r and son returned to their hotel, which was
situated on the sea-side, and commanded a fine view of the surging,
foaming waters of the channel and of the lofty column of the empire.

They both stepped out on the balcony. It was a beautiful evening; the
setting sun shed its purple rays over the surface of the sea. Murmuring
and in melodious _tace_ the foaming waves rolled in upon the beach; on
another side, the lofty column, glowing in the light of the setting sun,
towered aloft like a pillar of fire, a memorial monument of fire!

Hortense, who for some time had been silently gazing, first at the
column, then at the sea, now turned with a sad smile to her son.

"Let us spend an hour with recollections of the past," said she. "In the
presence of this foaming sea and of this proud column, I will show you
a picture of the past. Do you wish to see it?"

His gaze fastened on the imperial column, Louis Napoleon silently nodded
assent.

Hortense went to her room, and soon returned to the balcony with a book,
bound in red velvet. Often, during the quiet days of Arenenberg, the
prince had seen her writing in this book, but never had Hortense yielded
to his entreaties and permitted him to read any part of her memoirs.
Unsolicited it was her intention to unfold before him to-day a brilliant
picture; in view of the sad and desolate present, she wished to portray
to him the bright and glittering past, perhaps only for the purpose of
entertaining him, perhaps in order to console him with the hope that all
that is passes away, and that the present would therefore also come to
an end, and that which once was, again become reality for him, the heir
of the emperor.

She seated herself at her son's side, on a little sofa that stood on the
balcony, and, opening her book, began to read.

CHAPTER XI.

FRAGMENT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF QUEEN HORTENSE.

"The emperor had returned from Italy. The beautiful ceremony of the
distribution of the crosses of the Legion of Honor had taken place
before his departure, and I had been present on the occasion; the
emperor now repaired to Boulogne, in order to make a second
distribution of the order in the army on his birthday. He had made my
husband general of the army of the reserve, and sent him a courier, with
the request that he should come with me and our son to the camp at
Boulogne. My husband did not wish to interrupt the baths he was taking
at St. Amand, but he requested me to go to Boulogne