18 in defence of his father, and he eagerly
availed himself of the chance of saying some very complimentary things
to the Count. He informs him that he has "known him a long while, and
loved him because he defended his father's honour at a time when all
the world vied with each other to slander his name"; and then he
continues: "I have read your 'Battle of Waterloo,' and in order to
impress every line of it on my memory I translated it twice in French
and Italian."[21] Obviously this young man was neither a dunce nor
indolent when his father's fame and his own interests were in
question.

One of the most remarkable features of this pathetic young life is the
intense interest his mother's husband began to take in him, and he
probably owed a great deal to the fact that Count Neipperg urged him
to make himself familiar with the glory of the Empire and his father's
deeds. Strange though it may appear, the son of the Great Napoleon and
the morganatic husband of his mother were attached to each other in
the most intimate way. If he perceived the immoral relations between
Neipperg and Marie Louise, the Duke never seems to have divulged it;
but taking into account the passionate love and devotion he had for
his father's memory, it is barely likely that he knew either of the
amorous connection or marriage having taken place between the Count
and his mother, otherwise he would have had something to say about it,
not only to Neipperg himself, but certainly to his friends Prokesch,
Baron Obenaus, and Count Dietrichstein, and very naturally his
grandfather. It may be that the circumstances of his life made him
cautious, and even cunning, in keeping to himself an affair that was
generally approved by the most interested parties, but it is hardly
likely that the spirit of natural feeling had been so far crushed out
of him as to forbid his openly resenting a further monstrous wrong
being done to his Imperial father.

The young Prince was the centre of great political interest, and the
object of ungrudging sympathy and devotion of a large public in
Europe, and especially in France, and had his life been preserved a
few more years he would, in spite of obstacles and prejudices, have
been put on the throne of the land of his birth.

Metternich, the inveterate trickster, does not appear to have had any
serious thought of encouraging the project of making the Duke Emperor
of the French. His subtle game was to use him as a terror to Louis