mberlain drew aside the
leathern covering and opened the door, exclaiming as he did so, "The
emperor!" And then there leaped in the rain-soaked, mud-bespattered
being whose excesses had always been as unbridled as his genius. The
door was closed, the leathern curtain again drawn, and the horses set
out at a gallop for Soissons. Within, the shrinking bride was at the
mercy of pure animal passion, feeling upon her hot face a torrent of
rough kisses, and yielding herself in terror to the caresses of wanton
hands.

At Soissons Napoleon allowed no halt, but the carriage plunged on,
still in the rain, to Compiegne. There all the arrangements made with
so much care were thrust aside. Though the actual marriage had not yet
taken place, Napoleon claimed all the rights which afterward were given
in the ceremonial at Paris. He took the girl to the chancellerie, and
not to the chateau. In an anteroom dinner was served with haste to the
imperial pair and Queen Caroline. Then the latter was dismissed with
little ceremony, the lights were extinguished, and this daughter of a
line of emperors was left to the tender mercies of one who always had
about him something of the common soldier--the man who lives for loot
and lust. ... At eleven the next morning she was unable to rise and was
served in bed by the ladies of her household.

These facts, repellent as they are, must be remembered when we call to
mind what happened in the next five years. The horror of that night
could not be obliterated by splendid ceremonies, by studious attention,
or by all the pomp and gaiety of the court. Napoleon was then
forty-one--practically the same age as his new wife's father, the
Austrian emperor; Marie Louise was barely nineteen and younger than her
years. Her master must have seemed to be the brutal ogre whom her
uncles had described.

Installed in the Tuileries, she taught herself compliance. On their
marriage night Napoleon had asked her briefly: "What did your parents
tell you?" And she had answered, meekly: "To be yours altogether and to
obey you in everything." But, though she gave compliance, and though
her freshness seemed enchanting to Napoleon, there was something
concealed within her thoughts to which he could not penetrate. He gaily
said to a member of the court:

"Marry a German, my dear fellow. They are the best women in the
world--gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses."

Yet, at the same time, Napoleon felt a deep anxiety le