Louis Napoleon yielded to his mother's entreaties, and in silence and
sadness these two pilgrims continued their wandering through the country
and cities, that to Hortense seemed transformed into luminous monuments
of departed glory.

In Fontainebleau Hortense showed her son the palace that had been the
witness of the greatest triumphs and also of the most bitter grief of
his great uncle. Leaning on his arm, her countenance concealed by a
heavy black veil, to prevent any one from recognizing her, Hortense
walked through the chambers, in which she had once been installed as a
mighty and honored queen, and in which she was now covertly an exile
menaced with death. The servants who conducted her were the same who had
been there during the days of the emperor! Hortense recognized them at
once; she did not dare to make herself known, but she nevertheless felt
that she, too, was remembered there. She saw this in the expression
with which the servants opened the rooms she had once occupied; she
heard it in the tone in which they mentioned her name! Every thing in
this palace had remained as it then was! There was the same furniture in
the rooms which the imperial family had occupied after the peace of
Tilsit, and in which they had given such brilliant _fetes_, and received
the homage of so many of the kings and princes of Europe, all of whom
had come to implore the assistance and favor of their vanquisher! There
were also the apartments which the pope had occupied, once voluntarily;
subsequently, under compulsion. Alas! and there was also the little
cabinet, in which the emperor, the once so mighty and illustrious ruler
of Europe, had abdicated the crown which his victories, his good deeds,
and the love of the French people, had placed on his head! And, finally,
there were also the chapel and the altar before which the Emperor
Napoleon had