The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise | Page 9

sounded the twenty-second report of
a cannon, announcing that the Emperor had, not a daughter, but a son.

He lay in a costly cradle of mother-of-pearl and gold, surmounted by a
winged Victory which seemed to protect the slumbers of the King of
Rome. The Imperial heir in his gilded baby-carriage drawn by two
snow-white sheep beneath the trees at Saint Cloud was a charming
object. He was but a year old when Gérard painted him in his cradle,
playing with a cup and ball, as if the cup were a sceptre and the ball
were the world, with which his childish hands were playing. When on
the eve of the battle of Moskowa, Napoleon was giving his final orders
for the tremendous struggle of the next day, a courier, M. de Bausset,
arrived suddenly from Paris, bringing with him this masterpiece of
Gérard's; at once the General forgot his anxieties in his paternal joy.
"Gentlemen," said Napoleon to his officers, "if my son were fifteen
years old, you may be sure that he would be here among this multitude
of brave men, and not merely in a picture." Then he had the portrait of
the King of Rome set out in front of his tent, on a chair, that the sight of
it might be an added excitement to victory. And the old grenadiers of
the Imperial Guard, the veterans with their grizzly moustaches,--the
men who were never to abandon their Emperor, who followed him to
Elba, and died at Waterloo,--heroes, as kind as they were brave,
actually cried with joy as they gazed at the portrait of this boy whose
glorious future they hoped to make sure by their brave deeds.
But what a sad future it was! Within less than two years Cossacks were
the escort of the King of Rome. When the Coalition made him a
prisoner, he was forever torn from his father. Napoleon, March 20,
1815, on this return from Elba, re-entered triumphantly the Palace of
the Tuileries as if by miracle, but his joy was incomplete. March 20
was his son's birthday, the day he was four years old, and the boy was
not there; his father never saw him again. At Vienna the little prince
seemed the victim of an untimely gloom; he missed his young
playmates. "Any one can see that I am not a king," he said; "I haven't
any pages now."
The King of Rome had lost the childish merriment and the
talkativeness which had made him very captivating. So far from
growing familiar with those among whom he was thrown, he seemed
rather to be suspicious and distrustful of them. During the Hundred
Days the private secretary of Marie Louise left her at Vienna to return
to Napoleon in France. "Have you any message for your father?" he

asked of the little prince. The boy thought for a moment, and then, as if
he were watched, led the faithful officer up to the window and
whispered to him, very low, "You will tell him that I always love him
dearly."
In spite of the many miles that separated them, the son was to be a
consolation to his father. In 1816 the prisoner at Saint Helena received
a lock of the young prince's hair, and a letter which he had written with
his hand held by some one else. Napoleon was filled with joy, and
forgot his chains. It was a renewal of the happiness he had felt on the
eve of Moskowa, when he had received the portrait of the son he loved
so warmly. Once again he summoned those who were about him and,
deeply moved, showed to them the lock of hair and the letter of his
child.
For his part, the boy did not forget his father. In vain they gave him a
German title and a German name, and removed the Imperial arms with
their eagle; in vain they expunged the Napoleon from his
name,--Napoleon, which was an object of terror to the enemies of
France. His Highness, Prince Francis Charles Joseph, Duke of
Reichstadt, knew very well that his title was the King of Rome and
Napoleon II. He knew that in his veins there flowed the blood of the
greatest warrior of modern times. He had scarcely left the cradle when
he began to show military tastes. When only five, he said to Hummel,
the artist, who was painting his portrait: "I want to be a soldier. I shall
fight well. I shall be in the charge." "But," urged the artist, "you will
find the bayonets of the grenadiers in your way, and they will kill you
perhaps." And the boy answered, "But shan't I have a sword to beat
down the bayonets?" Before he was seven he wore a uniform. He
learned