holds possession of a large part of my kingdom. With regard to his
treatment of me and mine, he has been very kind. It is easy to see that
he is not a Frenchman." Thus the Emperor Francis ascribed to Napoleon's
Italian birth the politeness with which the hero of Austerlitz treated
him. Does not this simple statement suffice to show in what esteem the
German sovereign held France and the French character?

The Imperial family was at last reunited in Vienna, after many
vicissitudes, early in 1806. But a new misfortune awaited them the
following year. The Empress, whose health was already delicate, had a
miscarriage April 9, 1807, and a pleurisy which seized her carried her
off in four days, in due odor of sanctity, after she had given her
blessing to Marie Louise and the rest of her children. She was only
thirty-five. The untimely death of the amiable and virtuous princess,
whose gayety and kindness had been the life and delight of the court,
plunged her whole family into deep grief.

The Emperor Francis was an excellent husband, but he was not an
inconsolable widower. April 13, 1807, he lost his second wife; but less
than nine months afterwards, January 6, 1808, he married his young
cousin, Marie Louise Beatrice of Este, daughter of the late Archduke
Ferdinand of Modena. This princess, who was born December 14, 1787, was
very short, but attractive in appearance and of an excellent character.
Her disposition was pleasant and her intelligence acute, but she was not
the woman to give Marie Louise any taste for France or the French; for
if in all Europe there was a princess who utterly detested the French
Revolution and all its works, it was the third wife of Francis II.

The new Empress was but four years older than her step-daughter, Marie
Louise, and at the age of twenty-one, she looked much more like the