However, the Princess of Mercedes had not been the only girl friend young Alfonso had had during his exile. For when he could not go to the Montpensiers at Vichy, the ex-King liked to visit the Austrian Archduke and Duchess at Biarritz, as he found their daughter Maria Cristina _très bonne camarade_, and well able to hold her own with him in a game of tennis or billiards. Maria Cristina seems to have been attracted by Alfonso, for when his marriage was announced with Mercedes of Montpensier, she joined the rich and noble Chapter of Prague, of which she accepted the responsible office of Lady Abbess, with an annual income of 20,000 marks. The marriage of Mercedes and Alfonso took place on January 23 with all befitting ceremony. The Patriarch of the Indias blessed the union in the Church of Atocha. The ex-King Francisco was best man, and the Infanta Isabella represented her grandmother, Queen Maria Cristina, as the chief lady at the ceremony. The retinue of the palace, the grandees, the fine caparisoned horses with their bright-liveried lackeys, the gorgeous coaches with their magnificent trappings, all made a striking show as they swept through the Spanish capital from the church to the Court. But a note of horror was struck when a sudden awful sound was heard, and a woman fell dead struck by a bomb; but no other fatality occurred, and cheers filled the air as the troops of the capital filed before the palace, where the Royal Family witnessed the review from the windows. The genial character of the young King was seen in a letter to an Archduke, a college friend, shortly before the death of his beloved Mercedes. This friend, with all due respect to Alfonso as King, mentioned the fact of his marriage with a young Princess of Spain. To this communication the King replied that he never forgot college friends, whom he preferred in many cases to later ones. “I forbid you to address me as ‘Majesty’; treat me as you treated me in the Teresiano. When you marry, come to Madrid with your wife, whom I shall at once regard as a friend. Mercedes is very kind; we will hunt, and we will chat about old times, and so your honeymoon will be spent as happily as mine was....” But a telegram soon followed this bright and happy letter. It ran thus: “MY DEAR FREDERICK, “Queen Mercedes is dead. May God give you in your marriage the happiness which He has denied me! In your approaching days of joy remember the woe of your friend. “ALFONSO.” It may be mentioned that Queen Isabella wrote to Madrid to signify her displeasure at her son’s marriage, for the fact that the daughter of Montpensier, who had intrigued to succeed her on the throne, became Queen of Spain was rather a bitter pill to swallow.