of her beautiful, attractive, impulsive, somewhat vain, and very
extravagant mother.

It would be easier to set Josephine aside were Hortense first removed;
and Josephine they wanted to get out of the way because she interfered
with the ambitious designs of Bonaparte's brothers. Since they could not
become great and celebrated by their own merits, they desired to be so
through their illustrious brother; and, in order that they might become
kings, Bonaparte must, above all things, wear a crown. Josephine was
opposed to this project; she loved Bonaparte enough to fear the dangers
that a usurpation of the crown must bring with it, and she had so little
ambition as to prefer her present brilliant and peaceful lot to the
proud but perilous exaltation to a throne.

For this reason, then, Josephine was to be removed, and Bonaparte must
choose another wife--a wife in whose veins there should course
legitimate royal blood, and who would, therefore, be content to see a
crown upon the head of her consort.



CHAPTER II.

LOUIS BONAPARTE AND DUROC.

The brothers of Bonaparte went diligently to work then, above all
things, to get Hortense out of the way. They told Bonaparte of the
burning love of the young couple, of the letters which they sent to each
other, and proposed to him that Duroc should be transferred to the
Italian army with a higher command, and that Hortense should then be
given to him. They persuaded the unsuspecting, magnanimous hero, who was
easy to deceive in these minor matters and thus easy because he was
occupied with grand designs and grand things; they persuaded him to keep
the proposed union a secret for the present, and then on Duroc's early
return to surprise the young couple and Josephine alike.

But Josephine had, this time, seen through the plans of her hostile
brothers-in-law. She felt that her