The History of Hortense, Daughter of Josephine, Queen of Holland, Mother of Napoleon Iii
By . New York : Harper and Brothers.
THE Rev. Mr. Abbott, who has so often taught the art of holy living from the example of the Bonaparte family, here holds up a connection of that blameless and beneficent race for the emulation of American youth. His sort of soft-soap is a highly erasive compound, and the reputation of Hortense comes like snow from his manipulation ; and by a like process the blood-spots are removed from the history of her son, while the stains of license and excess are skilfully transferred from the imperial character to that of Pierre Bonaparte. The Emperor was elected to the throne of France by a loving people, and there was not, to Mr. Abbott’s knowledge, any coup d’état. Thus are American youth instructed in history and morals, and prepared for the Parisian career in which they do their country so much honor.
The reader familiar with Mr. Abbott’s former histories will readily conceive of the general method of this book ; but we do not think that the author sufficiently improves an opportunity given him of defending Napoleon for the divorce of Josephine. It may yet turn out that this act was wholly justifiable as a measure of self-defence, for from the letters of Josephine here quoted we are vividly impressed anew that she must have been one of the most tiresome people that ever lived. One platitude follows another in her correspondence, and her glib rhetoricalities are so abundant, that it seems impossible she could have felt deeply any of the things she said. Imagine a mother writing thus to a daughter living unhappily with her husband, as Hortense docs with Louis : —
“You wash that he resembled his brother. But he must first, have his brother’s temperament. You have not failed to remark that almost our entire existence depends upon our health, and health upon digestion. If poor Louis’s digestion were better, you would find him much more amiable.”
It is like Mrs. Nickleby. No one but the saint Napoleon really was could have stood this sort of thing fifteen years, and then voluntarily continued a correspondence with Josephine after the divorce.