months without him, from the 29th of May to the 12th of December, 1812. He set out again for the seat of war on the 15th of April, 1813, and did not return until the 9th of November. The Sovereigns of Europe, even had they been so minded, could not have remained faithful to their alliance with him, so irresistible was the animus of their subjects against him. After Leipsic all was lost. It was the herald of the last agony-an agony long, terrible, and replete with struggling and anguish. Terrified Europe resounded with the death-bed shrieks of the expiring Empire. But the deed was done, and France, that holy land, was invaded. On the 25th of January, 1814, at three o'clock in the morning, the giant of battle sallied forth from the Tuileries to stem the tide of invasion. He embraced his wife and son for the last time. He never saw them again. In all, Napoleon only spent two years and eight months with Marie Louise. She had scarcely time to become attached to him.

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Never was more consummate grandeur followed by more complete disaster. Listen, son of man, you far-seeing man who to far-distant centuries unfolds the precautions of thy prudence, God himself speaks to you, and confounds your vain thoughts by the mouth of His prophet Ezekiel. Behold,' says the holy prophet, 'the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an

high stature and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the fields. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches; for his root was by great waters. That was a great fortune, but see its ruin and downfall. Because it was set up on high, and its top was among the clouds, for that reason, says the Lord, I will bring him down with a high hand; disgrace shall befall him, and he shall no longer sustain himself; great shall be his fall. All those who rest beneath his shade shall fall away from him lest they should be overwhelmed in his ruin. He shall be seen lying at full length on the mountain, a useless burden on the earth.'"*

The sword of Napoleon was broken. He appeared before Paris too late to save the capital, which had just capitulated. The foreigners were on the point of making their triumphal entry. How could a woman of twenty-two have had strength enough to withstand

*Bossuet, "Sermon contre l'Ambition.

the storm? If she had possessed the courage, could she have remained in Paris without disobeying Napoleon? Was not flight obligatory upon, and the duty of the unfortunate Sovereign? The Emperor had written to his brother Joseph: "Under any circumstances you must not allow the Empress and the King of Rome to fall into the hands of the enemy. Do not leave my son, and remember that I would rather see him in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of France. The fate of Astyanax, a prisoner with the Greeks, has always seemed to me the most unhappy fate in history." Alas! in spite of the precautions of the great Emperor, his father, the King of Rome, was doomed by fate to be a modern Astyanax, but Marie Louise was not destined to display the fidelity of Andromache!

The allied troops drew near. There was but time to fly. On the 29th of March, 1814, from early morning the carriages stood ready in the Carrousel. At seven o'clock Marie Louise was dressed and ready to start. There were those who wished her to wait awhile. They were vaguely expecting some good news which would obviate her departure, some envoy from Napoleon, some messenger from King Joseph. The officers of the Garde Nationale would fain have detained the Empress. "Remain," they said to her; "we swear to defend you." She thanked them amid tears. the order of the Emperor was explicit. At any cost.

But

the Empress and the King of Rome were to be saved from the hands of the enemy. The danger was imminent. For four hours Marie Louise, still awaiting the unexpected, postponed her departure from moment to moment. Eleven o'clock struck. The Minister of War arrived, and exclaimed that not a moment was to be lost. The little King of Rome, just three years of age, seemed to have a presentiment already that if he set out, he would never come back again. "Do not go to Rambouillet," he said to his mother. " It is a nasty place. Let us stay here." And the child clung to the rail of the staircase and, struggling in the arms of the footman who was carrying him, shouted amid his tears, "I do not want to leave my house. I do not want to go away. Now that papa is not here I am master." Marie Louise was much struck by this childish resistance. An inner voice told her that the child was right, and that to leave the capital was to deliver it into the hands of the Royalists. But the die was cast. Departure was inevitable. Only a few casual bystanders, actuated by curiosity alone, witnessed the flight of the Sovereign who, four year's previously, had made her solemn entry into this same palace of the Tuileries under a triumphal arch amid such tumultuous applause. Not a tear was there in the eyes of those sparse spectators. Not a sound came from their lips. No movement was there of sympathy or regret. Nothing but gloomy silence. One alone

wept, and that was Marie Louise. When she reached the Champs Elysées she turned a last look-a melancholy glance-on the fateful palace she was never to see again. It was not a flight, it was a funeral ceremony.

seen some

The Empress and the King of Rome took refuge at Blois, amid whose shadows was dimly seen phantom sort of imperial government. On the 8th of April, Good Friday, Count Schouvaloff arrived at Blois with a detachment of Cossacks, to conduct Marie Louise and her son to Rambouillet, where the Emperor of Austria was to join them.

On the 16th of April the Emperor of Austria arrived at Blois. Marie Louise, who, two years previously, on the occasion of her triumphal journey to Prague, had left her father amid surroundings of brilliant adulation, saw him once more with profound emotion, and threw the King of Rome in his arms as if to reproach him with having abandoned the child's cause. The grandfather was melted, but the monarch was implacable. Did he not soon afterwards say to Marie Louise: "As my daughter, all I have is yours, even my blood and my life; as a Sovereign, I do not know you." The Russian sentries at the gates of Rambouillet were relieved by Austrian Grenadiers. The Empress of the French had but changed the description of her captivity; she was a prisoner, no longer of the soldiers of the Czar, but of her own father.

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