The marriage was settled without my brother and Princess Helene ever having seen each other.  Impatient to know her, and anxious to be the first to greet her on French soil, my brother went to meet her at Nancy, where she was to arrive with her mother and a lady in waiting.  He rushed forward, saw three ladies, caught his fiancees hand and carried it to his lips.  Not at all!  It was the lady-in-waiting’s.  This momentary hitch was soon forgotten, and when the Princess entered the Cour du Cheval-Blanc at Fontainebleau, in her state coach and eight, amidst the roar of cannon and the beating of drums, we all went down the great staircase to receive her, with the King at our head, just like the great lords going down the staircase at Chenonceaux in the second act of the Huguenots.  It was Champs-Elysees, and through the Gardens to the Tuileries, we on horseback and the Princesses in the state carriages, with the Orleans state liveries, surrounded by an immense multitude of people, all the women in brilliant spring toilettes, and in the loveliest weather, was a splendid sight too.  Then there was a very fine ball at the Hotel de Ville—­rather clouded, though, by a prediction coming from all quarters, that it would be the occasion of another attempt on my father.

Old Prince Talleyrand, who was almost dying, begged my eldest brother to go and see him, so that he might add his warning to all the others.  Raising himself to a sitting posture, and with death in his face, he said:  “It won’t be a knife or a pistol, it will be a hail of paving-stones thrown from the roofs, which will crush you all!” We were grateful for the warning, and we were glad it did not come to pass.  Nothing happened, either in the street or at the ball, where we were surrounded by an army of chosen ‘guests,’ and from which we were driven back at a great pace, escorted by squadrons of cuirassiers, who glittered in the torchlight.  But the crowning point of the fetes was the inauguration of the Versailles Museum, that museum and dedicated by my father “To all the Glories of France!” Others besides himself have given the sadness of irony to that inscription!  Every revolution must be paid for with a price!

On the occasion of this inauguration the King gave a dinner to twelve hundred people in the galleries of the Palace.  Each of us had to preside over a table, and I should have found mine a somewhat tiresome task, if among my guests I had not met some very clever men, whose conversation amused me much.  Such were Alphonse Karr, Leon Gozlan, Nestor Roqueplan, &c.

After dinner there was a theatrical performance—­the Misanthrope, given for the first time with Louis XIV. dresses, acted by Perrier, Provost, Samson, Firmin, Menjaud, Monrose, and Regnier, with Mmes.  Mars, Plessy, and Mante; and then one act of Robert le Diable, with Duprez, Levasseur, and Mile.  Falcon—­and the ballet.