Queen Hortense: A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era Part 27

Under the shadow of this _tricolore_ Louis Philippe mounted the throne, and the people--to whom the three colors recalled the glorious era of the empire--the people shouted with delight, and in order to indulge their sympathies they demanded for France--not the son of Napoleon, not Napoleon II.--but the ashes of Napoleon, and the emperor's statue on the Palace Vendome. Louis Philippe accorded them both, but with these concessions he thought he had done enough. He had accepted the _tricolore_ of the empire; he had promised that the emperor should watch over Paris from the summit of the Vendome monument, and to cause his ashes to be brought to Paris--these were sufficient proofs of love.

They might be accorded the dead Napoleon without danger, but it would be worse to accord them to living Napoleons; such a course might easily shake the new throne, and recall the allies to Paris.

The hatred of the princes of Europe against Napoleon was still continued against his family, and it was with them, as Metternich said, "a principle never to tolerate another Napoleon on the throne."

The European powers had signified to the King of France, through their diplomatic agents, their readiness to acknowledge him, but they exacted one condition--the condition that Louis Philippe should confirm or renew the decree of exile fulminated by the Bourbons against the Bonapartes.

Louis Philippe had accepted this condition; and the Bonapartes, whose only crime was that they were the brothers and relatives of the deceased emperor, before whom not only France, but all the princes of Europe, had once bent the knee--the Bonapartes were once more declared strangers to their country, and condemned to exile!

CHAPTER IV.

THE REVOLUTION IN ROME, AND THE SONS OF HORTENSE.

It was a terrible blow to the Bonapartes, this new decree of banishment!

Like a stroke of lightning it entered their hearts, annihilating their holiest hopes and most ardent desires, and their joy over the glorious and heroic revolution of July gave place to a bitter sense of disappointment.

Nothing, therefore, remained for them but to continue the life to which they had become somewhat accustomed, and to console themselves, for their new disappointment, with the arts and sciences.

At the end of October, in the year 1830, Hortense determined to leave Arenenberg and go to Rome with her son, as she was in the habit of doing every year.

But this time she first went to Florence, where her elder son, Napoleon Louis, recently married to his cousin, the second daughter of King Joseph, was now living with his young wife. The heart of the tender mother was filled with anxiety and care; she felt and saw that this new French Revolution was likely to infect all Europe, and that Italy, above all, would be unable to avoid this infection. Italy was diseased to the core, and it was to be feared that it would grasp at desperate means in its agony, and proceed to the blood-letting of a revolution, in order to restore itself to health. Hortense felt this, and feared for her sons.

She feared that the exiled, the homeless ones who had been driven from their country, and were not permitted to serve it, would devote their services to those who were unhappy and who suffered like themselves. She feared the enthusiasm, the generous courage, the energy of her sons, and she knew that, if a revolution should break out in Italy, it would gladly adorn itself with the name of Napoleon.

Hortense, therefore, conjured her sons to hold themselves aloof from all dangerous undertakings, and not to follow those who might appeal to them with the old word of magic power, "liberty;" that, in spite of the tears and blood it has already caused mankind, can never lose its wondrous power.

Her two sons promised compliance; and, much relieved, Hortense left Florence, and went, with her younger son, Louis Napoleon, to Rome.

But Rome, otherwise so aristocratic and solemn, a.s.sumed an unusual, an entirely new, physiognomy this winter. In society the topics of conversation were no longer art and poetry, the Pantheon and St. Peter, or what the newest amus.e.m.e.nt should be; but politics and the French Revolution were the all-engrossing topics, and the populace listened anxiously for the signal that should announce that the revolution in Italy had at last begun.

Even the populace of Rome, usually addicted to lying so harmlessly in the sunshine, now a.s.sembled in dense groups on the streets, and strange words were heard when the police cautiously approached these groups for the purpose of listening. But they now lacked the courage to arrest those who uttered those words; they felt that such a provocation might suffice to tear away the veil behind which the revolution still concealed itself.

The whole energy and watchfulness of the Roman government was therefore employed in endeavoring to avert the revolution, if possible; not, however, by removing the cause and occasion, but by depriving the people of the means. The son of Hortense, Louis Napoleon, seemed to the government a means which the revolution might use for its purposes, and it was therefore determined that he should be removed.

His name, and even the three-colored saddle-blanket of his horse, with which he rode through the streets of Rome, were exciting to the populace, in whose veins the fever of revolution was already throbbing.

Louis Napoleon must therefore be removed.

The Governor of Rome first addressed the prince's great-uncle, Cardinal Fesch, requesting him to advise the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Leu to remove the young prince from Rome for a few weeks.

But the cardinal indignantly declared that his nephew, who had done nothing, should not be compelled to leave Rome merely on account of his name and his saddle-blanket, and that he would never advise the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Leu to do anything of the kind.

The Roman government therefore determined to adopt energetic means. It caused the dwelling of the d.u.c.h.ess to be surrounded by soldiers, while a papal office presented himself before Hortense, and announced that he had received orders to remove Prince Louis from the city at once, and to conduct him without the papal territory.

The fear of approaching evil caused the government to forget the respect due to n.o.bility in misfortune and the emperor's nephew was turned out of the city like a criminal!

Hortense received this intelligence almost with joy. Far from Rome, it seemed to her that he would be safer from the revolution, whose approach she so much dreaded; and it therefore afforded her great satisfaction to send the prince to Florence, to his father, believing that he would there be shielded from the dangerous political calumnies that threatened him in Rome. She therefore permitted him to depart; and how could she have prevented his departure--she, the lone, powerless woman, to whom not even the French amba.s.sador would have accorded protection! No one interceded for her--no one protested against the violent and brutal course pursued toward Louis Napoleon--no one, except the Russian amba.s.sador.

The Emperor of Russia was the only one of all the sovereigns of Europe who felt himself strong enough not to ignore the name of Napoleon, and the consideration due to the family of a hero and of an emperor.

The Emperor of Russia had, therefore, never refused his protection and a.s.sistance to the Bonapartes, and his amba.s.sador was now the only one who protested against the violent course taken by the Roman government.

The revolution at last broke forth. Italy arose as France had done, resolved to throw off the yoke of tyranny and oppression, and be free!

The storm first broke out in Modena. The duke saw himself compelled to fly, and a provisional government under General Menotti placed itself in his stead. But, while this was taking place in Modena, the populace of Rome was holding high festival in honor of the newly-chosen Pope Gregory XVI., who had just taken his seat in the chair of the deceased Pope Pius VIII., and these festivities, and the Carnival, seemed to occupy the undivided attention of the Romans; under the laughing mask of these rejoicings the revolution hid its grave and threatening visage, and it was not until _mardi-gras_ that it laid this mask aside and showed its true countenance.

The people had been accustomed to throw confectionery and flowers on this day, but this time the day was to be made memorable by a shower of stones and bullets; this time they were not to appear in the harlequin jacket, but in their true form, earnest, grand, commanding, self-conscious, and self-a.s.serting.

But the government had been informed of the intention of the conspirators to avail themselves of the drive to the Corso, to begin the revolution, and this procession was prohibited an hour before the time appointed for its commencement.

The people arose against this prohibition, and the revolution they had endeavored to repress by this means now broke out.

The thunder of cannon and the rattling of musketry now resounded through the streets of Rome, and the people everywhere resisted the papal soldiery with energy and determination.

The new pope trembled in the Quirinal, the old cardinals lost courage, and in dismay recoiled a step at every advancing stride of the insurgents. Gregory felt that the papal crown he had just achieved was already on the point of falling from his head, to be trodden in the dust by the victorious populace; he turned to Austria, and solicited help and a.s.sistance.

But young Italy, the Italy of enthusiasm, of liberty, and of hope, looked to France for support. Old Italy had turned to Austria for help; young Italy looked for a.s.sistance to the free, newly-arisen France, in which the revolution had just celebrated a glorious victory. But France denied its Italian brother, and denied its own origin; scarcely had the revolution seated itself on the newly-erected kingly throne and invested itself with the crown and purple robe, when, for its own safety, it became reactionary, and denied itself.

With all Italy, Rome was resolved to shake off the yoke of oppression; the whole people espoused this cause with enthusiasm; and in the streets of Rome--at other times filled with priests and monks and holy processions--in these streets, now alive with the triumphant youth of Rome, resounded exultant songs of freedom.

The strangers, terrified by this change, now quitted the holy city in crowds, and hastened to their homes. Hortense desired to remain; she knew that she had nothing to fear from the people, for all the evil that had hitherto overtaken her, had come, not from the people, but always from the princes only[59]. However, letters suddenly arrived from her sons, conjuring her to leave Rome and announcing that they would leave Florence within the hour, in order to hasten forward to meet their mother.

[Footnote 59: La Reine Hortense, p. 63.]

Upon reading this, Hortense cried aloud with terror--she, who knew and desired no other happiness on earth than the happiness of her children, she whose only prayer to G.o.d had ever been, that her children might prosper and that she might die before them, now felt that a fearful danger threatened her sons, and that they were now about to be swept into the vortex of the revolution.

They had left Florence, and their father, and were now on the way to Rome, that is, on the way to the revolution that would welcome them with joy, and inscribe the name Napoleon on its standards!

But it was perhaps still time to save them; with her prayers and entreaties she might still succeed in arresting them on the verge of the abyss into which they were hastening in the intoxication of their enthusiasm. As this thought occurred to her, Hortense felt herself strong, determined, and courageous; and, on the same day on which she had received the letters, she left Rome, and hurried forward to meet her sons. She still hoped to be in time to save them; she fancied she saw her sons in every approaching carriage--but in vain!

They had written that they would meet her on the road, but they were not there!

Perhaps they had listened to the representations of their father; perhaps they had remained in Florence and were awaiting their mother's arrival there.

Tormented by fear and hope, Hortense arrived in Florence and drove to the dwelling in which her son Louis Napoleon had resided. Her feet could scarcely bear her up; she hardly found strength to inquire after her son--he was not there!

But he might be with his father, and Hortense now sent there for intelligence of her sons. The messenger returned, alone and dejected: her sons had left the city!

The exultant hymn of liberty had struck on their delighted ear, and they had responded to the call of the revolution.

General Menotti had appealed to them, in the name of Italy, to a.s.sist the cause of freedom with their name and with their swords, and they had neither the will nor the courage to disregard this appeal.

A servant, left behind by her younger son, delivered to the d.u.c.h.ess a letter from her son Louis Napoleon, a last word of adieu to his beloved mother.

"Your love will understand us," wrote Louis Napoleon. "We cannot withdraw ourselves from duties that devolve upon us; the name we bear obliges us to listen to the appeal of unhappy nations. I beg you to represent this matter to my sister-in-law as though I had persuaded my brother to accompany me; it grieves him to have concealed from her one action of his life[60]."

[Footnote 60: La Reine Hortense, p. 78.]