nowadays leave her presidential wedding

permitted her, as Madame Arenenberg, to pass through France with
her son in order to return to her estate in Switzerland.

It was at first the duchess's intention, notwithstanding the unquiet
movements that were taking place in the capital, to journey through
Paris, for the very purpose of proving, by her quiet and uninterested
demeanor, that she had no share whatever in these movements and riots.

But, on informing Louis Napoleon of her intention, he exclaimed, with
sparkling eyes: "If we go to Paris, and if I should see the people
sabred before my eyes, I shall not be able to resist the inclination to
place myself on its side[69]!"

[Footnote 69: La Reine Hortense, p. 276.]

Hortense clasped her son anxiously in her arms, as if to protect him
from all danger, on her maternal heart. "We shall not go to Paris," said
she, "we will wander through France, and pray before the monuments of
our happiness!"

On the 7th of August the Duchess of St. Leu left England with her son,
Louis Napoleon, and landed after a pleasant passage at Boulogne.

Boulogne was for Hortense the first monument of her happiness, at the
foot of which she wished to pray! There, during the most brilliant
period of the empire, she had attended the military _fetes_, in the
midst of which the emperor was preparing to go forth to encounter new
dangers, and to reap, perhaps, new renown. A high column designated the
place where these camp-festivals had once taken place. It had been
erected under the empire, but under the restoration the name of Louis
XVIII. had been inscribed on it.

Accompanied by the prince, the Duchess of St. Leu ascended this column,
in order to show him from its summit the beautiful and flourishing
France, that had once been her own and through which they must now pass
with veiled countenances and borrowed name


.

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