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.
Hortense describes what it was like to be the target of a massive vilification campaign. Napoleon’s inveterate enemy Pozzo di Borgo just so happens to get sent to Hortense’s at the request of Tzar Alexander and di Borgo just so happens to whip up problems.
Monsieur Decazes just so happens to be there helping to weaponize jealous Louis against Hortense.
Why do you think so much effort was directed at destroying Hortense’s life and future? What were the aims of the new regime? Were the new real rulers (in the background behind their puppets) hostile to the best interests of the people of France? If so then why? We need to finally get a handle on this type of governing system which has lasted for centuries at this point. Why is this “by way of deception” organization so difficult to root out when it’s so incredibly unpopular wherever it gets installed?
These are the real questions that lurk behind the fake show that’s pushed on us and falsely called “politics”.
Hortense’s memoirs continues:
CHAPTER XIII
THE FIRST RESTORATION (CONTINUED) [JUNE 1, MARCH 4, 1815]
Eugene’s Departure—Louis Protests Against the Creation of the Duchy of Saint-Leu—A Visit from Madame de Staël and Madame Recamier—Life at Plombières and at Baden-Baden—Hortense Returns to France —The Incident at Saverne—Louis Bonaparte's Lawsuit Against Hortense—A Visit to Louis XVIII—The Queen's Lawyers—Some English Visitors—The Queen's Drawing-Room—The Duchesse de Bassano—The Bourbons.
MY brother felt every day that he should be leaving Paris. Workmen from the suburbs had made a demonstration in front of the Tuileries and demanded work in a peremptory manner. We heard that among their protests Eugene's name had been pronounced.
It became necessary for me to look forward to being deprived of my sole moral support. I felt as though in leaving me my brother took with him everything one's native land has to offer in the way of protection, and that I was about to find myself in the midst of strangers with pitfalls on every side, pursued by malicious gossip and hounded by treason and ingratitude.
The country of my birth, where no one had a complaint or reproach to make against me, where my family had sought to do good to everyone, had changed and become hostile. I will not be so unjust to those rare friends who have always remained faithful to me as to say that I forgot their presence. But how could they defend me? Even their zeal was occasionally indiscreet. Frequently people holding absolutely contrary political views met in my drawing-room. Monsieur Pozzo di Borgo, a Corsican by birth, Russian Ambassador in Paris, whom his master had asked to safeguard my interests, came there from time to time.
On one occasion he had rather a sharp discussion with a young French colonel, Monsieur de La Woestine, whom misfortune had embittered and who in the presence of Monsieur Pozzo di Borgo enjoyed deliberately ridiculing political conditions which the Russian envoy had helped bring about. I learned that Monsieur Pozzo di Borgo had complained of the liberty with which seditious opinions were expressed in my house, but was entirely unaware of the fact that this minister had been the personal enemy of Emperor Napoleon.
He informed me of the fact himself, and his vanity went so far as to give me certain details about his knowledge of the characters of the two emperors and of the skill with which he had known how to play one against the other. Being aware that Emperor Alexander was particularly susceptible to personal remarks he had managed, by quoting remarks which Napoleon had made when excited, to increase still further his master's enmity toward him.
It was on this enmity, which he had built up little by little, that he counted to bring about sooner or later the downfall of Emperor Napoleon. For instance, if Napoleon made some friendly offer to Russia which was not replied to immediately, the minister would offset it by drawing Emperor Alexander's attention to some article in the French press attacking his personal character and by suggesting it had been inspired by Emperor Napoleon. Well aware of the effect this would produce he kept alive Emperor Alexander's irritation by reminders of the other's impatient character. I had had so little contact up to that moment with political circles that it was Monsieur Pozzo di Borgo himself from whom I first learned of his enmity toward Emperor Napoleon.
Pozzo di Borgo bragged a lot that his scheming played a key role in bringing down Napoleon and Tzar Alexander sent him to Hortense’s house.
I had indeed never heard of the man before he presented himself to me in the name of his sovereign, the Emperor of Russia. The knowledge of this feud enlightened me as to the dangers of my position. Even at home my enemies were those who were in power, and my only protectors were foes of my own family.
As my health required a trip to a resort it was agreed that my brother, his wife and I should all meet at Aix-en-Savoie. I wished to have my children accompany me, but the advice of the Duc de Vicence and several other people who knew about political matters was that it was better not to have them leave the country so soon after having been granted the right to remain there. Such an absence might serve as a pretext for breaking the agreements which had been made and for preventing their return.
On the contrary, it was advisable to accustom people to their presence in France. About this time the newspapers published a communication from my husband, who refused in his own name and that of his sons the terms contained in the treaty of April 11.
He also caused the letters he had written on leaving Holland to be printed and even those he had sent by Monsieur Decazes, to the Senate and the Corps Legislatif. Among these papers was included his letter to me which the Emperor had never given me but had mentioned when he expressed his displeasure at seeing a French father refuse French titles for his sons. In this letter my husband forbade me to receive anything from my brother and turned over to me as a source of revenue his private estates in France and Holland. Of these the former did not pay expenses, and the latter did not exist. I confess I considered it extraordinary that my husband should choose the moment when his brother had just been overthrown to court public favor for himself at the Emperor's expense.
Was it not misplaced vanity that caused him to inform the public what terms he had refused at the time of his abdication, since everything he ever possessed had been given him by his brother? Human beings can act as they please, choose their own fate, but they should not try to decide the future of others. Would not his children someday be justified in reproaching him for having deprived them of that noble title, Prince of France, and of the advantages which went with it? It was this renunciation which the Emperor had spoken of as insane.
It was on this important point that I based my resistance to my husband when he now asked me to send him his sons or at least the older boy. His past attitude did not inspire me with confidence as to the future. Yet it was possible I was making a mistake, for in questions of policy, only the result proves whether one has been right or wrong, and the result was something I could not foresee.
The original French is available below:
