[CHAPTER VI]
Napoleon and the Allies—The French army and the Emperor pass through Villers-Cotterets—Bearers of ill tidings.
As the courier had said, His Majesty the Emperor and King had re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th March at eight o'clock in the evening, the birthday of the King of Rome.
Napoleon was as superstitious as the ancients, and would have his omens.
This one was somewhat incomplete. He re-entered the Tuileries on the King of Rome's birthday, but where was that crowned child who was to cost him so many paternal tears at St. Helena?
Alas! the very evening of the day on which I had seen him through Carrousel's palings he left never to return; and his empty cradle had been banished to a corner of the lumber-room. The man who in twenty days re-conquered thirty-two millions of men in so miraculous a fashion searched in vain among all the faces he cared so little about, for the beloved face of his child.
That face was to become pale and to fade away when he was far from it; Schönbrunn was endowed with two qualities which kill quickly: too chilly a sunshine and too fiery a love.
Was it in order to lull his own grief that this all-powerful man attempted to lie, by announcing to France that his child was to be given back to him? Did he stoop to feign an alliance with Austria to strengthen trembling hearts?