When all her hopes had vanished Maria Louisa left Rambouillet to return to Austria with her son.  She did not obtain permission to see Napoleon before her departure, though she had frequently expressed a wish to that effect.  Napoleon himself was aware of the embarrassment which might have attended such a farewell, or otherwise he would no doubt have made a parting interview with Maria Louisa one of the clauses of the treaty of Paris and Fontainebleau, and of his definitive act of abdication.  I was informed at the time that the reason which prevented Maria Louisa’s wish from being acceded to was the fear that, by one of those sudden impulses common to women, she might have determined to unite herself to Napoleon’s fallen fortune, and accompany him to Elba; and the Emperor of Austria wished to have his daughter back again.

Things had arrived at this point, and there was no possibility of retracting from any of the decisions which had been formed when the Emperor of Austria went to see his daughter at Rambouillet.  I recollect it was thought extraordinary at the time that the Emperor Alexander should accompany him on this visit; and, indeed, the sight of the sovereign, who was regarded as the head and arbiter of the coalition, could not be agreeable to the dethroned Empress.

—­[Meneval (tome ii. p. 112), then with Maria Louisa as Secretary, who gives some details of her interview with the Emperor Francis on the 16th of April, says nothing about the Czar having been there; a fact he would have been sure to have remarked upon.  It was only on the 19th of April that Alexander visited her, the King of Prussia coming in his turn on the 22d; but Bourrienne is right in saying that Maria Louisa complained bitterly of having to receive Alexander, and considered that she was forced by her father to do so.  The poor little King of Rome, then only three years old, had also to be seen by the monarchs.  He was not taken with his grandfather, remarking that he was not handsome.  Maria Louisa seems, according to Meneval, to have been at this time really anxious to join Napoleon (Meneval, tome ii. p. 94).  She left Rambouillet on the 28d of April stopped one day at Grossbois, receiving there her father and Berthier, and taking farewell of several persons who came from Paris for that purpose.  On the 25th of April she started for Vienna, and later for Parma, which state she received under the treaty of 1814 and 1815.  She yielded to the influence brought to bear on her, became estranged from Napoleon, and eventually married her chamberlain, the Comte de Neipperg, an Austrian general.]—­

The two Emperors set off from Paris shortly after each other.  The Emperor of Austria arrived first at Rambouillet, where he was received with respect and affection by his daughter.  Maria Louisa was happy to see him, but the many tears she shed were not all tears of joy.  After the first effusion of filial affection she complained of the situation