that adherents of Napoleon
only were in the habit of frequenting her parlors, the duchess also
extended the hospitalities of her parlors to the strangers who brought
letters of recommendation, and who desired to be introduced to her.
Great numbers hastened to avail themselves of this permission.

The most brilliant and select circle was soon assembled around the
duchess. There, were to be found the great men of the empire, who came
out of attachment; distinguished strangers, who came out of admiration;
and, finally, the aristocrats of the old era, who came out of curiosity,
who came to see if the Duchess of St. Leu was really so intelligent,
amiable, and graceful, as she was said to be.

The parlors of the duchess were therefore more talked of in Paris than
they had been at St. Leu. The old duchesses and princesses of the
Faubourg St. Germain, with all their ancestors, prejudices, and
pretensions, were enraged at hearing this everlasting praise of the
charming queen, and endeavored to appease their wrath by renewed
hostilities against its object.

It was not enough that she was calumniated, at court and in society, as
a dangerous person; the arm of the press was also wielded against her.

As we have said, Hortense was the embodied remembrance of the empire,
and it was therefore determined that she should be destroyed.
_Brochures_ and pamphlets were published, in which the king was appealed
to, to banish from Paris, and even from France, the dangerous woman who
was conspiring publicly, and even under the very eyes of the government,
for Napoleon, and to banish with her the two children also, the two
Napoleons; "for," said these odious accusers, "to leave these two
princes here, means to raise in France wolves that would one day ravage
their country[42]."

[Footnote 42: Cochelet, Memoires sur la Reins Hortense, vol. ii., p.
330.]

Hortense paid but little attention to these reports and calumnies. She
was too much accustomed to being misunderstood and wrongly judged, to
allow herself to be disquieted thereby. She knew that calumnies were
never refuted by contradiction, and that it was therefore better to meet
them with proud silence, and to conquer them by contempt, instead of
giving them new life by combating and contradicting them.

She herself entertained such contempt for calumny that she never allowed
anything abusive to be said in her presence that would injure any one in
her estimation. When, on one occasio