the children at the last moment, with his foot upon the step of
the carriage that was to carry him the first stage of his journey
to St. Helena.

After this, Hortense and her boys were not allowed to live in France.
Protected by an aide-de-camp of Prince Schwartzenberg, they reached
Lake Constance, on the farthest limits of Switzerland. There, after
a while, Queen Hortense converted a gloomy old country seat into a
refined and beautiful home. A great trial, however, awaited her.
King Louis demanded the custody of their eldest son, and little
Napoleon was taken from his mother, leaving her only Louis. Louis
had always been a "mother's boy," frail in health, thoughtful,
grave, loving, and full of sentiment.

Hortense's life at Arenenberg was varied in the winter by visits
to Rome. Her husband lived in Florence, and they corresponded about
their boys. But though they met once again in after years, they
were husband and wife no more. Indeed, charming as Hortense 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