stors. She had returned with
authority to organize the conspiracy of the royalists, and to give them
the king's sanction. Talleyrand, the minister of Napoleon, the
glittering weathercock in politics, had already experienced a change in
disposition, in consequence of the shifting political wind, and when
Countess Ducayla, provided with secret instructions for Talleyrand from
Louis XVIII., entered his cabinet and said in a loud voice, "I come from
Hartwell, I have seen the king, and he has instructed me--" he
interrupted her in loud and angry tones, exclaiming: "Are you mad,
madame? You dare to confess such a crime to me?" He had, however, then
added in a low voice: "You have seen him, then? Well, I am his most
devoted servant[24]."

[Footnote 24: Memoires d'une femme de qualite, vol. i., p. 133.]

The royalists held meetings and formed conspiracies with but little
attempt at concealment, and the minister of police, Fouche, whose eyes
and ears were always on the alert, and who knew of everything that
occurred in Paris, also knew of these conspiracies of the royalists; he
did not prevent them, however, but advised caution, endeavoring to
prove to them thereby the deep reverence which he himself experienced
for the unfortunate royal family.

In the midst of all this confusion and anxiety, Queen Hortense alone
preserved her composure and courage, and far from endeavoring, like
others, to conceal and secure her treasures, jewelry, and other
valuables, she determined to make no change or reduction whatever in her
manner of living; she wished to show the Parisians that the confidence
of the imperial family in the emperor and his invincibility was not to
be shaken. She therefore continued to conduct her household in truly
royal style, although she had received from the exhausted state treasury
no payment of the appanage set apart for herself and children for a
period of three months. But she thought little of this; her generous
heart was occupied with entirely different interests than those of her
own pecuniary affairs.

She wished to inspire Marie Louise, whom the emperor had constituted
empress-regent on his departure for the army, with the courage which she
herself possessed. She conjured her to show herself worthy of the
confidence the emperor had reposed in her at this critical time, and to
adopt firm and energetic measures. When, on the 28th of March, the
terror-inspiring news was circulated that the hostile armies wer