Pity and strange it is that the Emperor's faithless second wife should be noticed at all in history. Happily, very few even of those historians who are anti-Napoleon have anything very complimentary to say of her. She survived her son the King of Rome fifteen years, and the earth claimed her in December, 1847, her age being fifty-six. Had this amiable adulteress, who wished success to the allied armies against her husband, lived a little longer, she would have witnessed the humiliating spectacle of her father's successor being forced to abdicate his throne in favour of the nephew of her Imperial husband, whose memory all noble hearts revere, and whose sufferings, domestic and public, will ever lie at the door of this woman who allowed herself to be the base accomplice of a great assassination. The most fitting reference to her death appeared in the _Times_ newspaper, which said that "nothing in her life became her like the leaving it." On April 15, 1821, in the third paragraph of his will, Napoleon, with consistent magnanimity, if not wilful indifference to this passive, icy female's abandonment of him, says: "I have always had reason to be pleased with my dearest Marie Louise. I retain for her, to my last moment, the most tender sentiments. I beseech her to watch, in order to preserve my son from the snares which yet environ his infancy." What irony! It is quite a reasonable proposition to suppose that Napoleon must have had a secret suspicion of his wife's infidelity. It is even hard to believe that he had not a full knowledge of her actual association with Count Neipperg. It will be observed that while his reference to her is dutiful, not to say tender, there is still something lacking, as though he kept something snugly in the back of his head, something like the following:--"I cannot make this historical document without alluding to you for my son's sake, though I know full well you have wronged me and consorted with my enemies and betrayers. I know all this, but I am about to pass on, and true to my instincts of compassion and to my Imperial dignity, I must carry my sorrow and grief with me, and having given you as good a testimonial as I can, I must leave you to settle accounts with posterity as to your conduct towards me and your adopted country. I shall not do by you as you have done. I hope full allowance will be made for all you have made me suffer. Meanwhile, I am about to relieve the digestion of Kings by passing to the Elysian Fields, there to be greeted by Kleber, Desaix, Bessieres, Duroc, Ney, Murat, Massena, and Berthier, and we shall talk of the deeds we have done together. Yes, Marie Louise, I bend under the terrible yoke your father, his Chancellor, and the allied satellites have made for me, and yet I keep these incomparable warriors of Europe in a state of alarm. I wish you joy of your allies, who have behaved so nobly to your husband in captivity. I have often