himself. One day he asked Marie Louise what instructions she had
received from her parents in regard to her conduct towards him. "To be
wholly yours," she answered, "and to obey you in everything." Might she
not have added, "So long as you are not unfortunate"?

But who at the beginning of that fatal year, 1812, could have foretold
the catastrophes which were so near? When Marie Louise was with Napoleon
at Dresden, did he not appear to her like the arbiter of the world,
an invincible hero, an Agamemnon, the king of kings? Never before,
possibly, had a man risen so high. Sovereigns seemed lost amid the crowd
of courtiers. Among the aides-de-camp was the Crown Prince of Prussia,
who was obliged to make special recommendations to those near him to pay
a little attention to his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria. What
power, what pride, what faith in his star, when, drawing all Europe
after him, he bade farewell to his wife May 29, 1812, to begin that
gigantic war which he thought was destined to consolidate all his
greatness and to crown all his glories! But he had not counted on the
burning of Moscow: there is in the air a zone which the highest balloons
cannot pierce; once there, ascent means death. This zone, which exists
also in power, good fortune, glory, as well as in the atmosphere,
Napoleon had reached. At the height of his prosperity he had forgotten
that God was about to say to him: Thou shalt go no further.

At the first defeat Marie Louise perceived that the brazen statue had
feet of clay. Malet's conspiracy filled her with gloomy thoughts. It
became evident that the Empire was not a fixed institution, but a single
man; in case this man died or lived defeated, everything was gone.
December 12, 1812, the Empress went to her bed in the Tuileries, sad and
ill. It was half-past eleven in the evening. The lady-in-waiting, who
was to pass the night in a neighboring room, was about to lock all the