Let’s have another look at Hortense’s Memoirs. If you want to read the book it is available for free at the side bar in English and French. Use the widget on the sidebar to translate the text below into pretty much any language.
The following passages shows the disintegration of all these lives being engineered into oblivion by enemies within the walls of palaces. Not surprisingly, all of this misery directly results in a flourishing smuggling trade benefiting the ones controlling the British Empire. Patterns.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
Frequently I felt my interest in Monsieur de Flahaut revive. I said to myself: "It is true that he deceived me, but perhaps he is bitterly unhappy at the loss of the woman he loves and if he really is fond of her how could he have spoken about the matter to me?
The one thing he did which was wrong was to make me believe that I was the only woman he cared about. But he is sad and in pain. I must forgive him. We must again be friends.
He returned to Paris before Caroline's departure but left at once for the Spanish front. I was at Saint Cloud at the time with my mother, who had come back from Bayonne.
As soon as Queen Caroline had informed him of our conversation Monsieur de Flahaut wrote me and explained everything. He declared Caroline had told him that she had spoken as she did in order to separate us and added: "I am sure that after our conversation Hortense will not care for you anymore. She is too romantic to do so under such conditions, and that was what I wanted, as the idea that you cared for her was very disagreeable to me."
Monsieur de Flahaut wrote me these details and I believed him. They seemed probable enough. Perhaps too I wished to deceive myself. Nevertheless, there remained in my mind a feeling of suspicion, which prevented me from being entirely at ease.
Henceforward no man's affection seemed to me stable enough to be depended upon; yet how can one live without some such support? My mother had come back from Bayonne. The visible change in my health frightened her, and she wished me to come and live with her at Saint Cloud.
Life as it was there, although it had charmed me before my marriage because I had found much with which to occupy my time, now wearied me on account of its futility and the need I felt of having occupations which would take my mind off my own worries, and give me something to do that was not directly connected with myself.
Instead of that I was not left alone an instant. I spent the mornings in my mother's drawing-room where she worked on her embroidery, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. For hours on end I would sit beside one of these ladies, watching her thread go in and out, without being able to say a word or follow a line of thought. Every few minutes my mother would leave the room in order to receive some visitor or hear some petition.
She did not dare leave the palace for fear the Emperor might wish to see her and might come along the balcony looking for her as he did frequently. Between the completion of some special task and a meeting of his ministers he often took a little stroll with her. It was he who fixed the hour at which we were to go driving with him.
We always had to be exactly on time and almost always were obliged to wait an hour or two for the council meeting to be over. Finally, the Emperor appeared, and through wind, rain or snow he would drive for several miles in the country, returning finally to the palace.
Often the Emperor, his mind still full of the problems that had been discussed at the meeting or busy with some other weighty question, would hardly say a word. After the drive we dressed for dinner, which we took alone, the Emperor, the Empress and I.
Sometimes the conversation was not more lively than it had been during the drive. After dinner the Emperor returned to his work. The Empress played a game of whist in her drawing-room. I did not care for cards but nevertheless played also until ten or eleven o'clock when we all went to bed.
The emptiness and dreariness of such a monotonous life were more than I could bear, and the weakness of my lungs increased. Madame de Broc heard what an alarming condition I was in. For a long time, I had been longing to have her with me, but did not wish to disturb her happiness, or make any effort to bring her to me.
As soon as she heard how ill I was she hastened to my side. Her excellent husband willingly consented to this sacrifice. No sooner had she arrived than I poured out to her sympathetic ear all my troubles.
Her presence was a relief to me. My husband had given up writing to me. He several times even returned my letters without having broken the seal, after having pointedly pushed them aside in the presence of his courtiers. I felt that I had done wrong in not acceding to his request that I should travel to Holland for my confinement. Since I was no longer present his suspicious nature, having no direct object, busied itself with the affairs of all those about him.
If a French courtier who was familiar with our married life tried to defend me when my reputation was attacked, he would at once be dismissed from court.
He considered they must be spies, either of mine or of the Emperor.
Already the King had received several reprimands from his brother about the smuggling that went on between Holland and England.
The original French is available below:
