How were we better off at Mesnil than at Villers-Cotterets, a dozen leagues from our starting-point and upon the same road? Neither my mother nor Mademoiselle Adélaïde could say with certainty.
However, it was settled that, unless some serious event occurred, we had reached our journey's end.
We arrived at Mesnil on the 22nd of March.
On the 25th everybody was talking of a grand review of the National Guard, which was to be held by King Joseph in the court of the Tuileries.
This function roused Mademoiselle Adélaïde's curiosity, for she had never seen Paris, and it was decided to put the horse to our cart, to start on the afternoon of the 26th, to sleep in Paris, to see the review on the 27th, and to return on the 28th.
My mother did not care to take this little trip; for Paris recalled memories that my thoughtless childhood had forgotten. She entrusted me to Crétet and to Mademoiselle Adélaïde, who took me with them.
I have but two clear recollections of this journey—although it was eight years later than the last one.
One, radiant and poetic: and the other impure and stained.
The first was when, at the flourish of brazen trumpets and the waving of welcoming flags, they lifted up above the heads of 50,000 of the National Guard, the rosy, fair, curly head of a child of three, amid cries of Vive le roi de Rome? Vive la régence!
He was that poor child who was born a king, but who was destined by fate not only to be disinherited of both his kingdoms, but soon to lose both his parents.