"Well, Berthier, you have seen the empress?"
"I have, sire. I met the empress leaving Orleans."
"Ah, then, she is coming!" exclaimed Napoleon.
"No, sire. Prince Metternich had paid her a visit on the preceding
day, and delivered to her autograph letters from her father the
Emperor of Austria. He had asked his daughter to repair to
Rambouillet, where he would meet her."
"And Louisa consented?"
"She did, sire. Her majesty told me with tears in her eyes that
nothing remained for her but to submit to the will of her father,
because only his intercession could secure her own future and that
of her son. She deplored that she was not at liberty to come to
Fontainebleau, but stated she had solemnly pledged her word to
Prince Metternich, who, in the emperor's name, had required a pledge
neither to see nor to correspond with your majesty."
"And she did not indignantly reject this base demand?" cried the
emperor. "She did not remember that she is my wife, and that she
plighted her faith to me?"
"Sire, the empress said that, for her son's sake, she was allowed
now only to consider herself a princess of Austria, and the Austrian
princesses were all educated in unconditional and unmurmuring
obedience to the orders of the emperor their father. [Footnote:
Meneval, "Memoires," etc., vol. ii., p. 80.] Hence, she obeyed her
father now, in order to enjoy at a later time the happiness of
belonging to your majesty.
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