The Rhode-Island Republican. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1809-1841, 1836-05-18

queen, had nature even accorded her the
same fecundty, could have dared to hope
for such fate. OF her eight children,
seven have worn crowns, and the only
one who was not king, refused to be so.
Lucien was only the friend of Napoleon in
misfortune. His soul was in some de-
gree like his mothers, who replied to the
great emperor, on one occasion, when hc
reproached her with prcferring Lucien
to her other children -
The one who suffers is always the
child that most ardently love-"
"sShe, too, like Lucicn, had melan-
choly foresight of the mislortuues which
awaited her /; the unexampled fortune Of
her family had not bluded her, and even
iu her palace, with the title of empress,
surrounded by court, and rich with i'm.
mensc treasures, she wisely armed herself
against the future. She economiscd the
wealth which her son lavished upon her;
and, when the cour,iers, to whom every
virtue is a novelty, expressed their surprise
at this, she dared TO reply to them, with
the fortunes of Napoleon before her -
"Who knows but il may be one day
necessary for me to give bread to all these
kingsl"
That day has arrived-but moro fatal,
more terrible than she forsaw. There
was one Of those children TO whom she
could give no bread. He died far from
her, guarded by Englishmen, who mar
rcwly measured out to the prisoner the
meagre pittance of each topast, and even
the allowance of air he was suffered to
breathe.
She may well have wept bitterly over
the misfortuncs of that one. IL she loved
her clildren in proportion to their mis-.
fortunes, none SO much deserved her
tenderness.
Afterward her son-in.law died, shot
like robber on desert shore ; then the
sons Of these sons, then her lovelicst
daughter, then her sons wives, her chill
dren and her grandchidren--and the rest
of this family have been scattered over
the world, begging an asylum from all the
earth, as if the fragments of this great
race would crush tho soil on which they
should be assembled. So she has died
alone. with her brother-in.law at her
pillow, with the only member of her
family who escaped prescription, be.
cause he called himself cardinal, and
was protected by the church.
She is then dead-thc mother Of SO
many kings and qucens-old from age,
old from infrmities. older s'" ~ '''s
fortunes. SL. so morc-shc met
death with the serenity ofahe just-for in
her fortunes she had only consultations
for the poor, and in her reverse she never
cursed her prosecutors.
She is then dead, in that Rome, which,
after having dethroned so many kings,
has become the asylum of the deihroned.
And, five might dare to say SO, never
were two desunics more alike, than the
destiny Of this woman and tho destiny OF
this city. Each gave birth, IN youth, to
men made for the conquest Of the earth
each has seen their old age, mournful and
abandoned prolong itself, without that
world, which they had ruled by their
children, concerning itself with the REM
nant of their useless existence.
Rome is then dead. But France has
acted almost in the same way. Othel
reasons have influenced her. Since ma
dame Lctitia quilted France, so many
things have been accomplished, that hel
name, even before her death, already be.
longed to the past. After the lapse oI
twenty years, we are already so far from
1914, that an age is between us and tha
year. The past lie so immense that We
forget that the majority Of the men who
made il still live, and 80 small have they
become since that epoch. Napoleon il
so great, that he seems to belong to anti
guilty. Nobody seems to believe that h'
lived but yesterday the mind joins hin
to Charlemague, as the monarch to whom
he succeeded