Queen Hortense by L. Muehlbach
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L. Muehlbach >> Queen Hortense
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"The renewal of the law of exile, and the assimilation made between us
and the Bourbons, testify to the sentiments and fears that are
entertained respecting us. No friendly voice has been raised in our
behalf; this indifference has doubled the bitterness of our banishment!
May they, however, still be happy--those who forget! May they, above
all, make France happy! This is my prayer!
"As for the people, it will, if it remembers its glory, its grandeur,
and the incessant care of which it was the object, ever hold our memory
dear. This is my firm conviction, and this thought is the sweetest
consolation of an exile, the sweetest consolation he can take with him
to the grave[74]!"
Hortense still lived a few years of peaceful tranquillity; far from all
she loved--far also from the son who was her last hope, never dreaming
that destiny had so brilliant a future in store for him, and that Louis
Napoleon, whom the Bourbons had banished from France as a child, and the
Orleans as a youth--that Louis Napoleon would one day be enthroned in
Paris as emperor, while the Bourbons and Orleans languish in foreign
lands as exiles!
In the year 1837, Hortense, the flower of the Bonapartes, died!
Weary, at last, of misfortune, and of the exile in which she languished,
she bowed her head, and went home to her great dead--home to Napoleon
and Josephine!
[Footnote 74: Voyage en Italie, etc., p. 324.]
THE END.
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