ironed, and
about this time the Duc d'Orleans secretly married the Marquise de
Montesson and installed her in a habitation the "_plus simple_," a mere
shack, one fancies, costing six millions. The _nouveau riche_ of to-day
could scarcely do the thing with more _eclat_.

The Revolution took over the park of Saint Cloud and its appurtenances
and donated them to the democracy--"for the pleasure of the people,"
read the decree.

On the eighteenth Brumaire, the First Republic blinked itself out in
the Palais de Saint Cloud, and the Conseil de Cinq Cents installed
itself therein under the Directoire. Bonaparte, returning from Egypt,
arrived at Saint Cloud just as Lemercier was dissolving the Conseil.
Seeing trouble ahead he commanded Murat to clear the chamber by drawn
bayonets. He kept his light shining just a bit ahead of the others, did
Napoleon. His watchword was initiative. Deputies clambered over each
other in their haste to escape by stairway, door and window, and
Bonaparte saw himself Consul without opposition--for ten years--for
life.

The royal residences were put at Napoleon's disposition and he wisely
chose Saint Cloud for summer; Saint Cloud the cradle of his powers. As a
restorer and rebuilder of crumbling monuments Napoleon was a master, as
he was in the destructive sense when he was in the mood, and changes and
additions were made at Saint Cloud which for comfort and convenience put
it in the very front rank of French royal residences.

In March, 1805, Pope Pius VII baptised, amid a grand pomp and ceremony,
in the chapel of the palace, the son of Louis Bonaparte, and five years
afterwards (April 1, 1810), the same edifice saw the religious marriage
of Napoleon with Marie Louise.

On March 31, 1810, a strange animation dominated all the confines of the
palace. It was the occasion of the celebration of Napoleon's civil
marriage with Marie Louise. They did not enter the capital until three
days later for the ceremonial which united the daughter of the emperors
who were descendants of the Roman Caesars, to the "Usurper," who was now
for the first time to rank with the other crowned heads of Europe.

The cortege which accompanied their majesties from Saint Cloud to Paris
was a pageant which would take pages to describe. The reader of these
lines is referred to the impassioned pages of the works of Frederic
Masson for ample details.

A hundred thousand curiosity seekers had come out from Paris and filled
th