At a ball given on New Year’s Day, 1853, by the emperor at the Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and insulting to Mademoiselle de Montijo.  Seeing that she looked troubled, the emperor inquired the cause; and when he knew it, he said quietly:  “To-morrow no one will dare to insult you again.”  There is also a story, which seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks before this, at Compiegne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on her head, saying:  “I hope soon to replace it with a better one."[2] Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it prophesied to her in her girlhood that she should one day wear a crown.

[Footnote 2:  Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.]

The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, the Duc de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a letter from the emperor, formally requesting her daughter’s hand.

The ladies, after this, removed to the Elysee, which was given to them, and preparations for the marriage went on apace.

In less than a month afterwards Eugenie de Montijo was empress of France.

Here is the emperor’s own official announcement of his intended marriage:—­

“I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in announcing my marriage to you.  The union which I am about to contract is not in harmony with old political traditions, and in this lies its advantage.  France, by her successive revolutions, has been widely sundered from the rest of Europe.  A wise Government should so rule as to bring her back within the circle of ancient monarchies.  But this result will be more readily obtained by a frank and straightforward policy, by a loyal intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often create false security, and subordinate national to family interests.  Moreover, past examples have left superstitious beliefs in the popular mind.  The people have not forgotten that for sixty years foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the throne only to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution.  One woman alone appears to have brought with her good fortune, and lives, more than the rest, in the memory of the people; and this woman, the wife of General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood.  We must admit this much, however.  In 1810 the marriage of Napoleon I. with Marie Louise was a great event.  It was a bond for the future, and a real gratification to the national pride....  But when, in the face of ancient Europe, one is carried by the force of a new principle to the level of the old dynasties, it is not by affecting an ancient descent and endeavoring at any price to enter the family of kings, that one compels recognition.  It is rather by remembering one’s origin; it is by preserving one’s own character, and assuming frankly towards Europe the position of a parvenu,—­a glorious title when one rises by the suffrages of a great people.  Thus impelled, as I have been, to part from the precedents