So deeply touched was he by this act, that he knelt down, kissed her hands while tears came to his eyes, as if it were she who had made him the one gift, the royal gift of her heart.
For two weeks the preparations occupied all Beaumont, both the upper and the lower town being in a state of great excitement therefrom.

It was said that twenty working-girls were engaged day and night upon the trousseau.

The wedding-dress alone required three persons to make it, and there was to be a _corbeille_, or present from the bridegroom, to the value of a million of francs: a fluttering of laces, of velvets, of silks and satins, a flood of precious stones--diamonds worthy a Queen.
But that which excited the people more than all else was the great amount given in charity, the bride having wished to distribute to the poor as much as she had received herself.

So another million was showered down upon the country in a rain of gold.

At length she was able to gratify all her old longings of benevolence, all the prodigalities of her most exaggerated dreams, as with open hands she let fall upon the wretched and needy a stream of riches, an overflow of comforts.