in a high degree. In conversation she is brilliant and
original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, and as full
of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture."

Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing to
his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba.

"I believe I told you," he says, "that I knew the grandfather of
the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick. In 1827 I was in the house of his
son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant, intelligent gentleman,
much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye and been maimed in a
leg and hand. Some years after, in Madrid, I was invited to the
house of his widow, Madame de Montijo, one of the leaders of _ton_.
She received me with the warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She
claimed me as the friend of her late husband. She subsequently
introduced me to the little girls I had known in Granada, _now_
fashionable belles in Madrid."

In some lines of Walter Savage Landor, Madame de Montijo was addressed
as a "lode-star of her sex."

The Marquis de Montijo had been an adherent of Joseph Bonaparte
while the latter was king of Spain, and his eye had been put out
at the battle of Salamanca. He was a liberal in politics, and his
house was always open to cultivated men.

Such was the ancestry of the beautiful young lady who, tall, fair,
and graceful, with hair like one of Titian's beauties, was travelling
with her mother from capital to capital, after the marriage of her
sister to the Duke of Alva, and who spent the winters of 1850,
1851, and 1852 in the French capital. Mademoiselle Eugenie had
conceived a romantic admiration for the young prince who at Strasburg
and Boulogne had been so unfortunate. Her father had been a stanch
adherent of Bonaparte, and she is said to have pleaded with her
mother at one time to visit the prisoner at Ham and to place her
fortune at his disposal.

This circumstance, when confided to the prince president, disposed
him to be interested in the young lady. She and her mother were
often at the Elysee, at Fontainebleau, and at Compiegne. Mademoiselle
de Montijo was a superb horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's
especial personal accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost
together in the forest at Compiegne, and then society began to
make remarks upon their intimacy.

The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with Mademoiselle
de Montijo. It is said, on the authority of M. de Goncourt, that
in one of their