During this combat, in which the determination, if not the number and strength, was equal on both sides, Madame Leclerc, with her son, was under the guard of a devoted friend who had subject to his orders only a weak company of artillery, which still occupied the house where her husband had fixed his residence, at the foot of the low hills which bordered the coast.  The general-in-chief, fearing lest this residence might be surprised by a party of the enemy, and being unable to foresee the issue of the struggle which he was maintaining on the heights of the Cape, and against which the blacks made their most furious assaults, sent an order to convey his wife and son on board the fleet.  Pauline would not consent to this.  Always faithful to the pride with which her name inspired her (but this time there was in her pride as much greatness as nobility), she spoke to the ladies of the city who had taken refuge with her, and begged them to go away, giving them a frightful picture of the horrible treatment to which they would be exposed should the negroes defeat the troops.  “You can leave.  You are not the sisters of Bonaparte.”

However, as the danger became more pressing every moment, General Leclerc sent an aide-de-camp to his residence, and enjoined on him, in case Pauline still persisted in her refusal, to use force, and convey her on board against her will.  The officer was obliged to execute this order to the letter.  Consequently Madame Leclerc was forcibly placed in an arm-chair which was borne by four soldiers, while a grenadier marched by her side, carrying in his arms the general’s son.  During this scene of flight and terror the child, already worthy of its mother, played with the plume of the soldier who was carrying him.  Followed by her cortege of trembling, tearful women, whose only source of strength during this perilous passage was in her courage, she was thus conveyed to the seashore.  Just as they were going to place her in the sloop, however, another aide-de-camp of her husband brought news of the defeat of the blacks.  “You see now,” said she, returning to her residence, “I was right in not wishing to embark.”  She was not yet out of danger, however; for a troop of negroes, forming part of the army which had just been so miraculously repulsed, in trying to make good their retreat to the dikes, met the small escort of Madame Leclerc.  As they appeared disposed to attack, it was necessary to scatter them by shots at short range.  Throughout this skirmish Pauline preserved a perfect equanimity.  All these circumstances, which reflected so much honor on Madame Leclerc, were reported to the First Consul.

His self-love was flattered by it; and I believe that it was to Prince Borghese that he said one day at his levee, “Pauline is predestined to marry a Roman, for from head to foot she is every inch a Roman.”

Unfortunately this courage, which a man might have envied, was not united in the Princess Pauline with those virtues which are less brilliant and more modest, and also more suitable for a woman, and which we naturally expect to find in her, rather than boldness and contempt of danger.