Queen Hortense

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Queen Hortense

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Title: Queen Hortense A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era
Author: L. Mühlbach
Release Date: April 14, 2004 [EBook #12019]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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QUEEN HORTENSE
A Life picture of the Napoleonic Era
BY
L. MüHLBACH
AUTHOR OF PRINCE EUGENE AND HIS TIMES, JOSEPH II, AND HIS COURT, MERCHANT OF BERLIN, ETC.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
CHAPMAN COLEMAN
1910

CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
DAYS OF CHILDHOOD AND OF THE REVOLUTION.
CHAPTER
I.
--Days of Childhood. II.--The Prophecy. III.--Consequences of the Revolution. IV.--General Bonaparte. V.--The Marriage. VI.--Bonaparte in Italy. VII.--Vicissitudes of Destiny. VIII.--Bonaparte's Return from Egypt.
BOOK II.
THE QUEEN OF HOLLAND.
CHAPTER
I.
--A First Love. II.--Louis Bonaparte and Duroc. III--Consul and King. IV.--The Calumny. V.--King or Emperor. VI.--Napoleon's Heir. VII.--Premonitions. VIII.--The Divorce. IX.--The King of Holland. X.--Junot, the Duke d'Abrantes. XI.--Louis Napoleon as a Vender of Violets. XII.--The Days of Misfortune. XIII.--The Allies in Paris. XIV.--Correspondence between the Queen and Louise de Cochelet. XV.--Queen Hortense and the Emperor Alexander. XVI.--The New Uncles. XVII.--Death of the Empress Josephine.
BOOK III.
THE RESTORATION.
CHAPTER
I.
--The Return of the Bourbons. II.--The Bourbons and the Bonapartes. III.--Madame de Sta?l. IV.--Madame de Sta?l's Return to Paris. V.--Madame de Sta?l's Visit to Queen Hortense. VI.--The Old and New Era. VII.--King Louis XVIII. VIII.--The Drawing-room of the Duchess of St. Leu. IX.--The Burial of Louis XVI. and his Wife. X.--Napoleon's Return from Elba. XI.--Louis XVIII.'s Departure and Napoleon's Arrival. XII.--The Hundred Days. XIII.--Napoleon's Last Adieu.
BOOK IV.
THE DUCHESS OF ST. LEU.
CHAPTER
I.
--The Banishment of the Duchess of St. Leu. II.--Louis Napoleon as a Child. III.--The Revolution of 1830. IV.--The Revolution in Rome and the Sons of Hortense. V.--The Death of Prince Napoleon. VI.--The Flight from Italy. VII.--The Pilgrimage. VIII.--Louis Philippe and the Duchess of St. Leu. IX.--The Departure of the Duchess from Paris. X.--Pilgrimage through France. XI.--Fragment from the Memoirs of Queen Hortense. XII.--The Pilgrim. XIII.--Conclusion.

ILLUSTRATIONS.
General Bonaparte suppressing the Revolt of the Sections, Frontispiece.
View of the Tuileries.
Portrait of Queen Hortense.
Portrait of Madame de Sta?l.

QUEEN HORTENSE.
BOOK I.
DAYS OF CHILDHOOD AND OF THE REVOLUTION.
CHAPTER I.
DAYS OF CHILDHOOD.
"One moment of bliss is not too dearly bought with death," says our great German poet, and he may be right; but a moment of bliss purchased with a long lifetime full of trial and suffering is far too costly.
And when did it come for her, this "moment of bliss?" When could Hortense Beauharnais, in speaking of herself, declare, "I am happy? Now, let suffering and sorrow come upon me, if they will; I have tasted felicity, and, in the memories it has left me, it is imperishable and eternal!"
Much, very much, had this daughter of an empress and mother of an emperor to endure.
In her earliest youth she had been made familiar with misfortune and with tears; and in her later life, as maiden, wife, and mother, she was not spared.
A touchingly-beautiful figure amid the drama of the Napoleonic days was this gentle and yet high-spirited queen, who, when she had descended from the throne and had ceased to be a sovereign, exhausted and weary of life, found refuge at length in the grave, yet still survived among us as a queen--no longer, indeed, a queen of nations, but the Queen of Flowers.
The flowers have retained their remembrance of Josephine's beautiful daughter; they did not, like so many of her own race, deny her when she was no longer the daughter of the all-powerful emperor, but merely the daughter of the "exile." Among the flowers the lovely Hortense continued to live on, and Gavarni, the great poet of the floral realm, has reared to her, as Hortensia, the Flower Queen, an enchanting monument, in his "Fleurs Animées." Upon a mound of Hortensias rests the image of the Queen Hortense, and, in the far distance, like the limnings of a half-forgotten dream, are seen the towers and domes of Paris. Farther in the foreground lies the grave of Hortense, with the carved likeness of the queenly sister of the flowers. Loneliness reigns around the spot, but above it, in the air, hovers the imperial eagle. The imperial mantle, studded with its golden bees, undulates behind him, like the train of a comet; the dark-red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, with the golden cross, hangs around his neck, and in his beak he bears a full-blooming branch of the crown imperial.
It is a page of world-renowned history that this charming picture of Gavarni's conjures up before us--an historical pageant that sweeps by us in wondrous fantastic forms of light and shadow, when we scan the