. In the footsteps of Napoleon, his life and its famous scenes. rred the penalty ofa frown. Out at Rambouillet there stands, on the border of thechateau park, the only palace the fond father before hasteningto his fall erected for his son, and it is still known as lePalais du Roi de Rome. Although the structure is the sizeof a comfortable three-story dwelling, it was meant only asa playhouse for the little King, where from a mimic thronehe could hold his childish court and amuse himself with re-hearsals of the part for which his father had cast him in thedrama of life when he should be the lor
. In the footsteps of Napoleon, his life and its famous scenes. rred the penalty ofa frown. Out at Rambouillet there stands, on the border of thechateau park, the only palace the fond father before hasteningto his fall erected for his son, and it is still known as lePalais du Roi de Rome. Although the structure is the sizeof a comfortable three-story dwelling, it was meant only asa playhouse for the little King, where from a mimic thronehe could hold his childish court and amuse himself with re-hearsals of the part for which his father had cast him in thedrama of life when he should be the lord of the palaces ofEurope. In the shady depths of the park at Rambouillet lies the veryrock on which all the hopes of father and son were on that smooth-topped stone under the trees. Napoleonspread his maps in May of 1811, and planned the fatal Rus-sian campaign of the following year. And alongside the wallof the park ran and runs the highway to Chartres, to Roche-fort and on to St. Helena! It well may have been then and there, by that rock in the. Napoleon and His Son, by Steuben THE KING OP ROME 315 forest of Rambouillet, as he looked up from his map to seethe two months old King reclining in his baby carriage, thatNapoleon gave the sigh echoed by history, Poor child!What a snarl I shall leave to you! But fortune held theskein and the great fatalist was helpless to unravel hertangled web. _ That the birth of the King of Rome, and the realisation ofhis fathers longing for a successor to perpetuate his dynasty,should definitely mark the beginning of the end of the Em-pire is among the ironies and paradoxes of history. Butit all nicely fits into the logic of events. For with the com-ing of the baby, Napoleon viewed the completion of his planof disconnecting his Empire from its orginal source ofpower, the democracy, and of connecting it with anothersource, the old principle of legitimacy and rule by right divine. The French looked on, without enthusiasm and with manyc
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectnapoleo, bookyear1915
