The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1852-02-19
THE MOTHER OF LOUIS NAPOLEON.
The Paris Correspondent Of the New York

teuse Beauharneis, was woman Of exceeding.
" bad life, however history may have CLOSED
her annals Before marriage, she had two
children-one by Napoleon. which died early;
the other by Frenchman-M. Flahant-the
present DE Morny, late Minister OF the Interior.
Louis Napoleon, hing of Holland, is very gen.
orally regarded as the natural son Of Dutch
admiral, notorious as the queen g lover. His
physiog nomy, his complexion, his air and hab
its arc Dutch. He is slow and taciturn.
We have nothing to say for the mother of
Louis Napoleon, who, from oil accounts, was
profigatc enough. But the Islander which
connects her name with that Of the Emperor
Napoleon, is so old, and so groundless, that we
had hardly expected to see it revived in re-
spectacle Journal at this time of day. 1t
originally appeared in au infamous book, pub
lished in England, in the year 1905, soon after
the coronation of Napoleon, and entitled the
Court Of ST. Cloud. The author, to the best
Of our recollection, was Pillet, who was pro-
secuted in England for libel, and who has
descended to posteriiy as the most atrocious
sianderer that ever disgraced the press with
the outpeurngs of u foul and malignant heart.
Every member of the Bonaparte family was
charged with some unnatural crime, and Ma
poleon himself il was asserted, had been gull
ty, no, only in the premises, but of the still
more diabolcal act of incest with his own sis
ter, the Princess Pauline. The libeller did
not stop with the Emperor and his family,
but went farther and attributed to each of
the Marshals, TO Soult, Murat, Davout, Lannes,
Lefebvre, and even to Ney, crimes the very
conception of which is revolving to the mind
Of any human being, be he as degraded as he
may. These libels, atrocious US they were,
were eagerly caught up and circulated by the
English press, and large body of Englishmen
were found ready enough to believe any thing,
provided it were not good, of man whom they
hated and feared with such bitter intensity, and
Those who formed the ornament and pillars
Of his stupendous power. Miss Williams,
about the same time published book, which
we never saw, but which contained charges
fully as atrocious as anything that had ever
been written by Pillet. These ISLANDERS have
long since sunk TO the grave of oblivion, 10
which their authors would have descended but
for their unenyiable connection with q name
whose province it is TO preserve through all
time, every thing that had the remotest con-
nexion with it. The memoirs Of Napoleon
have been written since his death by many of
his very bitter enemies. Yet none of them
not even Walter Scott with all his malignant
disposition TO revive the filthy gossip of
past day-not even Lockhart, who followed
fho noyotist Nth al. hi Ill
the obsequiousness with none of the talent
which distinguished Bosweil-have ever treat
ed these ISLANDERS with anything more than the
contempt which they so richly merit. 1t is
true that they had their effect in their day, and
10 a quarter which was calculated to give ex-
IRENE pain to him whose imposing position had
brought them upon him. The Empress Jo-
sephine herself, had the folly TO lend her ears
to them, and by one of them, at least, was SO
violently affected, that she came near, upon
the eve of the coronation, producing that Sc
paration which took place FIVE years after. Yet
posterity has rejected them without hesitation,
and it remained for this day to witness an at
tempt to revive them in an American newspa-
per, enjoying, and in the main, justly, high
reputation, and widespread popularity.
To say that the Islander, revived in the extrac,
we have quoted, was entirely alien to the cha
racter and disposition of Napoleon, were to do
him no more than the justice which has been
accorded to him by the most envenomed of the
traducers who haze attempted his biography
since his death. To the children of Josephine,
Eugene and Hortense Beauharnais, he was oil
ways as tender as it would have been possible
for their own father to have been. That he COM
m.tted q great and objectionable error in
forcing the former to marry his brother Louis,
who hated her with all his soul, and who was,
in his turn, detested by her, is unfortunately
but too true. That this marriage embittered
all the after lives of the i'll assorted pair and
made the wife, who seems 10 have been born
for better things, that which she finally became,
cannot be doubted. In justification, If there
be any justification for forcing two persons
into such marriage, i, might be said that
there have been many parents and guardians,
standing far higher in the estimation of that
portion Of mankind, who have usurped all the
morality extant, that have done the very same
tufus' out tHiS charge Is CouuduiCtcu ny TIE
whole history of the life of Hortense, not less
than by the character of Napoleon himself
She was always in prosperiiy-as well as adj
Aersity-at the Tuleries as at Malmaison-ihe
most dutiful and aifectionate Of daughters, and
never hesiiated one moment between her duty
to her mother and her own interest. A most
striking proof Of this disposition, on her part.
was given Oh the occasion to which we have
alluded. Napoleon, enraged with Josephine
for suspecting him Of incest, resolved at once
TO repudiate her, and calling Eugene and Hor.
tense TO him, announced his determination
on the spot. Without the slightest hesitation.
they both declared that they would share her
fortunes whatever they might be. Could tbs
person, capable of SO much affection. ipfie,
upon the object OF it a wrong so deadly as that
implied IN the paragraph we have ouo,ad,