This is part of a series about why Napoleon’s stepdaughter Hortense broke the law. When we last left off, Hortense was rushing to keep her sons out of an unwinnable revolution - that she views as a trap to get her sons killed.
When she arrives to join them, she finds they’ve gone off to fight Austrian rule in Italy in response to public outcry.
Hortense writes.
[at least our] solicitude could guide them, and save them, if necessary, by our influence. I spent the night writing to them. I urged them to return if they had not taken part in this cause which could only be fatal for them, and, if it were possible, to withdraw from it with honor. M. de Bressieux took charge of my letter containing all my advice.
He took it to the officer who was going to meet my children, and to whom I begged for help in tears. The next day, my husband arrives very frightened at my house.
Accustomed to the gentleness of his two sons, to their absolute submission to all his wishes, he could not imagine who could have led them to the smallest step without his permission. He sends them letter after letter, order upon order to return immediately.
A teacher of his friends leaves too.
Upon his return, he tells us that they had taken sides; that they organized the defense from Foligno to Civita-Castellana; that all the youth of the cities and countryside obeyed them; that without being barely armed, they sought to take advantage of the scarce resources offered by the country, and prepared to take Civita-Castellana, and to deliver the prisoners of state who had been groaning in the dungeons for eight years.
From there to Rome, there were no more obstacles. At this news which confirmed all my fears, I no longer had the hope of seeing my children again until at the time of a catastrophe which I was only seeing too clearly, and my ideas were only carried towards the means of saving them when the time arrives.
My husband, in despair, as if a feeling had shown him all that he was going to have to endure, did not leave me a moment of rest.
He insisted that I leave to pick up his children and bring them back.
"I can't," I said to him. If they have to come back, it can only be of their own free will. If they have taken sides, I cannot detach them; and people will not fail to say that I will -
To be continued.
Cela fait partie d'une série expliquant pourquoi la belle-fille de Napoléon, Hortense, a enfreint la loi. La dernière fois que nous nous sommes arrêtés, Hortense se précipitait pour empêcher ses fils de participer à une révolution impossible à gagner - qu'elle considère comme un piège pour faire tuer ses fils. Quand elle arrive pour les rejoindre, elle constate qu’ils sont partis combattre la domination autrichienne en Italie en réponse au tollé général.
Hortense écrit.
