preserved her composure and courage, and far from endeavoring, like
others, to conceal and secure her treasures, jewelry, and other
valuables, she determined to make no change or reduction whatever in her
manner of living; she wished to show the Parisians that the confidence
of the imperial family in the emperor and his invincibility was not to
be shaken. She therefore continued to conduct her household in truly
royal style, although she had received from the exhausted state treasury
no payment of the appanage set apart for herself and children for a
period of three months. But she thought little of this; her generous
heart was occupied with entirely different interests than those of her
own pecuniary affairs.

She wished to inspire Marie Louise, whom the emperor had constituted
empress-regent on his departure for the army, with the courage which she
herself possessed. She conjured her to show herself worthy of the
confidence the emperor had reposed in her at this critical time, and to
adopt firm and energetic measures. When, on the 28th of March, the
terror-inspiring news was circulated that the hostile armies were only
five leagues from Paris, and while the people were flying from the city
in troops, Hortense hastened to the Tuileries to conjure the empress to
be firm, and not to leave Paris. She entreated Marie Louise, in the
name of the emperor, her husband, and the