. But
there is no necessity to seek any scapegoat. In reality the outlook in
1812 was better than in 1809. Napoleon's spirits were higher, his
conscripts were not visibly worse than any drafted since the beginning
of the Consulate, and the veteran Coignet's remark concerning the
march to Russia is that "Providence and courage never abandon the good
soldier." As to the commander-in-chief, he had largely forsaken his
licentious courses, partly from reasons of policy, partly because of
his sincere attachment to wife and child. Throughout the years of
youth and early manhood he had indulged his amorous passions, but
until his second marriage not a single woman had been preferred to
power, not even Josephine. Maria Louisa, however, was an imperial
consort, for whom no attention, no elevation, was too great. Pliant
while an Austrian archduchess, she remained so as empress, apparently
without will or enterprise. Men felt, nevertheless, that, remaining an
Austrian externally, she was probably still one at heart, perhaps a
mere lure thrown out to keep the hawk from other quarry. There was
much in her subsequent conduct to justify such suspicions, but the
utter shamelessness of her later years argues rather the
self-abandonment of one in revolt against the rigid social restraints
and personal annihilation of early life. The hours which Napoleon
spent with her were so many that he laid himself open to the charge of
uxoriousness. The physician attendant at the birth of the infant King
of Rome declared that the mother would succumb to a second
confinement, and the father exercised a self-restraint consonant with
the consideration he had displayed at the birth of his heir. He was
the squire and constant attendant of his spouse, her riding-master
even, and often her playfellow in the romps of which she was still
fond. Scenes of idyllic bliss were daily observed by the keen eyes of
the attendants. The choice of governesses, tutors, and servants for
the little prince was personally superintended by his sire, and every
detail of the feeding, dressing, and airing of the prospective emperor
was the subject of minute inquiry and regulation. When it was clear
that war was imminent, Napoleon seemed for the first time ready to
abandon his abhorrence for female governance. Certainly his domestic
happiness had not sapped his moral power; possibly it rendered him
over-anxious at times, and, perhaps in revulsion from anxiety,
over-confident.

Du