This is a serial about why Hortense broke the law. Previous entries can be here.
When we last left off Hortense was praying for her sons to outlive her and she helped a stranger save her son.
- When I got home, I had my son come and visit me. My concern was alarmed as he said a colonel had been announced to him. Fifty men surrounded the palace. They were ordered to immediately take my son to the border. Nothing could be less civil, but nothing was more reassuring to me.
Seeing him far from danger suited me. The form that this action had taken could not lower me. I felt myself above all possible shortcomings related to this. I rather excused this behavior as old men who had been struck by terror, who forget what one should owe to an illustrious misfortune like ours.
I did not object in any way to the departure of my son. I only longed to know that he should arrive near his father. When I kissed my son, he asked me about something in particular. He admitted that a man with whom he had sometimes made arms, who was chased by the police, had come that same morning to confide in his kindness. He had locked himself up near his apartment. I promised to deal with it and he left.
King Jerome came to my house in a state of irritation that was easy to imagine. The same order had been given for his son, a young man of fourteen, a minor, who was always with his tutor: and if his father had not been with him, they would have taken him away to send him to I do not know where! … The Russian ambassador intervened. The -
— To be continued.
The memoirs so far are available here.
