enterprise may be a rash one, but it has chances of success that
you Marshal Simon, more than any other, could change into certainties;
for your devotion to the emperor is well known, and we remember with
what adventurous audacity you conspired, in 1815, in favor of Napoleon
II."

The state of languor and decline of the King of Rome was then in France
a matter of public notoriety. People even went so far as to affirm that
the son of the hero was carefully trained by priests, who kept him in
complete ignorance of the glory of his paternal name; and that, by the
most execrable machinations, they strove day by day to extinguish every
noble and generous instinct that displayed itself in the unfortunate
youth. The coldest hearts were touched and softened at the story of
so sad and fatal a destiny. When we remember the heroic character and
chivalrous loyalty of Marshal Simon, and his passionate devotion to the
emperor, we can understand how the father of Rose and Blanche was more
interested than any one else in the fate of the young prince, and how,
if occasion offered, he would feel himself obliged not to confine
his efforts to mere regrets. With regard to the reality of the
correspondence produced by Rodin's emissary, it had been submitted by
the marshal to a searching test, by means of his intimacy with one of
his old companions in arms, who had been for a long period on a mission
to Vienna, in the time of the empire. The result of this investigation,
conducted with as much prudence as address, so that nothing should
transpire, showed that the marshal might give his serious attention to
the advances made him.

Hence, this proposition threw the father of Rose and Blanche into a
cruel perplexity; for, to attempt so bold and dangerous an enterprise,
he must once more abandon his children; whilst, on the contrary, if,
alarmed at this separation, he renounced the endeavor to save the
King of Rome, whose lingering death was perfectly true and well
authenticated, the marshal would consider himself as false to the vow
he had sworn to the emperor. To end these painful hesitations, full of
confidence in the inflexible uprightness of his father's character, the
marshal had gone to ask his advice; unfortunately the old republican
workman, mortally wounded during the attack on M. Hardy's factory, but
still pondering over the serious communication of his son, died with
these words upon his Lips: "My son, you have a great duty to perfo