She hastened to her writing-desk, and penned that mysterious little note which she sent to the Archduke John in the book which she pretended he had lent to her.
CHAPTER III.
THE COURIER AND THE AMBASSADOR.
The emperor, in returning to his cabinet, like the empress, carefully locked the door behind him. He then turned hastily to the courier, who was standing near the opposite door, and was just bowing most ceremoniously to his majesty.
"Hudelist, it is really you, then?" asked the emperor. "You left your post by the side of Metternich without obtaining my permission to come to Vienna? Could you not find any other man to bring your dispatches? I had commissioned you to remain always by the side of Metternich, watch him carefully, and inform me of what he was doing and thinking."
"Your majesty, I have brought my report with me," said Hudelist;" and as for your majesty's order that I should always remain by the side of Count Metternich, I have hardly violated it by corning to Vienna, for I believe the Count will follow me in the course of a few days. Unless your majesty recalls him to Vienna, the Emperor Napoleon, I think, will expel him from Paris."
"You do not say so!" exclaimed Francis, shrugging his shoulders.
"You think he will issue a manifesto against Metternich, as he did
against the Prussian minister Von Stein? Well, let me hear the news.
What have you to tell me?"
"So many important things, your majesty, that the count and myself deemed it expedient to report to your majesty verbally, rather than send a dispatch which might give you only an unsatisfactory idea of what has occurred. Hence I came post-haste to Vienna, and arrived here only a quarter of an hour since; I pray your majesty therefore to pardon me for appearing before you in my travelling-dress."
"Sit down, you must be tired," said the emperor, good-naturedly, seating himself in an arm-chair, and pointing to the opposite chair. "Now tell me all!"
"Your majesty," said Hudelist, mysteriously, while a strange expression of mischievous joy overspread his ugly, pale face, "the Emperor Napoleon has returned from Spain to France."