Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/395

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Marie Louise.
379

child's amusement. He teased him, carrying him in front of the looking-glass, and making grimaces at him, at which the child laughed till he cried. At luncheon-time he would take him on his knee, and dipping his finger in the sauce, smear his face with it."

XIX.

MARIE LOUISE'S TREASON.

I must pass rapidly over the remainder of the story; it is not edifying. When Napoleon's misfortunes came, Marie Louise reverted to her old allegiance, and became the dutiful daughter of her father the loyal subject of Austria once again. When Napoleon was defeated, and had to fly to Elba, he hoped, or professed to hope, that his exile would be shared. "In the island of Elba," he said, "I may still be happy with my wife and my son." When his letters from Elba received no answer, he took alarm, and sent messengers, and wrote letter after letter to his absent wife. "I expect," he says in one, "the Empress at the end of August. I desire her to bring my son, and . . . I am surprised at not receiving any news of her." And when he left Elba to begin the gigantic but brief struggle of the Hundred Days, he appealed to the Emperor of Austria not to separate husband and wife, father and son:

"I am too well acquainted with the principles