not witty. There was a kittenish
attempt at wit now and then, as when she said, "Ici, il n'y a que moi de
legitimiste;" but intellectually she was in no way distinguished from
the majority of her countrywomen.[61] On the other hand, she had an iron
will, and was very handsome. A woman's beauty is rarely capable of being
analyzed; he who undertakes such a task is surely doomed to the
disappointment of the boy who cut the drum to find out where the noise
came from.

[Footnote 61: Merimee, the author of "Carmen," who knew
something of Spanish women, and of the female members of the
Montijo family in particular, said that God had given them the
choice between love and wit, and that they had chosen the
former.--EDITOR.]

I cannot say wherein Mdlle. de Montijo's beauty lay, but she was
beautiful indeed.

Her iron will ably seconded the Emperor's attempts at gaining
aristocratic recruits round his standard, and when the Duc de Guiche
joined their ranks--the Duc de Guiche whom the Duchesse d'Angouleme had
left close upon forty thousand pounds a year--Mdlle. de Montijo might
well be elated with her success. Still, at the celebration of her
nuptials, the gathering was not le dessus du panier. The old noblesse
had the right to stay away; they had not the right to do what they did.
I am perfectly certain of my facts, else I should not have committed
them to paper.

As usual, on the day of the ceremony, portraits of the new Empress and
her biography were hawked about. There was nothing offensive in either,
because the risk of printing anything objectionable would have been too
great. In reality, the account of her life was rather too laudatory. But
there was one picture, better executed than the rest, which bore the
words, "_The portrait and the virtues of the Empress_; _the whole for
two sous_;" and that was decidedly the work of the Legitimists and
Orleanists combined. I have ample proof of what I say. I heard
afterwards that the lithograph had been executed in England.

For several months after the marriage nothing was spoken or thought of
at the Tuileries but rules of precedence, court dresses, the revival of
certain ceremonies, functions and entertainments that used to be the
fashion under the ancien regime. The Empress was especially anxious to
model her surroundings, her code of life, upon those of
Marie-Antoinette,--"mon type," as she familiarly called the daughter of
Marie