"DEAR BROTHER,--In accordance with the verbal instructions I gave you, and the wishes expressed in all my letters, you must on no account allow the Empress and the King of Rome to fall into the hands of the enemy. You will not have any news from me for several days. If the enemy advances upon Paris in such force that you decide any resistance to be useless, send away my son and the regent, the grand dignitaries, ministers, officers of the Senate, presidents of the State Council, chief officers of the Crown, Baron de la Bouillerie and the treasure, towards the Loire. Do not desert my son, and remember that I would rather know that he was in the Seine than that he had fallen into the hands of the enemies of France. The fate of Astyanax, prisoner of the Greeks, has always seemed to me the unhappiest in history. "NAPOLEON" This letter was addressed to Joseph. The treasure referred to by Napoleon was, be it understood, his own private possessions. On 28 March the departure of the empress was discussed. MM. de Talleyrand, Boulay (de la Meurthe), the Duc de Cadore and M. de Fermon were of opinion that the empress should remain. Joseph, with the emperor's letter in his hand, insisted upon her departure. It was decided that she should leave on the following day, at nine o'clock in the morning. Afterwards M. de Talleyrand was blamed for having urged that Marie-Louise should stay in Paris. A pale and cold smile flitted over the vast chasm which served the diplomatist for a mouth. "I knew that the empress would defy me," he said, "and that, if I advised her going, she would stay. I urged that she should stay to further her departure." O monseigneur, Bishop of Autun! you put into the mouth of Harel, in _le Nain Jaune_, the famous epigram, "Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts." And, monseigneur, you were eminently capable of exemplifying the truth of the saying yourself. On the morning of 29 March, through the uncurtained windows of the Tuileries, the empress's women could have been seen in the dubious light of the growing dawn, by the still more dubious light of lamps and dying candles, running about, pale with fatigue and fear, after a whole night spent in preparing for the journey. The departure, as we have said, was fixed for nine o'clock. At ten o'clock the empress had not yet left her apartments. She was hoping to the last that a counter order would arrive either from the emperor or from Joseph. At half-past ten the King of Rome clung to the curtains of the palais des Tuileries in tears; for he too, poor child, did not want to go.