The emperor was radiant. He had followed his inclination, and now that his choice was made, it seemed to receive universal approval. The London "Times" said: "Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the character of France than any princess who could have been fetched from a German principality. She combines by her birth the energy of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the opinion we hold of her be correct, she is, as Napoleon says, made not only to adorn the throne, but to defend it in the hour of danger." The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thousand francs to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding present. Very gracefully she declined the necklace, but accepted the money, with which she endowed an Orphan Asylum. The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined the streets as the bride and her _cortège_ drove to the Tuileries, where they were received by the Grand Chamberlain and other court dignitaries, who conducted the bride to the first _salon_. There she was received by Prince Napoleon and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced her into the _salon_, where the emperor, with his uncle, King Jérôme, surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals, marshals, admirals, and great officers of State, stood ready to receive her. Thence, at nine o'clock, she was led by the emperor to the Salle des Maréchaux and seated beside him on a raised throne. The marriage contract was then read, and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all the princes and princesses present. The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alençon point lace, clasped with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the Empress Marie Louise, and she looked, said a beholder, "the imperial beauty of a poet's vision." The emperor was in a general's uniform. He wore the collar of the Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used to wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece that had once belonged to the Emperor Charles V. The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair and the wedding guests passed into the theatre, where a _cantata_, composed by Auber for the occasion, was sung. The empress, robed in lace and glittering in jewels, seemed, says an eye-witness, to realize the picture presented of herself in the composer's words:-- "Espagne bien aimée, Où le ciel est vermeil, C'est toi qui l'as formée D'un rayon de soleil."[1] [Footnote 1: Ah, beautiful Spain, With thy skies ever bright, Thou hast formed her for us From a ray of sunlight.] When the _cantata_ had been sung, the Grand Master of the Ceremonies conducted the bride, as yet only half married, back to the Élysée.