the time by every one except by Napoleon.

The disaster of 1814 had rather dispersed than crushed the Bonaparte
family, and they rallied immediately on the return from Elba. The final
fall of the Empire was total ruin to them. The provisions of the Treaty
of Fontainebleau, which had been meant to ensure a maintenance to them,
had not been carried out while Napoleon was still a latent power, and
after 1815 the Bourbons were only too happy to find a reason for not
paying a debt they had determined never to liquidate it was well for any
of the Bourbons in their days of distress to receive the bounty of the
usurper, but there was a peculiar pleasure in refusing to pay the price
promised for his immediate abdication.

The flight of the Bonapartes in 1815 was rapid. Metternich writes to
Maria Louisa in July 1815: "Madame Mere and Cardinal Fesch left yesterday
for Tuscany. We do not know exactly where. Joseph is. Lucien is in
England under a false name, Jerome in Switzerland, Louis at Rome. Queen
Hortense has set out for Switzerland, whither General de Flahault and his
mother will follow her. Murat seems to be still at Toulon; this,
however, is not certain." Was ever such an account of a dynasty given?
These had all been among the great ones of Europe: in a moment they were
fugitives, several of them having for the rest of their lives a bitter
struggle with poverty. Fortunately for them the Pope, the King of
Holland, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, were not under heavy obligations
to Napoleon, and could thus afford to give to his family the protection
denied them by those monarchs who believed themselves bound to redeem
their former servility.

When Napoleon landed Maria Louisa was in Austria, and she was eager to
assist in taking every precaution to prevent her son, the young King of