“Are you fond of the violet?” they would ask when they met. “It will return in the spring,” was the answer—and it was spring already down there. Spring breaks February in Naples. The king was, outwardly, as gay as any, and only Caroline and a very few devoted friends saw the other side of him. The ambassadors of the allies were watching him, as he knew, and, as was bound to happen, word came to them that strange visitors were being entertained at the palace, among them Princess Pauline, Napoleon’s sister, who shortly afterwards returned to Elba. Ferdinand, free of his rather dreadful Austrian consort, proceeded to espouse a certain Lucia Migliano, a lady, it is said, of noble birth, but of a vulgar and immoral character—which is probably true, for how could any clean and self-respecting woman have ever been induced to marry Ferdinand? That monarch now swore to the constitution of 1812. He opened, dissolved, and reopened a Parliament, and generally walked in the popular path. Those happenings, naturally, reacted upon the Neapolitans and helped to undermine Joachim’s position badly. The Carbonari broke out again, soon afterwards, and Joachim began to be afraid lest these popular spasms should come to the ears of the Congress and affect his interests; so he attempted to arrange matters with the Carbonari, which only went to their heads and made them more offensive than ever. Things could not remain so for long, and there is no saying what might have happened had not Napoleon discovered that the allied Powers had not the slightest idea of living up to their word with him, that the promised annuity—promised on the basis of the huge private fortune which they had looted from him—was never going to be paid, and that some one, whom he had small difficulty in connecting with the Bourbon Government in Paris, was attempting to poison him. On the evening of March 4, 1815, Murat, with some of his family, was amusing himself as best he could, attempting to divert his mind from the problems and questions which had harassed him all day, in his wife’s apartments, when there appeared in the doorway a bowing attendant, begging the King and Queen Caroline to give an audience to a messenger who was awaiting their pleasure in the next room. Murat assented carelessly and told the attendant to bring him in, but the former replied that the new-comer had particularly asked that the King and Queen would give themselves the trouble to hear what he had to say, alone. By this time Murat had an inkling of the news which awaited him and hurried out of the room, the Queen upon his arm. In the small apartment leading out of the gallery they found Count Colonna, who came forward out of the dark corner where he had been waiting, and presented his dispatches.