d from her husband, Louis
Bonaparte, and created Duchess of St Leu by Louis XVIII., was in Paris,
much suspected by the Bourbons, but really engaged in a lawsuit with her
husband about the custody of her sons. She had to go into hiding when
the news of the landing arrived, but her empty house, left unwatched,
became very useful for receiving the Bonapartists, who wished for a place
of concealment, amongst them, as we shall see, being, of all people,
Fouche! Hortense was met by Napoleon with some reproaches for accepting
a title from the Bourbons, but she did the honours of the Elysee for him,
and it is creditable to both of them that, braving the vile slanders
about their intercourse, she was with him to the end; and that one of the
last persons to embrace him at Malmaison before he started for the coast
was his adopted daughter, the child of his discarded wife. Hortense's
presence in Paris was thought to be too dangerous by the Prussian
Governor; and she was peremptorily ordered to leave. An appeal to the
Emperor Francis received a favourable answer, but Francis always gave way
where any act against his son-in-law was in question, and she had to
start at the shortest notice on a wandering life to Aix, Baden, and
Constance, till the generosity of the small but brave canton of Thurgau
enabled her to get a resting-place at the Chateau of Arenenberg.

In 1831 she lost her second son, the eldest then surviving, who died from
fever in a revolutionary attempt ill which he and his younger brother,
the future Napoleon. III., were engaged. She was able to visit France
incognita, and even to see Louis Philippe and his Queen; but her presence
in the country was soon thought dangerous, and she was urged to leave.
In 1836 Hortense's last child, Louis Napoleon, made his attempt at an
'emeule' at Strasburg, and was shipped off to America by the Government.
She went to France to plead for him, and then, worn out by grief and
anxiety, returned to Arenenberg, which her son, the future Emperor, only
succeeded in reaching in time to see her die in October 1837. She was
laid with Josephine at Rueil.

Hortense's brother, Prince Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy, was at Vienna
when Napoleon returned, and fell under the suspicion of the Allies of
having informed the Emperor of the intention of removing him from Elba.
He was detained in Bavaria by his father-in-law the King, to whose Court
he retired, and who in 1817 created him Duke of Leuchtenberg