tle cousin, Louis
Napoleon, who was so well behaved, and who was always held up to him as
a model[56]. Now you have heard the whole story, are you pleased with
it, Louis?"

[Footnote 56: Cochelet, vol. i., p. 212.]

"I like it very much," said the grave boy, "but I do not like my
cousin's governess, for having intended to prevent him from looking at
his father's soldiers. Oh, how handsome they must have been, the
soldiers of the emperor! Mamma, I wish I were also an emperor, and had
ever so many handsome soldiers."

Hortense smiled sadly, and laid her hand on the boy's head as if to
bless him. "Oh, my son," said she, "it is no enviable fortune to wear a
crown. It is almost always fastened on our head with thorns!"

From this day on, Prince Louis Napoleon would stand before his uncle's
portrait, lost in thought, and after looking at it to his satisfaction,
he would run out and call the boys of the neighborhood together, in
order to play soldier and emperor with them in the large garden that
surrounded his mother's house, and teach the boys the first exercise.

One day, in the zeal of play, he had entirely forgotten his mother's
command, not to go out of the garden, and had inarched into the open
field with his soldiers. When his absence from the garden was noticed,
all the servants were sent out to look for him, and the anxious duchess,
together with her ladies, assisted in this search, walking about in
every direction through the cold and the slush of the thawing snow.
Suddenly they came upon the boy barefooted and in his shirt-sleeves,
wading toward them through the mud and snow. He was alarmed and confused
at this unexpected meeting, and confessed that a moment before, while he
had been playing in front of the garden, a family had passed by so poor
and ragged that it was painful to look at them. As he had no money to
give them, he had put his shoes on one child, and his coat on
another[57].

[Footnote 57: Cochelet, vol. iv., p. 303.]

The duchess did not have the courage to scold him; she stooped down and
kissed her son; but when her ladies commenced to praise him, she
motioned to them to be silent, and said in a loud voice that what her
son had done was quite a matter of course, and therefore deserved
no praise.

An ardent desire to gladden others and make them presents was
characteristic of little Louis Napoleon. One day, Hortense had given him
three beautiful studs for his shirt, and on the same day the p