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I was received with great deference by the Duke’s major domo, who obviously regarded me as a Bourbon, and with the King and Queen of Spain and a group of ladies and gentlemen, I inspected the pasteboard chapel, the wedding presents, the floral decorations of the banqueting chamber, and the Duke’s stables. The King of Spain was very merry and bright, and believing, no doubt, that I was one of the Duke’s gentlemen, addressed various remarks to me in a courteous way. I drove back in the dark, saluted by all the policemen on the way, and wrote a description of what I had seen, to the great surprise of my friends and rivals.

Next day I attended the wedding, and saw the strange assembly of the old Blood Royal of France and Spain and Austria. One of the Bourbon princes came from some distant part of the Slav world, and, in a heavy fur coat reaching to his heels, a fur cap drawn over his ears, a gold chain round his neck, and rings, not only on all his fingers, but on his thumbs as well, looked like a bear who had robbed the jewelers’ shops in Bond Street. At the wedding banquet one of the foreign noblemen drank too deeply of the flowing cup, and, upon entering his carriage afterward, danced a kind of pas seul and hummed a little ballad of the Paris boulevards, to the scandal of the footmen and the undisguised amusement of King Alfonso.