We must give only so much as shall
make it sure that others will seek more at the fountain-head; but for
this purpose we must turn less to the book, and trust for our narration
to a sufficiently recent perusal still vividly remembered.
Aurore could scarcely have passed out of her third year when she
accompanied her mother to Madrid, where her father was already in
attendance upon Murat. She remembers their quarters in the palace,
magnificently furnished, and the half-broken toys of the royal
children, whose destruction she was allowed to complete. To please his
commander-in-chief, her father caused her to assume a miniature uniform,
like those of the Prince's aide-de-camps, whose splendid discomfort she
still recalls. This would seem a sort of prophecy of that assuming
of male attire in later years which was to constitute a capital
circumstance in her life. The return from the Peninsula was weary and
painful to the mother and child, and made more so by the disgust with
which the Spanish roadside bill-of-fare inspired the more civilized
French stomach. They were forced to make a part of the journey in wagons
with the common soldiery and camp-retainers, and Aurore in this manner
took the itch, to her mother's great mortification.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36