Harper's Round Table, September 10, 1895 Part 6

For seventeen years the boy lived at the Austrian court, practically a prisoner. His mother cared little for him, and for years did not see him; his name of Napoleon was denied him; his t.i.tles of Emperor and King were taken from him, and he was known simply as the Duke of Reichstadt.

His grandfather, the Emperor of Austria, was kind to him, and tried to make an Austrian of him, but he grew from a bright, handsome little fellow into a lonely, low-spirited, and brooding boy, who remembered his former grandeur and the high position to which he had been born, and fretted over the knowledge that he, the son of Napoleon, could inherit no portion of his father's glory, and was denied even the empty honor of his name.

At five he was a beautiful boy, who rebelled when his tutors tried to teach him German, and delighted to play jokes on his royal grandfather; it has even been solemnly a.s.serted that he tied the imperial coat tails to a chair, and filled the imperial boots with gravel. At seven he put on the uniform of a private in the Austrian Royal Guard, and displayed a liking for military life. His gayety began to change to reticence and a love for solitude as he grew old enough to appreciate his position. One of the Austrian Generals was discoursing to the boy one day on the three greatest warriors of the world.

"I know a fourth," said the young Napoleon.

"And who is that?" the commandant asked.

"My father," replied the boy, proudly, and walked away from the lecturer.

He was ten years old when his great father died in his exile at St.

Helena (on the 5th of May, 1821). The boy wept bitterly when he was told the news, and shut himself up for several days. He put on mourning, but the Austrians compelled him to put it off, and permitted him to show no grief for his dead father.

After this he grew still more quiet and secretive; he took to his books, became quite a student, and wrote an able treatise upon Caesar's _Commentaries_. When he was fifteen he was permitted to read books about his father and the history of France, and at sixteen he was instructed in the forms of Austrian government, and the false theory known as "the divine right of Kings."

When he was twenty he "came out" into society, and was made Lieutenant-Colonel of infantry in the Austrian army, but he never "smelled powder" nor saw war. Brooding and solitude weakened his const.i.tution; ill health resulted; his lungs were touched with disease: and on the 22d of July, in the year 1832, having reached the age of twenty-one, the son of Napoleon died in the palace of Schonbrunn, of consumption.

It seems hard, but death was the only solution of what might have been a problem. Without the will, the energy, the genius, or the selfishness of his remarkable father, the son of Napoleon had yet ambition, persistence, and a reverence for his father's memory that amounted almost to a pa.s.sion. Without any special love for France, he cherished that dream of empire that his father had made come true. Had he lived and joined ability to strength, his name might have raised up armies, and again drenched Europe in blood--the tool of factions or the prey of his own ambitions. He died a lonely invalid, and Europe was spared the horror of a possible "might have been."

On the plain bronze tomb that marks this boy's place of burial in the Carthusian Monastery at Vienna--near to that of another unwise and unfortunate Prince, the Austrian usurper Maximilian of Mexico--the visitor may read this inscription, placed there by the Emperor, his grandfather: To the eternal memory of Joseph Charles Francis, Duke of Reichstadt, son of Napoleon, Emperor of the French, and Marie Louise, Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria. Born at Paris, March 20, 1811, when in his cradle he was hailed by the t.i.tle of King of Rome; he was endowed with every faculty, both of body and mind; his stature was tall; his countenance adorned with the charms of youth, and his conversation full of affability; he displayed an astonis.h.i.+ng capacity for study, and the exercise of the military art: attacked by a pulmonary disease, he died at Schonbrunn, near Vienna, July 22, 1832.

The epitaph tells but one side of this boy's story; the other side is sad enough. A young life begun in glory went out in gloom; the Prince of the Tuileries became the prisoner of Vienna: the dream of empire was speedily dispelled, and death itself mercifully removed one who might have been a menace and a curse to Europe.

What he might have been had his father remained conqueror and Emperor none may say. But the star of Napoleon, that had blazed like a meteor in Europe's startled sky, flickered, fell, and went out in disgrace.

Thenceforward the shadow of the father's downfall clung to the boy, and the son of Napoleon had neither the opportunity, the energy, nor the will to display any trace of that genius for conquest that made the name of Napoleon great in his day, and greater since his downfall and his death.

OAKLEIGH.

BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.

CHAPTER XII.

"Why has he come home?"

This was the question on the lips of each one of the family when they heard of Neal's arrival.

It was soon answered. He had been suspended.

He would give little explanation; he merely a.s.serted that he was innocent of that of which he was accused. Some of the boys, the most unmanageable at St. Asaph's, had plotted to do some mischief. Neal, being more or less intimate with the set, was asked to join in the plot, but refused. He was with the boys, however, up to the moment of their putting it into execution. Afterwards circ.u.mstances pointed to his having been concerned in it, and his known intimacy with these very boys condemned him.

There was but one person who could prove absolutely that he had not been with the culprits that night, and that person held his peace.

Of course Cynthia rightly suspected that it was Bronson.

A letter came from the head master of the school, stating the facts as they appeared to him, and announcing with regret that he had been obliged to suspend Neal Gordon for the remainder of the term.

It was an unfortunate affair altogether. Neal was moody and low-spirited, and he was deeply offended that his story was not generally believed, for the household was divided in regard to it.

Jack and Cynthia stoutly maintained his innocence, Mr. Franklin and Edith looked at the worst side of it, while Mrs. Franklin was undecided in her opinion.

She wanted to believe her brother's word, she did believe it, and yet all the proved facts were so hopelessly against him. The other boys that had been suspended were his friends. Neal had been reproved before for mischief that he had been in with them. It was one of those sad cases when a man's past record counts against him, no matter how innocent he may be of the present offence. But Hester could not believe that her brother would lie to her.

One morning Edith drove her father to the train. Not a vestige of snow was left near the road; only a patch or two on the hills, and even that was rapidly disappearing in the spring suns.h.i.+ne which every day grew warmer.

"Have you heard much about St. Asaph's from any one but Neal?" asked Mr.

Franklin, quite abruptly. "Doesn't that cousin of the Morgans go there?"

"Do you mean Tom, papa? Yes, he does, and Tony Bronson, too, who stays at the Morgans' occasionally."

"I think I remember. Did you ever hear either of them speak of Neal, or discuss him in any way?"

Edith hesitated.

"Tom Morgan never did," she said at last.

"And the other fellow?"

"Yes, he said something. Really, papa, I wish you wouldn't ask me."

"What nonsense! Of course it is your duty to tell me, Edith. It is right that I should know how Neal stands with his cla.s.s. What did the boy say?"

"He spoke as if Neal were in some sc.r.a.pe, and he wished that he could help him out."

"He is a friend of Neal's, then?"

"I don't know. He spoke very nicely of him, and really seemed to want to help him; but Cynthia didn't believe that when I told her. She seemed to think he was an enemy of Neal's. But then Cynthia can't bear him, you know. She took one of her tremendous prejudices against Tony Bronson, the way she often does, and she wouldn't believe that there was a bit of good in him."

"But you liked him?"

"Yes, very much. I think he is conceited, but then so many boys are that. As far as I could see he is a very nice fellow, and the Morgans like him ever so much. The only people that I know of who don't like him are Jack and Cynthia and Neal."

"I don't believe there is much doubt that Neal has been very wild all the time he has been at St. Asaph's," observed Mr. Franklin. "This only goes to prove it. Bronson was not in that set, evidently, as he was not one of those who were suspended, and I have no doubt he is a very good sort of fellow. It is a pity Neal doesn't see more of him."

They drew up at the post-office, and Mr. Franklin went in to get the letters. He came out with quite a budget, and stood at the carriage looking hastily over them.

"All of these are to go home," he said, giving a number to Edith. "Here is one for me with the St. Asaph's postmark. I will see what it is."

He tore it open, and glanced at the signature. Then he looked up quickly.

"What was that Bronson fellow's name, Edith?"

"Tony."