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The trade-winds have succeeded the tempests, so that I can spend most of my time on deck. Seated upon the poop, I reflect upon all which has happened to me, and I think of you and of Arenemberg. Situations depend upon the affections which one cherishes. Two months ago I asked only that I might never return to Switzerland.
She however never saw her son again until, upon a dying bed, she gave him her last embrace and blessing. The hurried journey, and the terrible anxiety caused by the arrest and peril of her son, inflicted a blow upon Hortense from which she never recovered. Weary months passed away in the solitude of Arenemberg, until at last the heart-stricken mother received a package of letters from the exile.
On the morning of the 25th of October, 1836, Louis Napoleon bade adieu to his mother, and left Arenemberg in his private carriage, ostensibly to visit friends at Baden. A few days after, Hortense was plunged into the deepest distress by the reception of the following letter: "MY DEAR MOTHER, You must have been very anxious in receiving no tidings from me you who believed me to be with my cousin.
Notwithstanding the desperation of the enterprise and the great anxiety of his mother, Louis Napoleon left Arenemberg to join the Poles. He had not proceeded far when he received the intelligence that Warsaw was captured and that the patriots were crushed. Sadly he returned to Arenemberg. Again, as ever, he sought solace for his disappointment in intense application to study.
"The prince, polite, accomplished, and taciturn, appeared to Madame Récamier to be a very different person from his elder brother, whom she had known in Rome, young, generous, and enthusiastic. The prince sketched for her, in sepia, a view of Lake Constance, overlooked by the chateau of Arenemberg.
She assents to or dissents from the sentiments of others with a mildness and good sense which gratifies those with whom she coincides, or disarms those from whom she differs." Visits the Baths of Geiss. Watchfulness of the Allies. The retreat of Arenemberg. The princes enter college. Loveliness of Hortense. Letter from a visitor. Social life at Arenemberg. Scenery at Arenemberg.
His letter, which is very long, contains a relation of all he has done, all that has happened to him, and much that he has felt since he left Arenemberg, until he wrote, the 10th of January, on board the frigate Andromeda, lying in the harbor of Rio Janeiro, where he was not permitted to go on shore.
Although his mother allowed him a considerable sum for his amusements, these were the last things he thought of. All this money was spent in acts of beneficence, in founding schools or houses of refuge, in printing his military or political works, or in making scientific experiments. His mode of life was always frugal, and rather rude. At Arenemberg it was quite military.
The chateau of Arenemberg, where the Duchess of St. Leu passed her summers, and which she had bought and put in order, overlooks Lake Constance. It was impossible for Madame Récamier not to give a few days to this kind and amiable person, especially in her forlorn and isolated position. The duchess, too, had lost, the year previous, her eldest son, Napoleon, who died in Italy.
The prince, however, who never allowed himself to waste a moment of time, devoted himself, during this short visit to England, assiduously to the study of the workings of British institutions, and to the progress which the nation had attained in the sciences and the arts. It was not easy for Hortense and her son to return to Arenemberg.
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