marshal appeared, his Majesty
inquired, "Who is the idiot that could have conceived such an idea?
Order the painter to come and efface all that. He must have little
respect for women to be guilty of such an indecency."

When the court sojourned at Fontainebleau, the inhabitants indemnified
themselves amply for his Majesty's long absences by the high price at
which they sold all articles of food. Their extortions became scandalous
impositions, and more than one foreigner making an excursion to
Fontainebleau thought himself held for ransom by a troop of Bedouins.
During the stay of the court; a wretched sacking-bed in a miserable inn
cost twelve francs for a single night; the smallest meal cost an
incredible price, and was, notwithstanding, detestable; in fact, it
amounted to a genuine pillage of travelers. Cardinal Caprara,

[Giovanni Battista Caprara, born of a noble family at Bologna,
1733; count and archbishop of Milan; cardinal, 1792; Negotiated the
Concordat, 1801; died 1810]

whose rigid economy was known to all Paris, went one day to Fontainebleau
to pay his court to the Emperor, and at the hotel where he alighted took
only a single cup of bouillon, and the six persons of his suite partook
only of a very light repast, as the cardinal had arranged to return in
three hours; but notwithstanding this, as he was entering his carriage,
the landlord had the audacity to present him with a bill for six hundred
francs! The prince of the church indignantly protested, flew into a
rage, threatened, etc., but all in vain; and the bill was paid.

Such an outrageous imposition could not fail to reach the Emperor's ears,
and excited his anger to such a degree that he at once ordered a fixed
schedule of prices, which it was forbidden the innkeepers to exceed.
This put an end to the exactions of the bloodsuckers of Fontainebleau.

On the 21st of August, there arrived at Paris the Princess Catharine of
Wurtemberg, future wife of Prince Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia.
This princess was about twenty-four years of age, and very beautiful,
with a most noble and gracious bearing; and though policy alone had made
this marriage, never could love or voluntary choice have made one that
was happier.

The courageous conduct of her Majesty the Queen of Westphalia in 1814,
her devotion to her dethroned husband, and her admirable letters to her
father, who wished to tear her from the arms of King Jerome, are matters
of history.