Bartolomeo had always professed a hatred to the traitors with whom Napoleon surrounded himself, expecting to bind them to his cause by dint of victories.It was he of whom it is told that he made three steps to the door of the Emperor's cabinet after advising him to get rid of three men in France on the eve of Napoleon's departure for his celebrated and admirable campaign of 1814.After the second return of the Bourbons Bartolomeo ceased to wear the decoration of the Legion of honor.No man offered a finer image of those old Republicans, incorruptible friends to the Empire, who remained the living relics of the two most energetic governments the world has ever seen.Though the Baron di Piombo displeased mere courtiers, he had the Darus, Drouots, and Carnots with him as friends.As for the rest of the politicians, he cared not a whiff of his cigar's smoke for them, especially since Waterloo.
Bartolomeo di Piombo had bought, for the very moderate sum which Madame Mere, the Emperor's mother, had paid him for his estates in Corsica, the old mansion of the Portenduere family, in which he had made no changes.Lodged, usually, at the cost of the government, he did not occupy this house until after the catastrophe of Fontainebleau.Following the habits of simple persons of strict virtue, the baron and his wife gave no heed to external splendor;their furniture was that which they bought with the mansion.The grand apartments, lofty, sombre, and bare, the wide mirrors in gilded frames that were almost black, the furniture of the period of Louis XIV.were in keeping with Bartolomeo and his wife, personages worthy of antiquity.
Under the Empire, and during the Hundred Days, while exercising functions that were liberally rewarded, the old Corsican had maintained a great establishment, more for the purpose of doing honor to his office than from any desire to shine himself.His life and that of his wife were so frugal, so tranquil, that their modest fortune sufficed for all their wants.To them, their daughter Ginevra was more precious than the wealth of the whole world.When, therefore, in May, 1814, the Baron di Piombo resigned his office, dismissed his crowd of servants, and closed his stable door, Ginevra, quiet, simple and unpretending like her parents, saw nothing to regret in the change.
Like all great souls, she found her luxury in strength of feeling, and derived her happiness from quietness and work.These three beings loved each other too well for the externals of existence to be of value in their eyes.
Often, and especially after the second dreadful fall of Napoleon, Bartolomeo and his wife passed delightful evenings alone with their daughter, listening while she sang and played.To them there was a vast secret pleasure in the presence, in the slightest word of that child; their eyes followed her with tender anxiety; they heard her step in the court-yard, lightly as she trod.Like lovers, the three would often sit silently together, understanding thus, better than by speech, the eloquence of their souls.This profound sentiment, the life itself of the two old people, animated their every thought.Here were not three existences, but one,--one only, which, like the flame on the hearth, divided itself into three tongues of fire.If, occasionally, some memory of Napoleon's benefits and misfortunes, if the public events of the moment distracted the minds of the old people from this source of their constant solicitude, they could always talk of those interests without affecting their community of thought, for Ginevra shared their political passions.What more natural, therefore, than the ardor with which they found a refuge in the heart of their only child?
