dess. Her features were delicate and regular; her eyes long,
almond-shaped, and full of a tender and dreamy sweetness: her small
and faultlessly-shaped head was set upon a long, slender neck with the
swaying grace of a lily upon its stalk; her shoulders were sloping and
beautifully moulded, notwithstanding her lack of embonpoint, for
in those days she was as slight as a reed. A profusion of fair
hair--which she wore turned back from the face in the graceful
style known as "a la Pompadour," but speedily to be rechristened "a
l'Imperatrice"--and a hand and foot of truly royal beauty completed an
ensemble of charms that were well calculated to drive poor masculine
humanity out of its seven senses.

Cold and calculating as was Napoleon III., it drove him out of _his_,
for in every respect such a marriage was an unwise and an impolitic
one. It lent to his new-founded throne neither the lustre of an
alliance with royalty nor the popularity that might have been gained
by the selection of a Frenchwoman as the partner of his fortunes. The
Spanish blood of the countess de Teba made her obnoxious in the eyes
of many of her future subjects. Moreover, the antecedents of the lady
were not altogether without reproach. Not that any actual stigma had
ever clung to her character, but she had always been looked upon in
European circles as that anomalous character in such society, a fast
girl. Stories, some true and some false, were circulated respecting
her follies and her escapades. Evidently, if Caesar's wife should be
above suspicion, she was not the person who should have been selected
to become the wife of Caesar.

The fact of the emperor's interest in the fair foreigner was revealed
by an incident, slight in itself and only important by the emotions
which it called forth. At one of the small intimate reunions at
Compiegne, Mademoiselle de Montijo happened, while dancing, to
entangle her feet in the long folds of her train, and she fell
with some violence to the floor. The extreme anxiety and distress
manifested by the emperor acted as a revelation to all present. A
stormy opposition to the projected alliance was at once organized
among the familiars of the emperor--the men who had aided in his
elevation, and to whom it was too recent for them to stand in awe of
him. MM. de Morny and de Persigny in particular were violent in their
opposition. In fact, the latter went so far as to tell the emperor at
the close of a long and stormy i