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The official announcement of the elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon to the letter of King Charles XIII. He wished to wrest from Bernadotte a pledge never to bear arms against France. The marshal formally refused.
The engineers, under Decaux, who checked the warlike ardor of King Louis, rendered the forts impregnable to sudden assault, inundated the country all round, and erected the old dams on the Scheldt; and troops also began to arrive, rapidly concentrating upon the threatened spot. According to the emperor's order the Prince of Pontecorvo had set out for Antwerp, and took the command there.
When 25,000 English are attacking our dockyards and threatening our provinces, is the ministry doing nothing? What trouble is there in raising 60,000 of the national guard? What trouble is there in sending the Prince of Pontecorvo to take the command there, where there is nobody? What trouble is there in putting my strongholds, Antwerp, Ostend, and Lille, in a state of siege? It is inconceivable.
"That's certain, my dear," retorted Celia impetuously. "At first people were in doubt, and talked of little Pontecorvo and Lieutenant Moretta. But every one now knows that La Tonietta's caprice is Dario. Besides, he joined her in her box at the Costanzi the other evening." Pierre remembered that the young Prince had pointed out La Tonietta at the Pincio one afternoon.
As the pope was not satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and as his war with the Orsini had failed to produce the anticipated results, he decided to increase the fortune of his firstborn by doing the very thing which he had accused Calixtus in his speech of doing for him, viz., alienating from the States of the Church the cities of Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form, a duchy as an appanage to his son's house.
At about the same time that Lucrezia withdrew to her convent her brother Gandia was the recipient of further honours at the hands of his fond father. The Pope had raised the fief of Benevento to a dukedom, and as a dukedom conferred it upon his son, to him and to his legitimate heirs for ever. To this he added the valuable lordships of Terracina and Pontecorvo.
"His Majesty commands his army in person," he sent word to the Prince of Pontecorvo by Major-General Berthier; "it belongs to him alone to distribute the degree of glory with each merits." Napoleon added, in a letter to the minister of war, "I am glad also that you are aware that the Prince of Pontecorvo has not always conducted himself well in this campaign.
"That's certain, my dear," retorted Celia impetuously. "At first people were in doubt, and talked of little Pontecorvo and Lieutenant Moretta. But every one now knows that La Tonietta's caprice is Dario. Besides, he joined her in her box at the Costanzi the other evening." Pierre remembered that the young Prince had pointed out La Tonietta at the Pincio one afternoon.
"That's certain, my dear," retorted Celia impetuously. "At first people were in doubt, and talked of little Pontecorvo and Lieutenant Moretta. But every one now knows that La Tonietta's caprice is Dario. Besides, he joined her in her box at the Costanzi the other evening." Pierre remembered that the young Prince had pointed out La Tonietta at the Pincio one afternoon.
The command, accordingly, was withdrawing from the Prince of Pontecorvo, who, though always called to serve at the moment of danger, was considered fickle and suspicious by the emperor.
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