The new emperor, or his advisers, looked round at the various marriageable princesses belonging to the smaller courts of Germany.  The sister of that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern whose selection for the throne of Spain led afterwards to the Franco-Prussian war, was spoken of; but the lady most seriously considered was the Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe.  She was daughter of Queen Victoria’s half-sister Feodora; and to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as heads of the family, the matter was referred.  A recent memoir-writer tells us of seeing the queen at Windsor when the matter was under discussion.  The queen and her husband were apparently not averse to the alliance, hesitating only on the grounds of religion and morals; but it is doubtful how far the new emperor went personally in the affair.  His inclination had for some time pointed to the reigning beauty of Paris, Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo.

This young lady’s grandfather was Captain Fitzpatrick, of a good old Scottish family, which had in past times married with the Stuarts.  Captain Fitzpatrick had been American consul at a port in southern Spain.  He had a particularly charming daughter, who made a brilliant Spanish marriage, her husband being the Count de Teba (or Marquis de Montijo, for he bore both titles).  The Montijos were connected with the grandest ducal families in Spain and Portugal, and even with the royal families of those nations.

The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were young, and they were left under the guardianship of their very charming mother.  The elder married the Duke of Alva; the younger became the Empress Eugenie.

Eugenie was for some time at school in England at Clifton.  She was described by those who knew her there as a pretty, sprightly little girl, much given to independence, and something of a tom boy,—­a character there is reason to think she preserved until it was modified by the exigencies of her position.

Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned Madame de Teba to his friends as a singularly charming woman.  In 1818 he wrote home to a friend in America: 

“I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw of her there and at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most cultivated and interesting woman in Spain.  Young, beautiful, educated strictly by her mother, a Scotchwoman,—­who for this purpose carried her to London and kept her there six or seven years,—­possessing extraordinary talents, and giving an air of originality to all she says and does, she unites in a most bewitching manner the Andalusian grace and frankness to a French facility in her manners and a genuine English thoroughness in her knowledge and accomplishments.  She knows the chief modern languages well, and feels their different characters, and estimates their literature aright.  She has the foreign accomplishments of singing, painting, playing, etc., joined to the natural one of dancing, in a high degree.  In conversation she is brilliant and original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, and as full of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture.”