It is, indeed, in mercy that many of our wishes are denied us. Eugene Beauharnais was even then, destined to a bride whom he had never seen, the eldest daughter of that Elector of Bavaria to whom Buonaparte had given royalty; and the sister of Ludwig, the ex-King of Bavaria, was the destined fair one. They were married; and she, at all events, was fond, faithful, nay, even devoted. He was created Duke of Leuchtenberg, and Marie of Leuchtenberg was beautiful, majestic, pious, graceful; but she could not keep his heart. So fair was she, with those sweet blue eyes, that pearl-like skin, that fine form, made to show off the _parures_ of jewels which poor Josephine bequeathed to her--so fair was she, that when Buonaparte saw her before her bridal, he uttered these few words, "Had I known, I would have married her myself." Still she was but second, perhaps third, perhaps fourth ('tis a way they have in France) in his affections; nevertheless, when he died,--and it was in his youth, and Thorwaldsen has executed a noble monument of him in the Dom Kirche at Munich,--when that last separation came, preceded by many a one that had been voluntary on his part, his widow mourned, and no second bridal ever tempted her to cancel the remembrance of Eugene Beauharnais. For Lady Georgiana Gordon, a happier fate was reserved. She married, in 1803, John, the sixth Duke of Bedford, a nobleman whose character would have appeared in a more resplendent light had he not succeeded a brother singularly endowed, and whose death was considered to be a public calamity. Of Francis, Duke of Bedford, who was summoned away in his thirty-seventh year, Fox said: "In his friendships, not only was he disinterested and sincere, but in him were to be found united all the characteristic excellencies that have ever distinguished the men most renowned for that virtue. Some are warm, but volatile and inconstant; he was warm too, but steady and unchangeable. Where his attachment was placed, there it remained, or rather there it grew.... If he loved you at the beginning of the year, and you did nothing to lose his esteem, he would love you more at the end of it; such was the uniformly progressive state of his affections, no less than of his virtue and friendship." John, Duke of Bedford, was a widower of thirty-seven when he married Georgiana, remembered as the most graceful, accomplished, and charming of women. The duke had then five sons, the youngest of whom was Lord John Russell, and the eldest Francis, the present duke. By his second duchess, Georgiana, the duke had also a numerous family. She survived until 1853. The designs formed by the duchess to marry Lady Georgiana to Pitt first, and then to Eugene Beauharnais, rest on the authority of Wraxall, who knew the family of the Duke of Gordon personally; but he does not state them as coming from his own knowledge. "I have good reason," he says, "for believing them to be founded in truth. They come from very high authority."