be devoted to charity. This could not fail to create a good impression; and after the wedding many other examples of the same kind occurred. She gave freely to all who approached her with petitions, conscious only that help was needed; and many kind and consoling words accompanied the large sums she privately bestowed. Indeed, in 1863 she went so far as to insure her life in favor of the poor that they might not suffer by her death; and she laid the foundations of many noble works of charity that will cause her name to be honored long after she herself is forgotten. Besides her generosity Eugénie possessed a thousand ways of attracting and winning people to her. The Emperor’s love had raised her to the throne; it depended solely on herself and her tact to maintain her position on it. With her inborn dignity, her beauty, and her queenly grace, she was as well equipped by nature for the part as any royal princess; indeed many a sovereign born might well have envied her, as, sparkling with jewels, she stood beneath the canopy of the throne to receive the foreign diplomats and nobles of the Empire. When she appeared on horseback beside the Emperor at grand reviews, or rode through the city in the imperial coach, bowing in response to the shouts of the dazzled crowds, nothing could have been more beautiful. It was plain to all that the Empress well knew how to play her part. Seldom have two persons better suited to one another than Napoleon and Eugénie, or more completely in accord, been united. In all the pomp and power of her sovereignty she never forgot that it was to him she owed it all; and in proportion as the sense of her own importance rose, her love and admiration for him increased also. In the eyes of the world he had taken a step downward in his choice of a bride; it was now her task to prove that “the adventuress” could be as useful to the dynasty as a consort born in the purple. “I would rather be spoken ill of than not be spoken of at all!” Louis Napoleon had exclaimed when his first attempts to bring about a political revolution had only excited pity and derision. Even at that time he had studied the French people well, and knew their weak spot was vanity. To flatter the national vanity therefore became one of his principal agencies for maintaining his power; and while in private life he loved an almost plebeian simplicity, in public no effect was too striking or too spectacular to keep up his imperial state.