silently gazing, first at the column, then at the sea, now turned with a sad smile to her son.
"Let us spend an hour with recollections of the past," said she. "In the presence of this foaming sea and of this proud column, I will show you a picture of the past. Do you wish to see it?"
His gaze fastened on the imperial column, Louis Napoleon silently nodded assent.
Hortense went to her room, and soon returned to the balcony with a book, bound in red velvet. Often, during the quiet days of Arenenberg, the prince had seen her writing in this book, but never had Hortense yielded to his entreaties and permitted him to read any part of her memoirs. Unsolicited it was her intention to unfold before him to-day a brilliant picture; in view of the sad and desolate present, she wished to portray to him the bright and glittering past, perhaps only for the purpose of entertaining him, perhaps in order to console him with the hope that all that is passes away, and that the present would therefore also come to an end, and that which once was, again become reality for him, the heir of the emperor.
She seated herself at her son's side, on a little sofa that stood on the balcony, and, opening her book, began to read.