Marie Louise and her son were sent to Blois, where they remained for a short time, the Empress, who was wholly Austrian at heart, nourishing hopes of a kingdom to be created for her by her father, Francis II. In vain did Méneval, the Secretary, and Madame de Montesquiou urge her to join her husband at Fontainebleau, and stand by him when he signed, on April 13, the act of abdication. To take her share in any trouble was never the way of Marie Louise; but she seems to have been satisfied when she learned that she was still to be called 'Empress,' and to have the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla as her dowry. As for accompanying Napoleon to the island of Elba, which had been chosen for his prison, it never so much as occurred to her. The 'General,' as she henceforth called him, had passed out of her life. Scraps of conversation and anxious looks caused the little boy, 'King of Rome' no more, but 'Prince of Parma,' to feel that something terrible was in the air, something that had to do with himself and his father and mother, and he soon found out what it was. 'Blücher is my enemy,' he said one day to his governess, and on his way to Vienna he remarked to one of his attendants, 'Louis XVIII. has taken papa's place, and has kept all my toys, but he must be made to give them up,' while another time he added sadly, 'I see that I am not a king any more, as I have no pages.' It was at the château of Rambouillet, not far from Pau, that Marie Louise met her father, whom she welcomed with pure delight, as if the visit had been only one of pleasure. The arrangements for the journey to Vienna were soon made, and her son's attendants chosen. They were to be Madame de Montesquiou, who left her family behind so that the little prince might not feel himself forsaken; Madame Soufflot, and her daughter Fanny, a girl of fifteen, who, the boy thought, made a better playfellow than his friend Froment, from whom he was now parted; Madame Marchand, his nurse; and Gobereau, the valet, with his wife and little son. Most of his possessions were, as he said, left behind for Louis XVIII., but he was allowed to take with him to the country palace of Schönbrunn the wonderful cradle given him by the City of Paris, and some of his favourite toys, selected by himself. How hard it was to know what to choose out of those multitudes of beautiful things. 'Oh! I can't leave _that_! I must take _that_!' he would cry, as his nurses and governesses pulled out one toy after another, and it was very difficult to make him understand that he could not take them all. At length, after many tears, a few were put aside: two wooden horses, a stable, a grenadier, a hussar, a cow and a milkmaid, a Turk playing on a mandoline, a grocer's shop—these and a few others were what he took with him, but dearer than all were his little carriage drawn by the sheep, and a hundred and fifty pebbles which he had collected himself.