that one could view the matter
but as an outside show; as such, in as far as she was concerned,
it was exquisitely beautiful--and I suppose that a sort of national
prejudice made me attribute the grace and dignity of the scene,
for what there was of either came from her, to the blood of
_Kirkpatrick!!!_

The carriages were ugly and the Procession by no means fine, and
those in which the Bridal party afterwards travelled to St Cloud,
were driven by individuals in the famous theatrical costume of the
well-known "Postillon de Longjumeau!"[4]

[Footnote 2: The Emperor of the French was married to
Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo on the 29th of January.
William Kirkpatrick, her maternal grandfather, had been a
merchant and American Consul at Malaga, and had there married
Francoise de Grivegnec. Their third daughter, Maria
Manuela, married, in 1817, the Count de Teba, a member of an
illustrious Spanish family, who in 1834 succeeded his brother
as Count de Montijo, and died in 1839. His widow held an
influential social position at Madrid, and her elder daughter
married the Duke of Alba in 1844, while she herself, with
Eugenie, her younger daughter, settled in Paris in 1851.]

[Footnote 3: Lord Cowley had been specifically instructed by
the Government to attend the marriage and be presented to the
Empress.]

[Footnote 4: A comic opera, written by Adolphe Adam, and
performed at Paris in 1836.]

[Pageheading: THE EMPRESS]

_The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria._

LAEKEN, _4th February 1853._

MY DEAREST VICTORIA,--Receive my best thanks for your gracious letter
of the 1st. Since I wrote to you _le grand evenement a eu lieu!_ We
truly live in times where at least variety is not wanting; the only
mischief is that like drunkards people want more and more excitement,
and it therefore will probably end by what remains the most exciting
of all--War. Amusing and interesting war is, it must be confessed,
more than anything in the world, and that makes me think that it
must be the bouquet when people will be _blase_ of everything else.
I enclose a letter from our Secretary of Legation at Madrid, Baron
Beyens, who married a great friend of the Queen, Mademoiselle de Santa
Cruz, and is much _au fait_ of all things that interest the public
just now. It seems by what I learned from Paris that the Empress
communicated to a friend a communication of _son ch