In the midst of these preparations the Emperor received news which moved him deeply,—­the King of Naples had just joined the enemies of the French.  On a previous occasion, when his Majesty had seen the Prince Royal of Sweden, after having been marshal and prince of the Empire, enter into a coalition against his native country, I heard him break forth into reproaches and exclamations of indignation, although the King of Sweden had more than one reason to offer in his own defense, being alone in the north, and shut in by powerful enemies against whom he was entirely unable to struggle, even had the interests of his new country been inseparable from those of France.  By refusing to enter into the coalition he would have drawn on Sweden the anger of her formidable neighbors, and with the throne he would have sacrificed and fruitlessly ruined the nation which had adopted him.  It was not to the Emperor he owed his elevation.  But King Joachim, on the contrary, owed everything to the Emperor; for it was he who had given him one of his sisters as a wife, who had given him a throne, and had treated him as well as, and even better than, if he had been a brother.  It was consequently the duty of the King of Naples as well as his interest not to separate his cause from that of France; for if the Emperor fell, how could the kings of his own family, whom he had made, hope to stand?  Both King Joseph and Jerome had well understood this, and also the brave and loyal Prince Eugene, who supported courageously in Italy the cause of his adopted father.  If the King of Naples had united with him they could together have marched on Vienna, and this audacious but at the same time perfectly practicable movement would have infallibly saved France.

These are some of the reflections I heard the Emperor make in speaking of the treachery of the King of Naples, though in the first moments, however, he did not reason so calmly.  His anger was extreme, and with it was mingled grief and emotions near akin to pity:  “Murat!” cried he, “Murat betray me!  Murat sell himself to the English!  The poor creature!  He imagines that if the allies succeed in overthrowing me they would leave him the throne on which I have seated him.  Poor fool!  The worst fate that can befall him is that his treachery should succeed; for he would have less pity to expect from his new allies than from me.”

The evening before his departure for the army, the Emperor received the corps of officers of the National Parisian Guard, and the reception was held in the great hall of the Tuileries.  This ceremony was sad and imposing.  His Majesty presented himself before the assembly with her Majesty the Empress, who held by the hand the King of Rome, aged three years lacking two months.  Although his speech on this occasion is doubtless already well known, I repeat it here, as I do not wish that these beautiful and solemn words of my former master should be wanting in my Memoirs: