olitical cowardice to such a pitch of
delirium as that of forcing a weak woman to forsake her husband,
sacrifice the interests of her child, and tempt her to break her
marriage vow in order that her husband's ruin might be more completely
assured. As a matter of high policy its wickedness will never be
excelled.

At the death of her morganatic husband Marie Louise became
"inconsolable." She gave orders for a "costly mausoleum to be put up
so that her grief might be durably established." In reply to a letter
of condolence written to her by the eminent Italian, Dr. Aglietti, in
which he seems to have made some courteous and consoling observations,
she says "that all the efforts of art were powerless, for it is
impossible to fight against the _Divine Will_. You are very right in
saying that time and religion can alone diminish the bitterness of
such a loss. Alas! the former, far from exercising its power over me,
only daily increases my grief." This "amiable," grief-stricken royal
sham, overcharged with expressions of religious fervour, succumbs
again to her natural instincts. "Time," she avers, "cannot console,"
but only increases the depth of her grief for "our dear departed."

Her sentiments would be consummately impressive were it not that we
know how wholly deceitful she was without in the least knowing it. But
the creeping horror of time is quickly softened by her marriage in
1833 to a Frenchman called De Bombelles, who was in the service of her
native land, and is said to have had English blood in his veins. In
spite of the loyal effort of Meneval to make her ironic procession
through life appear as favourable as he can, the only true impression
that can be arrived at is that she was without shame, self-control, or
pity.

A strange sympathiser of Napoleon in his dire distress was a daughter
of Maria Theresa and a sister of Marie Antoinette--Queen Marie
Caroline, grandmother to Marie Louise. She had regarded the Emperor of
the French with peculiar aversion, but when his power was broken and
he became the victim of persecution, this good woman forgot her
prejudices, sent for Meneval, and said to him that she had had cause
to regard Napoleon at one time as an enemy, but now that he was in
trouble she forgot the past. She declared that if it was still the
determination of the Court of Vienna to sever the bonds of unity
between man and wife in order that the Emperor might be deprived of
consolation, it was her grandd