with the equerry who was carrying him, weeping and shouting, "I don't
want to leave my house; I don't want to go away; since papa is away, I
am the master." Marie Louise was impressed by this childish opposition;
a secret voice told her that her son was right; that by abandoning the
capital, they surrendered it to the Royalists. But the lot was cast, and
they had to leave. A mere handful of indifferent spectators, attracted
by no other feeling than curiosity, watched the flight of the sovereign
who, four years before, had made her formal entrance into this same
palace of the Tuileries under a triumphal arch, amid noisy acclamations.
There was not a tear in the eyes of the few spectators; they uttered no
sound, they made no movement of sympathy or regret; there was only a
sullen silence. But one person wept, and that was Marie Louise. When she
had reached the Champs Elysees, she cast a last sad glance at the palace
she was never to see again. It was not a flight, but a funeral.

The Empress and the King of Rome took refuge at Blois, where there
appeared a faint shadow of Imperial government. On Good Friday, April
8, Count Shouvaloff reached Blois with a detachment of Cossacks, and
carried Marie Louise and her son to Rambouillet, where the Emperor of
Austria was to join them. What Napoleon had feared was soon realized.

April 16, the Emperor of Austria was at Blois. Marie Louise, who two
years before had left her father, starting on her triumphal journey to
Prague, amid all form of splendor and devotion, was much moved at seeing
him again, and placed the King of Rome in his arms, as if to reproach
him for deserting the child's cause. The grandfather relented, but the
monarch was stern: did he not soon say to Marie Louise: "As my daughter,
everything that I have is yours, even my blood and my life; as a
sovereign, I do not know you"? The Russian sentinels at the entrance
of the castle of Rambouillet were relieved by Austrian grenadiers. The