Early in March the Prince de Neuchatel set out for Vienna commissioned to officially request the hand of the Empress in marriage.  The Archduke Charles, as proxy of the Emperor, married the Archduchess Marie Louise, and she set out at once for France, the little town of Brannan, on the frontier between Austria and Bavaria, having been designated as the place at which her Majesty was to pass into the care of a French suite.  The road from Strasburg was soon filled with carriages conveying to Brannan. the household of the new Empress.  Most of these ladies had passed from the household of the Empress Josephine into that of Marie Louise.

The Emperor wished to see for himself if the trousseau and wedding presents intended for his new wife were worthy of him and of her, consequently all the clothing and linen were brought to the Tuileries, spread out before him, and packed under his own eyes.  The good taste and elegance of each article were equaled only by the richness of the materials.  The furnishers and modistes of Paris had worked according to models sent from Vienna; and when these models were presented to the Emperor he took one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, and with it gave me a blow on the cheek in the form of a caress.  “See, Constant,” said his Majesty, “that is a shoe of good augury.  Have you ever seen a foot like that?  This is made to be held in the hand.”

Her Majesty the Queen of Naples had been sent to Brannan, by the Emperor to receive the Empress.  Queen Caroline, of whom the Emperor once said that she was a man among her sisters, as Prince Joseph was a woman among his brothers, mistook, it is said, the timidity of Marie Louise for weakness, and thought that she would only have to speak and her young sister-in-law would hasten to obey.  On her arrival at Brannan the formal transfer was solemnly made; and the Empress bade farewell to all her Austrian household, retaining in her service only her first lady of honor, Madame de Lajanski, who had reared her and never been absent from her.  Etiquette required that the household of the Empress should be entirely French, and the orders of the Emperor were very precise in this regard; but I do not know whether it is true, as has been stated, that the Empress had demanded and obtained from the Emperor permission to retain for a year this lady of honor.  However that may be, the Queen of Naples thought it to her interest to remove a person whose influence over the mind of the Empress she so much feared; and as the ladies of the household of her Imperial Majesty were themselves eager to be rid of the rivalry of Madame de Lajanski, and endeavored to excite still more the jealousy of her Imperial highness, a positive order was demanded from the Emperor, and Madame de Lajanski was sent back from Munich to Vienna.  The Empress obeyed without complaint, but knowing who had instigated the blow, cherished a profound resentment against her Majesty the Queen of Naples.  The Empress traveled only by short