The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise | Page 7

Elba, but she perfectly understood all
the difficulties of the double part she was henceforth called upon to
play. She felt that whatever she might do she would be severely
criticised; that it would be almost impossible to secure the approval of
both her father and her husband. Since she was intelligent enough to
foresee that she would be blamed by her contemporaries and by
posterity, was she not justified in lamenting her unhappy lot? She, who
under any other conditions would have been an excellent wife and
mother, was compelled by extraordinary circumstances to appear as a
heartless wife and an indifferent mother. This thought distressed Marie
Louise, who at heart was not thoroughly contented with herself. She
wrote, under date of August 9, 1814: "I am in a very unhappy and
critical position; I must be very prudent in my conduct. There are
moments when that thought so distracts me that I think that the best
thing I could do would be to die."
When Napoleon returned from Elba, the situation of Marie Louise, so
far from improving, became only more difficult. She had no illusions
about the fate that awaited her audacious husband, who was unable to
contend, single-handed, against all Europe. She knew better than any
one, not only that he had nothing to hope from the Emperor of Austria,
his father-in-law, but that in this sovereign he would find a bitter,
implacable foe. As to the Emperor Alexander, he swore that he would
sacrifice his last ruble, his last soldier, before he would consent to let
Napoleon reign in France. Marie Louise knew too well the feeling that
animated the Congress at Vienna, to imagine that her husband had the
slightest chance of success. She was convinced that by returning from
Elba, he was only preparing for France a new invasion, and for himself

chains. Since she was a prisoner of the Coalition, she was condemned
to widowhood, even in the lifetime of her husband. She cannot then be
blamed for remaining at Vienna, whence escape was absolutely
impossible.
Marie Louise committed one great error; that, namely, of writing that
inasmuch as she was entirely without part in the plans of the Emperor
Napoleon, she placed herself under the protection of the Allies,--Allies
who at that very moment were urging the assassination of her husband,
in the famous declaration of March 13, 1815, in which they said: "By
breaking the convention, which established him on the island of Elba,
Bonaparte has destroyed the only legal title on which his existence
depended. By reappearing in France, with plans of disturbance and
turmoil, he has, by his own act, forfeited the protection of the laws, and
has shown to the world that there can be no peace or truce with him as
a party. The Powers consequently declare that Napoleon Bonaparte has
placed himself outside of all civil and social relations, and that as an
enemy and disturber of the world's peace, he exposes himself to public
vengeance." April 16, at the moment when the processions designed to
pray for the success of the Austrian armies, were going through the
streets of Vienna to visit the Cathedral and the principal churches, the
Empress of Austria dared to ask the former Empress of the French to
accompany the processions with the rest of the court; but Marie Louise
rejected the insulting proposal. The 6th of May next, when M. de
Méneval, who was about to return to France, came to bid farewell and
to receive her commands, she spoke to this effect to the faithful subject
who was soon to see Napoleon: "I am aware that all relations between
me and France are coming to an end, but I shall always cherish the
memory of my adopted home.... Convince the Emperor of all the good I
wish him. I hope that he will understand the misery of my position.... I
shall never assent to a divorce, but I flatter myself that he will not
oppose an amicable separation, and that he will not bear any ill feeling
towards me.... This separation has become imperative; it will in no way
affect the feelings of esteem and gratitude that I preserve." Then she
gave to M. de Méneval a gold snuff-box, bearing his initials in
diamonds, as a memento, and left him, to hide the emotion by which
she was overcome. Her emotion was not very deep, and her tears soon
dried. In 1814 she had met the man who was to make her forget her

duty towards her illustrious husband. He was twenty years older than
she, and always wore a large black band to hide the scar of a wound by
which he had lost an eye. As diplomatist and as a soldier he had been
one of the most