brain against her injured caps

ministry at his side, he
had been compelled to inform the premier of her arrival, and that
Minister Casimir Perrier would call on her during the day.

A few hours later, Louis Philippe's celebrated minister arrived. He came
with an air of earnest severity, as it were to sit in judgment upon the
accused duchess, but her artless sincerity and her gentle dignity
disarmed him, and soon caused him to assume a more delicate and
polite bearing.

"I well know," said Hortense in the course of the conversation, "I well
know that I have broken a law, by coming hither; I fully appreciate the
gravity of this offence; you have the right to cause me to be arrested,
and it would be perfectly just in you to do so!"--Casimir Perrier shook
his head slowly, and replied: "Just, no! Lawful, yes[63]!"

[Footnote 63: La Reine Hortense: Voyage en Italie, etc., p. 110.]



CHAPTER VIII.

LOUIS PHILIIPE AND THE DUCHESS OF ST. LEU.

The visit which Casimir Perrier had paid the duchess seemed to have
convinced him that the fears which the king and his ministry had
entertained had really been groundless, that the step-daughter of
Napoleon had not come to Paris to conspire and to claim the still
somewhat unstable throne of France for the Duke de Reichstadt or for
Louis Nap


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