"The fault of whom?" insisted Napoléon.
"Sire," stammered M. Hyrvoix, "in the time of Louis XVI. people said, 'It is the fault of the Austrian woman.'"
"Yes, go on."
"Under Napoléon III. people say, 'It is the fault of the Spanish woman.'"
The words had scarcely left M. Hyrvoix' lips, when a door leading to the inner apartments opened, and the Empress appeared on the threshold. "She looked like a beautiful fury," said M. Hyrvoix to his friend, from whom I have got the story. "She wore a white dressing-gown, her hair was waving on her shoulders, and her eyes shot flames. She hissed, rather than spoke, as she bounded towards me; and, ridiculous as it may seem, I felt afraid for the moment. 'You will please repeat what you said just now, M. Hyrvoix,' she gasped in a voice hoarse with anger.
"'Certainly, madame,' I replied, 'seeing that I am here to speak the truth, and, as such, your Majesty will pardon me. I told the Emperor that the Parisians spoke of "the Spanish woman," as they spoke seventy-five and eighty years ago of the Austrian woman.'"
"'The Spanish woman! the Spanish woman!' she jerked out three or four times—and I could see that her hands were clenched;—'I have become French, but I will show my enemies that I can be Spanish when occasion demands it.'
"With this she left as suddenly as she had come, taking no notice of the Emperor's uplifted hand to detain her. When the door closed upon her, I said to the Emperor, 'I am more than grieved, sire, that I spoke.'
"'You did your duty,' he said, grasping my hand."
As a matter of course, the threat to show her enemies that she could be Spanish when occasion required was, in this instance, an empty one, because "the enemies" happened to be legion. A scapegoat was found, however, in the honest functionary who had, in the exercise of his duty, frankly warned the Emperor of the ugly things that were said about her. Next morning, M. Hyrvoix was appointed Receiver-General for one of the departments—that is, exiled to the provinces.