e was to
all the circle that surrounded her, tender as a mother, and devoted
as a friend, her conduct as a wife was not free from reproach. She
was a coquette by nature, and it is undeniable that more than one
man claimed to have been her lover.

After a while her son Louis went for four years to college at
Heidelberg. Mother and son never forget the possibilities that
might lie before them. When the Italian revolution broke out, in
1832, Hortense went to Rome, both her sons being at that time in
Florence with their father. Although the elder was newly married
to his cousin, the daughter of King Joseph, both he and Louis were
full of restlessness, and caught the revolutionary fervor. They
contrived to escape from their father's house and to join the
insurgents, to the great displeasure of both father and mother;
but they were fired by enthusiasm for Italian liberty, and took
the oaths as Carbonari.

King Louis and Queen Hortense were exceedingly distressed; both
foresaw the hopelessness of the Italian rising. Queen Hortense went
at once to Florence to consult her husband, and it was arranged that
she should go in pursuit of her sons, inducing them, if possible,
to give up all connection with so hopeless a cause. But before she
reached them, the insurgents, who seem to have had no fixed plan
and no competent leader, had come to the conclusion that Bonapartes
were not wanted in a struggle for republicanism; they therefore
requested the young men to withdraw, and their mother went after
them to Ancona. On her way she was met by her son Louis, who was
coming to tell her that his brother was dead. There has always been
mystery concerning the death of this young Napoleon. The accredited
account is that he sickened with the measles, and died at a roadside
inn on his way to Ancona. The unhappy mother went into that little
town upon the Adriatic with her youngest son; but she soon found
that the Austrians, having come to the help of the Pope, were at
its gates. Louis, too, had sickened with the measles. She hid him
in an inner chamber, and spread a report that he had escaped to
Corfu. She had with her an English passport for an English lady,
travelling to England with her two sons. She was obliged to substitute
a young Italian, who was compromised, for her dead son; and as
soon as Louis could rise from his bed, they set out, meeting With
many adventures until they got beyond the boundaries of Italy.
Under cover of their Engl