gives it a palpitation." And then Horace repeats his report of the "trepidation" that the least noise, from door slamming downwards, produces on his nerves.-Later again, he writes to his namesake, Sir Mann, -"I am grieved to hear you complain of your nerves, and know how to pity you. My own are so shattered, that the sudden clapping of a door makes me tremble for some minutes." But next year Horace of Strawberry Hill learns from a nephew of Horace of Florence, the kind and degree of that diplomatic uncle's nervousness, and recants his pity. "He says you have no complaint but a little trembling of your hand. I, who am so nervous that the sudden clapping of a door makes me shudder all over, call that nothing."* It is easy-for a burly body, nothing easier, perhaps nothing more natural-to gird at our elderly Horace, trepidating and palpitating, whensoever a door creaks in opening, and à fortiori whensoever a door is slammed in shutting. But to this complexion the burliest may come at last. Let but disease tell on the nerves, and your stalwart, robust, boisterous, big fellow may be transfigured into the same image. men have surpassed Scott in physical vigour, and natural superiority to nervous weaknesses. He could be scornfully impatient of the fine-lady susceptibility that found aught to annoy in the scream of a scolding parrot. But the day came very near the end, it is true-when stout Sir Walter found street sounds intolerable. On the last day of the last January he lived to see, he went to Edinburgh on business, and, for the first time in his native town, took up his quarters at a hotel. "But the noise of the street," his son-in-law tells us, "disturbed him during the night (another evidence how much his nervous system had een shattered), and next day he was persuaded to remove to his bookseller's house in Athol-crescent."+ Few are the authors who could write on, like Jean Paul, amid the turmoil of household work, all going on in the same poor room with him. Happy the author that can't sympathise with Hood, in his inability to write except on condition of surrounding silence. “I have a room to myself," he exultingly writes, in 1841, from his new lodgings at Camberwell, "which will be worth 201. a year to me, for a little disconcerts my nerves." And his son records Mrs. Hood's care to secure quiet in the house-so that " we children were brought up in a sort of Spartan style of education, and taught the virtues of silence and low voices."§ The tender wife's solicitude reminds us of "faithful Peggy" in a forgotten poem of almost (but not quite) forgotten Jane Taylor: When Philip wrote he never seem'd so well, And quickly worried;-Peggy saw it all, The approach of brain disease, we are told by "the faculty," is often heralded by the most marvellous exaltation of sensuous susceptibilities. Dr. Elliotson mentions a patient who, "previous to an attack of hemi * Walpole's Letters, complete edition, vol. vii. pp. 204, 307, 320, 366; vol. viii. p. 97. § Ibid., p. 67. † Lockhart's Life of Scott, ch. lxxix. Memorials of Thomas Hood, vol. ii. p. 87. Poetical Remains of Jane Taylor, ii. 9. plegia, felt such an extraordinary acuteness of hearing, that he heard the least sound at the bottom of his house." In another case, a gentleman, previous to an attack of inflammation of the brain, remarked to his son that he could hear a conversation that was taking place in a distant part of the house, when those around him could not even distinguish voices. "In this condition of brain the avenues by which the outward world is brought in connexion with the inward man are thrown open so widely that it would seem as though the unhappy person projected his special organs of sense outward until they absolutely came in contact with the objects or manifestations submitted to them."* So Thomson incidentally says, or sings, that were man's ear open to all the sounds uttered by microscopic millions, which, "concealed by the kind art of Heaven, escape the grosser eye of man," he would be tortured by the diapason, -and in dead night, It is incidentally remarked by John Locke, while arguing that the all-wise Architect of this Cosmos has suited our organs, and the bodies that are to affect them, one to another,—that, if our sense of hearing were but one thousand times quicker than it is, "how would a perpetual noise distract us!" and we should, in the quietest retirement, be less able to sleep or meditate, than in the middle of a sea-fight. Degrees of disease may approximate a man's condition more and more nearly to this intolerable hypothesis;-a consideration which should make the sound and strong a little forbearing towards sufferers in all the manifold degrees of functional derangement or organic disease. QUEEN HORTENSE-MOTHER OF NAPOLEON III.§ HORTENSE-EUGÉNIE, mother of the present Emperor of the French, was the daughter of the Empress Josephine by a former husband-M. de Beauharnais and she was sister to Eugène Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. The marriage of Josephine, who was a Mademoiselle de la Pagerie, with the Viscount Beauharnais, and of which these two children were issue, was not a happy one, and Madame de Beauharnais withdrew for a time to the society of her family at La Martinique. Driven back to her own country, she there learnt that her husband, who had severed family and monarchical ties for the Revolution, was, by a caprice not a little characteristic of such movements, about to be sent to the scaffold * See Essay on "First Beginnings," in vol. v. of the Cornhill Magazine-à propos of Dr. Forbes Winslow on Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Mind. †The Seasons, Summer. Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, book ii. ch. xxiii. § 12. La Reine Hortense. Par E. Fourmestraux. Auteur d'une étude sur Napoléon III. by the very party for whom he had fought and bled, and indeed sacrificed everything. Josephine, forgetting her wrongs, made every exertion to save her husband, but without success; and after being herself imprisoned, the future Viceroy of Italy being apprenticed to a carpenter, and the future Queen of Holland to a milliner, all parties were liberated by the events of the ninth Thermidor, and Eugène joined the army under the protection of General Hoche. Various versions have been published of the circumstances under which Bonaparte and Josephine became first acquainted-all more or less romantic. M. E. Fourmestraux gives his own particular version of the incident: "Appointed General-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior, Bonaparte had been charged by government to take all necessary measures for maintaining public tranquillity. One of his orders to this effect was to deprive the inhabitants of Paris of their arms. "One morning Lemarois, one of his aide-de-camps, came in, followed by a boy fourteen years of age, who vehemently reclaimed a sword which the police had taken from him. Addressing Bonaparte, Eugène said to him: General, give me back my father's sword, my sole inheritance, and to which I cling more than to life!' "Struck with the generous sentiments of the boy, Bonaparte had his sword at once returned to him. "A few days afterwards the general was relating this incident of filial piety at a party at Barras's, at which Josephine happened to be present. She was introduced to Bonaparte, who congratulated her on having such a son, and was on his side charmed by her grace and amiability. Such were the circumstances which gave origin to a marriage from which came so much greatness and so many vicissitudes to the Beauharnais family." Hortense was at this epoch at a boarding school kept by Madame Campan at Saint-Germain. She was, according to her historian, an apt and promising scholar. When Bonaparte on his return from Italy became first consul, the whole family were united in the Tuileries. Eugène, as aide-de-camp to the general, had won his spurs in Italy and in Egypt. Hortense, albeit between sixteen and seventeen years of age, seems to have been more amused than dazzled with the self-will and impetuosity of Bonaparte." My father-in-law," she used to write to Madame Campan, "is a comet, of which we are but the tail; we must follow him without inquiring whither he is going. Is it for our happiness or for our misfortune?" One day, at Malmaison, Hortense had not come down to dinner. Josephine went up herself for her, and found her busy at her drawings. Angry, as the first consul was waiting, she asked her if she expected to get her bread as an artist. "In the times in which we live," gravely responded the young damsel, "it is quite possible that it may be so, mamma." Such was the influence of the first consul, that Hortense was soon sought in marriage. She admitted that she was not herself in a position to select a husband, but she reserved to herself the right of refusal in case the person did not please her, and she exercised it at once. The manner in which her claim to such a privilege was conceded by the first consul, had great influence in cementing that esteem and regard for his will which attained its acme in after life. Mademoiselle de Beauharnais was very fair, of a beautiful complexion, and graceful in her person. The expression of her countenance was that of mildness and benevolence, but her bearing was dignified. She was remarkable for her talent as an artist, as also as a musician. Her melodies, composed at various epochs of her life, have obtained an European fame. France is indebted to Hortense for the romance of "Le Beau Dunois," which opens with the strophe "Partant pour la Syrie " All her romances and all her melodies met with greater or less success. Malmaison had received its name "Mala Domus," from having once been the home of Norman adventurers who had been cursed by the people. But since that it had been exorcised and sanctified as a monastery, and, finally, had been turned into a country house. Bonaparte, before embarking for Egypt, had written to Josephine to secure a country residence for his return. She hesitated some time between Ris and Malmaison, but decided in favour of the latter. When the general became first consul he installed himself in the Luxembourg, but the palace of the Medicis was only his political residence, his leisure hours were spent at Malmaison. The dignified silence and severe etiquette which became afterwards the law at the Imperial palaces of Saint Cloud and the Tuileries were then unknown. It was at that time not an uncommon thing to play at prisoner's base. On one side were Bonaparte, Lauriston, Rapp, Eugène, and the demoiselles Auguié; on the other Josephine, Hortense, Jerome, Madame Caroline Murat, Isabey Didelot, and De Luçay. They were all young people. The game would be followed by a collation, and in the evening by a play performed by themselves. Hortense was among the most successful. A friend wrote to Madame Campan, "Hortense is delicious, Madame Murat charming, Bourienne perfect, Jerome unique!" It would appear that Bonaparte projected early a matrimonial alliance between his third brother, Louis, and Hortense. Bonaparte spoke to Louis about it after the affair of Marengo, but this young man had allowed himself to be captivated by a young lady he had met at his sister's school-since married-and it was not till on his return from Portugal that Josephine joined General Bonaparte in bringing about this projected alliance. The general was particularly attached to both parties, and when he sought to unite them it was that they might participate together of the brilliant future which he already in his mind destined for them. But there existed contrasts in the two which never would marry, albeit they were united in person. Louis, although a soldier by profession, was not a soldier by nature. Nay, he had an innate antipathy to war, and mourned over the disasters entailed by it. He was not even ambitious. He loved retirement and study. Hortense, on the contrary, was endowed with an ardent temperament, to which ambition was by no means a stranger. Louis reproached her with frivolity and love of display; Hortense, on her side, would have preferred that Louis had distinguished himself more with his sword and less with his pen. Add to this, our biographer himself admits that the fact of the marriage being imposed upon them rendered it obnoxious to both. 66 Take place, however, it did, at least as far as the civil contract goes, on the 3rd of January, 1802, at the Tuileries, in the presence of the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families. Never," says King Louis, in his Memoirs, was there a more gloomy ceremony; never did a young wedded couple feel more sensibly the presentiment of all the horrors of an ill-assorted and forced marriage." A first son was, however, born on the 10th of October, 1802, and Louis is said to have congratulated the mother with infinite grace and sensibility, but it would appear from a letter of Madame Campan's that Hortense did not reciprocate these demonstrations of affection. Madame Campan, indeed, accuses her former pupil merely with want of demonstrative sensibility, but she knew that in reality it arose from indifference to her husband. 66 We are assured, however, that she continued to be affectionate, modest, and natural in character. She especially continued to cultivate those arts which constitute her imperishable crown. Louis Bonaparte was recognised, on the proclamation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French, like his other brethren, a prince of the Imperial blood, and his second son, born on the 11th of October, 1804, received the names of NapoleonLouis. Eugène de Beauharnais was also created a prince, and Hortense became Princess Louis Bonaparte. Whilst Napoleon was busy placing on his head the old iron crown of Lombardy, appointing his son-in-law viceroy, and, as was his custom, providing him with a wife, Prussia was threatening the Low Countries and the north of France. Prince Louis Bonaparte received orders to organise an army of the north, which he effected with so much promptitude that in a month's time his head-quarters were established at Nimeguen, and Prussia, met on two sides-Holland and France-hesitated to act. The prince on this withdrew his troops, much to the dissatisfaction of the Emperor, who had his designs on that countrydesigns which Louis Bonaparte did not share in, nor did he even care for the vain and empty honour of a crown. Indeed, when shortly afterwards the Batavian Republic was declared to be an hereditary sovereignty by Napoleon, as a punishment for its having carried on commercial relations with Great Britain, and a deputation came to solicit the prince-now designated Louis Napoleon-to accept the throne, he at once declined it. But when to his brother he professed as an excuse that the climate did not agree with him, the latter said roughly, "It is better to die king than to live a prince." And he was, like others, obliged to succumb before the indomitable will of the Emperor. Hortense, called upon to share the sovereign power with her husband, was mainly cheered, we are told, by the thoughts of the additional amount of good which it would be in her power to do. But it was not without deep regret that she tore herself away from her country and her mother —she had never, indeed, been yet separated from the latter, except at rare and brief intervals. The new king quitted Saint-Leu on the 15th of June, 1806, with the children and their mother; they arrived at the Palace du Bois, near the Hague, on the 18th, and made their public entry a few days afterwards. Their reception was much more enthusiastic than was expected. King Louis was personally known to the Dutch, and was both loved and respected by them for his personal qualities. The reputation of Queen |