"What this costs me," she had said to her ladies, "God alone knows, for if I do not positively hate this man, I cannot help looking on him as the man who has made the King and the whole nation miserable. It will be very difficult for me to be courteous, but that is required of me."
The two Countesses were, by accident, in the hall below when the King met the Emperor and conducted him in.
The Countess von Voss, who hated him with all her old heart, shrugged her shoulders at the sight of the small, bloated-looking man who stared at her rudely.
With him came Talleyrand, his famous Minister, his eyes alert, his expression watchful.
The Emperor lifted his eyes; his whole face softened; for, standing with her hand on the rail of the stair, he saw a slight, graceful woman, golden-haired, and arrayed in a white gown of tissue, or gauze, a narrow ribbon sash tied short-waisted fashion, its ends hanging to the embroidered border of her gown; her mantle on her shoulders, a tiny tissue scarf twisted across her throat, like a frame for her face of loveliness.
Never had "The Rose of the King" looked more beautiful, for excitement had brought back colour to pale cheeks, a fire to eyes faded from weeping. And about her whole figure was a girlish pathos.
Napoleon mounted the stairs heavily, for he had grown very stout in Prussia.
"I am sorry," said the Queen, her sweet voice welcoming him, "that you have had to mount so inconvenient a staircase."
Napoleon stared in the bold, rude way he did at everybody.
"One cannot be afraid of difficulties," he said, with a bow, "with such an object in view." And he gazed at her with bold admiration.