to which she was reduced.  Her father sympathised with her, but could offer her no consolation, since her misfortunes were irreparable.  Alexander was expected to arrive immediately, and the Emperor of Austria therefore informed his daughter that the Russian monarch wished to see her.  At first Maria Louisa decidedly refused to receive him, and she persisted for some time in this resolution.  She said to her father, “Would he too make me a prisoner before your eyes?  If he enters here by force I will retire to my chamber.  There, I presume, he will not dare to follow me while you are here.”  But there was no time to be lost; Francis ii. heard the equipage of the Emperor of Russia rolling through the courtyard of Rambouillet, and his entreaties to his daughter became more and more urgent.  At length she yielded, and the Emperor of Austria went himself to meet his ally and conduct him to the salon where Maria Louisa remained, in deference to her father.  She did not, however, carry her deference so far as to give a favourable reception to him whom she regarded as the author of all her misfortunes.  She listened with considerable coldness to the offers and protestations of Alexander, and merely replied that all she wished for was the liberty of returning to her family.  A few days after this painful interview Maria Louisa and her son set off for Vienna.

—­[A few days after this visit Alexander paid his respects to Bonaparte’s other wife, Josephine.  In this great breaking up of empires and kingdoms the unfortunate Josephine, who had been suffering agonies on account of the husband who had abandoned her, was not forgotten.  One of the first things the Emperor of Russia did on arriving at Paris was to despatch a guard for the protection of her beautiful little palace at Malmaison.  The Allied sovereigns treated her with delicacy and consideration.

“As soon as the Emperor Alexander knew that the Empress Josephine had arrived at Malmaison he hastened to pay her a visit.  It is not possible to be more amiable than he was to her.  When in the course of conversation he spoke of the occupation of Paris by the Allies, and of the position of the Emperor Napoleon, it was always in perfectly measured language:  he never forgot for a single instant that he was speaking before one who had been the wife of his vanquished enemy.  On her side the ex-Empress did not conceal the tender sentiments, the lively affection she still entertained for Napoleon. . . .  Alexander had certainly something elevated and magnanimous in his character, which would not permit him to say a single word capable of insulting misfortune; the Empress had only one prayer to make to him, and that was for her children."]—­

This visit was soon followed by those of the other Allied Princes.