urn of Napoleon from Elba, believing it to be
impossible to make the Emperor of Austria consent to his wife's rejoining
him (and Maria Louisa had no inclination to a renewal of conjugal
intercourse), Napoleon had not been many days in Paris when he concocted
a plan for carrying off from Vienna both his wife and his son: In this
project force was no less necessary than stratagem. A number of French
of both sexes much devoted to the Emperor, who, had given them rank and
fortune, had accompanied Maria Louisa in 1814 from Paris to Blois and
thence to Vienna. A correspondence was opened with these persons, who
embarked heart and soul in the plot; they forged passports, procured
relays, of horses; and altogether arranged matters so well that but a for
a single individual--one who revealed the whole project a few days
previously to that fixed upon for carrying it into effect--there is
little room to doubt that the plan would have succeeded, and that the
daughter of Austria and the titular King of home would have given such,
prestige as their presence could give at the Tuileries and he
Champs-de-Mai. No sooner had the Emperor of Austria discovered this
plot, which, had it been successful, would have placed him in a very
awkward predicament, than he dismissed all the French people about his
daughter, compelled her to lay aside the armorial bearings and liveries
of Napoleon, and even to relinquish the title of Empress of the French:
No force, no art, no police could conceal these things from the people
of Paris; who, moreover, and at nearly the same time; were made very
uneasy by the failure of Murat's attempt in Italy, which greatly
increased the power and political influence of Austria. Murat being
disposed of, the Emperor Francis was enabled to concentrate all his
forces in Italy, and to hold them in readiness for the re-invasion of
France.

"Napoleon," says Lavallette, "had undoubtedly expected that the Empress
and his son would be restored to him; he had published his wishes as a
certainty, and to prevent it was, in fact, the worst injury the Emperor
of Austria could have done, him. His hope was, however, soon destroyed.

"One evening I was summoned to the palace. I found the Emperor in a
dimly-lighted closet, warming himself in a corner of the fireplace, and
appearing to suffer already from the complaint which never afterwards
left him. 'Here is a letter,' he said, 'which the courier from Vienna
says is meant for you--read