The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 279: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

214 THE STEAM PACKET. gallantry, and the empty compliments of the court of Louis XVL., to attach any very great deal of importance to this species of menace on che part of Albert; she considered it rather the ‘“‘ words of course”’ which every polite and well-bred man uttered to a lady whose love he had not succeeded in gaining, or from whose lips no avowal had been wrested;—and she only smiled—but sweetly as Josephine alone could smile—as she bade him fareweli. Her parting words with Pauline upon that occasion were, “* Remember, my dear friend, in a short time I shall call upon you to enter on your functions of my chief Lady of the Bedchamber.” ‘Father,’ said Albert to Pierre Michel, that evening, as they walked away from the hospitable mansion where they had been enter- tained, ‘‘I have no longer any inclination to remain in Paris: let us return home without delay. I long for my boat and sea exercise once more.’ “Tt shall be as you say, my dear son,” replied the old man ;—and accordingly on the following morning they all commenced their journey back again to the Basse- Ville. The remainder of this narrative may be summed up in a few words. The father and son returned to the white cottage—and Henri Alvimar, with his amiable wife, to his own abode close by. But Albert never launched his boat from the shore of Calais again ;—never more was it given to him to tempt the dangers of the deep—never more to push his frail bark over the curling waves. A deep, an inconsolable melancholy took possession of his soul, and defied all the powers of man to era- dicate it—because inaccessible to all sympathies: and in a few months it hurried its victim to the tomb. He died at the white cottage ; and on his death-bed he acknowledged that he was the victim of his attach- ment to her whom he had first seen within its walls; and his remains lie in the suburban cemetery. His father was interred by his side a few weeks afterwards. Pauline communicated the fatal news to her friend the Viscountess of Beauharnais, who terminated her reply in the fol- lowing manner :—‘‘ I admired your brother, Pauline, for his noble and generous heart—his truly manly nature; and I felt grateful to him as the saviour of my life. But I knew that he was not destined to be the king of France—and I am to be the queen. Pardon this observation— do not set it down to levity on my part: I have shed tears at your brother’s death—and am incapable of either ingratitude or imdif- ference.” . How accurately were all the prophecies and the presentiments rela- tive to the exaltation of Josephine fulfilled—or more than fulfilled— for she became not queen, but empress; not the wife of a king—but ] Gomicbooks. co