THE BONAPARTE FAMILY AT FLORENCE. From Bentley's Miscellany. THE BONAPARTE FAMILY AT FLORENCE. 469 of the members of which had agreed to meet This family alone could furnish at Florence. more sovereigns, past and future, than is THE supper of dethroned kings, at which sometimes to be found in an entire dynasty. Candide was present at Venice, described by Having had the advantage not only of freVoltaire with such sparkling wit in the most quent, but also of familiar, intercourse with celebrated of his novels, might have been re- the greater number of the members of this peated at Florence with a yet greater variety extraordinary family, which for fifty years has and number of guests, in the years which made so much noise in the world, I shall preceded the revolution of 1830. Ex-majes- submit to the curiosity of the reader that only ties were there to be seen of every color and which I have seen with my own eyes or heard On the banks of the Arno, near the beauThe negro was represented with my own ears. of every race. by the ex-Queen of Haïti (the widow of Christophe), who every day displayed on the tiful bridge A Santa Trinita, built from the Cascine, that delicious promenade of the Flor-designs of Michael Angelo, and close to the entines, her great fat face shaded by an modest dwelling in which the celebrated Alenormous straw hat. A Persian or Hindoo fieri passed the last years of his troubled existPrince, whose father was said to have been ence, Louis Bonaparte, ex-King of Holland, assassinated in some mysterious manner, be- occupied, under the name of the Count de St. trayed through his copper-colored skin a sin- Leu, a handsome and spacious mansion, of gular mixture of cunning and credulity, and which he did the honors with the most perrepeated, with all the gravity in the world, fect urbanity. There resided with him his stories of genii and prodigies in every way eldest son, Napoleon, who had married the worthy a place in the Arabian Nights. The Princess Charlotte, daughter of Joseph BonaHospodar of Wallachia, whom the revolution parte, ex-King of Spain, and then a refugee in of Greece had cast upon the banks of the America. At a short distance dwelt the exSubsequently Arno, presented a striking contrast, in his Queen of Spain, the Countess de Survilliers, airs of pride and grandeur, with the humble with her sister and her niece, Madame and and ceremonious bearing of the Indian Prince. Mademoiselle de Villeneuve. Iturbide, who had lost the empire of Mexico Jerome Bonaparte, the ex-King of Westphaas rapidly as he had won it, was as great alia, established himself at Florence with his gambler at Florence as he had been in Amer-family. Jerome was a singular person. Naica, and lost his doubloons with a sang froid poleon related, when at St. Helena, that he perfectly Spanish. This coolness, this resignation, however, was not real. He one day suddenly disappeared and went off to get shot in America at the very moment when he thought he was about to seize again on his empire. At a later period the Dey of Algiers, driven from his territories by the French, made his appearance with pipe and harem in Tuscany, where also the Prince of Carignano, afterwards so celebrated under the name of Charles Albert, took refuge when forced by the events of 1821 to quit Piedmont. wished to make him an admiral of France, and had sent him on board a frigate which sailed for the United States. But, instead of furnishing himself with compasses and astronomical instruments, the embryo-admiral, who was extremely fond of comfits, had laid in a cargo of sugar-plums to the value of 4007. sterling. He is now heir-presumptive to the throne of France: under his reign we shall not despair of seeing comfitmakers members Never Without mentioning the Princess Pauline, of the Senate. had such a gallery of dethroned princes been who, only at the close of her life, came to seen, and at the entrance of this gallery Florence to reünite herself with her husmight be placed a family of Osages, Princes band, the Prince Borghese, other members of or Caziques by birth, who were awaiting their the Bonaparte family from time to time aprestoration and, en attendant, exhibited them- peared for short periods in the same city. selves for money, and devoured enormous piles Sometimes we saw there the Prince of Muof some works of merit on natural history, of beefsteaks for the delectation of the gap-signano, son of Lucien Bonaparte and author ing crowd. the same who, under the title of Prince of Canino, has figured recently among the most fiery demagogues of the Roman Republic. I have purposely reserved for the last, as forming the most interesting portion of this singular réunion, the Bonaparte family, most Sometimes it was the Queen Hortense, the attempt to banish rhyme from French verse, wife of the Count de St. Leu, who passed which led people to say that his poetical through Florence without making any long pieces had neither rhyme nor reason. Each stay there. Her second son, Louis Napoleon, day was the counterpart of the other. He the present Emperor of the French, remained was fond of the society of a few persons, and with her, for he had no sympathies in com- frequently visited the theatre as an amusemon with his father. ment. Occasionally he had receptions, the most numerously attended of which was that at Christmas. On this occasion he gave a splendid repast, preceded by a midnight mass, which was celebrated in his chapel. Although these visits were very rare, they did not appear to produce an agreeable impression upon Louis Bonaparte and his quiet and orderly household. The Prince of Musignano was accused, be it justly or otherwise, of having brutally ill-treated his wife, who was sister of the Princess Charlotte. These reports might explain the terror exhibited a few months ago by that lady, who lives apart from him, at Rome, when, having heard of his unexpected arrival at Civita Vecchia, she demanded in all haste from the Pope a guard of police to protect her, in the event of her husband making his way to her. His eldest son was a fine, amiable, upright, noble-hearted young man, but without much grasp of intellect. He cultivated the arts, as did also his wife, and I preserve in my album with much pleasure some lithographs made from their drawings, and which they presented to me. The Princess Charlotte was small, and slightly deformed, but her character was more firm and decided than that of her husband, who allowed himself to be governed by As to the Queen Hortense, her husband her. They were both easily caught by new never saw her, and he, who was in general ideas and projects; their brother, the Prince so reserved, would give way to most incredible Louis Napoleon, had inspired them with his outbursts respecting her. He had the mis-own taste for aerostatics, and they occupied fortune to have almost lost the use of one themselves with endeavoring to discover the side from paralysis, and could not walk without support. One day when I was with him in his library he made a movement to reach a book, and nearly fell. "Wretched woman!" exclaimed he, "wretched woman! I am indebted to my wife for this." And in his despair he forgot himself so far as to tell me things that were inconceivable. He seldom saw and always treated with icy coldness the second son of Queen Hortense. The doubts which have been thrown upon the right of this young man to call himself nephew of the Emperor have been so much discussed recently that it is not necessary to say anything upon the subject here. means of guiding balloons. They persisted for a long time in their experiments, notwithstanding all my efforts to persuade them to desist. We have recently seen Louis Napoleon give himself up again to this mania of his youth. The younger portion of the family generally passed these evenings with the Countess of Survilliers, at whose house several distinguished men were in the habit of assembling. Of these the most frequent visitors were M. Giordani, the most elegant of the modern writers of Italy; the Count Mamiani, who has since been prime minister to Pope Pius IX., in circumstances of much trouble and difficulty; Louis Napoleon, Count de St. Leu, was a and the celebrated engraver, M. Jesi. The man of moderate capacity; but he was gen- evenings passed without any display, and tle, good, charitable, and most honorable. It with a certain calm resignation. The ladies is well known that he resigned the crown of sometimes amused themselves with music, the Holland, without affectation and without gentlemen conversed about literature or poliregret, because he would not adopt the views tics, and their opinions generally had a of Napoleon, so ruinous to the country. He republican tendency. It was Bonapartism was exceedingly fat, and he resembled very taken up at its source. But the subject much, particularly in profile, the likenesses we have of his brother when at St. Helena. He spoke Italian and French with a slight Corsican accent, which he had never been able to correct. He wrote several works, which met with very indifferent success, and some poems which are below mediocrity. He made an unsuccessful which was never exhausted was the life of Napoleon. The private anecdotes about him were innumerable. Sometimes we were shown with a sigh curious objects which had belonged to the Emperor, or documents connected with the history of his life. Amongst these papers was preserved, with great care, THE BONAPARTE FAMILY AT FLORENCE. 471 a collection of love-letters written by Napoleon of Wurtemburg. At Florence he extricated Amongst the persons who at this period Jerome Bonaparte was far from living at son. To please the Emperor, he basely abandoned wife and child, and married a princess Jerome had also two sons by his second marriage. One, if the journals are to be believed, died mad, the other, after having last four years among the most violent repubmade himself conspicuous at Paris during the licans of the Mountain, is now an Imperial Prince, with a vast number of titles and decorations of a very unsocialist character. An absurd duel, constantly announced and never coming off, has made one of the sons of Jerome the laughing-stock of Italy. The monotony of the life of the Count de St. Leu was disturbed, at the commencement of the year 1831, by the sudden appearance of his second son, Louis Napoleon. This unlooked-for arrival was quite an event in the society of Florence, and many stories got into circulation as explanatory of the circumstances which led this young man to quit his mother at Rome, and seek an asylum with his father, who had always manifested so little affection for him. Ile had hardly arrived when he began to take part in the preparations for insurrection which were going on in Central Italy, and devoted himself entirely to them. His elder brother followed in At the same the same course. but with somewhat less eagerness he did follow, however, and the Princess Charlotte, his sister-in-law, was a powerful auxiliary to him. time, and from this very epoch he was then but twenty-two years of age-he meditated the attempt of a coup de main on France. I will here repeat what I know respecting this the expeditions of Strasbourg and Boulogne. project of a coup de main, which preceded I have just said that the young sons of the Count de St. Leu wished, unknown to their father, to connect themselves with the insurrectionary movements which were then preparing in Italy. Always resting upon the principle of imperial legitimacy, they looked upon the Duke of Reichstadt, the son of the Emperor, as being still King of Rome and the true King of Italy. They maintained, therefore, that the Italian revolution should be effected in the name of the Duke of Reichstadt, and that the Italians should rise to support the rights of the son of the Emperor Napoleon. They frequently talked to me about this project, which I endeavored to make them 472 give up by urging upon them the impossibility | Louis Napoleon, without being at all discon- These plottings could not be kept entirely from the knowledge of the police, and the Bonaparte family was closely watched. One evening I was in a box at the theatre Della the Legations were in full insurrection, and A few days after this event, Bologna and Pergola, and found myself almost opposite the the excitement which spread even into Tusbox in which the Count de St. Leu was seated cany, was felt in no slight degree in the Bowith the present Emperor of the French. As naparte family. One morning, as I left my soon as the latter saw me, he endeavored to house, my head full of the reports of what make me understand by signs that he wished was taking place at our very gates, I saw the to speak to me. This telegraphing in the two sons of the Count de St. Leu in a travelling midst of some hundred of spectators, who had carriage. The eldest, who was seated at the seen the signs which the Prince Louis Napo- side next to me, smiled, and gave me a most leon made to me, and who were watching us, friendly salute. I guessed by the direction appeared to me worse than imprudent, and I the carriage took that the two young gentleturned my back in order to make it appear men were about to transport themselves into that I had not noticed anything. In a few the insurgent districts. My conjecture was minutes a sort of aide-de-camp of the prince well-founded. Uniting, from that time, this knocked at the box in which I was seated, spirit of adventure with the taste for uniforms and announced to me that the prince desired and travesties, to which he has subsequently to see me immediately. In vain I objected addicted himself with so much success, Louis that we were observed and watched, and that Napoleon, who had drawn his brother into the our interview in the green-room, as he desired enterprise, and, in fact, directed everything, it to be, would be witnessed by at least half dressed up twenty peasants like Polish lanea dozen agents of police. The aide-de-camp ers, and went, with his brother, to offer his urged me so strongly, that I was obliged to valiant maskers to the insurrectionary governcomply, being quite unable to guess the cause ment of Bologna. But the unlucky efforts of such extraordinary haste. The prince had which they had made in favor of the Duke of hardly accosted me, when he placed a letter Reichstadt had, as I foresaw, rendered the in my hands, which he had just received, and two brothers so extremely unpopular, that the upon which he desired to have my opinion. government of Bologna was obliged to sepaThis letter-it was very long-was addressed rate themselves publicly from these two auxto him by an old colonel of the army of Napo-iliaries, who, moreover, labored under the leon, who seriously proposed to him to make disadvantage of compromising, by their very a descent in Provence at the head of 1500 Cor- name, the Italian cause in the eyes of the French sican mountaineers, covered with goat-skins, government. and armed with guns, who should proclaim the were, consequently, ordered to quit the insurThe two young Bonapartes Empire and name him regent until the Duke gent country without delay. Their position of Reichstadt could escape from Vienna. Al- was now very awkward, for they could not though accustomed to the most extraordinary quit the insurgent districts without entering projects on the part of young Bonaparte, this those of the Pope or of Tuscany, which were appeared to me so utterly senseless, that I devoted to Austria, and where this escapade could not help saying that I saw only two would in all probability be severely punished. hypotheses by which the letter he had just They were endeavoring, therefore, to gain the communicated to me could be explained, and mountains, when the elder brother died sudthat, in my opinion, either the Corsican Colo- denly, some say from the measles; according nel was stark mad, or that he had been to others - but, I believe, it is a calumnious bribed to ruin the prince by drawing him into report in a more terrible and mysterious an enterprise which would only end in his manner. being shot. I added, that he had but to re-entered France with his mother. NotwithLouis Napoleon, now left alone, call to his mind the expedition of Murat, who standing the law by which every member of also set out from Corsica to reconquer a throne, the Bonaparte family was proscribed, he was and who was shot almost as soon as he had received with kindness by Louis Philippe, disembarked on the coasts of Naples. To this who allowed him to go to Switzerland. From Chambers' Repository. A STORY OF TWO LIVES. I think we are not wholly brain, I. are inquiring if we are alone. How good of them to conie round!" Meanwhile the door was opened, and the THE scene was a London fireside about the quick hearing of the blind man instantly recmiddle of December. A family group were ognized well-known voices. He exclaimed: assembled round the tea-table, in the dining-Only Frances and Edward. I think they room of a convenient substantial house, in a pleasant and well-esteemed quarter; evidences of comfort and wealth were abundant, and perhaps a stranger would have observed that the apartment bore more the appearance of a commodious general sitting-room than of a mere salle à manger. Had he known also that there was a very elegant suite of drawingrooms above, and a numerous and efficient corps of servants below stairs, he must have conjectured that there was some especial reason for the family spending the evening in the room where they had dined. The next moment, Mr. Ireton's married daughter, Mrs. Crawford, and her husband, entered the room. They were a noble-looking pair; he a handsome man of about thirty, with that best air of high-breeding which is alike removed from petty affectations or cold indifference of manner, and the principal charm of which will be found to consist in its perfect ease and naturalness: this manner, be it observed, rising readily enough whenever occasion requires, to generous enA girl of sixteen, just bursting out of child-thusiasm, but never betraying self-conscioushood-with the bloom of her early woman-ness about trifles a manner almost always hood rather to be guessed at than acknowl- demanding the rare combination of circumedged was presiding at the tea-table; her stances which includes nobility of character, next sister, the junior by a year or two, was large and clear intellect, and a worldly posibusily engaged on some wool-work, perhaps tion that keeps far away depressing cares and manufacturing slippers for papa; little Willy anxieties. was cutting the leaves of his prize-book; and Mrs. Crawford, the wife of three months, Mrs. Ireton was leaning back in her arm- and barely yet one-and-twenty, must be rather chair, eying the party with quiet, maternal more elaborately described. Considerably satisfaction, and every now and then dropping taller than the medium height, her finelysome pleasant words-like flowers thrown moulded figure was erect and yet pliant; and upon a stream-into the murmuring babble some inner spring of thought or feeling gave of their family talk. Opposite to her, in the such grace to her movements, that her slightfellow arm-chair, sat her beloved husband, est and most careless gestures impressed the with their youngest treasure a golden- beholder with an idea of beauty. Features haired, blue-eyed darling of four years old far more lovely than those of the passionless on his knee; but for the father was no longer the blessing of beholding the dear faces around him. Mr. Ireton was blind, and it was on account of his bereavement that the family so often occupied the room with which he thought himself the most familiar. As the child on his knee clasped its arms round his neck, played tricks with his cravat, and show-that haughtiness was the predominant exered kisses on his cheeks with baby prattle, and restless, infantile glee, there was something pathetic in the manner in which the father passed his hands across the face of the child he had never seen! The gesture was all the more touching, because it was only loving, not sad. Willy put down his new book, and handed Mr. Ireton his tea, with a gentle care not to have been looked for in a school-boy; while she of the embroidery-needle hastened to lift down baby, as the youngest was still called, from her father's knee. It was the delight of Mr. Ireton's children to watch and wait upon him; and they felt jealous every time a servant approached him. At this moment there Greek ideal, were Francis Crawford's, though pression of her beautiful countenance. And It is a pleasant sight to witness cordial family greetings; and though the married daughter resided in the next street, and meetings were almost daily, she stooped over the blind man's chair, kissed him fondly, saluted |