Makers of History
Hortense
By
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1902
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for theSouthern District of New York.
Copyright, 1898, by Laura A. Buck.
HORTENSE.PREFACE.
The French Revolution was perhaps as important an event as has occurredin the history of nations. It was a drama in three acts. The first wasthe Revolution itself, properly so called, with its awful scenes ofterror and of blood—the exasperated millions struggling against theaccumulated oppression of ages.
The second act in the drama was the overthrow of the Directory byNapoleon, and the introduction of the Consulate and the Empire; thetremendous struggle against the combined dynasties of Europe; thedemolition of the Empire, and the renewed crushing of the people by thetriumph of the nobles and the kings.
Then came the third act in the drama—perhaps the last, perhaps not—inwhich the French people again drove out the Bourbons, re-established theRepublican Empire, with its principle of equal rights for all, andplaced upon the throne the heir of the great Emperor.
No man can understand the career of Napoleon I. without being acquaintedwith those scenes of anarchy and terror which preceded his reign. No mancan understand the career of Napoleon III. unless familiar with thestruggle of the people against the despots in the Revolution, theirtriumph in the Empire, their defeat in its overthrow, and their renewedtriumph in its restoration.
Hortense was intimately associated with all these scenes. Her fatherfell beneath the slide of the guillotine; her mother was imprisoned anddoomed to die; and she and her brother were turned penniless into thestreets. By the marriage of her mother with Napoleon, she became thedaughter of the Emperor, and one of the most brilliant and illustriousladies of the imperial court. The triumph of the Allies sent her into[Pg ix]exile, where her influence and her instruction prepared her son tocontribute powerfully to the restoration of the Empire, and to reignwith ability which is admired by his friends and acknowledged by hisfoes. The mother of Napoleon III. never allowed her royally-endowed sonto forget, even in the gloomiest days of exile and of sorrow, that itmight yet be his privilege to re-establish the Republican Empire, and torestore the dynasty of the people from its overthrow by the despoticAllies.
In this brief record of the life of one who experienced far more than