was
Austrian, while the middle pavilion was neutral, and the farther one
was French. Here she was received by those who were afterward to
surround her--the representatives of the Napoleonic court. They were
not all plebeians and children of the Revolution, ex-stable boys,
ex-laundresses. By this time Napoleon had gathered around himself some
of the noblest families of France, who had rallied to the empire. The
assemblage was a brilliant one. There were Montmorencys and Beaumonts
and Audenardes in abundance. But to Marie Louise, as to her Austrian
attendants, they were all alike. They were French, they were strangers,
and she shrank from them.

Yet here her Austrians must leave her. All who had accompanied her thus
far were now turned back. Napoleon had been insistent on this point.
Even her governess, who had been with her since her childhood, was not
allowed to cross the French frontier. So fixed was Napoleon's purpose
to have nothing Austrian about her, that even her pet dog, to which she
clung as a girl would cling, was taken from her. Thereafter she was
surrounded only by French faces, by French guards, and was greeted only
by salvos of French artillery.

In the mean time what was Napoleon doing at Paris. Since the annulment
of his marriage with Josephine he had gone into a sort of retirement.
Matters of state, war, internal reforms, no longer interested him; but
that restless brain could not sink into repose. Inflamed with the ardor
of a new passion, that passion was all the greater because he had never
yet set eyes upon its object. Marriage with an imperial princess
flattered his ambition. The youth and innocence of the bride stirred
his whole being with a thrill of novelty. The painted charms of
Josephine, the mercenary favors of actresses, the calculated ecstasies
of the women of the court who gave themselves to him from vanity, had
long since palled upon him. Therefore the impatience with which he
awaited the coming of Marie Louise became every day more tense.

For a time he amused himself with planning down to the very last
details the demonstrations that were to be given in her honor. He
organized them as minutely as he had ever organized a conquering army.
He showed himself as wonderful in these petty things as he had in those
great strategic combinations which had baffled the ablest generals of
Europe. But after all had been arranged--even to the illuminations, the
cheering, the salutes, and the etiquett