actions in the most private relations of life, I declare that I have
never seen or heard the slightest circumstance that would tend to
convict her of a criminal intimacy. One must consider this calumny as
belonging to the category of those which malice so willingly circulates
about those persons whose career has been brilliant, and which credulity
and envy so willingly believe. I declare candidly that, if I entertained
the slightest doubt with regard to this horrible calumny, I would say
so. But Bonaparte is no more! Impartial history must not and shall not
give countenance to this reproach; she should not make of a father and
friend a libertine! Malicious and hostile authors have asserted,
without, however, adducing any proof, that a criminal intimacy existed
between Bonaparte and Hortense. A falsehood, an unworthy falsehood! And
this report has been generally current, not only in France, but
throughout all Europe. Alas! can it, then, be true that calumny
exercises so mighty a charm that, when it has once taken possession of a
man, he can never be freed from it again?"



CHAPTER V.

KING OR EMPEROR.

Josephine's entreaties had been fruitless, or Bonaparte had, at least,
only yielded to them in their literal sense. She had said: "I entreat
you, do not make yourself a king!" Bonaparte did not make himself king,
he made himself emperor. He did not take up the crown that had fallen
from the head of the Bourbons; he created a new one for himself--a crown
which the French people and Senate had, however, offered him. The
revolution still stood a threatening spectre behind the French people;