ompleted; the veterans received their Emperor's minutest care; the
destitute families of soldiers who had perished for France were
relieved; the imperial pair were everywhere conspicuous when a good
work was to be done. Finally, when a plan of regency for Maria Louisa
was divulged, the praiseworthy, genuine sentiment which underlay these
public activities was found to have reinforced their dramatic effect
sufficiently to make the scheme acceptable. This plan, while giving to
the Empress all the splendors of imperial sovereignty throughout both
the Empire and the vassal states, was carefully constructed with
wholesome checks. What she could not do was, however, less evident and
less important than what she could do. In the hands of an able,
devoted wife the regency might have been a tower of strength to an
absent husband battling for the existence of his Empire; worked by a
vain, unstable, and perhaps already disloyal nature, it had, with
all its strength and display, but little value as a safeguard against
the complots of the Talleyrand set, who desired the crash of the
Empire that, amid the ruins, they might further pillage on their own
account.

That the schemers were not sooner successful than they were is due to
a combination of small things--each perhaps trivial in itself, but the
whole most efficacious in perpetuating Napoleon's hold on the French.
During his presence in Paris all the old inquisitiveness and boundless
concern for detail seemed to return without diminution of force.
Before his last departure he had won the popular heart by the model
family life of the Tuileries, which, though never ostentatiously
displayed, was yet seen and widely discussed. In the thick of Russian
horrors he had found time to correspond with his infant's governess
concerning the difficulties and dangers of teething; it was felt that
while the emperor and general was warring on the steppes of Muscovy,
the husband and father was present in spirit on the banks of the
Seine. On his return it was generally remarked that his reception into
the bosom of his family was tender and affectionate, and that parental
pride in a thriving child was paramount to the ruler's ambition for an
established dynasty. The imperial pair were seen in company alike on
the thronged thoroughfares and on the outer boulevards of Paris. They
were always greeted with enthusiasm, sometimes there was a display of
passionate loyalty. When the Emperor visited his inva