Hortense kommt ihrer schlimmsten Angst näher.

This is the story of how Hortense Bonaparte’s sons were lured into a revolution which she viewed as a trap to get her sons killed.

…
[this fertile month of March, so rich for] us in remarkable events, this month forever celebrated by the triumphant return from the island of Elba.
I still remembered this brilliant time of French and imperial glory, this March 20 which fulfilled all the wishes of a nation by the birth of a son so desired, a pledge of a peaceful future and happiness.
I had not dreamed of this joy which intoxicated all French people and which resounded throughout Europe. I imagined for a moment these numerous and magnificent festivals, these tributes so vividly expressed, this grandeur finally which then surrounded us, which will never be the same, and where the fate and genius of a great man had carried all of us.
I thought of all this and I looked at myself now, alone, and abandoned, far from my country, among strangers, in the midst of dangers and the most dreadful anguish! That is the law of destiny, I cried, bowing my head; you have to resign yourself to it; then I added, taking courage, "Ah! everything I can bear, except the loss of those I love!”

I took a pencil, and I don't know what feeling pushed me to write on this wall already covered with so many signatures. I wrote these words: "Who could have told me, twenty years ago, that I would be here today, and in what a position!"
I wrote the date and the time.
What a date and what a time!
At that moment I was losing a son.

The mail I had sent to my children had found them in Forli. Bologna was already abandoned by the army, which wanted to avoid being turned by the road to Ravenna.

Yet they reassured me about the entry of the Austrians and did not tell me about my sons’ health. The courier told me that he had seen them both, that they were fine, only that my son Napoleon was coughing a lot.
At the same time, I was told that measles was in the country where they were. Easy to worry about, I decided to get closer to my children and go to Ancona, since the Austrians gave me the time. I could no longer stay in Foligno, my mind constantly stretched towards the events I feared: I had to be close to them -

…

C'est l'histoire de la façon dont les fils de Hortense Bonaparte ont été attirés dans une révolution qu'elle considérait comme un piège pour faire tuer ses fils.