"Without connubial Juno's aid they wed :
Nor Hymen nor the Graces bless the bed I "



64 loots jfAPOLEoir aud ais tikes.
" Never," exclaims Louis, in a tone of anguish, " was
there a more gloomy ceremony ? Never had husband
and wife a stronger presentiment of the horrors of a
reluctant and ill-assorted union!" Louis was then
twenty-four, and Hortense about eighteen. From this
he dates the commencement of his unhappiness, his
bodily and mental sufferings. It stamped on his whole
existence a profound melancholy, a dejection, a drying
of the heart, which, he adds, "nothing ever could, or
ever will remedy." As for Hortense, who had only
left Madame Campan's boarding-school a few weeks
before the wedding, a lady who was present at a ball
given in honoi 1 of it by Madame de Montesson, states,
that "every countenance beamed with satisfaction,
save that of the bride, whose profound melancholy
formed a sad contrast to the happiness which she
might have been expected to evince : she seemed to
shun her husband's very looks, lest he should read in
hers the indifference she felt toward him. Covered
with diamonds and flowers, she appeared insensible to
every thing save regret. From that day, sorrow might
easily have been augured from a marriage where the
contracting parties were so little agreeable to each
other."

The correspondence between Duroc and Hortense,
had been so long and so openly conducted, as to be
known to several members of the consular household.
