This is a serial about why Hortense’s broke the law. The previous entries are available here.
- “without question. Each one hastened to obey me. I went to the neighboring huts. I had a chain formed, and having no water, it was with earth that I managed to save half of the house. I went away, preserving my incognito, in the midst of the most tender blessings.“
“The most curious thing, he added with a laugh, is that they have discovered who I am. I saw them coming to Florence to ask for help, and I had to help again to rebuild the house I had saved.”
This heart, so simple, so noble, so tender, would only be able to beat so short a time for the happiness of humanity! I kissed him several times. I had trouble leaving him, I was afraid of all the events, but I was far from imagining the most fatal of all!
Once I arrived at Bolsena, I learned by a letter that my husband had to stay at Viterbo. My son Louis wanted to leave on a post horse to go to meet his father and spend a few hours with him. Our carriages met around the middle of the day. He gave me back my son and told me his fears about the political ideas his children were showing, and his desire that they remain strangers to any event.
In his anxious tenderness, he would have wished, like me, to keep them for himself as well. He consented to return our son Louis to me only on the condition that I bring him back a month or two before my trip to Florence.
When I arrived in Rome, I returned to my usual life. Every day I went to spend two hours with my mother-in-law, and often, in the evening, I went to read to her small new pieces that I received from Paris. I possessed at this time a large number about the Emperor. Painful as this memory was, she did not want to remain unaware of these works. Condemned to spend the rest of her days lying down, without being able to walk, since she has broken her thigh, she endures her pain with admirable courage. Her mind is healthy and strong. She is not -
To be continued.
