this gentle and yet high-spirited queen, who, when she had descended
from the throne and had ceased to be a sovereign, exhausted and weary of
life, found refuge at length in the grave, yet still survived among us
as a queen--no longer, indeed, a queen of nations, but the Queen
of Flowers.

The flowers have retained their remembrance of Josephine's beautiful
daughter; they did not, like so many of her own race, deny her when she
was no longer the daughter of the all-powerful emperor, but merely the
daughter of the "exile." Among the flowers the lovely Hortense continued
to live on, and Gavarni, the great poet of the floral realm, has reared
to her, as Hortensia, the Flower Queen, an enchanting monument, in his
"_Fleurs Animées_." Upon a mound of Hortensias rests the image of the
Queen Hortense, and, in the far distance, like the limnings of a
half-forgotten dream, are seen the towers and domes of Paris. Farther in
the foreground lies the grave of Hortense, with the carved likeness of
the queenly sister of the flowers. Loneliness reigns around the spot,
but above it, in the air, hovers the imperial eagle. The imperial
mantle, studded with its golden bees, undulates behind him, like the
train of a comet; the dark-red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, with the
golden cross, hangs around his neck, and in his beak he bears a
full-blooming branch of the crown imperial.

It is a page of world-renowned history that this charming picture of
Gavarni's conjures up before us--an historical pageant that sweeps by
us in wondrous fantastic forms of light and shadow, when we scan the
life of Queen Hortense with searching gaze, and meditate upon her
destiny. She had known all the grandeur and splendor of earth, and had
seen them all crumble again to dust. No, not all! Her ballads and poems
remain, for genius needs no diadem to be immortal.