This is part of a series where we translate the account of why Hortense Bonaparte broke an unjust law. When we last left off the Austrian military has been deployed, in part, to capture her sons for daring to speak up on behalf of human rights. Hortense was traveling under a false name to try and save them.
Charlotte Bonaparte, daughter of Joseph and Julie.
Charlotte Bonaparte, fille de Joseph et Julie.
I refused all the people who, seeing me leaving so alone, offered to accompany me. I had my plan; no man was needed with me; one lady was enough for me, and the one I had, full of devotion and courage, was a perfect match for me.
My poor daughter-in-law was in despair. Placed between the desire to reunite with her husband and the duty to care for her dying mother, her position, which her courage managed to conceal, softened.
"I will never see Napoleon again," she said to me, crying; “I know it.”.
"Wherever we go you will come to meet us, when your mother is better,” I said to her. “Don't worry about anything. If you have no news from us, it will be good, and I am sure to save them!”
Alas! I thought on leaving leaving all the torments, and it was to find myself in the midst of the most awful pains. My plan was to go to Foligno and wait there for events.
The Austrians from there were going to enter papal territory the very day of my departure. There was no need to hurry, and, as Foligno was at the junction of the two roads of Furlo and Ancona, I was in time to know where the retreat would be and to take myself to that side.
Always having since my birth been accustomed to big events, I got into the habit of measuring every chance in advance by my imagination.
Rarely, when they arrive, do they surprise me. I have always foreseen everything that can be painful or dangerous. Happiness alone, which I don't think of, would perhaps find me without courage.
But I don't know that emotion.
All the while, driving in this carriage, I was thinking about the route I was planning. How was I going to find my children? Maybe injured! Ah! I resign myself to having one injured; I will put him in this carriage, I will still be able to cure him, and I will bless God! But when my thought went further, a deadly cold grabbed me -
…
Cela fait partie d'une série où nous traduisons le récit de la raison pour laquelle Hortense Bonaparte a enfreint une loi injuste.
La dernière fois que nous nous sommes arrêtés, l'armée autrichienne a été déployée, en partie, pour capturer ses fils pour avoir osé parler au nom des droits de l'homme. Hortense voyageait sous un faux nom pour essayer de les sauver.
