This circumstance, when confided to the prince president, disposed him to be interested in the young lady. She and her mother were often at the Élysée, at Fontainebleau, and at Compiègne. Mademoiselle de Montijo was a superb horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's especial personal accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost together in the forest at Compiègne, and then society began to make remarks upon their intimacy. The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with Mademoiselle de Montijo. It is said, on the authority of M. de Goncourt, that in one of their rides he asked her, with strange frankness, if she had ever been in love with any man. She answered with equal frankness, "I may have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten that I was Mademoiselle de Montijo."[1] [Footnote 1: Pierre de Lano. La Cour de L'Empereur Napoléon III.] Such a project of marriage was not approved by the emperor's family, it was not favored by his ministers, and the ladies of his court were all astir. At a ball given on New Year's Day, 1853, by the emperor at the Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and insulting to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she looked troubled, the emperor inquired the cause; and when he knew it, he said quietly: "To-morrow no one will dare to insult you again." There is also a story, which seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks before this, at Compiègne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on her head, saying: "I hope soon to replace it with a better one."[2] Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it prophesied to her in her girlhood that she should one day wear a crown. [Footnote 2: Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.] The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, the Duc de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a letter from the emperor, formally requesting her daughter's hand. The ladies, after this, removed to the Élysée, which was given to them, and preparations for the marriage went on apace. In less than a month afterwards Eugénie de Montijo was empress of France. Here is the emperor's own official announcement of his intended marriage:--