QUEEN HORTENSE AND THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER.
Queen Hortense had gone to Rambouillet, in spite of the entreaties and
exhortations of her friends. The Empress Marie Louise had, however,
received her with an air of embarrassment. She had told the queen that
she was expecting her father, the Emperor of Austria, and that she
feared the queen's presence might make him feel ill at ease. Moreover,
the young empress, although dejected and grave, was by no means so
sorrowful and miserable as Hortense expected. The fate of her husband
had not wounded the heart of Marie Louise as deeply as that of the
Empress Josephine.
Hortense felt that she was not needed there; that the presence of the
Emperor of Austria would suffice to console the Empress of France for
her husband's overthrow. She thought of Josephine, who was so deeply
saddened by Napoleon's fate; and finding that, instead of consoling, she
only embarrassed the Empress Marie Louise, she hastened to relieve her
of her presence.
And now, at last, Hortense bowed her proud, pure heart beneath the yoke
of necessity; now, at last, she listened to the prayers and
representations of her mother, who had returned to Malmaison, and of her
friends, and went to Paris. It had been too often urged upon her that
she owed it to her sons to secure their fortune and future, not to
overcome her personal repugnance, and conform herself to this new
command of duty.
She had, therefore, returned to Paris for a few days, and taken up her
abode in her dwelling, whose present dreariness recalled, with sorrowful
eloquence, the grandeur of the past.
These drawing-rooms, once the rendezvous of so many kings and princes,
were now desolate, and bore on their soiled floors the footprints of the
hostile soldiers who had recently been quartered there. At the czar's
solicitation, they had now been removed; but the queen's household
servants had also left it. Faithless and ungrateful, they had turned
their backs on the setting sun, and fled from the storm that had burst
over the head of their mistress.
The Emperor Alexander hastened to the queen's dwelling as soon as her
arrival in Paris was announced, the queen advancing to meet him as far
as the outermost antechamber.
"Sire," said she, with a soft smile, "I have no means of receiving you
with due ceremony; my antechambers are deserted."
The appearance of this solitary woman, this queen without a crown,
without fortune, and without protection and support, who nevertheless
stood before him in all the charms of beauty and womanhood, a soft smile
on her lips, made a deep impression on the emperor, and his eyes filled
with tears.
The queen observed this, and hastened to say, "But what of that? I do
not think that antechambers filled with gold-embroidered liveries would
make those who come to see me happier, and I esteem myself happy in
being able to do you the honors of my house alone. I have, therefore,
only won."
The emperor took her hand, and, while conducting the queen to her room,
conversed with her, with that soft, sad expression peculiar to him,
lamenting with bitter self-reproaches almost that he was himself, in
part, to blame for the misfortunes that had overtaken the emperor and
his family. He then conjured her to abandon her intention of leaving
France, and to preserve herself for her mother and friends. He told her
that, in abandoning her country, her friends, and her rights, she would
be guilty of a crime against her own children, against her two sons, who
were entitled to demand a country and a fortune at her hands.
The queen, overcome at last by these earnest and eloquent
representations, declared her readiness to remain in France, if the
welfare of her sons should require it.
"Until now," said she, "I had formed all my resolutions with reference
to misfortune. I was entirely resigned, and I never thought of the
possibility of any thing fortunate happening for me; and even yet, I do
not know what I can desire and demand. I am, however, determined to
accept nothing for myself and children that would be unworthy of us, and
I do not know what that could be."
With an assuring smile, the emperor extended his hand to the queen.
"Leave that to me," said he. "It is, then, understood, you are to remain
in France?"
"Sire, you have convinced me that the future of my sons requires it. I
shall therefore remain."