Napoleon Bonaparte by John S. C. Abbott (best romantic books to read txt) 📕

for the one he has chosen."

"Oh, Josephine!" said Napoleon, "that is running on very fast. How do you know that this little pickle is worth loving. Well, Mademoiselle Loulou (you see that I do not forget the names of my old friends), have you not a word for me!" Saying this, he gently took her hand and drew her toward him.

The young bride was much embarrassed, and yet she struggled to retain her pride of birth. "General!" she replied, smiling, "it is not for me to speak first."

"Very well parried," said Napoleon, playfully, "the mother's spirit! And how is Madame Permon?"

"Very ill, general! For two years her health has caused us great uneasiness."

"Indeed," said Napoleon," so bad as that? I am sorry to hear it; very sorry. Make my regards to her. It is a wrong head, a proud spirit, but she has a generous heart and a noble soul. I hope that we shall often see you, Madame Junot. My intention is to draw around me a numerous family, consisting of my generals and their young wives. They will be of my wife and of Hortense, as their husbands are my friends. But you must not expect to meet here your acquaintances of the ancient nobility. I do not like them. They are my enemies, and prove it by defaming."

This was but the morning twilight of that imperial splendor which afterward dazzled the most powerful potentates of Europe. Hortense, who subsequently became the wife of Louis Bonaparte, and the mother of Louis Napoleon, who, at the moment of this present writing, is at the head of the government of France, was then seventeen years of age. "She was," Madame Junot, "fresh as a rose. Though her fair complexion was not relieved by much color, she had enough to produce that freshness and bloom which was her chief beauty. A profusion of light hair played in silken locks around her soft and penetrating blue eyes. The delicate roundness of her figure, slender as a palm-tree, was set off by the elegant carriage of her head. But that which formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners, which united the Creole nonchalance with the vivacity of France. She was gay, gentle, and amiable. She had wit, which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished and well-conducted education had improved her natural talents. She drew excellently, sang harmoniously, and performed admirably in comedy. In 1800, she was a charming young girl. She afterward became one of the most amiable princesses in Europe. I have seen many, both in their own courts and in Paris, but I have never known one who had any pretensions to equal talents. She was beloved by every one. Her brother loved her tenderly. The First Consul looked upon her as his child."

Napoleon has been accused of an improper affection for Hortense. The world has been filled with the slander. Says Bourrienne, "Napoleon never cherished for her any feeling but a real paternal tenderness. He loved her after his marriage with her mother, as he would have loved his own child. At least for three years I was a witness to all their most private actions, and I declare I never saw any thing that could furnish the least ground for suspicion, nor the slightest trace of a culpable intimacy. This calumny must be classed among those which malice delights to take in the character of men who become celebrated, calumnies which are adopted lightly and without reflection. Napoleon is no more. Let his memory be accompanied only by that, be it good or bad, which really took place. Let not this reproach be made a charge against him by the impartial historian. I must say, in conclusion, on this delicate subject, that his principles were rigid in an extreme degree, and that any fault of the nature charged, neither entered his mind, nor was in accordance with his morals or his taste."

At St. Helena Napoleon was one day looking over a book containing an account of his amours. He smiled as he glanced his eye over the pages, saying, "I do not even know the names of most of the females who are mentioned here. This is all very foolish. Every body knows that had no time for such dissipation."

One beautiful evening, in the year 1815, the parish priest of San Pietro, a village a few miles distant from Sevilla, returned much fatigued to his little cottage, where he found his aged housekeeper, the Senora Margarita, watching for him. Notwithstanding that one is well accustomed to the sight of poverty in Spain, it was impossible to help being struck by the utter of destitution which appeared in the house of the good priest; the more so, as every imaginable contrivance had been restored to, to hide the nakedness of the walls, and the shabbiness of the furniture. Margarita had prepared for her master's super a rather small dish of olla-podriga , which consisted, to say the truth, of the remains of the dinner, seasoned and disguised with great skill, and with the addition of some sauce, and a name . As she placed the savory dish upon the table, the priest said: "We should thank God for this good supper, Margarita: this olla-podriga makes one's mouth water. My friend, you ought to be grateful for finding so good a supper at the house of your host!" At the word host, Margarita raised her eyes, and saw a stranger, who had followed her mater. Her countenance changed, and she looked annoyed. .......... She glanced indignantly first at the unknown, and then at the priest, who, looking down, said in a low voice, and with the timidity of a child: "What is enough for two, is always enough for three; and surely you would not wish that I should allow a Christian to die of hunger? He has not tasted food for two days."

"A Christian! He is more like a brigand!" and Margarita let the room, murmuring loudly enough to be heard.

Meanwhile, the unwelcome guest had remained standing at the door. He was a man of great height, half-dressed in rags and covered with mud; while his black hair, piercing eyes, and carbine, gave him an appearance which, though hardly prepossessing, was certainly interesting. "Must I go?" said he.

The priest replied with an emphatic gesture: "Those whom I bring under my roof are never driven forth, and are never unwelcome. Put down your carbine. Let us say grace, and go to table."

"I never leave my carbine, for, as the Castilian proverb says, "Two friends are one.' My carbine is my best friend; and I always keep it beside me. Although you allow me to come into your house, and do not oblige me to leave until I wish to do so, there are others who would think nothing of hauling me out, and perhaps, with me feet foremost. Come--to your good health, mine host, and let us to supper."

The priest possessed an extremely good appetite, but the voracity of the stranger soon obliged him to give up, for not contented with eating, or rather devouring, nearly the whole of the olla-podriga, the guest finished a large loaf of bread, without leaving a crumb. While he ate, he kept continually looking round with an expression of inquietude: he started at the slightest sound; and once, when a violent gust of wind made the door bang, he sprang to his feet, and seized his carbine, with an air which showed that, if necessary, he would sell his life dearly. Discovering the cause of the alarm, he reseated himself at table, and finished his repast.

"Now," said he, "I have one thing more to ask. I have been wounded, and for eight days my wound has not been dressed. Give me a few old rags, and you shall be no longer burdened with my presence."

"I am in no haste for you to go," replied the priest, whose quest, notwithstanding his constant watchfulness, had conversed very entertainingly. "I know something of surgery, and will dress your wound."

So saying, he took from a cupboard a case containing every thing necessary, and proceeded to do as he had said. The stranger had bled profusely, a ball having passed through his thigh; and to have traveled in this condition, and while suffering, too, from want of food, showed a strength, which seemed hardly human.

"You can not possibly continue your journey to-day," said the host. "You must pass the night here. A little rest will get up your strength, diminish the inflammation of your wound, and--"

"I must go to--day, and immediately," interrupted the stranger. "There are some who wait for me," he added with a sigh--"and there are some, too,who follow me." And the momentary look of softness passed from his features between the clauses of the sentence, and gave place to an expression almost of ferocity. "Now, is it finished? That is well. See, I can walk as firmly as though I had never been wounded. Give me some bread: pay yourself for your hospitality with this piece of gold, and adieu."

The priest put back the gold with displeasure. "I am not an innkeeper, said he; "and I do not sell my hospitality."

"As you will, but pardon me; and now farewell, my kind host."

So saying he took the bread, which Margarita, at her master's command, very unwillingly gave him, and soon his tall figure disappeared among the thick foliage of a wood which surrounded the house, or rather the cabin. An hour had scarcely passed, when musket-shots were heard close by, and the unknown reappeared, deadly pale, and bleeding from a deep wound near the heart.

"Take these," said he, giving pieces of gold to his late host; "they are for my children--near the stream--in the valley."

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deadly agency, which it had power to exert. Even the roadway leading up and down the mountain is not always safe, it would seem, from these dangerous intruders. It is rocky and solitary, and is bordered every where with gloomy ravines and chasms, all filled with dense and entangled thickets, in which, and in the cavernous rocks of which the strata of the mountain are composed, wild beast and noxious animals of every kind find a secure retreat. The monks relate that not many years ago a servant of the convent, who had been sent down the mountain to Haifa, to accompany a traveler, was attacked and seized by a panther on his return. The panther, however, instead of putting his victim immediately to death, began to play with him as a cat plays with a mouse which she has succeeded in making her prey-holding him gently with her claws, for a time, and then, after drawing back a little, darting upon him again, as if to repeat and renew the pleasure of capturing such a prize. This was continued so long, that the cries of the terrified captive brought to the spot some persons that chanced to be near, when the panther was terrified in her turn, and fled into the forests; and then the man was rescued from his horrible situation unharmed.

For these and similar reasons, travelers who ascend to the convent of Mt. Carmel, enjoy but little liberty there, but most confine their explorations in most cases to the buildings of the monks, and to some of the nearest caves of the ancient recluses. Still the spot is rendered so attractive by the salubrity of the air, the intrinsic beauty of the situation, the magnificence of the prospect, and the kind and attentive demeanor of the monks, that some visitors have recommended it as