ur of danger."

The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thousand francs
to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding present. Very gracefully
she declined the necklace, but accepted the money, with which she
endowed an Orphan Asylum.

The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined the streets as the
bride and her _cortege_ drove to the Tuileries, where they were
received by the Grand Chamberlain and other court dignitaries, who
conducted the bride to the first _salon_. There she was received by
Prince Napoleon and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced
her into the _salon_, where the emperor, with his uncle, King Jerome,
surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals, marshals, admirals,
and great officers of State, stood ready to receive her. Thence, at
nine o'clock, she was led by the emperor to the Salle des Marechaux
and seated beside him on a raised throne. The marriage contract
was then read, and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all
the princes and princesses present.

The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alencon point lace, clasped
with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the Empress Marie Louise,
and she looked, said a beholder, "the imperial beauty of a poet's
vision." The emperor was in a general's uniform. He wore the collar
of the Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used to
wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece that had once
belonged to the Emperor Charles V.

The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair and the wedding
guests passed into the theatre, where a _cantata_, composed by
Auber for the occasion, was sung. The empress, robed in lace and
glittering in jewels, seemed, says an eye-witness, to realize the
picture presented of herself in the composer's words:--

"Espagne bien aimee,
Ou le ciel est vermeil,
C'est toi qui l'as formee
D'un rayon de soleil."[1]

[Footnote 1:
Ah, beautiful Spain,
With thy skies ever bright,
Thou hast formed her for us
From a ray of sunlight.]

When the _cantata_ had been sung, the Grand Master of the Ceremonies
conducted the bride, as yet only half married, back to the Elysee.

The next morning all Paris was astir to see the wedding procession
pass to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Early in the morning the emperor
had repaired to the Elysee, where, in the chapel, he and the empress
had heard mass, and after making their confession, had partaken
of the Holy Communion. Ther