On 30 March, Paris capitulated. On the 31st, the Allied armies entered the capital. On I April, the Senate appointed a Provisional Government. On the 2nd, the Senate declared Napoleon to have forfeited the throne. On the 3rd, the Legislative Body confirmed the forfeiture. On the 4th, Napoleon abdicated in favour of his son. On the 5th, Marmont treated with the enemy. On the 6th, the Senate drew up a scheme for a constitution. On the 7 th, the troops of the Duc de Raguse rose in insurrection and refused to obey his orders. Also, Napoleon made his plans for withdrawing across the Loire.
It will be seen that the Government of the rue Saint-Florentin had been quick about its work. The empress remained at Blois, where she learnt in rapid succession the declaration of dethronement by the Senate, the emperor's first abdication and the defection of the Duc de Raguse. On the 7th, she learned in the morning of the recall of the Bourbons.
Until that moment, as a cloud hid the future from sight, the self-seekers watching and waiting had not yet ventured to show their hands in her presence. But at the news of the return of the Bourbons everyone sought to make his peace with the new power. The same thing that happened to Napoleon happened to Marie-Louise. It was a race as to who could most openly and with the greatest speed desert her; it was a race of ingratitude, it was a steeplechase of treason.
She had left Paris a week before, the daughter of an emperor, the wife of an emperor, the mother of a king! Orléans had saluted her, as she passed through, with the pealing of its bells and the firing of its artillery. She had a court around her, a treasure in her arms; two peoples, those of France and Italy, some forty millions of souls, were her subjects. In a week she lost rank, power, inheritance, kingdom; in an hour she found herself left alone with a poor deserted child, and treasure that was speedily taken away from her. God forbid that I should pity the lot of this woman! But those who betrayed her, those who deserted her, those who immediately robbed her could not plead the excuse of an unknown future still hid from them.
On the 7th, as we have said, the whole court fled. On the morning of the 8th, the two kings, Jérôme and Joseph, also left. On the evening of the 8th, General Schouwaloff arrived with orders from the sovereigns to take her from Blois to Orléans and from Orléans to Rambouillet. Finally, on the morning of the 9th, this announcement appeared in the Moniteur:—
"The Provisional Government having been informed that by order of the sovereign whose dethronement was solemnly pronounced on 3 April, considerable funds were taken away from Paris, during the days which preceded the occupation of that city by the allied troops:
It is decreed—
"That these funds be seized wherever they may be found, in whose-soever hands they may be found, and that they be deposited immediately in the nearest bank."
This order was elastic: it did not make any distinction between the public treasure of the nation and the emperor's private property. Moreover, they confided the execution of this order to a man whose hatred for the fallen house would naturally incline him to the most violent measures. They chose M. Dudon. I am happily too young to be able to say who this M. Dudon was; I have therefore asked the Duc de Rovigo, whose accuracy is well known. Here is his reply to my questions:—
"M. Dudon was imprisoned at Vincennes, for having deserted his post, for having left the army of Spain and, full of cowardly fears himself, for having communicated them to whomsoever he met."
Nevertheless, M. Dudon hesitated; he looked about for an intermediary; he did not dare to put his hand directly upon this wealth, which was so much needed to pay for past treacheries and defections to come.
Again, what has M. le Duc de Rovigo to say? Let him be unto us the bronze mouthpiece of truth: I write under his dictation.