Hortense longed to be back at Arenenberg, in her Swiss mountains.  Thither she desired to return with her son, in order that she might there dream with him of the brilliant days that had been, and sing with him the exalted song of her remembrances!  If the French government should permit her to journey with her son through France, she could easily and securely reach the Swiss Canton of Thurgau, where her little estate, Arenenberg, lay under the protection of the republic; the daughter of the emperor would there be certain to find peace and repose!

The duchess there wrote to M. de Houdetot, begging him to procure for her from the French government a passport, permitting her to travel through France under some assumed name.  It was promised her after long hesitation, but under the condition that she should not commence her journey until after July, until after the first anniversary of the coronation of Louis Philippe.

Hortense agreed to this, and received on the first of August a passport, which permitted her, as Madame Arenenberg, to pass through France with her son in order to return to her estate in Switzerland.

It was at first the duchess’s intention, notwithstanding the unquiet movements that were taking place in the capital, to journey through Paris, for the very purpose of proving, by her quiet and uninterested demeanor, that she had no share whatever in these movements and riots.

But, on informing Louis Napoleon of her intention, he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes:  “If we go to Paris, and if I should see the people sabred before my eyes, I shall not be able to resist the inclination to place myself on its side[69]!”

[Footnote 69:  La Reine Hortense, p. 276.]

Hortense clasped her son anxiously in her arms, as if to protect him from all danger, on her maternal heart.  “We shall not go to Paris,” said she, “we will wander through France, and pray before the monuments of our happiness!”

On the 7th of August the Duchess of St. Leu left England with her son, Louis Napoleon, and landed after a pleasant passage at Boulogne.

Boulogne was for Hortense the first monument of her happiness, at the foot of which she wished to pray!  There, during the most brilliant period of the empire, she had attended the military fetes, in the midst of which the emperor was preparing to go forth to encounter new dangers, and to reap, perhaps, new renown.  A high column designated the place where these camp-festivals had once taken place.  It had been erected under the empire, but under the restoration the name of Louis XVIII. had been inscribed on it.

Accompanied by the prince, the Duchess of St. Leu ascended this column, in order to show him from its summit the beautiful and flourishing France, that had once been her own and through which they must now pass with veiled countenances and borrowed names.  From there she pointed out to him the situation of the different camps, the location of the imperial tent, then the place where the emperor’s throne had stood, and where he had first distributed crosses of the legion of honor among the soldiers.