The Emperor took more pains to please Marie-Louise than he had ever done for any other woman. One day when he was alone with Queen Hortense and the Princess Stephanie, the latter mischievously inquired if he knew how to waltz. His Majesty replied that he had never been able to get beyond the first lesson, and that after two or three turns he had been seized by a giddiness which prevented his continuing. "When I was at the Military School," added the Emperor, "I tried I don't know how many times to overcome the vertigo occasioned by waltzing, without being able to succeed. Our dancing master had advised us, when practicing, to take a chair in our arms instead of a lady. I never failed to fall down with the chair which I was squeezing affectionately, and to break it. The chairs in my room, and those of two or three of my comrades, disappeared one after another." This story, told in the gayest possible style by His Majesty, excited bursts of laughter from both princesses.

When their hilarity had calmed down a bit, the Princess Stephanie returned to the charge and said to the Emperor: "It is really too bad that Your Majesty does not know how to waltz: the Germans are crazy about waltzing, and the Empress must necessarily share the tastes of her compatriots. She cannot have any partner but the Emperor, and hence she will be deprived of a great pleasure through Your Majesty's fault." "You are right," returned the Emperor. "Very well! give me a lesson. You shall have a specimen of my savoir-faire." Thereupon he rose, and waltzed a few steps with the Princess Stephanie, himself humming the air of The Queen of Prussia. But he could not take more than two or three turns, and even these in such an awkward manner as to redouble the mirth of these ladies. The Princess of Baden stopped short, saying: "Sire, that is enough to convince me that you will never be anything but a bad pupil. You are made to give lessons, but not to receive them."

In the early days of March, the Prince de Neufchâtel set out for Vienna, to make the official demand for the Empress. The Archduke Charles espoused the Archduchess Marie-Louise by proxy for the Emperor, and she started for France without delay. The little town of Braunau, on the frontier of Austria and Bavaria, had been selected for the surrender of the Empress, and the Strasburg road was soon thronged with carriages taking her new household thither. Here is the list of those persons whom it originally included:

Prince Aldobrandini Borghese, first equerry, replacing General Ordener, appointed governor of the château of Compiègne; Count de Beauharnais, chevalier of honor.

Lady of honor, Madame de Montebello; lady of the bedchamber, Madame the Countess de Luçay.

Ladies of the palace, Mesdames the Duchesses de Bassano and de Rovigo, and Mesdames the Countesses de Montmorency, de Mortemart, de Talhouet, de Lauriston, Duchâtel, de Bouillé, de Montalivet, de Perron, de Lascaris, de Noailles, de Brignolle, de Gentile, and de Canizy (since Duchesse de Vicenza).

The majority of these ladies had passed from the household of the Empress Josephine into that of the Empress Marie-Louise.

The Emperor wished to see for himself whether the corbeille and the nuptial presents he intended for his new spouse were worthy of her and of him. All of the apparel, the linen, etc., was brought to the Tuileries, displayed before him, and packed up in his presence. Nothing squalled their costliness but their elegance and good taste. The purveyors and artisans of Paris had worked from measures and models forwarded from Vienna. When these were shown to the Emperor, he picked up one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, and tapping my cheek with it by way of a caress, said to me: "Constant, this shoe bodes well. Have you seen many feet like that? One could take it in his hand!"

Her Majesty the Queen of Naples had been despatched to Braunau by the Emperor to receive the Empress. Queen Caroline, of whom the Emperor said that she was a man among her sisters, while Prince Joseph was a woman among his brothers, was at fault, so people said, about the timidity of the Empress Marie-Louise, which she mistook for weakness; she thought she had only to speak to make her young sister-in-law eager to obey. On arriving at Braunau, and after the formal delivery, the Empress had dismissed her entire Austrian household, retaining only her governess, Madame de Lajanski, who had educated her and who never left her. Etiquette required, however, that the new household of the Empress should be entirely French; moreover, the Emperor's orders were precise on this head. I do not know whether it is true, as has somewhere been said, that the Empress had asked and obtained the Emperor's permission to have her governess with her for a year. However that may be, the Queen of Naples thought it her own interest to banish a person whose influence over the mind of the Empress she dreaded. The ladies of the imperial household, themselves anxious to get rid of Madame de Lajanski's rivalry, tried to excite still farther the jealousy of Her Imperial Highness. A positive order from the Emperor was asked for, and Madame de Lajanski was sent back from Munich to Vienna. The Empress obeyed without a murmur; but, knowing from what hand the blow proceeded, she retained a deep resentment against Her Majesty the Queen of Naples.

The Empress journeyed only by short stages, and a fête attended her in each city through which she passed. Every day the Emperor sent her a letter written by his own hand, and she answered them regularly. The first letters of the Empress were very short, and probably rather cool, for the Emperor said nothing about them. But the others grew longer and warmer by degrees, and the Emperor read them with transports of pleasure. He awaited their arrival with the impatience of a twenty-year-old lover, and never found the couriers quick enough, although they rode their horses to death.

The Emperor came in one day from the chase carrying in his hand a brace of pheasants which he had shot himself, and followed by several footmen laden with the rarest and most beautiful flowers from the greenhouses of Saint-Cloud. He wrote a note, called for his first page, and said to him: "Be ready in ten minutes to get into a carriage. You will find this parcel there, which you will deliver to Her Majesty the Empress with your own hand, along with this letter. And above all, don't spare the horses; go like a page, and don't be afraid. M. the Duc de Vicenza will have nothing to say to you." The youth asked nothing better than to obey His Majesty. Relying on this authorization, he was lavish in tips to the postilions, and in twenty-four hours was in Strasburg and had acquitted himself of his commission.

I do not know whether the grand equerry scolded him when he came back, but if there were occasion for scolding, he would certainly have received it, notwithstanding the assurance given him by the Emperor.

The Duc de Vicenza had organized and was directing admirably the service of the stables, where nothing was done but by his will, which was of the most absolute sort. Even the Emperor found it difficult to change anything which the grand equerry had commanded. It happened one day, for instance, that His Majesty, who was on his way to Fontainebleau, and in great haste to arrive there, ordered the groom whose business it was to regulate the pace to go faster. The latter transmitted the order to the Duc de Vicenza, whose carriage preceded the Emperor's. The grand equerry paying no heed to it, the Emperor began to swear, and shouted through the door to the groom: "Take my carriage on ahead, since the first one will not march." The grooms and postilions were about to carry out this order, when the grand equerry in his turn thrust his head out of the door, and shouted: "Trot, f——; the first one that gallops I will dismiss when we get there." They knew very well that he would keep his word, so nobody dared to pass him, and it was his carriage which continued to set the pace. On arriving at Fontainebleau, the Emperor demanded an explanation of his conduct from the Duc de Vicenza. "Sire," he responded, "when you pare my nails a little shorter for your stable expenses, you may drive your horses to death at your ease."

The Emperor was incessantly cursing the ceremonial and the fêtes which delayed the arrival of his young bride. A camp had been formed near Soissons for the reception of the Empress. The Emperor was at Compiègne, where he issued a decree containing several acts of beneficence and indulgence on the occasion of his marriage: the liberation of condemned persons, the payment of debts for child-nursing, the marriage of six soldiers with dowries furnished by the Emperor, amnesties, institution of majorats, etc. When His Majesty knew the Empress was within ten leagues of Soissons, he could no longer restrain his impatience, and shouting to me with all his lungs: "Ohé oh! Constant; order a carriage without a livery, and come and dress me." The Emperor wished to take the Empress by surprise, and present himself without being announced, and he laughed like a child at the effect this interview must produce. His toilet was made with more exquisite cleanliness, if that were possible, than usual, and, with the coquetry of glory, he put on the gray greatcoat which he had worn at Wagram.

Thus prepared, His Majesty entered a carriage with the King of Naples. How the meeting of Their Majesties took place is known. In the little village of Courcelles, the Emperor met the last courier, who was only a few minutes in advance of the Empress. It was raining in torrents, and, for the sake of shelter, the Emperor alighted under the porch of the village church. When the carriage of the Empress came near, the Emperor made a sign to the postilions to stop. The equerry who rode beside it, perceiving him, made haste to lower the step and announce His Majesty, who was considerably displeased, and said to him: "Didn't you see that I signed you to be silent?" But this little spurt of ill-humor vanished like a flash. The Emperor threw his arms about the neck of Marie-Louise, who had a portrait of her husband in her hand, and said to him with a charming smile, looking alternately at the Emperor and his likeness: "Your portrait does not flatter you." A magnificent supper had been prepared at Soissons for the Empress and her cortège, but the Emperor ordered them to go on at once at Compiègne, without regard for the appetites of the officers and ladies of Her Majesty's suite.