es with a sorrowful and
anxious heart. She hoped and longed for nothing more than the privilege
of living in retirement with her memories; she felt exhausted and
sobered by the few steps she had already taken into the great world;
she, who had ever felt the most tender sympathy for the misfortunes of
others, and the most ardent desire to alleviate them--she had nowhere
found in her misfortune any thing but injustice, indifference,
and calumny.

Hortense longed to be back at Arenenberg, in her Swiss mountains.
Thither she desired to return with her son, in order that she might
there dream with him of the brilliant days that had been, and sing with
him the exalted song of her remembrances! If the French government
should permit her to journey with her son through France, she could
easily and securely reach the Swiss Canton of Thurgau, where her little
estate, Arenenberg, lay under the protection of the republic; the
daughter of the emperor would there be certain to find peace and repose!

The duchess there wrote to M. de Houdetot, begging him to procure for
her from the French government a passport, permitting her to travel
through France under some assumed name. It was promised her after long
hesitation, but under the condition that she should not commence her
journey until after July, until after the first anniversary of the
coronation of Louis Philippe.

Hortense agreed to this, and received on the first of August a passport,
which permitted her, as Madame Arenenberg, to pass through France with
her son in order to return to her estate in Switzerland.

It was at first the duchess's intention, notwithstanding the unquiet
movements that were taking place in the capital, to journey through
Paris, for the very purpose of proving, by her quiet and uninterested
demeanor, that she had no share whatever in these movements and riots.

But, on informing Louis Napoleon of her intention, he exclaimed, with
sparkling eyes: "If we go to Paris, and if I should see the people
sabred before my eyes, I shall not be able to resist the inclination to
place myself on its side[69]!"

[Footnote 69: La Reine Hortense, p. 276.]

Hortense clasped her son anxiously in her arms, as if to protect him
from all danger, on her maternal heart. "We shall not go to Paris," said
she, "we will wander through France, and pray before the monuments of
our happiness!"

On the 7th of August the Duchess of St. Leu left England with her son,
Louis Napo