the sport of the monarch of thunder when he yields to the sweets of Hymen, what will it be when he again grasps the thunderbolt? Divine nurses of Jove, bees of Mount Panacra, ah! distil upon my verses, from the summit of Dicte, one drop of the sweet-savored honey, food of the King of Heaven, that my August sovereign, whose soul is like Jupiter's, may find some pleasure in hearing them!" Napoleon seemed to rule the present and the future. Even those who had fought against him had become his courtiers. The most illustrious of these, the Archduke Charles, to whom he had just sent the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honor, as well as a simple cross of a knight, which was more precious because he himself had worn it, wrote to him: "Sire, Your Majesty's Ambassador has transmitted to me the decorations of the Legion of Honor, and the affectionate letter with which you have honored me. Being deeply impressed by these tokens of your goodwill, I hasten to express to Your Majesty my sincere gratitude, which is only equalled by my admiration for Your Majesty's great qualities. The esteem of a great man is the fairest flower of the field of honor, and I have always jealously desired, Sire, to merit yours." A stranger thing yet: even the Spanish Bourbons, the victims of the Bayonne treachery, the princes whom Napoleon had ousted, set no limits to their adulation. Nowhere was the Emperor's marriage with Marie Louise celebrated with greater show of enthusiasm than at the castle of Valençay, where Ferdinand III. was living. The Spanish Prince had a _Te Deum_ sung in the chapel; he gave a banquet, at which he proposed this toast: "To the health of our August Sovereigns, the great Napoleon and Marie Louise, his August spouse." In the evening there were magnificent fireworks. He chose that moment when his subjects were exposing themselves to every danger, welcoming every sacrifice in their bitter war in his name, against the French, to beg Napoleon to adopt him as his son and to concede to him the honor of letting him appear at court. XVII. THE MONTH OF JUNE, 1810. The whole month of June was filled with a succession of brilliant festivities. Under the Empire things were not done by halves; battles or balls, everything was on a vast scale. "Never," says Alfred de Musset, "were there so many sleepless nights as during this man's lifetime; never was there such a silence when any one spoke of death: and yet, never was there so much joy, so much life, so much warlike feeling in every heart; never had there been a brighter sun than that which dried so much blood. It was said that God had created it for this man, and it was called the sun of Austerlitz; but he made it himself with his ever-roaring cannon, that dispelled the clouds on the morrow of his victories."