least type her unacceptable provider

time when he "still had the honor of being a sub-lieutenant[21]."

[Footnote 21: Bossuet, Memoires, vol. V.]

Napoleon, as we have said, had already mounted so high that for him
there was no longer a summit to be attained, and now his heart's last
and dearest wish had been granted by destiny. His wife, Marie Louise,
had given birth to a son on the 20th of May, 1811, and the advent of the
little King of Rome had fulfilled the warmest desires of Napoleon and of
France. The emperor now had an heir; Napoleon's dynasty was assured.

Festivities were therefore held in honor of this event, in the
Tuileries, at the courts, of the Queen of Naples, of the Grand-duchess
de Guastalla, of all the dukes of the empire, and of the Queen
of Holland.

Hortense was ill and in pain; a nervous headache, that she had been
suffering from for some time, betrayed the secret of the pain and grief
she had so long concealed from observation. Her cheeks had grown pale,
and her eyes had lost their lustre. Her mother wept over her lost
happiness in Malmaison, and, when Hortense had wept with and consoled
her mother, she was compelled to dry her eyes and hasten to the
Tuileries, and appear, with a smiling countenance, before her who was
now her empress and her mother's happy rival.

But Hortense had accepted he