As the Emperor had now entered Vienna in triumph, the Marquise thought it a good time to implore once more the conqueror's pity. She sent for her son Timoléon on June 1st. She had decided to send her two eldest grandchildren to Vienna with their aunt Mme. d'Houël and the faithful Ducolombier, who offered to undertake the long journey. Chauveau-Lagarde drew up a petition for the children to give to Napoleon, and they left Rouen about July 10th, arriving in Vienna the fortnight following the battle of Wagram. Ducolombier at once sought a means of seeing the Emperor. Hurried by the Marquise, who allowed no discussion of the methods that seemed good to her, he had started without recommendations, letters of introduction or promises of an audience, and had to wait for chance to give him a moment's interview with Napoleon. He established himself with Mme. d'Houël and the children at Schœbrünn, where the imperial quarters were, and by dint of solicitations obtained the privilege of going into the court of the château with other supplicants.
The Emperor was away; he had wished to revisit the scene of his brilliant victory, and during the whole day Ducolombier and his companions waited his return on the porch of the château. Towards evening the gate opened, the guard took up arms, drums beat and the Emperor appeared on horseback in the immense courtyard, preceded by his guides and his mameluke, and followed by a numerous staff. The hearts of the poor little Acquets must have beaten fast when they saw this master of the world from whom they were going to beg their mother's life. In a moment the Emperor was upon them; Ducolombier pushed them; they fell on their knees.
Seeing these mourning figures, Napoleon thought he had before him the widow and orphans of some officer killed during the campaign. He raised the children kindly.
"Sire! Give us back our mother!" they sobbed.
The Emperor, much surprised, took the petition from Mme. d'Houël's hands and read it through. There were a few moments of painful silence; he raised his eyes to the little girls, asked Ducolombier a few brief questions, then suddenly starting on,
"I cannot," he said drily.
And he disappeared among the groups humbly bowing in the hall. Some one who witnessed the scene relates that the Emperor was very much moved when reading the petition. "He changed colour several times, tears were in his eyes and his voice trembled." The Duke of Rovigo asserted that pardon would be granted; the Emperor's heart had already pronounced it, but he was very angry with the minister of police, who after having made a great fuss over this affair and got all the credit, left him supreme arbiter without having given him any information concerning it.
"If the case is a worthy one," said Napoleon, "why did he not send me word of it? and if it is not, why did he give passports to a family whom I am obliged to send away in despair?"
The poor children had indeed to return to France, knowing that they took, as it were, her death sentence to their mother. Each relay that brought them nearer to her was a step towards the scaffold; nothing could now save the poor woman, and she waited in resignation. Never, since Le Chevalier's death, had she lost the impassive manner that had astonished the spectators in court. Whether solitude had altered her ardent nature, or whether she looked on death as the only possible end to her adventurous existence, she seemed indifferent as to her fate, and thought no longer of the future. Licquet had long abandoned her; he had been "her last friend." Of all the survivors of the affair of Quesnay she was the only one left in the conciergerie, the others having gone to serve their terms in Bicêtre or other fortresses.