Eugene de Beauharnais entered the drawing-room with a triumphant smile, and the eye of General Bonaparte was fixed with pleasure on the beautiful, intelligent countenance, on the tall, powerful figure of the fifteen-year-old boy. In that strange, soft accent which won hearts to Napoleon, he asked Eugene his business. The young man’s cheeks became pallid, and with tremulous lips and angry looks, the vehement eloquence of youth and suffering, Eugene spoke of the loss he had sustained, and of the pain which had been added to it by despoiling him of the sword of his father, murdered by the republic.
At these last words of Eugene, Bonaparte’s brow was overshadowed, and an appalling look met the face of the brave boy.
“You dare say that the republic has murdered your father?” asked he, in a loud, angry voice.
“I say it, and I say the truth!” exclaimed Eugene, who did not turn away his eyes from the flaming looks of the general. “Yes, the republic has murdered my father, for it has executed him as a criminal, as a traitor to his country, and he was innocent; he ever was a faithful servant of his country and of the republic.”
“Who told you that it was so?” asked Bonaparte, abruptly.
“My heart and the republic itself tell me that my father was no traitor,” exclaimed Eugene, warmly. “My mother loved him much, and she regrets him still. She would not do so had he been a traitor, and then the republic would not have done what it has done—it would not have returned to my mother the confiscated property of my father, but would, had he been considered guilty, have gladly kept it back.”
The grave countenance of Bonaparte was overspread by a genial smile, and his eyes rested with the expression of innermost sympathy on the son of Josephine.
“You think, then, that the republic gladly keeps what it has?” asked he.
“I see that it gladly takes what belongs not to it,” exclaimed Eugene, eagerly. “It has taken away my father’s sword, which belonged to me, his son, and my mother has made me swear on that sword to hold my father’s memory sacred, and to strive to be like him.”
“Your mother is, it seems, a very virtuous old lady,” said Bonaparte, in a friendly tone.