avor
to make a great stroke. The emperor is gallant, and what he denies to
diplomacy he may, perhaps, accord to the ladies."

He left her at the door, and the countess entered the emperor's cabinet
alone. She no sooner saw him, than she sank on her knees, and stretched
out her arms.

With a knightly courtesy, the emperor immediately hastened forward to
assist her to rise.

"What are you doing?" asked he, almost in alarm. "A noble lady never has
occasion to bend the knee to a cavalier."

"Sire," exclaimed the countess, "I kneel before you, because it is my
purpose to implore of your majesty the happiness which you alone can
restore to us; it will be a double pleasure to possess Louis XVIII. once
more, when Alexander I. shall have given him to us!"

"Is it then true that the French people are still devoted to the Bourbon
family?"

"Yes, sire, they are our only hope; on them we bestow our whole love!"

"Ah, that is excellent," cried Alexander; "are all French ladies filled
with the same enthusiasm as yourself, madame?"

"Well, if this is the case, it will be France that recalls Louis XVIII.,
and it will not be necessary for us to conduct him back. Let the
legislative bodies declare their will, and it shall be done[32]."

[Footnote 32: Memoires d'une Femme de Qualite, vol. i., p. 179.]

And of all women, Countess Ducayla was the one to bring the legislative
bodies to the desired declaration. She hastened to communicate the hopes
with which the emperor had inspired her to all Paris; on the evening
after her interview with the emperor, she gave a grand _soiree_, to
which she invited the most beautiful ladies of her party, and a number
of senators.

"I desired by this means," says she in her memoirs, "to entrap the
gentlemen into making a vow. How simple-minded I was! Did I not know
that the majority of them had already made and broken a dozen vows?"

On the following day the senate assembled, and elected a provisional
government, consisting of Talleyrand, the Duke of Dalberg, the Marquis
of Jancourt, Count Bournonville, and the Abbe Montesquieu. The senate
and the new provisional government thereupon declared Napoleon deposed
from the throne, and recalled Louis XVIII. But while the senate thus
publicly and solemnly proclaimed its legitimist sentiments in the name
of the French people, it at the same time testified to its own
unworthiness and selfishness. In the treaty made by the senate with its
recalled king,