CHAPTER VI.

NAPOLEON’S HEIR.

Hortense had not been able to take any part in the festivities of the coronation; but another festivity had been prepared for her in the retirement of her apartments.  She had given birth to a son; and in this child the happy mother found consolation and a new hope.

Josephine, who had assumed the imperial crown with a feeling of foreboding sadness, received the intelligence of the birth of her grandson with exultation.  It seemed to her that the clouds that had been gathering over her head were now dissipated, and that a day of unclouded sunshine now smiled down upon her.  Hortense had assured her mother’s future; she had given birth to a son, and had thus given a first support to the new imperial dynasty.  There was now no longer a reason why Napoleon should entertain the thoughts of a separation, for there was a son to whom he could one day bequeath the imperial throne of France.

The emperor also seemed to be disposed to favor Josephine’s wishes, and to adopt his brother’s son as his own.  Had he not requested the Pope to delay his departure for a few days, in order to baptize the child?  The Pope performed this sacred rite at St. Cloud, the emperor holding the child, and Madame Letitia standing at his side as second witness.  Hortense now possessed an object upon which she could lavish the whole wealth of love that had until now lain concealed in her heart.  The little Napoleon Charles was Hortense’s first happy love; and she gave way to this intoxicating feeling with the most intense delight.

Josephine’s house was now her home in the fullest sense of the word; she no longer shared her home with her husband, and could now bestow her undivided love and care upon her child.  Louis Napoleon, the Grand-Constable of France, had been appointed Governor of Piedmont by Napoleon; and Hortense, owing to her delicate health, had not been compelled to accompany him, but had been permitted to remain in her little house in Paris, which she could exchange when summer came for her husband’s new estate, the castle of Saint-Leu.

But the tranquillity which Josephine enjoyed with her child in this charming country-resort was to be of short duration.  The brother and sister-in-law of the emperor could not hope to be permitted to lead a life of retirement.  They were rays of the sun that now dazzled the whole world; they must fulfil their destiny, and contribute their light to the ruling sun.

An order of Napoleon recalled the constable, who had returned from Piedmont a short time before, and repaired to Saint-Leu to see his son, to Paris.  Napoleon had appointed his brother to a brilliant destiny; the Constable of France was to become a king.  Delegates of the Republic of Batavia, the late Holland, had arrived in Paris, and requested their mighty neighbor, the Emperor Napoleon, to give them a king, who should unite them with the glittering empire, through the ties of blood.  Napoleon intended to fulfil their wishes, and present them with a king, in the person of his brother Louis.