very transport her retired alpha

at least kneel down before the monument that immortalized the
renown and grandeur of the emperor. Hortense remained behind, in order
to perform a sacred duty, imposed on her, as she believed, by her own
honor and dignity.

She was not willing to sojourn secretly, like a fugitive criminal, in
the city that in the exercise of its free will had chosen itself a king,
but not a Bonaparte. She was not willing to partake of French
hospitality and enjoy French protection by stealth; she was not willing
to go about in disguise, deceiving the government with a false pass and
a borrowed name. She had the courage of truth and sincerity, and she
resolved to say to the King of France that she had come, not to defy his
decree of banishment by her presence, not for the purpose of intriguing
against his new crown, by arousing the Bonapartists from their sleep of
forgetfulness by her appearance, but solely because there was no other
means of saving her son; because she must pass through France with him
in order to reach England.

Revolution, which so strangely intermingles the destinies of men, had
surrounded the new king almost entirely with the friends and servants
of the emperor and of the Duchess of St. Leu. But, in order not to
excite suspicion against these, Hortense now addressed herself to him
with whom she had the slightest acquaintance and whose devotion to the
Orleans family was too well known to be called in doubt by her
undertaking. Hortense therefore addressed herself to M. de Houdetot, the
adjutant of the king, or rather, she caused her friend Mlle. de Massuyer
to write to him. She was instructed to inform the count that she had
come to Paris with an English family, and was the bearer of a commission
from the Duchess of St. Leu to M. de Houdetot.

M. de Houdetot responded to her request, and came to the _Hotel de
Hollande_ to see Mlle. Massuyer. With surprise and emotion, he
recognized in the supposititious English lady the Duchess of St. Leu,
wh


.

Quantcast