"It is my turn now!" exclaimed Maria Louisa. She took the bow and fixed her blue eyes with an expression of profound contempt on the repulsive figure. "You must die—ay, die!" she said, gravely. "Bonaparte, I will deliver the world from you, for you are as insatiable as the Minotaur, that required every day a human victim for breakfast. You devour men and countries, and the wails of whole nations are music to your ears. You must die, also, because you look so horrible! God has marked you, and given you a monstrous body, because your soul is that of a monster. I will kill you, therefore, that you may no longer frighten mankind!" She put the arrow on the string and shot.
A loud shout resounded. The arrow remained in the figure. Maria Louisa had hit Bonaparte.
"Hurrah, the Archduchess Maria Louisa has killed Bonaparte!" cried the little ones. "The monster is dead! The robber lives no more! The wretch and villain!"
"Why, what is going on here? Whom are you abusing so shockingly?" asked a voice behind them, and the children, turning around, saw their father, the Emperor Francis, who had entered unnoticed by them.
"We are abusing the malicious robber, papa emperor," exclaimed the Archduchess Marianne, pointing at the figure.
"Your majesty, dear papa emperor," exclaimed little Francis Charles, eagerly—"only think of it, Maria Louisa has hit the heart of Bonaparte. The monster is dead; he is unable now to steal any thing more from us!"
"Sancta Maria!" cried the emperor, "how can you use such language, my son? How can you utter such disrespectful epithets about the illustrious Emperor Napoleon?"
The boy looked at his father in dismay. "Your majesty," he said, timidly, "you yourself told me Napoleon could not be abused enough, and a genuine Hapsburg ought to execrate the infamous robber. Those were your majesty's own words, papa!"
"Oh, I was only joking," exclaimed the emperor, angrily, "and a clever prince, like you, ought to have noticed it at once. But I am talking in earnest now, and forbid you playing this stupid game any more, or uttering another word against the Emperor Napoleon. He is a very illustrious, and moreover an excellent man—a very great emperor—whom every one loves and praises."
"Papa emperor," cried the Archduke Francis Charles, wonderingly, "but your majesty told me at Ofen that every one was abhorring Bonaparte, and—"