of both sexes much devoted to the Emperor, who, had given them rank and
fortune, had accompanied Maria Louisa in 1814 from Paris to Blois and
thence to Vienna. A correspondence was opened with these persons, who
embarked heart and soul in the plot; they forged passports, procured-
relays, of horses; and altogether arranged matters so well that but a for
a single individual--one who revealed the whole project a few days
previously to that fixed upon for carrying it into effect--there is
little room to doubt that the plan would have succeeded, and that the
daughter of Austria and the titular King of home would have given such,
prestige as their presence could give at the Tuileries and he Champs-de-
Mai. No sooner had the Emperor of Austria discovered this plot, which,
had it been successful, would have placed him in a very awkward
predicament, than he dismissed all the French people about his daughter,
compelled her to lay aside the armorial bearings and liveries of
Napoleon, and even to relinquish the title of Empress of the French: No
force, no art, no police could conceal these things from the people of
Paris; who, moreover, and at nearly the same time; were made very uneasy
by the failure of Murat's attempt in Italy, which greatly increased the
power and political influence of Austria. Murat being disposed of, the
Emperor Francis was enabled to concentrate all his forces in Italy, and
to hold them in readiness for the re-invasion of France.

"Napoleon," says Lavallette, "had undoubtedly expected that the Empress
and his son would be restored to him; he had published his wishes as a
certainty, and to prevent it was, in fact, the worst injury the Emperor
of Austria could have done, him. His hope was, however, soon destroyed.

"One evening I was summoned to the palace. I found the Emperor in a
dimly-lighted closet, warming himself in a corner of the fireplace, and
appearing to suffer already from the complaint which never afterwards