ne expects me to be grateful for the evil
chance of having been born here. Society and conversation belong to
older countries: you ought to thank your stars for your European
birth.... France, _je l'espere_, is in a transition state, and will not
let her brilliancy be put under an extinguisher called _la Republique_.
The emperor hurled me back on what I most hated on earth, my Baltimore
obscurity: even that shock could not destroy the admiration I felt for
his genius and glory. I have ever been an imperial Bonapartist _quand
meme_, and am enchanted at the homage paid by six millions of voices to
his memory in voting an imperial President: the prestige of the name has
elected a prince who has my most ardent wishes for an empire. Dear Lady
Morgan, having been cheated out of my inheritance from my late rich and
unjust father, I have only ten thousand dollars annually. You speak of
my 'princely' income. I have all my life been tortured and mortified by
pecuniary difficulties: but for my industry, energy and determination to
conquer a decent sufficiency to live on in Europe, I might have remained
as poor as you first saw me.... Lamartine and Chateaubriand are giving
their memoirs to the public: the first _de son vivant_. When I knew
Lamartine he was charge d'affaires from Charles X. Florence was then a
charming place. I met him every night in society. How little did I
foresee that he was to become a poetical republican, and that dear
Florence was to be travestied in a republic! Hoping that England may
remain steady and faithful to monarchical principles, that at least some
refined society may be left in the world, I shall, _Dieu permettant_,
have the satisfaction of seeing you next summer."

Neither the climate nor "the freezing social _convenance_" of England
pleased Mme. Bonaparte, though she was received with distinction.
"Abroad, these fair insulars _occasionally_ unbend and are charming" she
says, "but at all times I have found Englishmen of birth the best bred
and most agreeable men in the world."

Since her withdrawal from European life Mme. Bonaparte has lived
secluded from society. Baltimore's shrewdest banker says that he knows
"no man capable of creating legitimately, with so small a capital, the
large fortune amassed by Mme. Bonaparte." She has no accomplishment in
any branch of art, and although her love of study remains, her
fast-increasing blindness deprives her of this resource. Her diary, if
ever given to t