Departure of the Emperor.
It was necessary for Napoleon to come to a prompt decision. The Allies now nearly surrounded Paris. On the 29th of June the Emperor sat in his library at Malmaison, exhausted with care and grief. Hortense, though with swollen eyes and a heart throbbing with anguish, did every thing which a daughter's love could suggest to minister to the solace of her afflicted father. Just before his departure to Rochefort, where he intended to embark for some foreign land, he called for his nephews, to take leave of them. It was a very affecting scene. Both of the children wept bitterly. The soul of the little, pensive Louis Napoleon was stirred to its utmost depths. He clung frantically to his uncle, screaming and insisting that he should go and "fire off the cannon!" It was necessary to take him away by force.
"The Emperor was departing almost without money. Hortense, after many entreaties, succeeded in making him accept her beautiful necklace, valued at eight hundred thousand francs. She sewed it up in a silk ribbon, which he concealed in his dress. He did not, however, find himself obliged to part with this jewel till on his death-bed, when he intrusted it to Count Montholon, with orders to restore it to Hortense. This devoted man acquitted himself successfully of this commission."[H]
Anger of the Royalists.
Upon the departure of Napoleon, Hortense, with her children, returned to Paris. She was entreated by her friends to seek refuge in the interior of France, as the Royalists were much exasperated against her in consequence of her reception of the Emperor. They assured her that the army and the people would rally around her and her children as the representatives of the Empire. But Hortense replied:
"I must now undergo whatever fortune has in store for me. I am nothing now. I can not pretend to make the people think that I rally the troops around me. If I had been Empress of France, I would have done every thing to prolong the defense. But now it does not become me to mingle my destinies with such great interests, and I must be resigned."
In a few days the allied armies were again in possession of Paris. The Royalists assumed so threatening an attitude towards her, that she felt great solicitude for the safety of her children. Many persons kindly offered to give them shelter. But she was unwilling to compromise her friends by receiving from them such marks of attention. A kind-hearted woman, by the name of Madame Tessier, kept a hose establishment on the Boulevard Montmartre. The children were intrusted to her care, where they would be concealed from observation, and where they would still be perfectly comfortable.
Hortense had her residence in a hotel on the Rue Cerutti. The Austrian Prince Schwartzenberg occupied the same hotel, and Hortense hoped that this circumstance would add to her security. But the Allies were now greatly exasperated against the French people, who had so cordially received the Emperor on his return from Elba. Even the Emperor Alexander treated Hortense with marked coldness. He called upon Prince Schwartzenberg without making any inquiries for her.
Hostility of the Allies.
The hostility of the Allies towards this unfortunate lady was so great, that on the 19th of July Baron de Muffling, who commanded Paris for the Allies, received an order to notify the Duchess of St. Leu that she must leave Paris within two hours. An escort of troops was offered her, which amounted merely to an armed guard, to secure her departure and to mark her retreat. As Hortense left Paris for exile, she wrote a few hurried lines to a friend, in which she said: