e against the possibility of Napoleon's return,
the Duke of Otranto hastened to the Duchess of St. Leu, to warn her and
conjure her to be on her guard against the spies by whom she was
surrounded, as suspicion might be easily excited against her at court.

Hortense paid no attention to this warning; she considered precaution
unnecessary, and was not willing to deprive herself of her one
happiness--that of seeing her friends, and of conversing with them in a
free and unconstrained manner.

The parlors of the duchess, therefore, continued to be thrown open to
her faithful friends, who had also been the faithful servants of the
emperor; and the Dukes of Bassano, of Friaul, of Ragusa, of the Moskwa,
and their wives, as well as the gallant Charles de Labedoyere, and the
acute Count Renault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, still continued to meet in
the parlors of the Duchess of St. Leu.

The voice of hostility was raised against them with ever-increasing
hostility; the reunions that took place at St. Leu were day by day
portrayed at the Tuileries in more hateful colors; and the poor duchess,
who lived in sorrow and retirement in her apartments, became an object
of hatred and envy to these proud ladies of the old aristocracy, who
were unable to comprehend how this woman could be thought of while they
were near, although she had been the ornament of the imperial court, and
who was considered amiable, intellectual, and beautiful, even under the
legitimate dynasty.

Hortense heard of the ridiculous and malicious reports which had been
circulated concerning her, and, for the sake of her friends and sons,
she resolved to put an end to them.

"I must leave my dear St. Leu and go to Paris," said she. "There they
can better observe all my actions. Reason demands that I should conform
myself to circumstances."

She therefore abandoned her quiet home at St. Leu, and repaired with her
children and her court to Paris, to again take up her abode in her
dwelling in the Rue de la Victoire.

But this step gave fresh fuel to the calumnies of her enemies, who saw
in her the embodied remembrance of the empire which they hated and at
the same time feared.

The Bonapartists still continued their visits to her parlors, as before;
and no appeals, no representations could induce Hortense to close her
doors against her faithful friends, for fear that their fidelity might
excite suspicion against herself.

In order, however, to contradict the report