Marie Louise made a quick recovery, and her restoration to health delighted both her husband and herself. Her father, the Emperor of Austria, sympathized with their happiness, as is shown by the following letter of his to Napoleon, dated March 27, 1811: "My Dear Brother and Son-in-Law,—It is impossible for me to express in a formal letter of this sort the satisfaction I feel at the good news you have sent to me about my daughter. Your Majesty must already know my keen interest in an event of such importance, both for her and for France, as the birth of a prince, and the fact that this is safely over only augments my joy. May Heaven preserve this new pledge of the ties uniting us! Nothing could be more precious or surer to unite firmly the happy bonds existing between the two Empires."

Napoleon, on the 20th of March, had despatched to Vienna Count Nicolai, who arrived there on the 28th. On that day Francis wrote to his son-in-law: "My Brother and Dear Son-in-Law,—Count Nicolai has this moment delivered to me the two letters of Your Majesty. Since I am unwilling to delay a courier, who is on the point of departure, and will carry to Your Majesty and to the Empress the first expressions of my delight at the happy event, I postpone my formal answer to Your Majesty's invitation to hold his son at the baptismal font, but I hasten to take this opportunity to say that I accept so agreeable a duty.

"All the details which Your Majesty gives me about the birth of the prince arouse my sincerest interest. Your letter proves your kindness towards a wife who returns it with affection as deserved as it is sincere, and for this I hereby express all my gratitude. I thank you, too, for the full details you have written to me. I know the Empress well enough to be sure that, though her sufferings were great, the happiness of satisfying the wishes of Your Majesty and of your people is an ample compensation. I am sure that Your Majesty's presence must have given her strength and her attendant confidence in difficult circumstances. Your Majesty has already so many claims upon my friendship that these details were not needed to induce me to cherish more and more the bonds that unite us, and which I charge my daughter and her son to make even closer."

The health of Marie Louise and of the King of Rome was perfect. In order to respond to the eagerness of the crowd that was ever thick at the doors of the Tuileries in search of news about the Empress and the young prince, it had been decided that one of the chamberlains should be present all day in the first drawing-room of the grand apartment, to receive all who came and report to them the bulletin issued twice a day by the physicians. But soon that was stopped, and there were no more bulletins, the mother and child being perfectly well. April 6, Marie Louise got up and wrote six lines to her father. The 17th she walked on the terrace by the water, amid the applause of the crowd. The next day Prince Clary, whom the Emperor of Austria had sent from Vienna, was received. Napoleon spoke for a long time about the courage, the virtue, the kindness, the excellent education, the exquisite tact, and the perfect dignity of the Empress. "Moreover," he added, "every one admires her." The same day, April 18, the Empress drove in the Bois de Boulogne, and was present at a reception to receive the congratulations of the Diplomatic Body. The churching took place the next day, the 19th, in the chapel of the Tuileries. Prince Rohan officiated.

April 21, Marie Louise and the Emperor went to Saint Cloud, whence, two days later, she wrote to her father the following letter, published by M. von Helfert in German: "My dear Father,—You may imagine my great bliss. I never could have imagined that I could be so happy. My love for my husband has grown, if that is possible, since my son's birth. I cannot think of his tenderness without tears. It would make me love him now, if I had never loved him before, for all his kind qualities. He tells me to speak to you about him. He often asks after you, and says, 'Your father ought to be very happy to have a grandson.' When I tell him that you already love my child, he is delighted. I am going to send you a portrait of the boy. I think you will see how much he looks like the Emperor. He is very strong for only five weeks. When he was born he weighed nine pounds. He is very well, and is in the garden all day long. The Emperor takes the greatest interest in him. He carries him about in his arms, plays with him, and tries to give him his bottle, but he does not succeed. You know from my uncle's letter how much I suffered for twenty-two hours, but my happiness in being a mother makes me forget it. The baptism is set for the month of June. I am sorry that you are too busy to come. Heaven grant that you may come soon! I was glad to hear from Prince Clary that you are well. I hope that God will hear my prayers, and that dear mamma will soon be quite recovered. You may imagine how many questions I asked about you; for talking about you, about your kindness, is my greatest pleasure."

The return of summer induced Napoleon to go to Rambouillet for a few days with the Empress, for the hunt. In this residence, which was simpler and smaller than the other Imperial castles, the Emperor had a taste of domestic life. He reached there May 13, and left on the 22d, to make a trip through Normandy. Marie Louise was so urgent that at last he decided to take her with him. The departments of Calvados and La Manche greeted them with the utmost enthusiasm. The Emperor celebrated his stay at Caen by granting favors and conferring benefits. Many young men of good family were appointed ensigns; one hundred and thirty thousand francs were distributed in charity. From Caen the Emperor and Empress went to Cherbourg to visit the works in the harbor, which had just been dug out of the granite rocks to the depth of fifty feet.

"What delight," General de SÉgur writes in his Memoirs concerning this trip, "What delight, what admiration was ours! Great must have been Napoleon's pride, judging from our own satisfaction which we received as old and trusted companions of so great a man!… I saw Cherbourg for the first time. This port, which Louis XVI. had designed simply for one of refuge, had been transformed by Napoleon into one from which an attack could be made. In those days of prodigies, however incapable of amazement I might have been, this roadstead, won by superhuman exertion from the ocean, this vast basin hewn to a depth of fifty feet in the granite, with accommodations for fifty men-of-war, for their building, for their repair, for their armament, filled me with an admiration such as I had felt at the first sight of the grandeur of the Alps."

The day after his arrival at Cherbourg, Napoleon rode out early, visited the heights about the town and inspected different ships. The next day he presided at several meetings and visited the works of the navy-yard; then he went down to the bottom of the basin hewn out of the rock, which was to contain the ships-of-the-line, and to be covered by the water to a depth of fifty-five feet. "During our stay," says M. de Bausset, "the Emperor wanted to breakfast on the dyke, or jetty, which had been begun in the unhappy reign of the most virtuous of kings. I got there before Their Majesties, on a most lovely day, and had everything arranged. The table was set in view of the sea; the English ships were plainly visible on the distant horizon; certainly they were far from suspecting Napoleon's presence. There was still a strong battery on the breakwater to protect the roadstead and the harbor. I do not think that our neighbors would have ventured to salute us at closer quarters, even if they had been better informed. At a signal from the Emperor the squadron lying in the roadstead, consisting of three large ships, under the command of Admiral Tronde, put out under full sail and passed in front of the jetty on which we were…. The Admiral's ship came up as close as it could; the Rear-Admiral came in his gig to fetch Their Majesties and their suite, and took us on board, amid the cheers of the crew, who were all in full uniform. While the Empress and her ladies were resting in the ward-room, Napoleon inspected the rest of the ship. Just when we least expected it, he ordered all the cannon to be fired together; never in my life did I hear such a noise: I thought that the ship was blowing up."

Napoleon and Marie Louise were back at Saint Cloud June 4, 1811. The Empress, then in the full flower of her beauty, and radiant with happiness, had responded to the profuse manifestations of public enthusiasm by her gracious reception of the authorities and the people of the departments.

It would be hard to imagine all the homage paid at this time to the Imperial pair. Dithyrambs upon the birth of the King of Rome were composed in every language of Europe except the English. There was a real avalanche of poems, odes, epistles; in less than a week the Emperor received more than two thousand of these tributes. Probably he read very few of these extravagant compositions, which were crammed panegyrics and allegories of the Greek mythology. The sum of one hundred thousand francs was divided among the authors of these official poems. "Of all these memorials, the most curious that flattery ever elevated," Madame Durand writes, "is a collection of French and Latin verses, entitled, 'The Marriage and the Birth,' which was printed at the Imperial press, and appointed by the University to be given as a prize to the pupils of the four grammar schools of Paris, and of those in the provinces, thereby assuring a ready sale. In this heap of trash figures the names of all the authors who, when the giant had fallen, insulted his remains and burned their incense before the new deity who took his place.

"As BÉranger said about those poets:—
"They are, like the confectioners,
Friends of every baptism."

The Moniteur, in its number of June 9, 1811, the day of the King of Rome's baptism, spoke as follows: "The happy event which, at the moment of writing these lines, is throughout this vast Empire the object of the thanksgivings which a great people can offer to Heaven; which inspire songs of happiness in our temples, our public places, our peaceful cities, our fertile fields, and in the camps of our invincible warriors; which fulfils at once the wishes of the people for the happiness of their Sovereign, and those of the Sovereign for the firm establishment of the institutions he has consecrated to the prosperity of his people, ought more than any other to kindle the fervor of our poets and fill them with a lively and noble inspiration. Yet no one of them has been able to disguise the difficulty of his task; all have recognized that their greatest efforts would be required, not only to rise to the height of a subject of which its greatness is the first peril, but even to attune their lyre to the pitch of the enthusiasm that fires us, an enthusiasm of which the mighty voice, filling all France and heard in the remotest corner of Europe, is itself the grandest hymn of poetry and the most harmonious music. But no such obstacle has discouraged their muse; admiration, gratitude, love, furnish a happy inspiration, and our poets have felt it; they have faithfully transcribed the language of the populace in the language ascribed to the gods."

In proof of this we quote some of the verses inserted in the official organ:—

"Sion, rejoice! The voice of the prophets
Announces again the days of the Eternal One.
Before a young child, dear hope of Israel,
The cedars of Lebanon will bow their heads.
Of the oppressed he will become the support:
He will punish crime, and will brand vice;
His words will be the voice of justice,
And the Spirit of the Lord will march before him."

That is the Biblical style, which was used freely a few years later to celebrate the baptism of the Duke of Bordeaux. Mythology, too, was called in:—

"Do you see the leopard, weary of carnage,
Sated with blood, towards his savage lair
Run roaring?
Seized by an invincible, unknown terror,
He announces his death, and flees at the sight
Of a new-born Alcides."

The poet Millevoye exclaimed:—

"With your head encircled with laurel and flowers,
Come to reopen henceforth the progress of the year,
Month long since consecrated to the lover of Venus!
Triumph, and seize again thy faded garland,
Which the friend of Egeria placed
On the double brow of Janus."

M. Le Sur spoke about the Tiber in these terms:—

"The Tiber, too long drowsing on its urn,
Lets grow in its bosom the silent reed.
It awakens at the resonant noise of brass,
And with a proud wave washing its shore'
Of its old heritage
It offers the remains to the Young Sovereign."

A poet who was destined to become famous, and at that time was a scholar in the LycÉe NapolÉon, Casimir Delavigne, tried his muse, a youthful muse, according to the Moniteur:—

"Receive, royal child, the vows of the country.
May thy father's laurel shadow thy cradle!
May glory and the arts, adorning thy life,
Consecrate forever the happiest reign!
Child beloved of heaven, awaited by the earth,
Promised to posterity,
May thou, under the eyes of thy August father,
Grow to immortality!"

A professor famous for his Latin verses, M. Lemaire, was so fired by his lyrical enthusiasm that he compared Marie Louise to another Mary, the Queen of Heaven. Of the two queens,—one, he said, rules in Heaven; the other on earth:—

"Haec coelo regina micat; micat altera terris."