Two days only intervened between Monsieur’s entrance into Paris and the arrival of the Emperor of Austria.  That monarch was not popular among the Parisians.  The line of conduct he had adopted was almost generally condemned, for, even among those who lead most ardently wished for the dethronement of his daughter, through their aversion to the Bonaparte family, there were many who blamed the Emperor of Austria’s behaviour to Maria Louisa:  they would have wished that, for the honour of Francis ii., he had unsuccessfully opposed the downfall of the dynasty, whose alliance he considered as a safeguard in 1809.  This was the opinion which the mass of the people instinctively formed, for they judged of the Emperor of Austria in his character of a father and not in his character of a monarch; and as the rights of misfortune are always sacred in France, more interest was felt for Maria Louisa when she was known to be forsaken than when she was in the height of her splendour.  Francis ii. had not seen his daughter since the day when she left Vienna to unite her destiny with that of the master of half of Europe, and I have already stated how he received the mission with which Maria Louisa entrusted the Duc de Cadore.

I was then too intent on what was passing in Paris and at Fontainebleau to observe with equal interest all the circumstances connected with the fate of Maria Louisa, but I will present to the reader all the information I was able to collect respecting that Princess during the period immediately preceding her departure from France.  She constantly assured the persons about her that she could rely on her father.  The following words, which were faithfully reported to me, were addressed by her to an officer who was at Blois during the mission of M. de Champagny.  “Even though it should be the intention of the Allied sovereigns to dethrone the Emperor Napoleon, my father will not suffer it.  When he placed me on the throne of France he repeated to me twenty times his determination to uphold me on it; and my father is an honest man.”  I also know that the Empress, both at Blois and at Orleans, expressed her regret at not having followed the advice of the members of the Regency, who wished her to stay in Paris.

On leaving Orleans Maria Louisa proceeded to Rambouillet; and it was not one of the least extraordinary circumstances of that eventful period to see the sovereigns of Europe, the dethroned sovereigns of France, and those who had come to resume the sceptre, all crowded together within a circle of fifteen leagues round the capital.  There was a Bourbon at the Tuileries, Bonaparte at Fontainebleau, his wife and son at Rambouillet, the repudiated Empress at Malmaison three leagues distant, and the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia in Paris.