Measured by a certain standard, Maria Louisa was beautiful. Her abundant light-brown hair softened the high color of her brilliant complexion, her eyes were blue and mild, her features had the pretty but uncertain fullness of her eighteen years, her glance was frank and untroubled; but her lips were full and heavy, her waist was long and stiff, her form was plump like a child's, and her timidity and self-consciousness were uncontrollable. The French taste inclines to lines in the human form which suggest a lithe and sinewy figure; the French instinct seeks in the expression signs of quick emotion, not to say passion; the French eye knows but one standard of taste in dress; that alone is natural to French feeling which is the product of self-control and consummate art. In all these respects the Austrian archduchess was woefully deficient. She was pious, and, as her letters declare, had spent much of the previous winter in praying that Providence would choose another consort for Napoleon. But with the resignation of her faith, which some call fatalism, and with the obedience which German life demands from all women, even those of the highest station, she had accepted her destiny. These qualities, combined with her capacity for motherhood, soon gained a courteous and affectionate support from her husband, and together they defied both irreconcilable royalists and radical republicans, who, in spite of their ever-waning influence and ever-thinning ranks, still annoyed the Emperor by significant whisperings and glances. Both were in despair because the strongest indictment they had urged was now quashed. One pretext of England, Napoleon declared, had been that he intended to destroy the ancient dynasties of Europe. Circumstances having opened the way to his choice of a consort, he had used the opportunity in order to destroy the flimsy plea under which Great Britain had disturbed the nations and had stirred up the strife which had inundated Europe with blood. Metternich heard people wondering in Vienna whether a new French dynasty was really to be established for the peace and welfare of France, or whether the alliance was intended to throw the strength of a hitherto implacable and courageous foe into another Napoleonic combination for the conquest of Europe and the world.