A lady cousin—the Countess Napoleone Camerata, daughter of Elisa Bacciochi, a sister of the Emperor, easily obtained a passport from the Pope's Secretary of State, and coquetted so successfully with the Austrian Ambassador, that he gave it a double guarantee of good faith by signing it. This impetuous and eccentric female made her way uninterruptedly to Vienna, found her cousin on the doorstep, made a rush for him and seized his hand, then shouted, "Who can prevent my kissing my sovereign's hand?" She also found means to convey letters to him. There is not much said about this Napoleonic dash, but from the records that are available the incident set the heroes—comprising the allied Courts (including France)—into a flutter of excitement. The fuss created by the enterprise of the pretty little Countess gives a lurid insight into the wave of comic derangement which must have taken possession of men's minds.

This lady received a pension during the Third Empire, and in eighteen years it mounted to over six million francs. She died in Brittany, 1869, and left her fortune to the Prince Imperial.

That there was a determined and well-conceived plot to carry the Duke off is undoubted, but the counter-plots prevailed against the more ardent Bonapartists who were thirsting for a resurrection of the glorious Empire. Prince Louis Napoleon, the eldest son of King Louis, disagreed with the idea of his family. He looked upon the Emperor's son as being an Austrian Prince, imbued with Austrian methods and policy, and therefore dangerous to the best interests of France. This Prince went so far as to hail with pleasure the crowning of Louis Philippe. He died in 1831. In the following year his Imperial cousin passed on too, and his demise was a great blow to the Bonapartists' cause, and it well-nigh killed the aged Madame Mère, who had centred all her hopes in him. Marie Louise announced his death, to his grandmother and asks her to "accept on this sorrowful occasion the assurance of the kindly feeling entertained for her by her affectionate daughter," and here is the cold, dignified, crushing reply from Madame Mère. It is dictated, and dated Rome, August 6, 1832:—

"Madame, notwithstanding the political shortsightedness which has constantly deprived me of all news of the dear child whose death you have been so considerate to announce to me, I have never ceased to entertain towards him the devotion of a mother. In him I still found an object of some consolation, but to my great age, and to my incessant and painful infirmities, God has seen fit to add this blow as fresh proof of His mercy, since I firmly believe that He will amply atone to him in His glory for the glory of this world.

"Accept my thanks, madame, for having put yourself to this trouble in such sorrowful circumstances to alleviate the bitterness of my grief. Be sure that it will remain with me all my life. My condition precludes me from even signing this letter, and I must therefore crave your permission to delegate the task to my brother."

Never a word about the lady's relationship to her son or to herself. Her reply is studiously formal, but every expression of it betokens grief and thoughts of the great martyr whom the woman she was writing to had wronged. There is not a syllable of open reproach, though there runs through it a polite, withering indictment that must assuredly have cut deeply into the callous nature of this notorious Austrian Archduchess who had played her son so falsely.

This wonderful mother of a wonderful family seems to have been the least suspected of political plotting of all the Bonapartists. She was respected by all, and revered and beloved by many. Crowned heads were not indifferent to her strength and nobility of character, but the stupid old King who succeeded her son to the throne of France got it into his head that she was harbouring agents in Corsica to excite rebellion, and he thereupon had a complaint lodged against her. Pius VII., who knew Madame Mère, sent his secretary to see her about this supposed intrigue. She listened to what the representative of the Pope had to say, and then with stern dignity began her reply:—

"Monseigneur, I do not possess the millions with which they credit me, but let M. de Blacas tell his master Louis XVIII. that if I did, I should not employ them to foment troubles in Corsica, or to gain adherents for my son in France, since he already has enough; I should use them to fit out a fleet to liberate him from St. Helena, where the most infamous perfidy is holding him captive."

Then she bowed reverently and left the room.

This was indeed a slashing rebuff both to Pius VII. and the "Most Christian King."