July 1, Marie Louise, accompanied by her father the Emperor, left Prague at six in the morning. The garrison and the civic guard were under arms. The nobles who were at court escorted the Empress of the French to her carriage, and amid pealing bells and roaring cannon, the cheers and blessings of the crowd, the young sovereign departed. That evening she slept at Schöffin; the next day, July 2, at Carlsbad; the 4th, she visited the tin mines of Frankenthal, descending more than six hundred feet in a chair, placed at the mouth and controlled by balance-weights; the chair was then sent up, the Emperor Francis went down as well as all the ladies, one after another; the 5th they left Carlsbad, and reached Franzbrunn, where they were entertained by national songs and dances. The 6th, Marie Louise parted from her father, whom she was not to see again till after the fall of the Empire; she spent the night at Bamberg, in the palace of the Duke William of Bavaria. The next day, the 7th, she reached Würzburg, where her uncle, the Grand Duke, gave her a magnificent reception. After a few excursions to the castle of Werneck, many boating-parties, illuminations, and concerts led by the Duke himself, she continued her journey. She reached Saint Cloud July 18, 1812: and at six in the evening the cannon of the Invalides announced to the Parisians the return of their Empress. Marie Louise, who was not yet twenty years and six months old, had been for two years and four months Empress of the French and Queen of Italy. In her thoughts she recalled everything that had happened since her pathetic departure from Vienna,--the moving ceremony at Braunau, where she was given over to the French; her first meeting with Napoleon before the church of Courcelles; her triumphal entry into Paris by the Avenue of the Champs Élysées; her magnificent marriage in the _salon carré_ of the Louvre; the brilliant festivities, the journeys, continual ovations; the ball at the Austrian Embassy, a gloomy warning amid so much prosperity; her sufferings ending with a great joy, with the birth of a son; the enthusiasm which this event aroused throughout the world; then more recently, the wonderful splendor of the Dresden interview. For two years nothing but flattery, homage, applause, music, triumphal arches, magnificence, splendid festivities; and, after all, how poor and empty it all was!