Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/126

106 two inches in height, his high forehead and clear, blonde complexion, with flaxen hair and full, glossy beard, both parted in the middle; gentle blue eyes, and the frank, intelligent expression denoting both the zealous student and the active sailor-prince, the latter character marked by more than one trait, such as walking with hands behind the back. The peculiar Hapsburg underlip, thick, protruding, and semi-cleft, stamped his lineage, and kindness and refinement his every movement.

With the archduchess, Marie Charlotte Amélie, the commissioners were even more pleased. Tall and dignified like her husband, with the same gentle, open face, oval in form, curved at the temples, and readily moved, the expression had something more spiritual, impressed also by the infantile sweetness of the mouth; while the brown and flashing bright eyes and corresponding hair, heavy and deep auburn, were features that could not fail to win sympathy among Mexicans. The readily distended nostrils of the slightly aquiline nose denoted a brave as well as emotional nature, confirmed by a certain firmness about the chin. A daughter of Leopold of Belgium, the Nestor of kings, she had with the Bourbon blood of her grandmother, the holy queen, wife of Louis Philippe, derived a gravity of manner increased by a too strict companionship with persons of mature years, She seemed as one in whom joyous childhood had been stunted amidst the cold rigidity of the palace, and a strained precocity fostered under constant and severe lessons. She appeared, moreover, as one weighted with the scholarly talents of the father, who sought to perfect her