The leading spirit of all the entertainments given at the Tuileries, the Princess Pauline Metternich, was always alert for some new form of amusement wherewith to enliven the house parties of Compiègne, or the solemnity of the evening parties given in the old home of the Kings of France--that home from which Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had gone to the scaffold, and to which their memory clung in spite of all those who had inhabited it since the day they started upon their tragic journey to Varennes. The fair Eugénie had a special reverence for the memory of the beautiful Austrian Archduchess whose destiny it had been to die by the hand of the executioner within a few steps of the grand old palace that had been hers. With all the impressionability of her Spanish nature she used to say that she was sure a like fate awaited her, and so prepared herself to die as had died the unfortunate Princess whose place she had taken. Eugénie often spoke of what she would do when that day should come, and sometimes amused her friends with her conviction that she, too, was destined to endure tragic misfortunes and calamities. Her presentiments were fulfilled; but, alas! she did not bear them with true dignity. At the time of which I am speaking--October, 1868--Napoleon III. had just completed his sixtieth year. In spite of the agonies occasioned by the painful disease from which he was suffering, he retained his good looks, and notwithstanding his small height and the largeness of his head, which, compared with the size of his body, would have been ridiculous in any other person, he presented a most dignified appearance, and bore himself like a Sovereign born to the purple would have done. When he chose, the expression of his face was charming, and the eyes, which he always kept half closed, had a dreamy, far-away, mysterious look that gave them a peculiar charm. He spoke slowly, as if carefully weighing every word he uttered; but what surprised one when talking with him for the first time was a German accent in speaking French--a habit retained from his early days spent in Switzerland--from which he could not rid himself, in spite of all his efforts, as well as those of M. Mocquard, his faithful secretary and friend, who, so long as he lived, gave him lessons in elocution. I believe that the slowness with which Napoleon III. expressed himself must be attributed to that circumstance more than anything else. But it is a fact that sometimes it had the effect of irritating those with whom he was engaged in conversation; they never knew what he was going to say next, and ofttimes gathered the impression that some ulterior motive actuated his speech.