With his wildest dreams realized, he felt that to be admired is nothing; the thing is to be loved. His heart was filled with reveries and longings; he aspired after the greatest happiness in life—love in marriage. His words were: “Until now my position has prevented me from marrying; amidst the cares of government, I have, alas! at this hour, in my own country, from which I have so long been absent, neither intimate friends nor acquaintances of childhood, nor relatives who could give me the sweetness of family life!” After the coup d’état the friends and ministers of Louis Napoleon greatly desired that he should form an alliance with some princess of royal or imperial blood. The daughter of his cousin, the Grand Duchess of Baden, had married Prince Gustavus Vasa of Sweden, son of King Gustavus IV. The daughter of this marriage, Princess Caroline Vasa (afterwards Queen of Saxony), was the person selected to become the wife of Napoleon III. It seems that the Emperor of Austria had to be consulted, and his refusal was positive, in consideration of the fate of the two Archduchesses, Marie Antoinette and Marie Louise, who had been placed by Austria upon the throne of France. Louis Napoleon seemed to feel no regret as to the failure of the negotiation, as his heart was by no means engaged in it. There was at this time in Paris a young Spanish lady of noble birth and high position and of very extraordinary beauty, Mademoiselle de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba. Like all foreigners of distinction, she and her mother, the Comtesse of Montijo, were received at the Elysée Palace by the Prince-President with the attention due their rank. When first he met her, in 1849, he was very deeply impressed by her great beauty, elegance and grace, and this feeling seemed constantly to increase. Although he treated her with the most marked reserve and dignity, his happiness was in being at her side. He inaugurated a series of sojourns at his palaces at Compiègne and Fontainebleau, where she and her mother were among his guests. Her manner was full of charm and grace, and her nature of enthusiasm and poetry. Her conversation was bright and glowing, and the Emperor could not conceal the joy he felt in listening to her, nor the admiration aroused by her graceful and intrepid horsemanship. He was himself a bold and elegant rider, and in the forests of his country palaces he ordered that hunts should be given with the most brilliant surroundings.