Re: some assessments reflect, maintain, and dream. Others on belong

"the royal snuff-box," which
appellation had its origin in the habit which the king fondly indulged
in of strewing snuff on the countess's lovely shoulder, and then
snuffing it up with his nose.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE DRAWING-KOOM OF THE DUCHESS OF ST. LEU.

While the etiquette and frivolity of the old era were being introduced
anew at the Tuileries, and while M. de Blacas was governing in
complacent recklessness, time was progressing, notwithstanding his
endeavors to turn it backward in his flight.

While, out of the incessant conflict between the old and the new France,
a discontented France was being born, Napoleon, the Emperor of Elba, was
forming great plans of conquest, and preparing in secret understanding
with the faithful, to leave his place of exile and return to France.

He well knew that he could rely on his old army--on the army who loudly
cried, "_Vive le roi!_" and then added, _sotto voce_, "_de Rome, et son
petit papa_[41]!"

[Footnote 41: Cochelet, Memoires sur la Reine Hortense, vol. iii, p.
121.]

Hortense, the new Duchess of St. Leu, took but little part in all these
things. She had, notwithstanding her youth and beauty, in a measure
taken leave of the world. She felt herself to be no longer the woman,
but only the mother; her sons were the objects of all her tenderness and
love, and she lived for them only. In her retirement at St. Leu, her
time was devoted to the arts, to reading, and to study; and, after
having been thus occupied throughout the day, she passed the evening in
her drawing-room, in unrestrained intellectual conversation with
her friends.

For she had friends who had remained true, notwithstanding the obscurity
into which she had withdrawn herself, and who, although they f


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