that have been hitherto followed, my marriage is only a private matter.  It remained for me to choose my wife.  She who has become the object of my choice is of lofty birth, French in heart and education and by the memory of the blood shed by her father in the cause of the Empire.  She has, as a Spaniard, the advantage of not having a family in France to whom it would be necessary to give honors and dignities.  Gifted with every quality of the heart, she will be the ornament of the throne, as in the hour of danger she would be one of its most courageous defenders.  A pious Catholic, she will address one prayer with me to Heaven for the happiness of France.  Kindly and good, she will show in the same position, I firmly believe, the virtues of the Empress Josephine.”

The State coaches of the First Empire were regilded for the occasion, the crown diamonds were drawn from the hiding-place where they had lain since Louis Philippe’s time, and were reset for the lady who was to wear them, while her apartments at the Tuileries were rapidly prepared.

The emperor was radiant.  He had followed his inclination, and now that his choice was made, it seemed to receive universal approval.  The London “Times” said:  “Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the character of France than any princess who could have been fetched from a German principality.  She combines by her birth the energy of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the opinion we hold of her be correct, she is, as Napoleon says, made not only to adorn the throne, but to defend it in the hour of danger.”

The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thousand francs to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding present.  Very gracefully she declined the necklace, but accepted the money, with which she endowed an Orphan Asylum.

The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853.  Crowds lined the streets as the bride and her cortege drove to the Tuileries, where they were received by the Grand Chamberlain and other court dignitaries, who conducted the bride to the first salon.  There she was received by Prince Napoleon and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced her into the salon, where the emperor, with his uncle, King Jerome, surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals, marshals, admirals, and great officers of State, stood ready to receive her.  Thence, at nine o’clock, she was led by the emperor to the Salle des Marechaux and seated beside him on a raised throne.  The marriage contract was then read, and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all the princes and princesses present.

The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alencon point lace, clasped with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the Empress Marie Louise, and she looked, said a beholder, “the imperial beauty of a poet’s vision.”  The emperor was in a general’s uniform.  He wore the collar of the Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used to wear.  He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece that had once belonged to the Emperor Charles V.