know. As for myself, I shall ever lament the loss of my grandson."

Josephine was in her grave at Rueil when Napoleon returned. She had died
on the 29th of May 1814, at Malmaison, while the Allies were exhibiting
themselves in Paris. It seems hard that she should not have lived to
enjoy a triumph, however brief, over her Austrian rival. "She, at
least," said Napoleon truly, "would never have abandoned me."

Josephine's daughter, Hortense, separated from her husband, Louis
Bonaparte, and created Duchess of St Leu by Louis XVIII., was in Paris,
much suspected by the Bourbons, but really engaged in a lawsuit with her
husband about the custody of her sons. She had to go into hiding when
the news of the landing arrived, but her empty house, left unwatched,
became very useful for receiving the Bonapartists, who wished for a place
of concealment, amongst them, as we shall see, being, of all people,
Fouche! Hortense was met by Napoleon with some reproaches for accepting
a title from the Bourbons, but she did the honours of the Elysee for him,
and it is creditable to both of them that, braving the vile slanders
about their intercourse, she was with him to the end; and that one of the
last persons to embrace him at Malmaison before he started for the coast
was his adopted daughter, the child of his discarded wife. Hortense's
presence in Paris was thought to be too dangerous by the Prussian
Governor; and she was peremptorily ordered to leave. An appeal to the
Emperor Francis received a favourable answer, but Francis always gave way
where any act against his son-in-law was in question, and she had to
start at the shortest notice on a wandering life to Aix, Baden, and
Constance, till the generosity of the small but brave canton of Thurgau
enabled her to get a resting-place at the Chateau of Arenenberg.

In 1831 she lost her second son, the eldest then surviving, who died from