A Revolution happens and then it’s just the same old thing again. Hortense was hoping it would be different this time. Nonetheless, ripping masks off was always one of her specialties.
Previous text is here.
English translation.
the Emperor would do this or that thing. I almost always approved but I must confess to my shame that I couldn’t always comprehend him. I sometimes dared to blame him. Since I have gained experience, how often have I cried out, "Ah! the Emperor was right and he understood men well!”
This education was available to me at a very young age. It has brought me the pleasure which one finds in foreseeing the conduct of public men by the examination of their situation. This made me think then that, born of a popular revolution, the king was obliged to curry the favor of all interests, otherwise the freedom he was called to support would turn against him.
Two names alone in France inspire the people with complete confidence, that of Napoleon and Lafayette. The first, because their interests are confounded together. The same glory, the same greatness, the same enemies. The second, because he has shown himself all his life the unselfish friend of the people. The noble and constant defender of their freedoms.
It seemed to me the essence of this new cause was to identify completely with the ideas of freedom of the one, and the ideas of glory with the other. It was therefore necessary that the new king should make this past glory sing, so that it might not be sung back to him in malice.
The natural consequence of such principles would be the repeal of the law exiling the Bonapartes, a law imposed by foreigners on France at the time of our common humiliations. France could not fail to abolish such laws if it were to really establish its independence.
I did not doubt it. What was my astonishment when I read in a gazette a new proscription had been declared maintaining the exile of the Bonapartes! I was shocked and stunned at this. How! Free France, instead of repealing the injustice of the foreigner in 1815, consents to recognize such acts? Should the sovereign who puts himself at the head of a generous nation repulse -
To be continued.
The memoirs so far are available here.
Hortense’s explanation why she broke the law is here.