hen I hear
such revolting absurdities repeated and scattered broadcast. According
to these honest fabricators, the First Consul must have seduced his
wife's daughter, before giving her in marriage to his own brother.
Simply to announce such a charge is to comprehend all the falsity of it.
I knew better than any one the amours of the Emperor. In these
clandestine liaisons he feared scandal, hated the ostentations of vice,
and I can affirm on honor that the infamous desires attributed to him
never entered his mind. Like every one else, who was near Mademoiselle
de Beauharnais, and because he knew his step-daughter even more
intimately, he felt for her the tenderest affection; but this sentiment
was entirely paternal, and Mademoiselle Hortense reciprocated it by that
reverence which a wellborn young girl feels towards her father. She
could have obtained from her step-father anything that she wished, if her
extreme timidity had not prevented her asking; but, instead of addressing
herself directly to him, she first had recourse to the intercession of
the secretary, and of those around the Emperor. Is it thus she would
have acted if the evil reports spread by her enemies, and those of the
Emperor, had had the least foundation?

Before her marriage Hortense had an attachment for General Duroc, who was
hardly thirty years of age, had a fine figure, and was a favorite with
the chief of state, who, knowing him to be prudent and discreet, confided
to him important diplomatic missions. As aide-de-camp of the First
Consul, general of division, and governor of the Tuileries, he lived long
in familiar intimacy at Malmaison, and in the home life of the Emperor,
and during necessary absences on duty, corresponded with Mademoiselle
Hortense; and yet the indifference with which he allowed the marriage of
the latter with Louis to proceed, proves that he reciprocated but feebly
the affection which he had inspired. It is certain that he could have
had. Mademoiselle de Beauharnais for his wife, if he had been willing to
accept the conditions on which the First Consul offered the hand of his
step-daughter; but he was expecting something better, and his ordinary
prudence failed him at the time when it should have shown him a future
which was easy to foresee, and calculated to satisfy the promptings of an
ambition even more exalted than his. He therefore refused positively;
and the entreaties of Madame Bonaparte, which had already influenced her