Napoleon, surprised at this sudden apparition, exclaimed in displeasure, "I have said that I wish for no such scenes. Who has dared to introduce you here, in disregard of my prohibition? Leave me, miss!" So saying, he turned to pass from her.
But the child threw her arms around his knees, and with her eyes suffused with tears, and agony depicted in every feature of her beautiful upturned face, exclaimed, "Pardon! pardon! pardon! it is for my father!"
"And who is your father?" said Napoleon, kindly. "Who are you?"
"I am Miss Lajolais," she replied, "and my father is doomed to die." Napoleon hesitated for a moment; and then exclaimed, "Ah, miss, but this is the second time in which your father has conspired against the state. I can do nothing for you!"
"Alas, sire!" the poor child exclaimed, with great simplicity, "I know it: but the first time, papa was innocent; and to-day I do not ask for justice--I implore pardon, pardon for him!"
Napoleon was deeply moved. His lip trembled, tears filled his eyes, and, taking the little hand of the child in both of his own, he tenderly pressed it, and said:
"Well, my child! yes! For your sake, I will forgive your father. This is enough. Now rise and leave me."
At these words the suppliant fainted, and fell lifeless upon the floor. She was conveyed to the apartment of Josephine, where she soon revived, and, though in a state of extreme exhaustion, proceeded immediately to Paris. M. Lavalette, then aid-de-camp of Napoleon, and his wife, accompanied her to the prison of the Conciergerie, with the joyful tidings. When she arrived in the gloomy cell where her father was immured, she threw herself upon his neck, and her convulsive sobbings, for a time, stifled all possible powers of utterance. Suddenly, her frame became convulsed, her eyes fixed, and she fell in entire unconsciousness into the arms of Madame Lavalette. When she revived, reason had fled, and the affectionate daughter was a hopeless maniac!
Napoleon, in the evening, was informed of this new calamity. He dropped his head in silence, mused painfully, brushed a tear from his eye, and was heard to murmur, in a low tone of voice, "Poor child! poor child!--a father who has such a daughter is still more culpable. I will take care of her and of her mother."