Book Description

Excerpt from The Wife of the First Consul Hortense de Beauharnais, a bright and merry girl, running, swift as Atalanta, in the garden; or in the theatre at the end of the gallery, playing Rosina in the Barber of Seville like a consummate actress. I am back in the consular court, which is still repub lican, full of charm, of vivacity, rich in youth, glory, and hope, with but little dread of the catastrophes hid in the dark future. Nine years pass, and what a change! Poor Jose phine, broken with grief, enters once more the house where not long before she had arrived in joy. Her dark presentiments have been realized. The woman to whom the conqueror of Italy used to write burn ing love-letters is now disgraced, disowned, and driven forever from the Tuileries. She has just drunk to the dregs the chalice of the bitterness of divorce which she had prayed to be spared. It is a cold, wet December night; the withered leaves lie about like dead illusions; the wind wails, and nature moans. The abode of happiness is become a Calvary. What a night the wretched woman passes in the room which she used to occupy with Napoleon! And when she wakes in the morning, what a sad eye she turns towards the trees which once shaded so much happi ness! In the course of the day Napoleon-comes to pay an icy visit to his divorced wife; he walks for a few moments with her in the park and leaves her without a kiss. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.