Queen Hortense: A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era Part 26

Hortense accepted this offer with its conditions, contented to find a place where she could rest after her long wanderings, and let the bleeding wounds of her heart heal in the stillness and peace of beautiful natural scenery. She pa.s.sed a few quiet, happy years in Constance desiring and demanding nothing but a little rest and peace, aspiring to but one thing--to make of the son whom Providence had given her as a compensation for all her sufferings, a strong, a resolute, and an intelligent man.

Her most tender care and closest attention were devoted to the education of this son. An excellent teacher, Prof. Lebas, of Paris, officiated as instructor to the young prince. She herself gave him instruction in drawing, in music, and in dancing; she read with him, sang with him, and made herself a child, in order to replace to her lonely boy the playmate Fate had torn from his side.

While reposing on her _chaise-longue_ on the long quiet evenings, her boy seated on a cushion at her feet, she would speak to him of his great uncle, and of his heroic deeds, and of his country, of France that had discarded them, to be able to return to which was, however, her most ardent wish, and would continue to be while life lasted. She would then inspire the boy's soul with the description of the great battles which his uncle had won in Italy, on the Nile, on the Rhine, and on the Danube; and the quiet, pale boy, with the dark, thoughtful eyes, would listen in breathless suspense, his weak, slender body quivering with emotion when his mother told him how dearly his uncle had loved France, and that all his great and glorious deeds had been done for the honor and renown of France alone.

One day, while he was sitting before her, pale and trembling with agitation, his mother pointed to David's splendid painting, representing Napoleon on the heights of the Alps, the genial conception of which painting is due to Napoleon's own suggestions.

"Paint me tranquilly seated on a wild horse," Napoleon had said to David, and David had so painted him--on a rearing steed, on the summit of a rock which bears the inscription "Hannibal" and "Caesar." The emperor's countenance is calm, his large eyes full of a mysterious brilliancy, his hair fluttering in the wind, the whole expression thoughtful and earnest; the rider heedless of the rearing steed, which he holds firmly in check with the reins.

A beautiful copy of this great painting hung in the parlor of the d.u.c.h.ess; and to this she now pointed while narrating the history of the emperor's pa.s.sage 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.

"Mamma has been explaining a very grave picture to you, Louis," said she; "I will now show you a merry one. Look at it--isn't it charming?"

The prince cast a hasty, absent-minded look at the cup, and nodded gravely. Louise laughed gayly.

"You see, Louis," said she, "that this is the exact counterpart of the picture of the Emperor Napoleon, who, while riding over the Alps, encounters on their summit the great spirits of Hannibal and Caesar.

Here is a little Napoleon, who is not climbing up the Alps, but climbing down from his bed, and who, on this occasion, meets a black spirit, in the person of a chimney-sweep. This is the history of the great and of the little Napoleon; the great meets Hannibal, the little the chimney-sweep."

"Am I the little Napoleon?" asked the boy, gravely.

"Yes, Louis, you are, and I will now tell you the story of this cup.

One day, when we were all still in Paris, and while your great uncle was still Emperor of France--one day, you met in your room a little Savoyard who had just crept out of the chimney in his black dress, his black broom in his hand. You cried out with horror, and were about to run away, but I held you back and told you that these chimney-sweeps were poor boys, and that their parents were so poor that they could not support their children, but were compelled to send them to Paris to earn their bread by creeping into and cleaning our hot and dirty chimneys, with great trouble, and at the risk of their lives. My story touched you, and you promised me never to be afraid of the little chimney-sweeps again. A short time afterward, you were awakened early in the morning by a strange noise, your brother still lay asleep at your side, and your nurse was absent from the room. This noise was made by a chimney-sweep who had just come down the chimney and now stood in your room. As soon as you saw him, you remembered his poverty, jumped out of bed in your night-clothes, and ran to the chair on which your clothes lay. You took out of your pocket the purse you were compelled to carry with you on your walks to give money to the poor, and you emptied its entire contents into the black, sooty hand of the young Savoyard. You then tried to get back to bed, but it was too high for you; you could not climb over the railing. Seeing this, the chimney-sweep came to your a.s.sistance, and took the little prince in his arms to help him into bed.

At this moment, your nurse entered the room, and your brother who had just awakened, cried loudly when he saw Louis in the arms of a chimney-sweep.

"This is the story of little Napoleon and the chimney-sweep! Your grandmother, the Empress Josephine was so much pleased with this story, that your mother had the scene painted on a cup, and presented it to the empress, in order to afford her a gratification. And what do you think, Louis--this cup was also the cause of a punishment being remitted your cousin, the King of Rome, who now lives in Vienna!"

"Tell me all about it, Louise," said the prince, smiling.

"You shall hear it! Your mother had instructed me to take the cup to Malmaison to the empress. But before going, I endeavored to obtain some news about the little King of Rome for the empress. Your good grandmother loved him as though he had been her own child, although she had never seen him. I therefore went to the Tuileries to see the little King of Rome, with whose governess, Madame de Montesquieu, I was intimately acquainted. On entering the apartment, I saw the king cowering behind a chair in a corner of the room; Madame de Montesquieu intimated by a look that he was undergoing a punishment; I understood it, and first conversed with his governess for a short time. When I then turned and approached him, he concealed the tearful, flushed face, that his long blond curls covered as with a golden veil, whenever he moved behind the chair.

"'Sire,' said Madame de Montesquieu to him, 'sire, do you not intend to bid Mademoiselle de Cochelet good-morning? She came here expressly to see you.'

"'Your majesty does not recognize me,' said I, attempting to take his small hand in mine. He tore it from me, and cried in a voice almost choked with sobbing: 'She will not let me look at the soldiers of my papa!'

"Madame de Montesquieu told me that it was the little prince's greatest pleasure to see the Guards exercising on the _Place de Carrousel_, but that she had deprived Mm of this pleasure to-day, because he had been naughty and disobedient; that, when he heard the music and drums, his despair and anger had become so great that she had been forced to resort to severe means, and make him stand in the corner behind a chair. I begged for the young king's pardon; I showed him the cup, and explained the scene that was painted on it. The king laughed, and Madame de Montesquieu pardoned him for the sake of his little cousin, Louis Napoleon, who was so well behaved, and who was always held up to him as a model[56]. Now you have heard the whole story, are you pleased with it, Louis?"

[Footnote 56: Cochelet, vol. i., p. 212.]

"I like it very much," said the grave boy, "but I do not like my cousin's governess, for having intended to prevent him from looking at his father's soldiers. Oh, how handsome they must have been, the soldiers of the emperor! Mamma, I wish I were also an emperor, and had ever so many handsome soldiers."

Hortense smiled sadly, and laid her hand on the boy's head as if to bless him. "Oh, my son," said she, "it is no enviable fortune to wear a crown. It is almost always fastened on our head with thorns!"

From this day on, Prince Louis Napoleon would stand before his uncle's portrait, lost in thought, and after looking at it to his satisfaction, he would run out and call the boys of the neighborhood together, in order to play soldier and emperor with them in the large garden that surrounded his mother's house, and teach the boys the first exercise.

One day, in the zeal of play, he had entirely forgotten his mother's command, not to go out of the garden, and had inarched into the open field with his soldiers. When his absence from the garden was noticed, all the servants were sent out to look for him, and the anxious d.u.c.h.ess, together with her ladies, a.s.sisted in this search, walking about in every direction through the cold and the slush of the thawing snow.

Suddenly they came upon the boy barefooted and in his shirt-sleeves, wading toward them through the mud and snow. He was alarmed and confused at this unexpected meeting, and confessed that a moment before, while he had been playing in front of the garden, a family had pa.s.sed by so poor and ragged that it was painful to look at them. As he had no money to give them, he had put his shoes on one child, and his coat on another[57].

[Footnote 57: Cochelet, vol. iv., p. 303.]

The d.u.c.h.ess did not have the courage to scold him; she stooped down and kissed her son; but when her ladies commenced to praise him, she motioned to them to be silent, and said in a loud voice that what her son had done was quite a matter of course, and therefore deserved no praise.

An ardent desire to gladden others and make them presents was characteristic of little Louis Napoleon. One day, Hortense had given him three beautiful studs for his shirt, and on the same day the prince transferred them to one of his friends who admired them.

When Hortense reproached her son for doing so, and threatened to make him no more presents, as he always gave them away again directly, Louis Napoleon replied, "Ah, mamma, this is why your presents give me double pleasure--once when you give them to me, and the second time when I make others happy with them[58]."

[Footnote 58: Cochelet, vol. i, p. 355.]

CHAPTER III.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1830.

Fate seemed at last weary of persecuting the poor d.u.c.h.ess of St. Leu. It at least accorded her a few peaceful years of repose and comfort; it at least permitted her to rest from the weariness of the past on the bosom of Nature, and to forget her disappointments and sorrows. The Canton of Thurgau had had the courage to extend permission to the d.u.c.h.ess to take up her residence within its borders, at the very moment when the Grand-duke of Baden, who had been urged to the step by Germany and France, had peremptorily ordered Hortense to leave Constance and his grand-duchy without delay.

Hortense had thankfully accepted the offer of the Swiss canton, and had purchased, on the Swiss side of the Lake of Constance, an estate, whose beautiful situation on the summit of a mountain, immediately on the banks of the lake, with its magnificent view of the surrounding country, and its glittering glaciers on the distant horizon, made it a most delightful place of sojourn. Hortense now caused the furniture of her dwelling in Paris, that had been sold, to be sent to her. The sight of these evidences of her former grandeur awakened sweet and bitter emotions in her heart, as they were one after another taken out of the cases in which they had been packed--these sofas, chairs, divans, carpets, chandeliers, mirrors, and all the other ornaments of the parlors in which Hortense had been accustomed to receive kings and emperors, and which were now to adorn the Swiss villa that was outwardly so beautiful because of the vicinity, and inwardly so plain and simple.

But Hortense knew how to make an elegant and tasteful disposition of all these articles; she herself arranged every thing in her house, and took true feminine delight in her task. And when all was at last arranged--when she walked, with her son at her side, through the suite of rooms, in which every ornament and piece of furniture reminded her of the past--when these things recalled the proud days of state when so many friends, relatives, and servants, had surrounded her--a feeling of unutterable loneliness, of painful desolation, came over her, and she sank down on a sofa and wept bitterly. But there was nevertheless a consolation in having these familiar articles in her possession once more; these mute friends often awakened in the solitary queen's heart memories that served to entertain and console her. Arenenberg was a perfect temple of memory; every chair, every table, every article of furniture, had its history, and this history spoke of Napoleon, of Josephine, and the great days of the empire.

In Arenenberg Hortense had at last found a permanent home, and there she pa.s.sed the greater part of the year; and it was only when the autumnal storms began to howl through her open and lightly-constructed villa, that Hortense repaired to Rome, to pa.s.s the winter months in a more genial climate, while her son Louis Napoleon was pursuing his studies at the artillery school at Thun.

And thus the years pa.s.sed on, quiet and peaceful, though sometimes interrupted by new losses and sorrows. In the year 1821 the hero, the emperor, to whose laurel-crown the halo of a martyr had now also been added, died on the island-rock, St. Helena.

In the year 1824 Hortense lost her only brother, Eugene, the Duke of Leuchtenberg.

The only objects of Hortense's love were now her two sons, who were prospering in mind and body, and were the pride and joy of their mother, and an object of annoyance and suspicion to all the princes of Europe.

For these children bore in their countenance, in their name, and in their disposition, too plain an impress of the great past, which they could never entirely ignore while Bonaparte still lived to testify to it.

And they lived and prospered in spite of the Bourbons; they lived and prospered, although banished from their country, and compelled to lead an inactive life.

But at last it seemed as though the hour of fortune and freedom had come for these Bonapartes--as though they, too, were to be permitted to have a country to which they might give their devotion and services.

The thundering voice of the revolution of 1830 resounded throughout trembling Europe. France, on whom the allies had imposed the Bourbons, arose and shook its mane; with its lion's paw it overthrew the Bourbon throne, drove out the Jesuits who had stood behind it, and whom Charles X. had advised to tear the charter to pieces, to destroy the freedom of the press, and to reintroduce the _autos da fe_ of the olden time.

France had been treated as a child in 1815, and was now determined to a.s.sert its manhood; it resolved to break entirely with the past, and with its own strength to build up a future for itself.

The lilies of the Bourbons were to bloom no more; these last years of fanatical Jesuit tyranny had deprived them of life, and France tore the faded lily from her bosom in order to replace it with a young and vigorous plant. The throne of the Bourbons was overthrown, but the people, shuddering at the recollection of the sanguinary republic, selected a king in preference. It stretched out its hand after him it held dearest; after him who in the past few years had succeeded in winning the sympathy of France. It selected the Duke of Orleans, the son of Philippe egalite, for its king.

Louis Philippe, the enthusiastic republican of 1790, who at that time had caused the three words "_Liberte, egalite, Fraternite_" and the inscription "_Vive la Republique,"_ to be burnt on his arm, in order to prove his republicanism; the proscribed Louis Philippe, who had wandered through Europe a fugitive, earning his bread by teaching writing and languages--the same Louis Philippe now became King of France.

The people called him to the throne; they tore the white flag from the roof of the Tuileries, but they knew no other or better one with which to replace it than the _tricolore_ of the empire.