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We have told the story of the lord who lived at Basking Ridge; now we will tell the story of a much more exalted personage, one who had sat upon a throne, and worn a crown and royal robes rich with diamonds and precious stones, and who lived on a breezy hill on the banks of the Delaware. What he was doing in New Jersey, and how he had come to wear a crown and royal robes, we will now proceed to tell.

This exalted personage was not a king when he was living in New Jersey, but he had been a king. In fact, if we may not say that he had been two kings, we can say that he had been a king twice. He was Joseph Bonaparte, the eldest brother of the great emperor, Napoleon, who, after having conquered a great many nations of Europe, and having deposed their kings, supplied them with new sovereigns out of his own family. Joseph was sent to Italy to be King of Naples. He did not particularly want to be king, and he knew that the people did not want him, and after he had been in Naples some time, reigning under his brother’s orders with no great success, the emperor determined to transfer him to Spain, whose throne had just been made vacant. Having been informed that he was to go to Madrid, Joseph obeyed, but he did not like it.

Moreover, the people of Spain did not like it, and after a time they rose up in rebellion, and were assisted by the English and Portuguese, and forced the king to fly from Spain.

The ex-king of Naples and Spain had various adventures in France and Switzerland; and when the power of the great Napoleon came to an end, he was obliged to fly, or he also might have been sent to Elba or some other place equally undesirable, so he determined to come to America. In a little brig of two hundred tons, a very small vessel to sail on the ocean, he crossed the Atlantic in disguise, not even the captain of the vessel knowing who he was. He was accompanied by his secretary; and when the two reached America and made themselves known, they were treated with great respect and attention. In fact, America owed so much to France, that she was very willing to show her gratitude.

Now that he was well out of Europe, Joseph Bonaparte gave up all idea of returning, and in deciding to settle here it was not surprising that he chose to make his home in New Jersey. He bought a place near Bordentown, on a high wooded hill called Point Breeze, and built a house, which was truly splendid for those days. It had grand halls and staircases and banquet halls, and it must have been larger and more imposing than Lord Stirling’s. His estate, which covered more than a thousand acres, was beautifully laid out in drives and gardens and lawns, and everything on the place was arranged in a style of beauty and grandeur.

It was three years before this great house, with its surroundings, was finished, and ready for the ex-king’s residence; and when at last he went there, he lived in ex-regal style. His wife was not with him, having remained in Italy on account of ill health, and her physicians would never allow her to come to America. But he had two daughters who were with him during part of his residence in New Jersey, and there were persons who asserted that he had also brought with him the crown of Spain and the royal robes of Italy.

It generally happens, when a sovereign is obliged to abdicate and to fly from his kingdom, that he arranges matters so that he shall not become a pauper when he arrives at the place of refuge. If he is not able to carry away anything more than a valise, he is much more likely to put his royal jewels into it than to fill it up with night clothes and hairbrushes; so when Bonaparte came to New Jersey, he came as a very rich man.