calls you by the sweet name of 'father,' you will forgive me for being
his mother."

"And when you press that son to your heart--when you feel that you love
him with boundless affection," said Louis, "you will pardon me for being
your husband, and you will cease to hate me, at least, for I will be the
father of your darling child."

Had sufficient time been allotted to these young, pure, and innocent
hearts, to comprehend one another, they would have overcome their
unhappiness, and love would have sprung up at last from hatred. But the
world was pitiless to them; it had no compassion for their youth and
their sufferings; with cruel hands it dashed away this tender blossoming
of nascent affection, which was beginning to expand in their hearts.
Josephine had wedded Hortense to her brother-in-law in order to secure
in him an ally in the family, and to keep her daughter by her side; and
now that daughter was made the target of insidious attacks and malicious
calumnies--now another plan was adopted in order to remove Hortense from
the scene. The conspirators had not succeeded in their designs by means
of a matrimonial alliance, so they would now try the effect of calumny.

They went about whispering from ear to ear that Bonaparte had married
his step-daughter to his brother, simply because he was attached to her
himself, and had been jealous of Duroc.

These slanders were carried so far as to hint that the child whose birth
Hortense expected was more nearly related to Bonaparte than merely
through the fact that his step-daughter was his brother's wife.

This was an infernal but skilfully-planned calumny; for those who