My son! my darling son! wert thou but here,
    My bosom should receive thy lovely form;
    Thou’dst soothe my gloomy hours with converse dear,
    Serenely we’d behold the lowering storm.

    I’d be the partner of thine infant cares,
    And pour instruction o’er thy expanding mind,
    Whilst in thy heart, in my declining years,
    My wearied soul should an asylum find.

    My wrongs, my cares, should be forgot with thee,
    My power Imperial, dignities, renown—­
    This rock itself would be a heaven to me,
    Thine arms more cherished than the victor’s crown.

    O! in thine arms, my son!  I could forget that fame
    Shall give me, through all time, a never-dying name.

Here is another version of the same thoughts:—­

    TO THE PORTRAIT OF MY SON.

    O! cherished image of my infant heir! 
    Thy surface does his lineaments impart: 
    But ah! thou liv’st not—­on this rock so bare
    His living form shall never glad my heart.

    My second self! how would thy presence cheer
    The settled sadness of thy hapless sire! 
    Thine infancy with tenderness I’d rear,
    And thou shouldst warm my age with youthful fire.

    In thee a truly glorious crown I’d find,
    With thee, upon this rock, a heaven should own,
    Thy kiss would chase past conquests from my mind
    Which raised me, demi-god, on Gallia’s throne.

Perhaps the Emperor did not wish to show all the anguish by which he was being hourly devoured, but who can read these lines now without a pang of emotion?  The overpowering conviction that his much-loved boy would be destroyed haunted him.  Many people to this day believe that he was right, and that his son’s health was sedulously undermined.  But if that be so, the Imperial House of Austria will have to answer for it through all eternity.  Napoleon knew that this much-treasured bust was at Plantation House, and said to O’Meara, if it had not been given up he would have told a tale which would have made the mothers of England execrate Lowe as a monster in human shape.

But the Governments of Europe, as well as individuals, were spending vast sums of money on pamphleteering, and probably those who wrote the worst libels were the most highly paid.  Therefore the women of England and of other countries were continuously having their minds saturated with poisonous statements.  Many of them firmly believed Napoleon to be the anti-Christ, and it is only now that the world is beginning to see through the gigantic plot.