to be overruled either by circumstances or pride. Had he relied on his
superstition even, the chances are that St. Helena would never have
had the stigma of his captivity stamped upon it.

French and Austrian alliances have never, so far as they affected
political history, been very successful. The stability of earthly
things is governed, not by sentiment or theoretic doctrines, but by
facts as hard as granite, and no one knew this more thoroughly than
the man who fell a victim to the devices of the Austrians and their
French allies.

He was usually reticent about his domestic sorrows while in exile, but
when his thoughts were far off, reviewing the great mystery of human
destiny, he broke the rule, and with a sort of languid frankness spoke
the thoughts that crowded his mind, and it was during these spasmodic
periods that he opened his soul by declaring that it was his "having
married a princess of Austria that ruined him, and that his marriage
with Marie Louise was the cause of the expedition into Russia," and
that "he might not have been at St. Helena had he married a
Frenchwoman." It is said that he seriously thought of doing this, and
had some available ladies put before him with that object. These
dreamy utterances reveal that his mind was centred on the causes of
his misfortunes, and that he held definite views on the marriage
tragedy, and perhaps his sense of pride, the interests of his son (the
King of Rome), and the reluctance to admit that he knew he was going
wrong at the time, constrained him to withhold much that he thought
and knew. The impression we get is that he could not bring himself to
utter the whole of the unutterable canker which haunted him.

It is strange that this keen-sighted man should have yielded up his
own convictions and sunk under the admonitions of less capable judges.
Even so far back as the Directory days, when Bernadotte was insulted
at Vienna, he summed up the Austrian character in the following
terms:--"When the Austrians think of making war, they do not insult;
they cajole and flatter the enemy, so that they may have a better
chance to stick a knife into him." He told the Directory they did not
understand the Cabinet of Vienna; "it is the meanest and most
perfidious to be found." "It will not make war with you because it
cannot." "Peace with Austria is only a truce." His diagnoses were
confirmed by Bernadotte, and more than confirmed in after years. The
marvel is that he did