who rejoiced in the German successes, and of French women, married to
Germans, who deplored them? Marriage is but an incident; one's nature is
determined at one's birth. In Austria, Marie Louise found again the same
sympathy and affection that she had left there. There was a sort of
conspiracy to make her forget France and love Germany. The Emperor
Francis persuaded her that he was her sole protector, and controlled her
with the twofold authority of a father and a sovereign. She who a few
days before had been the Empress of the French, the Queen of Italy, the
Regent of a vast empire, was in her father's presence merely a humble
and docile daughter, who told him everything, obeyed him in everything,
who abdicated her own free will, and promised, even swore, to entertain
no other ideas or wishes than such as agreed with his.

Nevertheless, when she arrived at Vienna, Marie Louise had by no means
completely forgotten France and Napoleon. She still had Frenchmen in her
suite; she wrote to her husband and imagined that she would be allowed
to visit him at Elba, but she perfectly understood all the difficulties
of the double part she was henceforth called upon to play. She felt that
whatever she might do she would be severely criticised; that it would
be almost impossible to secure the approval of both her father and her
husband. Since she was intelligent enough to foresee that she would be
blamed by her contemporaries and by posterity, was she not justified in
lamenting her unhappy lot? She, who under any other conditions would
have been an excellent wife and mother, was compelled by extraordinary
circumstances to appear as a heartless wife and an indifferent mother.
This thought distressed Marie Louise, who at heart was not thoroughly
contented with herself. She wrote, under date of August 9, 1814: "I am
in a very unhappy and critical position; I must be very prudent in my
conduct. There are moments when that thought so distracts me that I
think that the best thing I could do would be to die."