schools sprang into the ranks to welcome their fathers, while old men embraced their children. A general chorus was heard. Then a warrior came to the front of the stage and celebrated in a hymn the marvels of the campaign of Austerlitz. This was followed by a ballet of foreign nations, in which joined French peasants and girls in the dress of their provinces, from Caux and Alsace, Provence, Bearn, Auvergne, and the Alps. After the dances came songs,--the words by Esmenard, author of the _Navigation_, the music by Stobelt. The marches, evolutions, and ballet were arranged by Gardel. The principal stanzas were sung by the most distinguished artists, Lainez, Lais, Madame Armand, Madame Branchu. When it was all over, the Emperor and the Empress withdrew amid applause, and there was sung the _Vivat_ of Abbe Rose which had made such a success at Notre Dame on Coronation Day, and was as warmly applauded at the Opera as it had been in the Cathedral. XVIII. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF BADEN. If anything is capable of proving the admiration, terror, and fascination that the hero of Austerlitz exercised over Europe, and especially over Germany, in 1806, it is certainly the marriage of the hereditary Prince of Baden with Mademoiselle Stephanie de Beauharnais. It was a curious sight! A Prince belonging to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in the world, whose three sisters had married, one, the Emperor of Russia; another, the King of Sweden; the third, the King of Bavaria; a Prince who might have allied himself with the oldest reigning houses had come to regard as an honor a marriage with, the plain daughter of a French senator,--a girl not united by any ties of blood with Napoleon, but only by adoption; that is to say, by a whim. One might have supposed that the Empire of the new Charlemagne was centuries old, and the German Princes bowed before it like devoted vassals before their suzerain. What a vast power he had attained, and how easily he could have kept it, if he had limited his ambition, and put bounds to his power, and had not asked of docile Germany more than it could give him!