ons of Tuscany; her request
was granted, and her son taken to a prison, where he was kept during the
entire revolution. It was proposed to the Duchess of St. Leu to adopt
this same means of prevention, but, in spite of her anxiety and care,
and although, in her restlessness and feverish disquiet, she wandered
through her rooms day and night, she declined to take such a course.
She was not willing to subject her sons to the humiliation of such
compulsion; if their own reason, if the prayers and entreaties of their
mother, did not suffice, force should not be resorted to, to bring them
back. The whole family was, however, still employing every means to
induce the two Princes Napoleon to withdraw from the revolution, which
must inevitably again draw down upon the name Napoleon the suspicion of
the angry and distrustful princes of Europe.

Cardinal Fesch and King Jerome conjured their nephews, first in
entreating, and then in commanding letters, to leave the insurgent army.

With the consent of their father, Louis Bonaparte, they wrote to the
provisional government at Bologna that the name of the two princes was
injuring the cause of the revolution, and to General Armandi, the
minister of war of the insurgent government, entreating him to recall
the princes from the army. Every one, friend and foe, combined to
neutralize the zeal and efforts of the two princes, and to prove to them
that they could only injure the cause to which they gave their names;
that foreign powers, considering the revolution a matter to be decided
by Italy alone, would perhaps refrain from intervening; but that they
would become relentless should a Bonaparte place himself at the head of
the revolution, in order perhaps to shake the thrones of Europe anew.

The two princes at last yielded to these entreaties and representations;
they gave up their commands, and resigned the rank that had been
accorded them in the insurgent army; but, as it was no longer in their
power to serve the revolution with their name and with their brains,
they were at least desirous of serving it with their arms: they resigned
their commands, but with the intention of remaining in the army as
simple soldiers and volunteers without any rank.

And when their father and their uncles, not yet satisfied with what they
had done, urged them still further the two princes declared that, if
these cruel annoyances were continued, they would go to Poland, and
serve the revolution there[