Part 20 (1/2)

Little did the great conqueror dream how deadly was the blohich this Austrian count was destined finally to deal hih one, belonged to the old nobility of Austria He had proved his bravery in war and as a duelist, and he was a diplomat as well as a soldier Despite his mutilation, he was a handsome and accomplished courtier, a man of wide experience, and one who bore hiested the spirit of ro to Masson, he was an Austrian Don Juan, and had won the hearts of many women At thirty he had formed a connection with an Italian woman named Teresa Pola, whom he had carried away from her husband She had borne him five children; and in 1813 he had iti was alreater one Apart from his exploits on the field of battle he had been attached to the Austrian eh, had been decorated by Napoleon hiion of Honor Four months later we find him minister of Austria at the court of Sweden, where he helped to lay the train of intrigue which was to detach Bernadotte from Napoleon's cause In 1812, as has just been said, he ith Marie Louise for a short ti schemes Two years after this he overthrew Murat at Naples; and then hurried on post-haste to urge Prince Eugene to abandon Bonaparte

When the great struggle of 1814 neared its close, and Napoleon, fighting with his back to the wall, was about to succumb to the united armies of Europe, it was evident that the Austrian ehter from her husband In fact, when Napoleon was sent to Elba, Marie Louise returned to Vienna The cynical Austrian diploain meet her imperial husband She was made duchess of Parma in Italy, and set out for her new possessions; and the htless eye was chosen to be her escort and co received this coe smile flitted across his face; and presently he remarked, with cynical frankness:

”Before six months I shall be her lover, and, later on, her husband”

He took up his post as chief escort of Marie Louise, and they journeyed slowly to Munich and Baden and Geneva, loitering on the way A Europe this couple attracted slight attention Napoleon, in Elba, longed for his wife and for his little son, the King of Roes and e was intercepted, and no courier reached his destination Meanwhile Marie Louise was lingering agreeably in Switzerland She was happy to have escaped from the whirlpool of politics and war A was always by her side, attentive, devoted, trying in everything to please her With hi to her in his rich barytone songs of love He seeallant soldier whose soul was also touched by sentihter of an iainst the fascinations of a person so far inferior to herself in rank, and who, beside the great e that she had never really loved Napoleon, she nity, to share his fate, and to go down in history as the ereatest man whom modern times have known

But Marie Louise was, after all, a wouidance of her heart To her Napoleon was still the man who had met her amid the rain-storm at Courcelles, and had from the first moin Later he had in his way tried to ht had never wholly left her memory Napoleon had unrolled before her the draiven to hiht be more true to say that she had been his mistress But she had never been duly wooed and won and ht of every wo, with his deferential netic touch, his ardor, and his devotion, appeased that craving which the ions could not satisfy

In less than the six ical ht she listened to his words of love; and then, drawn by that irresistible pohich masters pride and wo to his caresses, and knowing that she would be parted from him no more except by death

From that moment he was bound to her by the closest ties and lived with her at the petty court of Parma His prediction came true to the very letter Teresa Pola died, and then Napoleon died, and after this Marie Louise and Neipperg were united in a e Three children were born to the to note how much of an impression was made upon her by the final exile of her iht her she observed, casually:

”Thanks By the way, I should like to ride this h to risk it?”

Napoleon, on his side, passed through agonies of doubt and longing when no letters cahts during his exile at St Helena ”When his faithful friend and constant companion at St Helena, the Count Las Casas, was ordered by Sir Hudson Lowe to depart from St Helena, Napoleon wrote to him:

”Should you see, some day, my wife and son, embrace them For two years I have, neither directly nor indirectly, heard from them There has been on this island for six arden of Schoenbrunn a few lish authorities at St Helena) have carefully prevented hi them”

At last the truth was told hinanimity, or itNever in all his days of exile did he say one word against her Possibly in searching his own soul he found excuses such as we reat affection, and shortly before his death he said to his physician, Antommarchi:

”After my death, I desire that you will take my heart, put it in the spirits of wine, and that you carry it to Parma to my dear Marie Louise You will please tell her that I tenderly loved her-that I never ceased to love her You will relate to her all that you have seen, and every particular respecting my situation and death”

The story of Marie Louise is pathetic, alrossness about it; and yet, after all, there is a lesson in it-the lesson that true love cannot be forced or summoned at coe, and that it goes out only when evoked by sympathy, by tenderness, and by devotion

END OF VOLUME TWO

THE WIVES OF GENERAL HOUSTON

Sixty or seventy years ago it was considered a great joke to chalk up on any -station, the conspicuous letters ”G T T” The laugh went round, and every one who saw the inscription chuckled and said: ”They've got it on you, old hoss!” The three letters o to Texas in those days meant his ed into bankruptcy and wished to begin life over again in a neorld, or the sheriff had a warrant for his arrest