Under the management of Colonel Mapleson, Patti travelled in most luxurious style. She had a special car which is said to have cost $65,000, and a whole retinue of servants. At Cheyenne, the legislature and assembly adjourned and chartered a special car to meet the operatic train. A military band was at the station, and nearly the whole population turned out to witness the arrival. Tickets to the opera were ten dollars each, and there was an audience of 3,000 people. California seems to have been considered doubtful territory, for Patti left the question undecided as to whether she would go so far. When she did arrive it was merely as a visitor, but her delight with the "heavenly place" was so great that she declared she _must_ sing there. The necessary delay incurred by sending to Chicago for numerous trunks containing her wardrobe, gave sufficient time for the excitement in San Francisco to work up to fever heat. Tickets sold at unheard-of prices, and more or less damage to property was done in the scramble. Adelina Patti made her first matrimonial venture in 1868, when she was united to the Marquis de Caux, an event which did not interfere with her operatic career, for she filled an engagement of six weeks at Paris, and then went on to St. Petersburg, where the town opened a subscription which amounted to 100,000 rubles, and presented her with a diamond necklace. In 1885 Madame Patti obtained a divorce from the Marquis de Caux, from whom she had separated in 1877, and the following year married Ernest Nicolini, the tenor singer. Nicolini was a man of fine stage presence, and, for a time, after the retirement of Mario, was considered the best tenor on the stage. His voice was of moderate power and of pleasing quality, but his tremolo was, to say the least, extensive. For some years Madame Patti declined every engagement in which Nicolini was not included, until the public indignation found vent in many protests. Signor Nicolini seems to have been a devoted and admiring husband, and to have entered heartily into the pleasures of the luxurious life of Craig-y-Nos. He died in January, 1898.