Soon after Louis Napoleon’s birth, King Louis abdicated the throne of Holland.  He said he could not do justice to the interests and wishes of his people, and satisfy his brother at the same time.  He retired to Florence, where he lived for many years, only once more coming back to public life, viz., in 1814, to offer his help to his brother Napoleon, when others were deserting him.

Napoleon was very fond of Hortense’s little boys, though in 1811 he had completed his divorce, had married the Austrian archduchess, and had a son of his own.

Louis Napoleon has left us some fragmentary reminiscences of his childhood, which have a curious interest.

“My earliest recollections,” he says, “go back to my baptism, and I hasten to remark that I was three years old when I was baptized, in 1810, in the chapel at Fontainebleau.  The emperor was my godfather, and the Empress Marie Louise was my godmother.  Then my memory carries me back to Malmaison.  I can still see my grandmother, the Empress Josephine, in her salon, on the ground floor, covering me with her caresses, and, even then, flattering my vanity by the care with which she retailed my bons mots; for my grandmother spoiled me in every particular, whereas my mother, from my tenderest years, tried to correct my faults and to develop my good qualities.  I remember that once arrived at Malmaison, my brother and I were masters to do as we pleased.  The empress, who passionately loved flowers and conservatories, allowed us to cut her sugar-canes, that we might suck them, and she always told us to ask for anything we might want.

“One day, when she wished to know as usual, what we would like best, my brother, who was three years older than I, and consequently more full of sentiment, asked for a watch, with a portrait of our mother; but I, when the empress said:  ’Louis, ask for whatever will give you the greatest pleasure,’ begged to be allowed to go out and paddle in the gutter with the little boys in the street.  Indeed, until I was seven years old it was a great grief to me to have to ride always in a carriage with four or six horses.  When, in 1815, just before the arrival of the allied army in Paris, we were hurried by our tutor to a hiding-place, and passed on foot along the Boulevards, I felt the keenest sensations of happiness within my recollection.  Like all children, though perhaps even more than most children, soldiers fixed my attention.  Whenever at Malmaison I could escape from the salon, I was off to the great gates, where there were always grenadiers of the Garde Imperiale.  One day, from a ground-floor window I entered into conversation with one of these old grognards who was on duty.  He answered me laughing.  I called out:  ‘I know my drill.  I have a little musket!’ Then the grenadier asked me to put him through his drill, and thus we were found, I shouting, ‘Present arms!  Carry arms!  Attention!’ the old grenadier obeying, to please me.  Imagine my happiness!  I often went with my brother to breakfast with the emperor.  When he entered the room, he would come up to us, take our heads in his hands, and so lift us on the table.  This frightened my mother very much, Dr. Corvisart having told her that such treatment was very bad for children.”