he victims interred, and
a few thousand of the best and boldest hearts of France had taken the
sorrowful road of exile, the new emperor bethought him of how best to
gild his freshly-gained throne.

A court was to be constructed, and that right speedily. After the
gloomy tragedy of the overthrow of the Republic, France was to be
treated to the grand spectacular piece of the Second Empire. And for
that a _corps de ballet_ and trained supernumeraries were needed. The
role of leading lady, too, was vacant. An empress was to be sought for
without delay. Negotiations were opened with several princely houses
for the hands of damsels of royal birth, but speedily came to
naught. As yet, the new-made emperor was a parvenu amid his royal
contemporaries. The negotiations for the hand of the Swedish princess
Vasa did indeed promise at one time to be crowned with success. But
the emperor sent his physician to take a look at the lady, and to
judge if her physique promised healthful and numerous offspring; and
this fact, coming to the ears of her family, caused a sudden stop to
be put to the whole affair. Meantime, at the reunions of Compiegne,
the personality of a young and lovely foreign countess was coming
prominently into notice, owing to the evident impression that her
charms had made upon the susceptible heart of Napoleon III. This lady,
Eugenie Montijo, countess de Teba, was no longer in the first bloom of
girlhood, having been born in 1826. But she was in the full meridian
of a beauty which, had the crown matrimonial of France, like the apple
of Ate, been dedicated to the fairest, would have ensured her the
throne by sheer right divine. It is indeed said that as a young girl
her charms were in no wise remarkable: on her first appearance in
society at the court of Madrid she created no sensation whatever. She
was too pale and quiet-looking to attract attention. But one day, the
court being at Aranjuez, during a _fete champetre_, Mademoiselle de
Montijo had the good or ill fortune to fall into one of the ornamental
fishponds in the garden. She was taken out insensible, and her wet and
clinging garments revealed a form of such statuesque perfection that
all Madrid went raving about her beauty. She plunged a commonplace
girl--she rose a Venus. And when she first attracted the notice of
Napoleon she was indisputably one of the loveliest women in Europe.
She was tall, slender, exquisitely proportioned, and her walk was that
of a god