rides he asked her, with strange frankness, if
she had ever been in love with any man. She answered with equal
frankness, "I may have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten
that I was Mademoiselle de Montijo."[1]

[Footnote 1: Pierre de Lano. La Cour de L'Empereur Napoleon III.]

Such a project of marriage was not approved by the emperor's family,
it was not favored by his ministers, and the ladies of his court
were all astir.

At a ball given on New Year's Day, 1853, by the emperor at the
Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and insulting
to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she looked troubled, the
emperor inquired the cause; and when he knew it, he said quietly:
"To-morrow no one will dare to insult you again." There is also
a story, which seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks
before this, at Compiegne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on
her head, saying: "I hope soon to replace it with a better one."[2]
Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it prophesied to her in
her girlhood that she should one day wear a crown.

[Footnote 2: Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.]

The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, the
Duc de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a letter from the
emperor, formally requesting her daughter's hand.

The ladies, after this, removed to the Elysee, which was given to
them, and preparations for the marriage went on apace.

In less than a month afterwards Eugenie de Montijo was empress of
France.

Here is the emperor's own official announcement of his intended
marriage:--

"I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in announcing
my marriage to you. The union which I am about to contract is not
in harmony with old political traditions, and in this lies its
advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, has been widely
sundered from the rest of Europe. A wise Government should so rule as
to bring her back within the circle of ancient monarchies. But this
result will be more readily obtained by a frank and straightforward
policy, by a loyal intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often
create false security, and subordinate national to family interests.
Moreover, past examples have left superstitious beliefs in the
popular mind. The people have not forgotten that for sixty years
foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the throne only to see
their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution.
One w