ion of these triumphs and of this fortune; she had always
awaited the coming evil in silent expectation, and she was therefore now
ready to face it bravely, and to defend herself and her children against
its attacks. She therefore was calm and self-possessed, while the entire
imperial family was terror-stricken, while all Paris was in a panic,
while the fearful intelligence, "The Cossacks are coming, the Cossacks
are marching on Paris!" was overrunning the city. "The Grand-duke
Constantine has promised his troops that they shall warm themselves at
the burning ruins of Paris, and the Emperor Alexander has sworn that he
will sleep in the Tuileries."

Nothing was now dreamed of but plundering, murder, and rapine; people
trembled not only for their lives, but also for their property, and
hastened to bury their treasures, their jewelry, their gold and silver,
to secure it from the rapacious hands of the terrible Cossacks.
Treasures were buried in cellars, or hid away in the walls of houses.
The Duchess de Bassano caused all her valuable effects to be put in a
hidden recess, and the entrance to the same to be walled up and covered
with paper. There were among these valuable effects several large
clocks, in golden cases, that were richly studded with precious stones,
but it had unfortunately been forgotten to stop them, so that for the
next week they continued to strike the hours regularly, and thereby
betrayed to the neighbors the secret the duchess had so anxiously
endeavored to conceal.

But the cry, "The Cossacks are coming!" was not the only alarm-cry of
the Parisians. Another, and a long-silent cry, was now heard in Paris--a
strange cry, that had no music for the ear of the imperialist, but one
that, to the royalist, had a sweet and familiar sound. This cry was,
"The Count de Lille!" or, as the royalists said, "King Louis XVIII." The
royalists no longer whispered this name, but proclaimed it loudly and
with enthusiasm, and even those of them who had attached themselves to
the imperial court, and played a part at the same, now dared to remove
their masks a little, and show their true countenance.

Madame Ducayla, one of the most zealous royalists, although attached to
the court society of the Tuileries, had gone to Hartwell, to convey to
him messages of love and respect in the name of all the royalists of
Paris, and to tell him that they had now begun to smooth the way for his
return to France and the throne of his ance