rother at the same time.
He retired to Florence, where he lived for many years, only once
more coming back to public life, viz., in 1814, to offer his help
to his brother Napoleon, when others were deserting him.

Napoleon was very fond of Hortense's little boys, though in 1811
he had completed his divorce, had married the Austrian archduchess,
and had a son of his own.

Louis Napoleon has left us some fragmentary reminiscences of his
childhood, which have a curious interest.

"My earliest recollections," he says, "go back to my baptism, and I
hasten to remark that I was three years old when I was baptized, in
1810, in the chapel at Fontainebleau. The emperor was my godfather,
and the Empress Marie Louise was my godmother. Then my memory carries
me back to Malmaison. I can still see my grandmother, the Empress
Josephine, in her _salon_, on the ground floor, covering me with
her caresses, and, even then, flattering my vanity by the care
with which she retailed my _bons mots_; for my grandmother spoiled
me in every particular, whereas my mother, from my tenderest years,
tried to correct my faults and to develop my good qualities. I
remember that once arrived at Malmaison, my brother and I were
masters to do as we pleased. The empress, who passionately loved
flowers and conservatories, allowed us to cut her sugar-canes,
that we might suck them, and she always told us to ask for anything
we might want.

"One day, when she wished to know as usual, what we would like
best, my brother, who was three years older than I, and consequently
more full of sentiment, asked for a watch, with a portrait of our
mother; but I, when the empress said: 'Louis, ask for whatever
will give you the greatest pleasure,' begged to be allowed to go
out and paddle in the gutter with the little boys in the street.
Indeed, until I was seven years old it was a great grief to me to
have to ride always in a carriage with four or six horses. When,
in 1815, just before the arrival of the allied army in Paris, we
were hurried by our tutor to a hiding-place, and passed on foot
along the Boulevards, I felt the keenest sensations of happiness
within my recollection. Like all children, though perhaps even
more than most children, soldiers fixed my attention. Whenever at
Malmaison I could escape from the _salon_, I was off to the great
gates, where there were always grenadiers of the Garde Imperiale.
One day, from a ground-floor window I entered into conver