When the young King passed into the salon, where he was soon welcomed by Maria Cristina, his eyes fell upon the portrait of Mercedes, whom he had lost a few short months before, and he soon found that his bride-elect was in sympathy with his sorrow for his loss, for, in a voice trembling with emotion, she said: “My dearest desire is to resemble Mercedes in all things, and even if I am to succeed her I can never dare hope to supplant her.” Such a sympathetic speech could but unseal the heart of the widowed King, and, having succeeded in his wooing, Alfonso could hardly tear himself from the side of the young Archduchess, with whom he could talk so freely of the wife he had lost. On August 29 the young King finally left Arcachon; the Archduchess accompanied him as far as Bordeaux, and the royal marriage was fixed for November 29. When the Archduke and Duchess and their daughter arrived at the Casa de Campo on November 23, they were met by the King, his three sisters, and the royal retinue, who accompanied them to the Palace of the Pardo, where the marriage settlement was signed on the 28th. The bride-elect won all hearts by her delicate and sympathetic behaviour on the occasion, for, turning to the Patriarch of the Indias, she said, in a voice broken with feeling: “Pray that I may make the King happy, for it is a difficult task to succeed a Queen who was a saint, and who will always live in the affections of the King and the people of Spain;” and here she drew a miniature of Mercedes from her bosom, and gazed at it with respectful admiration. This ceremony took place in the banqueting-hall of Ferdinand VII., and, to the delight of the Spanish people, it was graced by the presence of the ex-Queen, Isabella II. “The great Isabella is coming!” was the cry that rang through the capital, and the dethroned Queen was moved at the enthusiasm of her quondam subjects as she passed through the city, for she saw that there was more fidelity in her people of low degree than there had been gratitude in the hearts of the great whom she had overwhelmed with favours. The wedding ceremony took place in the Church of Atocha, and hardly was the service concluded when the King’s bride went and knelt at the feet of Isabella and kissed her hand. It was a tribute of gratitude to her royal mother-in-law, for it was a fact that the influence of his mother had led the young King to take his new bride from the House of Austria. Isabella had signified her disapproval of the union with the Montpensiers by not being present at that wedding, but this marriage she favoured from the beginning. A few days after the royal marriage an attempt was made on the lives of the young couple, by a man named Francisco Otero Gonzalez, as they arrived at the chief entrance to the royal palace; but, fortunately, although the bullet almost grazed the forehead and neck of the King and Queen, they escaped unwounded.