iends, relatives, and servants, had surrounded her--a feeling of
unutterable loneliness, of painful desolation, came over her, and she
sank down on a sofa and wept bitterly. But there was nevertheless a
consolation in having these familiar articles in her possession once
more; these mute friends often awakened in the solitary queen's heart
memories that served to entertain and console her. Arenenberg was a
perfect temple of memory; every chair, every table, every article of
furniture, had its history, and this history spoke of Napoleon, of
Josephine, and the great days of the empire.

In Arenenberg Hortense had at last found a permanent home, and there she
passed the greater part of the year; and it was only when the autumnal
storms began to howl through her open and lightly-constructed villa,
that Hortense repaired to Rome, to pass the winter months in a more
genial climate, while her son Louis Napoleon was pursuing his studies at
the artillery school at Thun.

And thus the years passed on, quiet and peaceful, though sometimes
interrupted by new losses and sorrows. In the year 1821 the hero, the
emperor, to whose laurel-crown the halo of a martyr had now also been
added, died on the island-rock, St. Helena.

In the year 1824 Hortense lost her only brother, Eugene, the Duke of
Leuchtenberg.

The only objects of Hortense's love were now her two sons, who were
prospering in mind and body, and were the pride and joy of their mother,
and an object of annoyance and suspicion to all the princes of Europe.
For these children bore in their countenance, in their name, and in
their disposition, too plain an impress of the great past, which they
could never entirely ignore while Bonaparte still lived to testify
to it.

And they lived and prospered in spite of the Bourbons; they lived and
prospered, although banished from their country, and compelled to lead
an inactive life.

But at last it seemed as though the hour of fortune and freedom had come
for these Bonapartes--as though they, too, were to be permitted to have
a country to which they might give their devotion and services.

The thundering voice of the revolution of 1830 resounded throughout
trembling Europe. France, on whom the allies had imposed the Bourbons,
arose and shook its mane; with its lion's paw it overthrew the Bourbon
throne, drove out the Jesuits who had stood behind it, and whom Charles
X. had advised to tear the charter to pieces, to destroy the free