ogether. He had
founded a dynasty. He was the head of a reigning house. He forgot the
principles of the Revolution, and he ruled, as he thought, like other
monarchs, by the grace of God.

As for Marie Louise, she played her part extremely well. Somewhat
haughty and unapproachable to others, she nevertheless studied
Napoleon's every wish. She seemed even to be loving; but one can
scarcely doubt that her obedience sprang ultimately from fear and that
her devotion was the devotion of a dog which has been beaten into
subjection.

Her vanity was flattered in many ways, and most of all by her
appointment as regent of the empire during Napoleon's absence in the
disastrous Russian campaign which began in 1812. It was in June of that
year that the French emperor held court at Dresden, where he played, as
was said, to "a parterre of kings." This was the climax of his
magnificence, for there were gathered all the sovereigns and princes
who were his allies and who furnished the levies that swelled his Grand
Army to six hundred thousand men. Here Marie Louise, like her husband,
felt to the full the intoxication of supreme power. By a sinister
coincidence it was here that she first met the other man, then
unnoticed and little heeded, who was to cast upon her a fascination
which in the end proved irresistible.

This man was Adam Albrecht, Count von Neipperg. There is something
mysterious about his early years, and something baleful about his
silent warfare with Napoleon. As a very young soldier he had been an
Austrian officer in 1793. His command served in Belgium; and there, in
a skirmish, he was overpowered by the French in superior numbers, but
resisted desperately. In the melee a saber slashed him across the right
side of his face, and he was made prisoner. The wound deprived him of
his right eye, so that for the rest of his life he was compelled to
wear a black bandage to conceal the mutilation.

From that moment he conceived an undying hatred of the French, serving
against them in the Tyrol and in Italy. He always claimed that had the
Archduke Charles followed his advice, the Austrians would have forced
Napoleon's army to capitulate at Marengo, thus bringing early eclipse
to the rising star of Bonaparte. However this may be, Napoleon's
success enraged Neipperg and made his hatred almost the hatred of a
fiend.

Hitherto he had detested the French as a nation. Afterward he
concentrated his malignity upon the person of Napol