d, and yet all-powerful monster,
outside the pale of human liking and respect. What must have been her
thoughts when her father first told her with averted face that she was
to become the bride of such a being?

Marie Louise had been brought up, as all German girls of rank were then
brought up, in quiet simplicity and utter innocence. In person she was
a tall blonde, with a wealth of light brown hair tumbling about a face
which might be called attractive because it was so youthful and so
gentle, but in which only poets and courtiers could see beauty. Her
complexion was rosy, with that peculiar tinge which means that in the
course of time it will become red and mottled. Her blue eyes were clear
and childish. Her figure was good, though already too full for a girl
who was younger than her years.

She had a large and generous mouth with full lips, the lower one
being the true "Hapsburg lip," slightly pendulous--a feature which has
remained for generation after generation as a sure sign of Hapsburg
blood. One sees it in the present emperor of Austria, in the late Queen
Regent of Spain, and in the present King of Spain, Alfonso. All the
artists who made miniatures or paintings of Marie Louise softened down
this racial mark so that no likeness of her shows it as it really was.
But take her all in all, she was a simple, childlike, German madchen
who knew nothing of the outside world except what she had heard from her
discreet and watchful governess, and what had been told her of Napoleon
by her uncles, the archdukes whom he had beaten down in battle.

When she learned that she was to be given to the French emperor her
girlish soul experienced a shudder; but her father told her how vital
was this union to her country and to him. With a sort of piteous dread
she questioned the archdukes who had called Napoleon an ogre.

"Oh, that was when Napoleon was an enemy," they replied. "Now he is our
friend."

Marie Louise listened to all this, and, like the obedient German girl
she was, yielded her own will.

Events moved with a rush, for Napoleon was not the man to dally.
Josephine had retired to her residence at Malmaison, and Paris was
already astir with preparations for the new empress who was to assure
the continuation of the Napoleonic glory by giving children to her
husband. Napoleon had said to his ambassador with his usual bluntness:

"This is the first and most important thing--she must have children."

To the girl who