The Viceroy and the Vicereine had never seen each other before their marriage, but they soon loved each other as if they had been acquainted for years, for never were two persons better adapted to each other. No princess, and indeed no mother, has devoted herself to her children with more affectionate attention. She was created to serve as a model to all women; an anecdote of this worthy princess has been told me which I cannot refrain from citing here. One of her daughters, still very young, having answered a chambermaid in a harsh tone, Her Serene Highness, the Vicereine, was informed of it and, to give her daughter a lesson, she forbade any service to be rendered from that moment to the young princess or any answers made to her questions. The child soon came to her mother to complain, and was told that when any one stood in need, as she did, of the service and attentions of everybody, she must know how to deserve them by respect and obliging politeness. Then she made her promise to beg the chambermaid's pardon, and to speak to her thenceforward with gentleness, assuring her that in this way she would obtain all she could reasonably desire. The child obeyed, and profited so well by the lesson that she has become, if common rumor may be believed, one of the most accomplished princesses of Europe. The renown of her perfections spread even to the new world, which hastened to dispute her possession with the old, and was fortunate enough to be successful. She is now, I think, Her Majesty the Empress of Brazil.

His Majesty the King of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph, was tall, and had a noble and handsome face; he might be about fifty years old. His manners were full of charm, and before the Revolution he had left behind him at Strasbourg, a reputation for good breeding and chivalrous gallantry from the time when he was a colonel in the service of France, in the regiment of Alsace, under the name of Prince Maximilian, or Prince Max, as his soldiers called him. His subjects, his family, his attendants, everybody in fact, adored him. In Munich he often went out alone in the mornings, going to the markets, where he bought grain, entering the shops and talking to everybody, especially to the children whom he urged to go to school. This excellent prince was not afraid of compromising his dignity by the simplicity of his manners, and he was right, for I do not believe that any one was ever tempted to show him disrespect. The love he inspired in nowise detracted from veneration. Such was his devotion to the Emperor that his benevolence extended even to those whose functions brought them nearest to His Imperial Majesty, and who were thus best enabled to know his needs and wishes. Thus (and I relate the fact merely as a proof of what I have been saying, and not through vanity), His Majesty the King of Bavaria never came to see the Emperor without shaking me by the hand, inquiring after His Imperial Majesty's health, then after mine, and adding a thousand things which proved at once his attachment for the Emperor and his native kindliness.

His Majesty the King of Bavaria is now in the tomb, like him who gave him a throne. But his is still a royal tomb, and the good Bavarians may go there to weep and pray. The Emperor on the contrary . . . The virtuous Maximilian has been able to bequeath to a son worthy of him the sceptre he had received from the exile who died at Saint-Helena.

 Prince Louis, now King of Bavaria, and, perhaps, the most worthy king of Europe, was not so tall as his August father; his face was less handsome, also, and he was unfortunately afflicted at that time with an extreme deafness which made him speak in a coarse, loud tone without perceiving it. His pronunciation was, moreover, affected by a slight stutter. He was much beloved by the Bavarians. This prince was serious and fond of study, and the Emperor recognized his merit but did not count upon his friendship; not, however, because he doubted his loyalty. The Prince-royal was above such a suspicion; but the Emperor knew that he belonged to the party which dreaded the subjection of Germany, and who suspected the French, although they had as yet attacked Austria only, of schemes of conquest over all the Germanic powers. At all events, what I have just said of the Prince-royal must be understood as relating solely to the years posterior to 1806; for I am certain that at that epoch his sentiments did not differ from those of the good Maximilian, who was, as I have said, penetrated with gratitude toward the Emperor. Prince Louis went to Paris at the beginning of this year, and I have often seen him at the court theatre in the box of the prince archchancellor. They were sleeping in company, and very profoundly; which was, for that matter, a habit with M. Cambacérès. Whenever the Emperor had him summoned, and was told that Monseigneur was at the play: "Very good, very good," His Majesty would say; "he is taking his after-dinner nap, don't let him be disturbed."

The King of Würtemberg was tall, and so fat that some one said of him, that God had put him into the world just to show to what point the human skin could stretch. His paunch was of such dimensions that his place at table was marked by a deep hollow; and, in spite of this precaution, he was obliged to hold his plate as high as his chin in order to eat his soup. He went out hunting, a sport he was very fond of, on horseback or in a small Russian vehicle drawn by four horses which he often drove himself. He liked to ride, but it was not easy to find a horse large and strong enough to carry a load so heavy. The poor beast had to undergo a gradual training. For this purpose the King's equerry girded himself with a belt, loaded with pieces of lead, which he daily increased in weight until they made him as heavy as His Majesty. The King was despotic, harsh, and even cruel; he had to sign the sentences of all condemned persons, and nearly always, if what I heard at Stuttgart was to be believed, he increased the penalty allotted by the judges. Hard to please, and brutal, he often struck his domestics: people went so far as to say that he did not spare Her Majesty the Queen, his wife, sister of the reigning King of England. Otherwise, he was a prince whom the Emperor esteemed for his intelligence and his lofty attainments. He liked him and was liked in return, and he found him faithful to the end to his alliance. King Frederick of Würtemberg had a brilliant and numerous court, and displayed great magnificence. The hereditary prince was much loved; he was less haughty and more humane than his father; people called him just and liberal.

Besides the heads which he had crowned himself, the Emperor received in Bavaria a great number of princes and princesses of the Confederation, who usually dined with His Majesty. Among this crowd of royal courtiers was to be remarked the prince primate, who differed in no respect, in point of manners, breeding, and dress, from our best Parisians; hence the Emperor had a very special esteem for him. I cannot praise in the same way the toilets of the princesses, duchesses, and other noble ladies. The costume of the majority of them was in the worst possible taste; their headdresses were a heaped-up mass of flowers, feathers, chiffons of gold or silver gauze, and especially of a great quantity of pins with diamond heads.

The equipages of the German nobility were invariably great, wide coaches, indispensable on account of the enormous hoops still worn by these ladies. This fidelity to old-fashioned styles was the more surprising, since, at that epoch, Germany enjoyed the precious advantage of possessing two fashion journals. One of them was a translation of the magazine published by M. de la Mésangère; and the other, likewise published at Paris, was translated and published at Mannheim. To these mean carriages, which resembled our old stage-coaches, extremely wretched horses were harnessed with ropes; they were at such a distance from each other that it required an immense space to turn the equipages.

The Prince of Saxe-Gotha was long and thin; in spite of his great age, he was still vain enough to have pretty little wigs made for him in Paris by our famous hairdresser, Michalon, of an infantine blond, curled like a young Cupid's; in other respects, he was an excellent man.

Speaking of these noble German ladies, I remember to have seen at the court theatre of Fontainebleau, a princess of the Confederation who was presented to Their Majesties. The toilet of Her Highness announced an immense progress of elegant civilization on the other side of the Rhine. Renouncing the gothic hoops, the Princess had adopted more modern styles; nearly seventy years old, she wore a robe of black lace over reddish-yellow satin; her headdress consisted of a veil of white muslin, held in place by a crown of roses, after the manner of the vestals of the opera. She had with her her granddaughter, quite brilliant with youth and charms, and admired by the whole court, although her costume was less recherché than that of her grandmother.

 I heard Her Majesty the Empress Josephine say one day, that she had had all the difficulty in the world to keep from laughing when one of the German princesses was announced under the name of Cunégonde. Her Majesty added that when she saw the Princess sitting down, she imagined she saw her leaning to one side. Assuredly Her Majesty must have read the adventures of Candide and the daughter of the very noble baron of Thunder-Ten-Tronck.

In the spring of 1806, nearly as many members of the Confederation as I had seen in the capitals of Bavaria and Würtemberg, might have been seen in Paris. A French name took rank among those of these foreign princes: that of Prince Murat, who was created Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves in the month of March. After Prince Louis of Bavaria, arrived the hereditary prince of Baden, who came to Paris to marry one of the nieces of Her Majesty the Empress.

The beginnings of this union were not happy. Princess Stephanie was a very pretty woman, full of graces and of wit. The Emperor wished to make a great lady of her, and gave her in marriage without consulting her much. Prince Charles-Louis-Frederick, who was then twenty years old, was exceptionally good, full of rare qualities, brave and generous, but heavy, phlegmatic, always of a glacial severity, and totally devoid of all that could please a young princess accustomed to the brilliant elegance of the imperial court.

The marriage took place in April, to the great satisfaction of the prince, who, on that day, seemed to do violence to his customary gravity, and at last allowed a smile to approach his lips. The day went off very well; but when the moment arrived when the husband wished to claim his rights, the Princess made a great resistance; she screamed, she wept, she got angry; at last, she made a friend of her childhood, Mademoiselle Nelly Boujoly, a young person whom she especially liked, sleep in her room. The Prince was disconsolate; he supplicated his wife, he promised to do anything she pleased; all his promises and entreaties were in vain, at least for a week.

Some one came to tell him that the Princess thought the way he dressed his hair was frightful, and that nothing inspired her with such aversion as a pigtail. The good Prince made it his most pressing business to have his hair cut. When she saw him thus shorn, she burst into fits of laughter, and exclaimed that he was much uglier à la Titus than the other way.

At last, as it was impossible that, with good sense and a good heart, the Princess should not end by appreciating the good and sensible qualities of her husband, she put an end to her severities; then she loved him as tenderly as she was beloved, and I have been assured that the August couple led a very happy domestic life.

Three months after this marriage, the Prince quitted his wife in order to follow the Emperor in the Prussian campaign in the first place, and secondly, in that of Poland. The death of his grandfather, which occurred some time after the Austrian campaign of 1809, put him in possession of the grand duchy. Then he gave the command of his troops to his uncle, the Count de Hochberg, and returned to his own government, never to leave it again.

I saw him again with the Princess at Erfurt, where I have been told that he became jealous of the Emperor Alexander, who was thought to be paying very assiduous court to his wife. The Prince became alarmed and suddenly left Erfurt, taking the Princess with him; it is right to say that not the slightest imprudent proceeding on her part had authorized this jealousy, which, for that matter, was very pardonable in the husband of so charming a woman.

The health of the Prince was delicate. From his earliest youth alarming symptoms had been observed in him, and this physical disposition, no doubt, had much to do with that melancholy which was the basis of his character. He died in 1818, after an extremely long and painful illness, during which his wife lavished on him the tenderest cares. He had four children, two boys and two girls. The two boys died young, and would have left the sovereignty of Baden without heirs, if the Counts of Hochberg had not been recognized as members of the ducal family. At present, the Grand Duchess is entirely devoted to the education of her daughters, who promise to equal her in graces and virtues.

The nuptials of the Prince and Princess of Baden were celebrated by brilliant fêtes. There was a grand hunt at Rambouillet, after which Their Majesties, with several members of their family, and all the princes and princesses of Baden, Cleves, etc., walked through the market of Rambouillet.

I remember another hunt, which took place about the same epoch, in the forest of Saint-Germain, and to which the Emperor had invited an ambassador of the Sublime Porte, newly arrived in Paris. His Turkish Excellency followed the chase with ardor, but without moving a single muscle of his austere visage. The animal having been run down, His Majesty had a gun brought to the Turkish ambassador so that he might have the honor of firing the first shot, but he refused it, being doubtless unable to conceive what pleasure could be found in killing a poor, tired-out beast, no longer able to run, and lying defenseless at the muzzle of one's gun.