But the sick bridegroom took long to mend; and it was not till the following January that he was even sufficiently convalescent to journey by easy stages to Bath, and there drink in health at the fashionable pump. A month’s attendance there restored him to something like health; and in February his serene highness was gravely disporting himself at Oxford, exchanging compliments and eating dinners with the sages and scholars at that seat of learning. Another month was allowed to pass, and then, on the 24th of March 1733, the royal marriage was solemnised ‘in the French Chapel,’ St. James’s, by the Bishop of London. The ceremony was as theatrical and coarse as such things used to be in those days. The prince must have looked very much as M. Potier used to look in Riquet à la Houppe, before his transformation from deformity to perfection. He was attired in a ‘cloth of gold suit;’ and George and Caroline may be pardoned if they smiled at the ‘baboon’ whom they were about to accept for their son-in-law. The bride was ‘in virgin robes of silver tissue, having a train six yards long, which was supported by ten dukes’ and earls’ daughters, all of whom were attired in robes of silver tissue.’ Nature will assert its claims in spite of pride or expediency; and accordingly it was observed that, after the bridegroom had arrived, and the marriage procession began to move through the temporarily constructed gallery, blazing with light, and glittering with bright gems and brighter eyes, the bride herself seemed slightly touched, and Caroline especially grave and anxious in her deportment. She appeared, for the first time, to feel that her daughter was about to make a great sacrifice, and her consequent anxiety was probably increased by the conviction that it was too late to save her daughter from impending fate. The King himself, who had never been in the eager condition of the _seigneur_ in the song, who so peremptorily exclaims-- De ma fille Isabelle Sois l’époux à l’instant-- manifested more impassibility than ever. Finally, the knot was tied under a salvo of artillery and a world of sighs. The ceremony took place in the evening, and at midnight the royal family supped in public. It was a joyous festival, and not before two in the morning did the jaded married couple retire to the bower prepared for them, where they had to endure the further nuisance of sitting up in bed, in rich undresses, while the court and nobility, ‘fresh’ from an exhilarating supper and strong wines, defiled before them, making pleasant remarks the while, as ‘fine gentlemen’ used to make who had been born in our Augustan age.