Here, if ever, was the chance for Napoleon to win his bride.  Could he have restrained himself, could he have shown the delicate consideration which was demanded of him, could he have remembered at least that he was an emperor and that the girl—­timid and shuddering—­was a princess, her future story might have been far different.  But long ago he had ceased to think of anything except his own desires.

He approached the carriage.  An obsequious chamberlain drew aside the leathern covering and opened the door, exclaiming as he did so, “The emperor!” And then there leaped in the rain-soaked, mud-bespattered being whose excesses had always been as unbridled as his genius.  The door was closed, the leathern curtain again drawn, and the horses set out at a gallop for Soissons.  Within, the shrinking bride was at the mercy of pure animal passion, feeling upon her hot face a torrent of rough kisses, and yielding herself in terror to the caresses of wanton hands.

At Soissons Napoleon allowed no halt, but the carriage plunged on, still in the rain, to Compiegne.  There all the arrangements made with so much care were thrust aside.  Though the actual marriage had not yet taken place, Napoleon claimed all the rights which afterward were given in the ceremonial at Paris.  He took the girl to the chancellerie, and not to the chateau.  In an anteroom dinner was served with haste to the imperial pair and Queen Caroline.  Then the latter was dismissed with little ceremony, the lights were extinguished, and this daughter of a line of emperors was left to the tender mercies of one who always had about him something of the common soldier—­the man who lives for loot and lust. ...  At eleven the next morning she was unable to rise and was served in bed by the ladies of her household.

These facts, repellent as they are, must be remembered when we call to mind what happened in the next five years.  The horror of that night could not be obliterated by splendid ceremonies, by studious attention, or by all the pomp and gaiety of the court.  Napoleon was then forty-one—­practically the same age as his new wife’s father, the Austrian emperor; Marie Louise was barely nineteen and younger than her years.  Her master must have seemed to be the brutal ogre whom her uncles had described.

Installed in the Tuileries, she taught herself compliance.  On their marriage night Napoleon had asked her briefly:  “What did your parents tell you?” And she had answered, meekly:  “To be yours altogether and to obey you in everything.”  But, though she gave compliance, and though her freshness seemed enchanting to Napoleon, there was something concealed within her thoughts to which he could not penetrate.  He gaily said to a member of the court: 

“Marry a German, my dear fellow.  They are the best women in the world—­gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses.”

Yet, at the same time, Napoleon felt a deep anxiety lest in her very heart of hearts this German girl might either fear or hate him secretly.  Somewhat later Prince Metternich came from the Austrian court to Paris.