through the streets. I am really angry at having to go, it will have
terrible disadvantages for you, but they pointed out to me that my son
would be running into danger, and that was why I dared not gainsay
them once I had seen the letter you wrote to the King [sc. Joseph].In further letters she revealed the true calibre of Joseph: he had asked her
to intercede with her father, the Austrian Emperor, to make sure the
Bonaparte family did not suffer from France's humiliation.
Yet most of all, Marie-Louise's correspondence in early 1814 reveals a
woman still very much in love with her husband. She may not yet have
been a woman of the world - she would come to that later - but she had
no doubts about her heart. Two letters in particular show something of
the inner woman. On 2 February she wrote: 'I myself am growing very
brave since your latest successes, and I hope I don't deserve to be called a
child any longer - that's what you used to like to call me before you went
away.' And on 10 March she wrote, to commemorate the anniversary of
the birth of her son in 18u: 'I have been thinking about you so much
today, it is three years since you gave me so moving a proof of your love
that the tears come whenever I think of it, so it's an exceedingly precious
day to me.' It was Napoleon's misfortune that, sunk in self-pity and
depression, he seemed unable to respond to her once he had abdicated. In
more ways than one, it now appeared, he seemed ready to give up on life.