The next morning at his toilet the Emperor asked me if any one had noticed the change he had made in the programme. At the risk of lying, I told him no. At that moment entered one of the Emperor's intimates who was unmarried. Pinching his ears, His Majesty said to him: "Marry a German, my dear fellow. They are the best women in the world; gentle, good, artless, and as fresh as roses." His Majesty's air of satisfaction made it easy to see that he was making a portrait, and that it was not long since the painter had quitted the model. After certain cares given to his person, the Emperor returned to the Empress, and toward noon he had breakfast sent up for both of them, having it served near the bed, and by the Empress's women. He was charmingly gay all the remainder of the day. Having, contrary to his custom, made a second toilet for dinner, he put on the coat that had been made for him by the tailor of the King Naples, but he would have none of it the next day, saying that it was decidedly too tight a fit.

As may be seen from the foregoing details, the Emperor loved his new spouse tenderly. He paid her continual attentions, and his whole conduct toward her was that of a very deeply smitten lover. At the same time, it is not true, as has been reported, that for three months he scarcely worked at all, to the great astonishment of his ministers. Work was not simply a duty with the Emperor; it was a necessity and a pleasure from which no other pleasure could divert him. In this circumstance as in any other, he was perfectly well able to harmonize the exigencies of his empire and his armies with his love for his charming wife.

The Empress Marie-Louise was barely nineteen years old at the epoch of her marriage. Her hair was light, her eyes blue and expressive, her bearing noble, and her figure imposing. Her hand and foot might have served as models; her whole person, in fine, breathed youth, health, and freshness. She was timid, and maintained a haughty reserve in presence of the court, but was said to be affectionate and friendly in private. It is certain that she was very loving with the Emperor, and devoted to all his wishes. In their first interview, the Emperor had asked her what parting instructions had been given her at Vienna. "To be yours," the Empress had responded, "and to obey you in all things." And she seemed to find no difficulty in complying with these instructions. For the rest, nothing could be less like the first Empress than the second. One point alone excepted, — the evenness of their temper and their extreme complaisance for the Emperor, — the one was the exact opposite of the other, and (it must be owned) the Emperor often congratulated himself on this difference, in which he found piquancy and charm. He drew the following parallel himself between his-two wives:

"The one (Josephine) was all art and graces; the other (Marie-Louise), innocence and simple nature. There was no moment in life in which the manners or habitudes of the first were not agreeable or attractive. It would have been impossible to find fault with her on that point, she studied how to produce none but advantageous impressions, and attained her object without allowing the study to become evident. All that art could devise to enhance attractions was put into service by her, but with such mystery that at best one could but suspect it. The second, on the contrary, did not even surmise that there was anything to be gained by innocent artifices. The one was always eluding the truth; her first impulse was a denial. The other knew nothing of dissimulation; all evasion was foreign to her. The first never asked for anything, but she owed in every direction. The second never hesitated to ask when she had nothing left, which was very seldom. She never took anything without feeling bound in conscience to pay for it at once. As for the rest, both of them were good, gentle, and greatly attached to their husband."

Such, or very nearly such, were the terms in which the Emperor spoke of the two empresses. It is evident that he wished the comparison to be advantageous to the second, and to this end he attributed to her qualities she did not possess, or at least curiously exaggerated those which she might have had.

The Emperor allowed Marie-Louise five hundred thousand francs for her toilet, but she seldom or never spent that sum. She had very little taste, and would have dressed herself ungracefully if she had not been well advised. The Emperor was present at her toilet on days when he desired it to be good. He made her try different ornaments, putting them himself on her head, neck, and arms, and always deciding for the magnificent. The Emperor was an excellent husband, and he proved it with both of his wives. He adored his son; as father and husband he might have served as a model to all his subjects. At the same time, whatever he may have said about it himself, I do not believe that he loved Marie-Louise as well as Josephine. The latter had a charm, a kindness, a spirit, a devotion which her husband the Emperor knew, and which he esteemed at its full worth. Marie-Louise was younger, but cold, and somewhat ungracious. I think she loved her husband, but she was reserved, not at all expansive; she could not make Josephine forgotten by those who had had the happiness of approaching her.

Notwithstanding the apparent submission with which she had dismissed her Austrian household, it is certain that she entertained strong prejudices, not merely against her new one, but also against that of the Emperor. She never addressed a kindly word to those in personal attendance on the Emperor. I have seen her many times; but never was there a smile, a glance, a sign from her to signify that I was other than a stranger in her eyes. On returning from Russia, whence I did not arrive until after the Emperor, I lost no time in repairing to his room, where he expected me. I found His Majesty in the company of the Empress and Queen Hortense. The Emperor greatly compassionated the sufferings I had undergone, and said many haltering things which displayed his kindness toward me. The Queen, with that charming grace of which she is the only model since the death of her august mother, talked with me a long time, and in terms full of benevolence. The Empress alone kept silence. The Emperor said to her: "Louise, have you nothing to say to this poor Constant?" "I had not perceived him," replied the Empress. This answer was severe, for it was impossible that Her Majesty should not have perceived me. At that moment there was no one in the room excepting the Emperor, Queen Hortense, and me.

The Emperor took at once the greatest precautions that no person, above all, no man, should be able to approach the Empress except in the presence of witnesses. In the time of the Empress Josephine there had been four ladies whose sole employment was to announce the persons who were received by Her Majesty. The excessive kindliness of Josephine prevented her from repressing the jealous pretensions of some members of her household; and thence ensued rivalries and squabbles without end between the ladies of the palace and the announcing ladies. The Emperor had been very much annoyed by these quarrels, and to avoid them for the future, he selected four new dames d'annonce for the Empress Marie-Louise, from among the ladies charged with the education of the daughters of members of the Legion of Honor, in the establishment of Écouen. The preference was at first given to the daughters or widows of generals, and the Emperor decided that the best pupils from that imperial establishment should thenceforward be entitled to all vacancies, and might merit them by good conduct. The number of these ladies having afterwards been increased to six, two pupils of Madame Campan were chosen. These six ladies afterwards changed their original appellation to that of first ladies of the Empress. But this change having dissatisfied the ladies of the palace and caused them to complain to the Emperor, the latter decided that the announcing ladies should take the title of first chamberwomen. Great complaints from the dames d'annonce in their turn: they pleaded their cause in person before the Emperor, and he gave them the title of readers to the Empress, in order to conciliate the requirements of the two belligerent parties.

The announcing ladies, or the first ladies, or the first chamberwomen, or the readers, as the reader may choose to call them, had six chambermaids under their orders, who never entered the room of the Empress unless summoned by the bell. These dressed the Empress, put on her shoes, and combed her hair. But the first six had nothing to do with the toilet except for the diamonds, which were in their special custody. Their principal, and almost their only, employment, was to be always at the heels of the Empress, whom they followed like her shadow. They came into her room before she got up, and never left her until after she had gone to bed. Then every door leading to her chamber was locked, with the exception of one that opened into a neighboring room containing the bed of whichever of these ladies was on duty. Even the Emperor could not enter his wife's room at night without passing through this chamber. With the exception of M. de Menneval, private secretary of Her Majesty, and M. Ballouhai, steward of her expenditures, no man was admitted to the private apartments of the Empress without an order from the Emperor. Even ladies, excepting the lady of honor and the lady of the bedchamber, were not received there but by special appointment with the Empress. The ladies of the interior were charged with the execution of these regulations, and were responsible for them. One of them was always present at the lessons taken by the Empress in music, drawing, and embroidery. They wrote letters from her dictation or by her order.

The Emperor said he was unwilling that any man in the world should be able to boast of having been alone with the Empress for two minutes; and he one day very severely reprimanded the reader on duty, because she had remained at the further end of the salon while M. Biennais, the court jeweller, was showing Her Majesty the secrets of a set of pigeon-holes which he had made for her. Another time the Emperor scolded because the lady on duty had not kept close beside the Empress while the latter was taking her music lesson from M. Paër.

Hence, it is not true, as has been claimed, that Leroy, the man-milliner, had been excluded from the palace for having presumed to tell the Empress that she had beautiful shoulders, while he was trying on a dress. M. Leroy had the robes of the Empress made in his establishment after a pattern that had been sent him. Neither he nor any one from there ever tried them on Her Majesty. The changes he had to make were pointed out to him by the chambermaids. It was the same with other tradespeople and purveyors, corset-makers, shoemakers, glove-makers, etc. Not one of them could see the Empress or speak with her in her private apartments.