Marie Luise and her son Ferdinand Ulrich, arrived in a convoy of four carriages each drawn by a team of six splendid horses, which conveyed both them and their accompanying small staff of retainers and servants as well as their travel luggage into the grand courtyard of Napoleon's primary imperial palace. Arion the Mameluk, galloped alongside Marie Luise's carriage mounted upon his own mechanical steed, as no living horse would have been able to bear his weight without injury. Although this was a private visit at the direct invitation of Emperor Napoleon and his wife the Empress Marie Louise, and not an official state visit, both she and her son, who were therefore dressed in civilian clothes, were met with considerable courtesy and ceremony. An honour guard awaited them, drawn from the units on duty at the palace of the Garde Impériale, specifically two detachments from the Marins de la Garde Impériale and the Grenadiers-à-Pied d'Elbe respectively, stood before the steps leading into the palace's main courtyard entrance.
Marie Luise was met as she stepped from the carriage, by the now dismounted Arion, and several postillions and imperial aide-de-camps, as well as the two detachment commanders. The postilions took charge of their travel luggage and busied themselves with transporting it into the palace. While one of the latter made a series of quick introductions, so all involved knew who they were dealing with.
Kammer, immediately took offense at these proceedings, he took it as a matter of course, that anything involving his mistress, was his to supervise and direct, particularly her personal things and her meals and quickly let loose a stream, of violent clicks from his gears, warbling whistles and high pitched shrieks from his vents and steam pipes in protest! Marie Luise, forced herself not to smile at the antics of her utterly loyal automaton henchman, who had been with her since babyhood. It would have been unforgivable for her to openly laugh at Kammer's hilarious antics, but he could be such as fussbudget at times! The Marin detachment commander and Arion who stood beside her both exchanged glances, the officer tried to conceal his gentle amusement behind a white gloved hand. Kammer finally lapsed into a sulky silence, at a gently reproving look from his mistress.
Although Marie Luise, was dressed in her customary civilian garments, a short grey jacket, set over a smart, high collared lace decorated white blouse and long comfortable green skirt. Her feet and legs were shod in well polished but comfortable soft black leather boots. Upon her gold and white head, she wore a smart peakless cap, with a deep band of green with a shallow grey crown in the style of Russian and Prussian service caps, which matched well with the rest of her outfit. An oval badge of metal work, coloured enamels and porcelains in the form of her family coat-of-arms decorated the center of the band. This piece of head gear and it's badge had been handmade by members of the Pavlovski Grenadiers, both as a memento and as a birthday present, of her prior service with them under Marshal Suvorov in Italy and Switzerland back in 1799. Marie Luise, despite the relative plainness of her attire, appeared as a regal, peerless beauty to her onlookers notwithstanding.
As was her custom, she carried only her generalfeldmarschall's walking stick, the interimstab, as a mark of her high military and social rank, constructed of expensive dark ebony wood, with a straight, almost hour glass shaped white ivory handle banded with gold, engraved rings, and two gold and jet black cords each ending in a tasseled fringe, set through the base of the handle and an engraved gold metal cap protecting the lower end where it touched the ground.
Ferdinand Ulrich, an energetic boy of eleven, with dark hair accented with light highlights and alert grey-blue eyes jumped down from the carriage with assistance from both his mother and one of the aide-de-camps. Like his mother he was dressed in clothes of grey, green and black. Immediately, his own hands, sought his mother's uncommitted free hand, as he moved to her side. His gentle features, were a mix of surprising graveness, intent curiosity and not a little apprehension. Marie Luise, squeezed her son's hand reassuringly, and moved to review the honour guard, with Ferdinand Ulrich at her side.
At a unspoken sign from their commanders, the assembled soldiers and sailors, snapped to attention, as they approached, though it amused her to overhear - due to her keener then average hearing - the whispered speculation and observations amoung the men and women; regarding both her, but especially regarding her son. Whom they regarded with a keen and friendly interest. Comments regarding his colouring, his probably age and physical development and bearing shot back and forth amidst the ranks. This was not surprising, particularly amoung the grenadiers, as Ferdinand Ulrich was after all, their Oberst-Inhaber, or as the French called it, Colonel-en-Chef.
Marie Luise, directed the soldiers to stand at ease, as she reviewed them with unhurried professional care and quiet calm. She addressed each soldier or sailor as she came to them, asked them something of themselves, and their general service record and about any battles they had participated in. She particularly remarked on any medals or decorations they wore or actions they mentioned, especially the latter if they coincided with her own military service. Marie Luise's simplicity of person and dress and her soldierly directness of manner as well as her stunning good looks, quickly charmed her audience.
Ferdinand Ulrich beside her listened to their answers with the deepest attention and a visible quiet awe. Both detachments colour-bearers dipped their standards to the horizontal position so that, Ferdinand Ulrich could view them more readily, as he barely came up to many of the soldiers belt buckles. He asked questions about each of the battle honours embroidered in gold thread on each each of the 1815-pattern standards and listened with attention to the answers of each standard bearer.
Marie Luise, noticed that while her son, listened with interest to each battle honour as it was called out and remarked upon, by the standard bearer, tracing the embroidered words, with his agile fingers. One singular battle honour caused Ferdinand Ulrich to flinch imperceptibly when he came to it. He unconsciously grasped his mother's hand to assure himself that she was still indeed there, and more importantly safe. Marie Luise was not surprised nor did she find the gesture childish, for she too shuddered inwardly at that four day battle's horrific memory, and what it had nearly cost her both physically and later personally and emotionally.
Leipzig, the Battle of Nations. A battle which had murdered thousands with it's savagery, her own life being one of them, if not for an unexpected and unsought miracle effected by two dear friends. Not that everyone at the time, had thought that, she thought with an inwardly bitter smile. Certainly not her enemies, nor her more grasping relatives, nor for that matter one august person in the Imperial Court in Vienna.
Ferdinand Ulrich had been been only three, when that battle had occurred and the confusion, apprehension and near despair that had swept the inhabitants of the Schloss Eggenberg, when initial reports of the battle had reached Graz and reported her mortally wounded or dead upon the field, had left Ferdinand Ulrich deeply traumatized even at that young age. Marie Luise, could say the same, the scars - both emotional and physical - of that terrible battle, she would take to her grave.
For both of them, the frigid, terror filled moment past as suddenly as it had occurred and they continued quietly with the review, with some relief and no outward sign of the emotions that had wracked both of them however briefly.
When he came to the standard of the Grenadiers-à-Pied d'Elbe, a solid white flag, with a diagonal bar of purplish red decorated with three gold bees across it and decorated with a heavy gold fringe around it's outer edges, he paused for some moments, studying it with great attention and a decided seriousness. Which hardly surprised any of the onlookers, as it was very much his battalion, as the Hereditary Prince of Elba. With a sudden impulsiveness, that he rarely displayed, Ferdinand Ulrich gathered up the cloth of standard in one hand, and placed his other on the golden Eagle topping the standard, murmuring a prayer in clearly articulated Latin for the battalion and those that served in it. It was a simple prayer - though child like, it struck all who heard it with it's earnestness and sincerity - asking God's blessing for them both in battle and in life. Ferdinand Ulrich then touched the flag to his lips. The moment, he let go of the standard, the soldiers and their officers reacted spontaneously by snapping their weapons through the manual of arms, from their rest positions to that of a military salute. The standard likewise, shot upright, high over the unit's, raised muskets, crowned by glittering bayonets.
Ferdinand Ulrich, momentarily taken aback by the sudden rattle of arms, stood in a frozen stillness for perhaps a moment before responded with a crisp, military salute of his own, directed to the assembled detachment, his raised and canted hand freezing at the level of his eyebrow for a full minute, until it dropped again to his side. Marie Luise, observed all this silently, a smoldering, eerily glowing green fire was sparkling through her irises and threatened to extend to the whites of her eyes, warning Ferdinand Ulrich that his mother's mood was threatening to shift violently. Marie Luise, however wordlessly reached out to put her hand on her son's shoulder, she could feel him trembling with a mixture of emotion, excitement and great unease.
He looked up at her from the corner of his eyes, as if to say, 'did I do that, alright?', a cool almost wintry smile, touched her lips, and she gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze of parental affection. While, she did not wholly approve for intensely personal reasons of her son, being the Inhaber of a unit in the French Garde Impériale. She would not gainsay that they were a dignity and prerogative that were Ferdinand Ulrich's by right as the Hereditary Prince of Elba, an Imperial Prince of the House of Bonaparte and as a Royal Prince of Corsica, in the French Imperial Peerage. Certainly, the French granted those titles and their according dignities to him, ungrudgingly enough. Considering how her adored only son had been treated by his fellow Austrians since his birth by comparison, Marie Luise thought bitterly. Ferdinand Ulrich was after all, one of Emperor Napoleon I's, four sons.
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