friend, after a serious talk on religious matters; "those words, written
by relatives whom I sincerely respect and thoroughly love, have an
inestimable value for me, and yet I give it to you. I want what I most
value to go to you, in memory of what seems to me the most important of
our conversations."

When he was dying, he wanted to gaze at the crucifix, in order not to
complain of his sad lot, dying thus at the very threshold of a career
which promised to be brilliant and glorious; to go down so early to the
gloomy tomb of the Hapsburgs! To exchange his glowing visions for this
untimely end; to find an Austrian tomb instead of the throne of France!
He accepted his fate, but he wished as few witnesses as possible of his
last sufferings. He did not want to show to the world a son of Napoleon
so weak and broken. He could scarcely lift the weak, worn hand which
should have wielded Charlemagne's sword and sceptre. "I am so weak,"
he said; "I beg of you not to let any one see me in my misery!" His
sumptuous cradle he had given to the Imperial Treasury of Vienna, which
is near the Church of the Capuchins, where he was to be buried. "My
cradle and my grave will be near each other," he said. "My birth and my
death--that's my whole story." In the overthrow, by lightning, of one
of the eagles surmounting the palace of Schoenbrunn, the populace saw a
prophecy of the death there of Napoleon's son, and in fact it was there
that he died, in the room which his father had occupied in 1809, when
possibly for the first time he thought of this Austrian marriage, which
should--such at least was his dream--guarantee to the Napoleonic dynasty
unlimited power and glory. The prince desired only one thing,--to see
his mother. She came, and he greeted her with tenderness. He had also
near him his young and beautiful relative, the Archduchess Sophia, the
mother of the present Emperor of Austria. This charming princess, who
was very fond of the young man who was approaching his end, told him