Bonaparte had got back from Egypt. His victory at Aboukir had adorned his brows with fresh laurels, and all France hailed the returning conqueror with plaudits of exulting pride. For the first time, Hortense was present at the festivities which the city of Paris dedicated to her step-father; for the first time she saw the homage that men and women, graybeards and children alike, paid to the hero of Italy and Egypt. These festivities and this homage filled her heart with a tremor of alarm, and yet, at the same time, with joyous exultation. In the midst of these triumphs and these ovations which were thus offered to her second father, the young girl recalled the prison in which her mother had once languished, the scaffold upon which the head of her own father had fallen; and frequently when she glanced at the rich gold-embroidered uniform of her brother, she reminded him with a roguish smile of the time when Eugene went in a blue blouse, as a carpenter's apprentice, through the streets of Paris with a long plank on his shoulder. These recollections of the first terrible days of her youth kept Hortense from feeling the pride and arrogance of good fortune, preserved to her modest, unassuming tone of mind, prevented her from entertaining any overweening or domineering propensity in her day of prosperity, or from seeming cast down and hopeless when adversity came. She never lulled herself with the idea of good fortune that could not pass away, but her remembrances kept her eyes wide open, and hence, when misfortune came, it did not take her by surprise, but found her armed and ready to confront it. Nevertheless, she drank in the pleasure of these prosperous days in full draughts, delighted as she was to see the mother, of whom she was so fond, surrounded by such a halo of glory and gratified love; and in the name of her murdered father she thanked General Bonaparte with double fervor, from the bottom of her heart, for having been the means of procuring for her mother, who had suffered so deeply in her first wedded life, so magnificent a glow of splendor and happiness in her second marriage.