Queen Hortense | Page 2

Louisa Mühlbach
the golden
cross, hangs around his neck, and in his beak he bears a full-blooming
branch of the crown imperial.
It is a page of world-renowned history that this charming picture of
Gavarni's conjures up before us--an historical pageant that sweeps by
us in wondrous fantastic forms of light and shadow, when we scan the
life of Queen Hortense with searching gaze, and meditate upon her
destiny. She had known all the grandeur and splendor of earth, and had
seen them all crumble again to dust. No, not all! Her ballads and poems
remain, for genius needs no diadem to be immortal.
When Hortense ceased to be a queen by the grace of Napoleon, she
none the less continued to be a poetess "by the grace of God." Her
poems are sympathetic and charming, full of tender plaintiveness and

full of impassioned warmth, which, however, in no instance oversteps
the bounds of womanly gentleness. Her musical compositions, too, are
equally melodious and attractive to the heart. Who does not know the
song, "_Va t'en, Guerrier_," which Hortense wrote and set to music,
and then, at Napoleon's request, converted into a military march? The
soldiers of France once left their native land, in those days, to the sound
of this march, to carry the French eagles to Russia; and to the same
warlike harmony they have marched forth more recently, toward the
same distant destination. This ballad, written by Hortense, survived. At
one time everybody sang it, joyously, aloud. Then, when the Bourbons
had returned, the scarred and crippled veterans of the Invalides
hummed it under their breath, while they whispered secretly to each
other of the glory of La Belle France, as of a beautiful dream of youth,
now gone forever.
To-day, that song rings out with power again through France, and
mounts in jubilee to the summit of the column on the Place Vendôme.
The bronze visage of the emperor seems to melt into a smile as these
tremulous billows of melody go sweeping around his brow, and the
Hortensias on the queen's grave raise dreamingly their heads of bloom,
in which the dews of heaven, or the tears of the departed one, glisten
like rarest gems, and seem to look forth lovingly and listen to this ditty,
which now for France has won so holy a significance--holy because it
is the master-chant of a religion which all men and all nations should
revere--the "religion of our memories." Thus, this "_Va t'en,
Guerrier_," which France now sings, resounds over the grave of the
queen, like a salute of honor over the last resting-place of some brave
soldier.
She had much to contend with--this hapless and amiable queen--but she
ever proved firm, and ever retained one kind of courage that belongs to
woman--the courage to smile through her tears. Her father perished on
the scaffold; her mother, the doubly-dethroned empress, died of a
broken heart; her step-father, the Emperor Napoleon, pined away, liked
a caged lion, on a lone rock in the sea! Her whole family--all the
dethroned kings and queens--went wandering about as fugitives and
pariahs, banished from their country, and scarcely wringing from the

clemency of those to whom they had been clement, a little spot of earth,
where, far from the bustle and intercourse of the world, they might live
in quiet obscurity, with their great recollections and their mighty
sorrows. Their past lay behind them, like a glittering fairy tale, which
no one now believed; and only the present seemed, to men and nations,
a welcome reality, which they, with envenomed stings, were eager to
brand upon the foreheads of the dethroned Napoleon race.
Yet, despite all these sorrows and discouragements, Hortensia had the
mental strength not to hate her fellow-beings, but, on the contrary, to
teach her children to love them and do good to them. The heart of the
dethroned queen bled from a thousand wounds, but she did not allow
these wounds to stiffen into callousness, nor her heart to harden under
the broad scars of sorrow that had ceased to bleed. She cherished her
bereavements and her wounds, and kept them open with her tears; but,
even while she suffered measureless woes, it solaced her heart to
relieve the woes and dry the tears of others. Thus was her life a
constant charity; and when she died she could, like the Empress
Josephine, say of herself, "I have wept much, but never have I made
others weep."
Hortense was the daughter of the Viscount de Beauharnais, who,
against the wishes of his relatives, married the beautiful Josephine
Tascher de la Pagerie, a young Creole lady of Martinique. This alliance,
which love alone had brought about, seemed destined, nevertheless, to
no happy issue. While both were young, and both inexperienced,
passionate, and jealous, both lacked
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 125
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.