But Hortense was far from feeling the confidence which she exhibited in the presence of the empress and of her own court.  She had never believed in the duration of these triumphs and of this fortune; she had always awaited the coming evil in silent expectation, and she was therefore now ready to face it bravely, and to defend herself and her children against its attacks.  She therefore was calm and self-possessed, while the entire imperial family was terror-stricken, while all Paris was in a panic, while the fearful intelligence, “The Cossacks are coming, the Cossacks are marching on Paris!” was overrunning the city.  “The Grand-duke Constantine has promised his troops that they shall warm themselves at the burning ruins of Paris, and the Emperor Alexander has sworn that he will sleep in the Tuileries.”

Nothing was now dreamed of but plundering, murder, and rapine; people trembled not only for their lives, but also for their property, and hastened to bury their treasures, their jewelry, their gold and silver, to secure it from the rapacious hands of the terrible Cossacks.  Treasures were buried in cellars, or hid away in the walls of houses.  The Duchess de Bassano caused all her valuable effects to be put in a hidden recess, and the entrance to the same to be walled up and covered with paper.  There were among these valuable effects several large clocks, in golden cases, that were richly studded with precious stones, but it had unfortunately been forgotten to stop them, so that for the next week they continued to strike the hours regularly, and thereby betrayed to the neighbors the secret the duchess had so anxiously endeavored to conceal.

But the cry, “The Cossacks are coming!” was not the only alarm-cry of the Parisians.  Another, and a long-silent cry, was now heard in Paris—­a strange cry, that had no music for the ear of the imperialist, but one that, to the royalist, had a sweet and familiar sound.  This cry was, “The Count de Lille!” or, as the royalists said, “King Louis XVIII.”  The royalists no longer whispered this name, but proclaimed it loudly and with enthusiasm, and even those of them who had attached themselves to the imperial court, and played a part at the same, now dared to remove their masks a little, and show their true countenance.

Madame Ducayla, one of the most zealous royalists, although attached to the court society of the Tuileries, had gone to Hartwell, to convey to him messages of love and respect in the name of all the royalists of Paris, and to tell him that they had now begun to smooth the way for his return to France and the throne of his ancestors.  She had returned with authority to organize the conspiracy of the royalists, and to give them the king’s sanction.  Talleyrand, the minister of Napoleon, the glittering weathercock in politics, had already experienced a change in disposition, in consequence of the shifting political wind, and when Countess Ducayla, provided with secret instructions for Talleyrand from Louis XVIII., entered his cabinet and said in a loud voice, “I come from Hartwell, I have seen the king, and he has instructed me—­” he interrupted her in loud and angry tones, exclaiming:  “Are you mad, madame?  You dare to confess such a crime to me?” He had, however, then added in a low voice:  “You have seen him, then?  Well, I am his most devoted servant[24].”