This is a serial about why Hortense broke the law. Previous entries are here.
- [Napoleon’s mother is not] indifferent to what’s happening in the political world. She transferred all her hopes to the Emperor's son, and could not believe, she said, the ingratitude of the French people.
These pieces [about Napoleon], mediocre as they were, pleased her. At least we saw a memory of the Emperor, and she enjoyed learning that these memories had not been wiped out in France. I liked to hear her speak of the Emperor's childhood. Then she came alive, and found, with this memory, all the liveliness of youth.
With the elderly, it is a question of upholding the past, the future is so little for them! My care seemed to distract and console her so much that I was happy to lavish it on her. To be more free, I had fixed a single day when I received all the people who wanted to see me. The rest of the time I was always with my mother-in-law.
There were in Rome at that time many of my old acquaintances, who had passed from the court of the Emperor onto that of Charles X, and many of whom were leaving France, exasperated at the events of July.
One of these people once said to me quite seriously: "It is the Empress Josephine who is the innocent cause of all our ills. Had she not obtained the pardon of the execution of M. de Polignac? If he had died in the days of the Empire, we would not have gotten his ordinances. I smiled at these laments. Certainly, I could be wrong but I did not share any of the ideas I saw expressed by each party. I thought the humiliation of having -
To be continued.
