The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise | Page 4

would have
preserved his father-in-law's sympathy and the Austrian alliance; but
being unfortunate, he lost both at once. Unlike the rulers of the old
dynasties, he was condemned either to perpetual victory or to ruin. He
needed triumphs instead of ancestors, and the slightest loss of glory
was for him the token of irremediable decay; incessant victory was the
only condition on which he could keep his throne, his wife, his son,

himself. One day he asked Marie Louise what instructions she had
received from her parents in regard to her conduct towards him. "To be
wholly yours," she answered, "and to obey you in everything." Might
she not have added, "So long as you are not unfortunate"?
But who at the beginning of that fatal year, 1812, could have foretold
the catastrophes which were so near? When Marie Louise was with
Napoleon at Dresden, did he not appear to her like the arbiter of the
world, an invincible hero, an Agamemnon, the king of kings? Never
before, possibly, had a man risen so high. Sovereigns seemed lost amid
the crowd of courtiers. Among the aides-de-camp was the Crown
Prince of Prussia, who was obliged to make special recommendations
to those near him to pay a little attention to his father-in-law, the
Emperor of Austria. What power, what pride, what faith in his star,
when, drawing all Europe after him, he bade farewell to his wife May
29, 1812, to begin that gigantic war which he thought was destined to
consolidate all his greatness and to crown all his glories! But he had not
counted on the burning of Moscow: there is in the air a zone which the
highest balloons cannot pierce; once there, ascent means death. This
zone, which exists also in power, good fortune, glory, as well as in the
atmosphere, Napoleon had reached. At the height of his prosperity he
had forgotten that God was about to say to him: Thou shalt go no
further.
At the first defeat Marie Louise perceived that the brazen statue had
feet of clay. Malet's conspiracy filled her with gloomy thoughts. It
became evident that the Empire was not a fixed institution, but a single
man; in case this man died or lived defeated, everything was gone.
December 12, 1812, the Empress went to her bed in the Tuileries, sad
and ill. It was half-past eleven in the evening. The lady-in-waiting, who
was to pass the night in a neighboring room, was about to lock all the
doors when suddenly she heard voices in the drawing-room close by.
Who could have come at that hour? Who except the Emperor? And, in
fact, it was he, who, without word to any one, had just arrived
unexpectedly in a wretched carriage, and had found great difficulty in
getting the palace doors opened. He had travelled incognito from the
Beresina, like a fugitive, like a criminal. As he passed through Warsaw
he had exclaimed bitterly and in amazement at his defeat, "There is but
one step from the sublime to the ridiculous." When he burst into his

wife's bedroom in his long fur coat, Marie Louise could not believe her
eyes. He kissed her affectionately, and promised her that all the
disasters recounted in the twenty-ninth bulletin should be soon repaired;
he added that he had been beaten, not by the Russians, but by the
elements. Nevertheless, the decadence had begun; his glory was
dimmed; Marie Louise began to have doubts of Napoleon. His courtiers
continued to flatter him, but they ceased to worship him. A dark cloud
lay over the Tuileries. The Empress had but a few days to pass with her
husband. He had been away for nearly six months, from May 29 till
December 12, 1812, and he was to leave again April 15, 1813, to return
only November 9. The European sovereigns could not have continued
in alliance with him even if they had wished it, so irresistible was the
movement of their subjects against him. After Leipsic everything was
lost; that was the signal of the death struggle, which was to be long,
terrible, and full of anguish. Europe listened in terror to the cries of the
dying Empire. But it was all over. The sacred soil of France was
invaded. January 25, 1814, at three in the morning, the hero left the
Tuileries to oppose the invaders. He kissed his wife and his son for the
last time. He was never to see them again. In all, Napoleon had passed
only two years and eight months with Marie Louise; she had had hardly
time enough to become attached to him. Napoleon's sword was broken;
he arrived before Paris too late to save the city, which had just
capitulated, and the foreigners were about to make their triumphal
entrance. Could