Prince Albert crossed over to Belgium for the wedding, and wrote to his wife:  “Charlotte’s whole being seems to have been warmed and unfolded by the love that is kindled in her heart.  I have never seen so rapid a development in the space of one year.  She appears to be happy and devoted to her husband with her whole soul, and eager to make herself worthy of her present position.”

At the time of her marriage the princess had just entered her seventeenth year.  The wedding-day was made a little family fete at Windsor, in spite of Prince Albert’s absence.  “The younger children,” the queen writes to her husband, “are to have a half-holiday.  Alice is to dine with us for the first time, in the evening.  We shall drink the archduke’s and the archduchess’s healths, and I have ordered wine for our servants, and grog for our sailors, to do the same.”

Maximilian had been round the world in his frigate, the “Novara;” he had travelled into Greece and Asia Minor, he had visited Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; he had been to Egypt and the Holy Land.  He loved the ocean like a true sailor, and in 1856 he had taken up his residence at Trieste, to be near its shores.  He would frequently go out alone in a light boat, even in rough weather, a dash of danger lending excitement to a struggle with the wind and waves.

One day in a storm his light craft had been borne like a feather round Cape Gignano.  In a moment it lay at rest under the lee of the land.  Maximilian landed, and found the spot so charming and the sea-view so superb that he resolved to build a little villa there for fishing.  He bought the land at once, and began by setting out exotics, persuaded that the soil of such a spot would be favorable to tropical vegetation.  A year later he brought his young bride to this favored spot, and with a golden wand transformed his bachelor’s fishing-hut into the palace of an emperor.

At this period of his life, Maximilian (an author and a poet) was greatly interested in architecture.  He drew the plans for an exquisite church (now one of the beauties of Vienna), and draughted with his own hand those for the grounds and castle of Miramar.  The work was pushed on rapidly, yet in 1859, when Austria was forced to give up Lombardy, nothing at Miramar was complete except a fancy farm-house on one of the heights of the property.  Maximilian, however, made his home there with his wife, and they found it so delightful that when at length the castle was ready for occupation, they lingered in the farmhouse, which they loved as their first home.  It was a large Swiss chalet, covered with vines and honeysuckle, surrounded by groves of camellias and pyrus japonicas.  How delicious life must have been to the husband and wife in this solitude, fragrant with flowers, vocal with the songs of birds, a glory of greenness round the house, the blue sky overhead, the glittering ocean at their feet, and holy love and loving kindness everywhere around them!