THE COMEDY AND TRAGEDY OF
THE SECOND EMPIRE

NAPOLEON III.
BY ALBERT BRUCE-JOY.

From the cast taken by the Sculptor, by permission of H.I.M. the Empress Eugénie, immediately after the Emperor’s death, January 9, 1873.

Mr. Bruce-Joy’s bust has never been exhibited, and was specially photographed for this book in June, 1911.

Copyright in all Countries. Reproduction prohibited.

[ Frontispiece.]

THE COMEDY & TRAGEDY
OF THE SECOND EMPIRE

LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1911

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
ON HIS EIGHTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY
TO THE
EMINENT STATESMAN AND HISTORIAN OF
L’EMPIRE LIBÉRAL
ÉMILE OLLIVIER
PRIME MINISTER IN 1870
LOYAL FRIEND OF NAPOLEON III.
AND
GRAND OLD MAN OF FRANCE
———
Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret.

A NOTE.

30 juin, 1911,

Monsieur,

Non-seulement j’accepte avec plaisir la dédicace dont vous voulez bien m’honorer, mais je vous remercie des termes beaucoup trop bienveillants dont vous vous servez à mon égard. Je vous remercie aussi de l’envoi de votre livre, que je me ferai lire, et dans lequel, je suis sûr, je trouverai beaucoup d’intérêt.

Agreez, Monsieur, mes sentiments les plus cordialement sympathiques.

Émile Ollivier.

[Translation.]

June 30, 1911.

Sir,

Not only do I accept with pleasure the dedication with which you are good enough to honour me, but I thank you for the much too kind terms in which you refer to me.

I thank you also for sending me your book, which I shall have read to me, and in which I am sure I shall find much that is interesting.

Accept my most cordially-sympathetic sentiments.

Émile Ollivier.

[The book referred to is “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910. Owing to M. Olliver’s somewhat impaired vision, books and documents are read to him.]

PREFACE

It is due to the readers of “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910,” that they should know how that volume was received by the British and American Press. Leading critics like Mr. Courtney, “Daily Telegraph”; Mr. Richard Whiteing, “Manchester Guardian”; and Mr. Tighe Hopkins, “Daily Chronicle,” devoted much space to their analyses of the volume, as did the able reviewers of the work in the “Morning Post,” “Daily Mail,” “Evening Standard,” “Scotsman,” “Illustrated London News,” “Observer,” “Athenæum,” “Church Times,” “Catholic Times,” “Onlooker,” and many other influential and widely-circulated journals. Two editions were exhausted in this country and the United States. A remarkable, and severely-critical, article appeared in “La Grande Revue” (Paris), from the pen of the celebrated author and publicist, M. Gérard Harry, a strong anti-Bonapartist, who deprecated what he considered the excessive praise bestowed upon the Empress Eugénie. I had a distinctly “good Press,” and to that fact I attribute the success of the work, a French edition of which will be issued by the eminent Paris firm of Pierre Lafitte et Cie. The written words of Napoleon III., hurriedly jotted down at the hazard of the pen on his way from Sedan to Wilhelmshöhe; of General Fleury by the side of the captive; of the Empress, and those about her, addressed to Mgr. Goddard—all these documents, it was agreed by the Press, threw new light upon the period of the Second Empire.

One of several appreciative American critics did not appear quite satisfied with the evidence authenticating the Empress’s “Case,” the elaborate statement justifying Her Majesty’s severely-criticized political and domestic acts. If any doubt existed on that point I will now remove it. The assertions contained in that document were indeed those of the Empress herself, and would never have been published without her express approval and sanction.

Sovereigns who have been traduced do not “rush into print” with signed denials of accusations published to their discredit. They adopt other means of repelling attacks upon their honour, and sometimes upon their morality. Thus, the Emperor Napoleon, during his captivity at Wilhelmshöhe, wrote with his own hand a detailed explanation of his policy as the Ruler of France. It would not have been convenable—not in accordance with his dignity or with the rigid etiquette which guides Sovereigns even in their most trivial actions—for the Emperor (who had not then been formally deposed) to have issued that statement with his signature appended to it. The Duc de Persigny refused to “father” the document, and it was sent forth as “by the Marquis de Gricourt,” although, as General Count von Monts assures us, the Emperor was the actual author of the pamphlet,[1] and gave the General a copy of it. Some extracts from the Emperor’s “Case” are printed in the present volume.

The Emperor’s letters to the late Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau display the workings of his mind during the crisis of his life as only intimate correspondence could do. This gifted and charming woman’s letters to Napoleon III. are in the Empress’s possession, and will probably, like all other correspondence, remain unpublished “until fifty years after Her Majesty’s death.” The Emperor’s letters came into the possession of Herr Paul Linderberg, of Berlin, by whose kindness I am privileged to print them in this volume.

English people who had held the Emperor in holy horror took a different view of him when they made his personal acquaintance. Lady Westmorland, for instance, “had always felt a great antipathy for Napoleon III.; to her he was a clever ‘scoundrel.’ In 1863 her son was a guest at Compiègne, and there he became seriously ill. She went over to bring him home, and not only did she acknowledge the Emperor’s kindness, she was won by his personal charm, and recognized, as Queen Victoria had done, the evidence of his high-bred instinct: ‘He tried to put others at their ease, and he is always himself a perfect gentleman.’”[2]

The Emperor, who lavished millions of francs upon others, was himself very economical. The bills of his fournisseurs show that he had his hats done up for four francs and his coats for fourteen francs. “Napoleon III.,” says M. André Lefèvre, “entering France with one or two million francs of debts, left it with twenty, thirty, or fifty millions owing to France.... We must not allow even the mummy of Chislehurst to sleep in peace.” A beautiful sentiment, essentially French.

I have essayed, with the help of others, to paint the Pale Emperor as he was, and the Empress as she was, and is, and Paris Society as it was. Of those who knew both, some will agree, others will disagree, with me; but it is not for this little coterie that I write. I write for the English-speaking peoples all over the world.

As in my first volume, “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910,” the object primarily aimed at was to narrate the lives of the Imperial Family in England, I was precluded from dwelling upon the Reign. In the following pages I have endeavoured to portray some aspects of the Court and of Paris Society between 1852 and 1870. These are necessarily only bird’s-eye views; brief, however, as are these parts of the imperial story, I hope they will convey an idea of the real life of the period. It was very gay—not a doubt about it. Was it an “orgy”? One can hardly think so. Everything was New. To the severe critics—the “sea-green incorruptibles”—the Emperor was an “adventurer,” the Empress an “adventuress,” Society “rotten.”

The descriptions of Fontainebleau and Compiègne are mainly derived from a work by M. Bouchot,[3] whose encyclopædic knowledge is only equalled by his fascinating style. Other details of life at Compiègne are from the brilliant pen of the Marquis de Massa, whose unexpected death in 1910 robbed Paris Society of one of its wittiest and most delightful figures. (The Marquis furnished the Imperial Theatre at Compiègne with many humorous saynètes, and was in great favour with the Emperor and the Empress.) From a lecture delivered in 1910 by the Marquis,[4] and from his entertaining and always reliable “Souvenirs,” I have selected some amusing items. The telegrams sent by the Emperor and Empress in August, 1870, form a history of the war up to the eve of Sedan. These despatches are taken from the fifth volume of M. Germain Bapst’s remarkable historical work, “Le Maréchal Canrobert,” the eminent publishers of which, MM. Plon-Nourrit et Cie., have very generously authorized me to reproduce them. M. Bapst’s running commentary on the dissensions of the Generals, Ministers, and politicians is deeply interesting, and I have quoted largely from it, convinced that it will be as fresh to English as it was to French readers. The picture of the Empress, so vividly sketched by M. Bapst, reveals her in a new light. Although critics are against me, I hazard the assertion that throughout that month of August she displayed most of the qualities of a competent Regent—qualities possessed by no other Empress or Queen of the period, with the single exception of Queen Victoria. But she strove to accomplish the impossible. No human power could convert inept Generals into strategists and tacticians, nor double the strength of the French forces, nor remedy the defects of organization. Every factor that makes for success was lacking, or we should not have a distinguished French soldier writing in 1910:

The authors of most of the works inspired by the war of 1870 have too willingly yielded to the temptation of looking for the guilty, and fixing them with the blame for all our reverses. In turn they have chosen for scapegoats the Emperor Napoleon III., that dreamer, straying into the field of politics, that idéologue, punished in excess of his faults by the pitiless decrees of destiny; Marshal Lebœuf, so fatally lacking in foresight; the Corps Législatif, so badly inspired in its contests with Marshal Niel; the Generals who succeeded each other in the command of our troops, from MacMahon to Bourbaki; and, finally, the Government of National Defence, especially its Delegates. How few have recognized the fact that the French army and our rulers in 1870-71 were purely and simply, with their qualities and their defects, the representation, the faithful image, of the nation![5]

It was a Frenchman, again, who wrote: “The German schoolmaster was the real conqueror of France in 1870, for he it was who had for years developed in the hearts of the children the idea of Teutonic greatness.”[6]

I recall, without in any way endorsing, a quaint reason seriously advanced for the French defeats: “Don’t blame your late Emperor because the Germans thrashed you; the cause lies far deeper: it is due to the sneakishness of your male population.”[7]

Quite recently I read in the Press that only two or three days before the outbreak of war Count Bismarck declared that he had no idea there would be a conflict. If he really said so (I do not credit it), he spoke in a very different strain in January, 1868, to a prominent German socialist. “War,” he is alleged to have said, “is inevitable.” And he continued:

It will be forced upon us by the French Emperor. I say that clearly. He is an adventurer, and will be forced into it. We have to be ready. We are ready. We shall win, and the result will be just the contrary to what Napoleon aims at—the total unification of Germany outside Austria, and probably Napoleon’s downfall.[8]

That prediction—assuming it to have been made—was fulfilled to the letter. Germany was ready—France was not. It is to be noted that M. Émile Ollivier’s new volume—the fifteenth!—is devoted to this question of preparedness or unpreparedness, for the work is entitled “Were we Ready?”[9] The veteran Prime Minister (the last) of Napoleon III. deals with three points—the military preparations, the diplomatic preparations, and the first war operations, down to the morning of August 6 (before the Battles of Wörth and Spicheren):

The conclusion is that, from the military point of view, we were sufficiently ready to conquer, and that, despite formal promises, no alliance was concluded by August 6. Finally, that if, from July 31 until August 6, we had adopted a vigorous offensive on the side of the River Sarre [i.e., at Saarbrücken] we should have gained that first victory which would have changed the conditions of the struggle.

This will strike many as a splendidly-audacious proposition; yet it is neither audacious nor new. The two hours’ fighting at Saarbrücken on August 2 was entirely to the advantage of the French force (overwhelmingly superior in numbers) under Frossard; but the “victory” was not followed up, and thus proved wholly fruitless. M. Ollivier is, therefore, entitled to this expression of opinion, over-sanguine as some war critics may deem it; and his view must be received with respect, even by those who differ from it.

The “great years” of the Reign were 1855, when Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort (the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales with them) returned the visit paid to them by the Emperor and Empress of the French; and 1867, when “all the Sovereigns” were the guests of the imperial pair. The events of the latter year were brilliantly and amusingly recorded by that most vivacious chronicler, M. Adrien Marx, in “Les Souverains à Paris,”[10] from which I have translated some salient passages.

In “L’Impératrice Eugénie,”[11] one of M. Pierre de Lano’s vigorous and much “documented” works relating to the Second Empire, there are to be found many tableaux vivants of the epoch—mordant pages, glowing with colour, of that “Exotic” society which, more than aught else, tended to bring the Second Empire into disrepute; and impressions of the imperial lady which are nothing if not frank and unconventional. The extracts which I have made from M. de Lano’s valuable work cannot fail to be appreciated by impartial readers, who, perhaps, will be startled by the audacity of this highly-original and exceptionally-gifted author.

Two recently-issued works—one by M. Irénée Mauget,[12] the other by M. Gaston Stiegler[13]—strongly appealed to me. To the first I am indebted for some diverting material; to the second for the delightful picture of the Emperor intime in the early days of the Reign and the grim story of the Orsini “attempt,” into which M. Stiegler has infused a few deft touches of romanticism.

The “papers” of my valued friend Mgr. Goddard have again provided me with much material otherwise unobtainable, and have left me with a reserve for future use.

Immediately after the death of the Emperor Napoleon III. at Camden Place, Chislehurst, the Empress Eugénie permitted Mr. Albert Bruce-Joy to take a cast of the head of His Majesty. The sculptor later executed the bust. In June, 1911, at my request, Mr. Bruce-Joy courteously allowed a photograph of his beautiful work to be taken for reproduction in this volume. As the distinguished sculptor worked from the mask taken with his own hands, there can be no question of the perfect fidelity of the portrait. The Empress Eugénie has graciously accepted a photograph of the bust, which I had the honour of sending to Her Imperial Majesty in June.

On May 7, 1910, Queen Alexandra graciously allowed Mr. Bruce-Joy to take a cast of the features of King Edward VII.; and the sculptor’s bust of our late beloved Sovereign was a prominent feature of the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1911. It was executed for Manchester University. Mr. Bruce-Joy’s most recent work is a colossal bronze statue of the late Lord Kelvin.

Prince Roland Bonaparte has again been very generous in sending me some very finely executed photographs, for which I tender His Highness my respectful thanks. These are (1) H.R.H. Princess George of Greece, the Prince’s only daughter (née Princesse Marie Bonaparte); (2) the deeply-regretted Marquise de Villeneuve-Esclapon (née Princesse Jeanne Bonaparte, Prince Roland’s only sister); and (3) Prince Roland himself, in the costume of President of the Geographical Society of France. These photographs are primeurs. The portrait of the charming and gifted Consort of Queen Alexandra’s nephew is particularly à propos, for Princess George was the solitary member of the House of Bonaparte present at the Coronation of King George V. as (with Prince George) a Royal guest.

I have to thank Messrs. Russell and Sons, Baker Street, for their kindness in specially preparing, and, allowing me to use in this volume, the beautiful picture showing the Empress Eugénie on board the royal yacht with our beloved King Edward, Queen Alexandra, and other Royal personages, when, in 1902, the late King reviewed the fleet. This is the only picture of the kind ever taken, and will be treasured as a souvenir of the affectionate relations between the Empress and the principal members of our Reigning House. Of the latter Messrs. Russell and Sons have taken hundreds of superb photographs during the last forty years.

In my quest for suitable portraits of the Second Empire period I have been greatly aided by that universally-popular lady, Mrs. Ronalds, who, with charming courtesy, placed her valuable collection of imperial, royal, and other photographs (all autograph) at my disposal. These include rare pictures of the Emperor Napoleon, the Empress Eugénie, and the Prince Imperial, enriched with their signatures. Unfortunately, I could only avail myself of this generous offer to a limited extent, for I have been confronted by an embarras des richesses. The portraits I selected are those of Mrs. Ronalds and her sister, Miss Josephine Carter. Of their beauty and esprit the chroniclers of the epoch speak in the most flattering terms. Mrs. Ronalds enjoyed the distinction of being a guest of their Imperial Majesties at the Tuileries.

Miss Carter represented “America” at the magnificent fancy-dress ball given in 1866 at the Ministère de la Marine. Other ladies appeared as “Europe,” “Asia,” and “Africa,” and I have it on the authority of a surviving eye-witness of this notable fête that the costumes of the fair representatives of the “five” quarters of the globe were “gorgeous.” Miss Carter was carried on a large platform by twelve of her compatriots dressed as Indians. She was seen reclining in a hammock suspended from two palm-trees. Her dress was artistically embroidered with emblems of the victorious Republic, and her corsage was studded with diamond stars. On her beautiful golden hair she wore a Phrygian cap. In the cortège of “America” were many charming American women, distinguished (as was “Maud”) by “dead perfection.” “Oceania” was represented.

I have been so fortunate as to obtain from the Vicomte de La Chapelle some exceptionally interesting reminiscences of Napoleon III. and the Prince Imperial, as well as a curious story of Marshal Bazaine. His father—one of the comparatively few survivors of the Bonapartist régime—was, as I well remember, one of the stanchest and most valued friends of the Emperor, who made him his political and literary collaborator and confidant. I have also to thank the Vicomte de La Chapelle for the portrait of his father (the venerable Comte de La Chapelle) and the picture of the Emperor on the field of Sedan.

The welcome co-operation of the Vicomte de La Chapelle—a popular figure in legal, City, and social circles—has enabled me to print a number of letters written by his aged father to the Emperor Napoleon. I have given an outline of the Comte de La Chapelle’s career, and I will not dwell upon it further here except to say that he was the trusted and valued collaborator of the august Exile from 1871 until the unexpected happened on January 9, 1873. But I must mention the invaluable services which he rendered to Napoleon III. at a time when His Majesty did not know where to turn for money. I noticed this question in my previous volume,[14] and in proof of the correctness of my assertions quoted a letter written by the great house of “Barings,” and published in the “Times,” denying the absurd statements that they had invested immense sums on the Emperor’s account. The accuracy of what I wrote in 1910 is now further confirmed by my valued friend the Comte de La Chapelle, whose letters to the Emperor on the subject of his financial embarrassment I am now privileged to make public. It was the Comte de La Chapelle who, by his influence, energy, and devotion to Napoleon III., succeeded in raising large sums for the personal use of the Emperor and to keep the Bonapartist cause going. The name of one of these generous helpers is very well known to me, and in the early seventies it was familiar to the commercial world generally. These letters form a most interesting chapter in the Emperor’s amazing career.

The Comtesse Edmond de Pourtalès, with the most charming and kindly grace, sent me, at my earnest request, a very rare photograph of herself, taken in the later period of the imperial reign. The Empress Eugénie will, I am confident, be gratified at seeing the portrait of this great lady—the most lovely of all the belles dames who surrounded Her Imperial Majesty in the years of her splendour, and one of the very few surviving intimate friends of the still radiant châtelaine of Farnborough Hill.

The proprietors of the well-known and deservedly popular Paris illustrated paper, “Femina,” have been exceedingly generous in this important matter of pictures. But for their good offices I could not have given the delightful and piquant portraits of the Empress Eugénie in various costumes, or the large picture of Her Imperial Majesty at La Malmaison, with portraits of M. Franceschini Pietri and Comte Joseph Primoli. Certain difficulties arose in the preparation of these historically valuable pictures, but these obstacles were overcome by the great goodwill and liberality of the proprietors of “Femina,” to whom I shall always be grateful for their kindness.

During the Terrible Year a “Times” leader-writer took as his text for a powerful essay some extracts from the Reports of Colonel Stoffel, French Military Attaché at Berlin (1866-1870), to his Government; and in the course of his article he did not hesitate to assert that it was a puzzle how anyone who had read those documents could ever have dreamt of plunging France into a war with Prussia. After reading M. Franceschini’s letters to Stoffel the puzzle would appear greater still were it not now, thanks to M. Émile Ollivier, matter of common knowledge that the Emperor and his Government were goaded into a declaration of war by the French Press and by the nation en masse. These letters (from which, by the great courtesy of the director of the “Revue de Paris,” I have been able to give extracts) are in every way remarkable, but their main importance lies in the fact that they were written by M. Pietri. In 1866, as later, he was the mouthpiece of Napoleon III. When he wrote to Colonel Stoffel he expressed not only the Emperor’s views, but his own. He shows us that Stoffel’s opinions were highly valued by the Emperor and by Marshal Niel, then Minister of War. Both Sovereign and War Minister set special store upon the Military Attaché’s Reports. The Emperor could not hear too often from him. M. Pietri was always urging the Colonel to write. The Emperor dictated to M. Pietri questions which Stoffel was required to answer. The Prussians, in their campaign against Austria, in 1866, used the needle-gun for the first time in warfare, and M. Pietri sent Stoffel funds wherewith to purchase one of the new rifles for the Emperor. These lettres révélatrices are further remarkable for their ardent patriotism and wide knowledge of political and military affairs. It is hardly too much to say that in these epistles M. Franceschini Pietri shines as the Admirable Crichton of Bonapartism. Sometimes he is amusingly audacious and delightfully humorous, but always he is “the Emperor’s man” to the backbone. With a few hundred of such letters it would be possible to construct a history of the Second Empire which only the publication of the Empress Eugénie’s Memoirs could rival. And perhaps the Secretary’s letters would be the more historically interesting of the two.

Proof-sheets of the chapter, “Prince Napoleon’s Policy,” were sent to His Imperial Highness’s Secretary, M. Beneyton, and returned to me by that gentleman with his wonted courtesy. If I mention these incidents, it is simply to show that I have always taken the utmost pains to secure absolute accuracy in all which I have written concerning the Imperial Family. Similarly, I based my exposé of the forged “Mémoires de l’Impératrice Eugénie” on the written statements courteously furnished me by M. Franceschini Pietri in January, 1910.[15]

I have been honoured by the letter of M. Pietri conveying the Empress Eugénie’s thanks, and also by these gracious communications:

Sandringham, Norfolk, June 29, 1911.

Dear Sir,

I am commanded by Queen Alexandra to thank you very much for the excellent photograph of the Emperor Napoleon the Third’s Bust, which Her Majesty is very glad to have.

Believe me,
Yours truly,
Charlotte Knollys.

Paris. 10, Avenue d’Ièna, 30 juin, 1911.

Cher Monsieur,

J’ai recu votre aimable lettre du 27 ct., ainsi que la photographie du buste de l’Empereur Napoléon III. et les paragraphes sur la représentation de la Maison Bonaparte aux fêtes du couronnement de S.M. le Roi Georges V.

Je me suis empressé de remettre le tout à S.A.I. Monseigneur le Prince Roland Bonaparte, qui me charge de vous en remercier vivement, et de vous dire combien Elle a été sensible à cette délicate attention.

Veuillez agréer, cher Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distingués.

G. Faussez des Mares.

Translation.

Paris, 10, Avenue d’Ièna, June 30, 1911.

Dear Sir,

I have received your amiable letter of the 27th inst., and also the photograph of the bust of the Emperor Napoleon III. and the paragraphs referring to the representation of the House of Bonaparte at the Coronation fêtes of H.M. King George V.

I hastened to hand the whole to H.I.H. Monseigneur Prince Roland Bonaparte, who directs me to warmly thank you, and to tell you how sensible he is of your delicate attention.

Accept, dear sir, the expression of my most distinguished sentiments.

G. Faussez des Mares.

I have selected for detailed treatment 1867. In that year the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugénie entertained three Emperors, eight Kings, one Viceroy, five Queens, nine Grand Dukes, two Grand Duchesses, two Archdukes, twenty-four Princes, seven Princesses, five Dukes, and two Duchesses. The Prince of Wales (King Edward VII.), the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Duke of Connaught were of the party. While 1867 is generally considered to have been the “great year” of the Imperial Reign, M. Hanotaux[16] inclines to the opinion that “the climax of Napoleonic glory” came in November, 1869, when the Empress Eugénie inaugurated the Suez Canal—ten months before Sedan.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
THE EMPRESS’S GIRLHOOD

It is August, 1840, and from the balcony of the Delesserts’ house a fair-complexioned, golden-haired girl of fourteen looks down on a man escorted by two gendarmes. Dishevelled, unkempt, in his shirtsleeves, the prisoner, who has been fished out of the salt water, passes out of sight, unaware of the child’s wistful looks and the sympathetic glances of her sister and their mother. Perchance he sees Goldenhair wave her handkerchief.

Mme. Delessert’s husband is Préfet of Paris. The ladies on the balcony are the Comtesse de Montijo and her daughters. The man in custody is Prince Louis Napoleon, the derided, but unabashed, hero of the Boulogne “attempt”; and he is two-and-thirty.

The daughters of the Comte and Comtesse de Montijo made their acquaintance with Paris when they were not more than four or five. It was about 1830 or 1831 when the family went to reside there for a while. Prosper Mérimée, whose name can no more be kept out of the history of the Empress than could Mr. Dick suppress the mention of King Charles’s head, was there, and his friend of the British Museum, Dr. Panizzi, was kept informed of the strolls on the boulevards of the little Eugénie, and of her liking, not only for the author of the story of “Carmen,” which Bizet was later to set to music, but for the sweets given to her by Mérimée.

The Montijos seem to have been then in only fairly easy circumstances. Three or four years later their fortunes improved, the head of the family having died.

Eugénie’s education begins at a celebrated convent school, on whose books she figures as Eugénie Palafox, a name used by her for a score of years.

At the Sacré-Cœur, Rue de la Varenne, the little Montijo is supremely happy. Her holidays and those other days when she is allowed “out” she spends with her mother’s friend, the Comtesse de Laborde, at a country house at Passy, where a park runs down to the Seine. Mme. de Laborde has promised Madame mère to make Eugénie’s school life as pleasant as possible, and she fulfils her promise to the letter. The Comtesse de Laborde has three daughters, all well married, all charming mondaines: Mme. Delessert—who, as the wife of the Préfet, is a personage—Mme. Bocher, and Mme. Odiar. Eugénie is in the good graces of this captivating trio. But the lady to whom she is particularly attached is the Comtesse de Nadaillac, daughter of Mme. Delessert, and grand-daughter of the Comtesse de Laborde.

At the age of eleven (in 1837) she makes the vows imposed upon communicants, in the stereotyped phrase, “La fille de la Comtesse de Téba (Montijo) fit sa première communion,” in the chapel of the convent school. Soon—in March, 1839—there comes a hurried departure for Spain, whither her parents had returned a short time previously. Her father has died, and the child’s Parisian “schooling” is over. For some little time before the loss of their father Eugénie and her eldest sister, Francisca, familiarly “Pacca,” had been in the charge, in Paris, of an English governess, Miss Flowers,[17] who accompanied them to Madrid at the time of the Count’s death. Mérimée wrote: “No one would credit the regret I feel at their departure” (from Paris). I will note only in passing that Eugénie’s education was “finished” in this country at a school at Clifton, Bristol.

Having ceased to be a schoolgirl, the Señorita Eugénie de Montijo undergoes a transformation. She is, and for some years will remain, in her teens. At fifteen she is bewitching. In the saddle, what a charming and picturesque figure! Madrid has no such fearless rider. There is no particular evidence that now and then she gallops through the streets riding à califourchon; but legend has it so, and in this case legend may possibly not wholly err. In the forties she is heedless of criticism, perhaps because only her rivals can find it in their hearts to malign her. As yet she is not seen in the hunting-field. She little recks that ten years or so later she will be arousing the undisguised hostility of her sex at the imperial chasses at Compiègne.

The Señorita would hardly be Spanish were she not much in view when all Madrid foregathers at the bull-fights. Like her companions, she has her favourite toreadors, and is lavish of her rewards—gold and flowers. Matadors and picadors do her homage. She is coquette to her little finger-tips. A smile from that sunny face and a word from those rosebud lips are eagerly contended for, and she is not slow in according both. Meanwhile the élégants group themselves around her as thick as bees round the tulips and honeysuckles. In those Southern climes, if anywhere, flirtation is one of the fine arts. The Señorita Eugénie—“Ugenia” in her own language—is not the least ardent disciple of the genus flirt. She coquettes with this Duke and that Duke. He of Ossuna and he of Sesto (Alganices) are rivals. There is yet a third Duke—Alba—over whom she essays to cast a spell; but, alas! the course of true love is diverted—perhaps unconsciously—by Pacca, the beautiful sister, and she it is who becomes Duquesa. Around this episode of unrequited love how many “histories” have been woven, mostly apocryphal! “Ugenia,” some would have us believe, resorts to what she thinks is a phial of poison, and awakes from her torpor to discover—oh, horror!—that she has swallowed a portion of the disgusting, but harmless, contents of a blacking-bottle!

No salon in Madrid was more frequented than the Comtesse de Montijo’s. The daughters were not the only magnets. Madame mère was a woman of esprit, and had a genius for making friends and keeping them. “Theatricals” drew all Madrid to the house. Eugénie was seen in De Musset’s “Caprice,” with the enamoured Duc de Sesto in the cast. The summers—or a portion of them—were passed on the Montijo property at Carabanchel.

Every great lady in Madrid has her circle of young and middle-aged men, known as “pollos”—literally, chickens. Among the Comtesse de Montijo’s “pollos,” all more or less smitten by the radiant Señorita Eugénie, was General Espartero’s successful rival, General Narvaly, Duke of Valencia, short, dark, a stern soldier, as supple in the young lady’s hands as the youngest and most impressionable of her “pollos.” A lady well known in social London, the wife of a foreign diplomatist, and gifted with the pen of a ready writer, drew this somewhat caustic portrait of the future Empress when she was the most-discussed personage in Madrid:

Hardly a week passed without some fresh anecdote being circulated of which Eugénie de Montijo was the heroine. She justified curiosity and courted censure by her disregard of conventionalities; and she certainly possessed the Alcibidian temperament which craves for notoriety. She wielded her sceptre of society queen with no light hand, and her favourites of to-day were discarded by to-morrow’s caprice. In her own house she was seen devoting herself for the whole evening to the entertainment of some obscure musician, hanging on his arm, speaking to no one else, and finally dropping the curtains over a window recess to which she had led him; but the following week, if the poor infatuated wretch came confidently to bask in the intoxicating favour that had bewitched him, he was received with a supercilious arching of the lovely eyebrows. This idol could look at him as if he were a total stranger, and glide away from him with the coldest inclination of her head.

The variegated life of the Spanish girl who was destined to become Empress of the French—her life between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six—has never been, and never will be, described in detail. They were “Wanderjähre,” years of travel, visits to modish Continental resorts, and one or two sojourns in England. Once, in the summer of 1851, she and her mother (but not “Pacca”) attended a Court ball at Buckingham Palace—an incident which Queen Victoria may have recalled in one or other of her numerous meetings with the imperial lady, but not recorded by the Queen in her “Leaves” or her “Letters.” The presence of the Spanish ladies among the Queen’s guests was, however, noted in the official list, the compiler of which, or the printers, effectually mangled the names of both. A week later Lord Malmesbury saw them at Cambridge House, Piccadilly, the town residence of Viscount and Viscountess Palmerston, now, and for many years past, the Naval and Military Club. Mlle. de Montijo struck Lord Malmesbury as being “very handsome”; with the “flair” of a modern journalist, he noted her auburn hair and her “beautiful skin and figure.” He would have earned our thanks had he given us the names of the social sponsors of the Montijos in London. It was our Great Exhibition year, and we may be certain that the ladies were among the hundreds of thousands who flocked to Paxton’s huge glass palace in Hyde Park, the exact site of which is probably unknown to all but the fogies of 1911.[18]

A resort which found much favour with the mother and daughter was Eaux-Bonnes, in the Pyrenees. At the hotel honoured by their presence was an observant gentleman who for a full fortnight had the felicity of dining in the company of the fair Spaniards. He was therefore, according to one of his friends, who made attractive “copy” of it for a Belgian paper, able to “coldly study” the younger lady. “C’est une très belle et très jolie femme, qui tiendra fort bien sa place, attendu qu’elle a, comme on dit, le physique de l’emploi.”[19]

CHAPTER II
THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF NAPOLEON III

Few English readers are, I imagine, familiar with the boyhood and the adolescence of Napoleon III., whose centenary fell on April 20, 1908. It is true that Blanchard Jerrold has given us, in his “Life of the Emperor” (four volumes, published in 1874 by Longmans), an admirable and detailed history of the unfortunate Sovereign who drew his last breath at Chislehurst in 1873; but, perhaps owing to the abundance of other material officially placed at his disposal, Mr. Jerrold devoted only a few lines to the eight years during which Philippe Le Bas was the tutor of the future Emperor.

Luckily, M. Stéfane-Pol has recently produced a volume of the greatest value, entitled “La Jeunesse de Napoléon III.,”[20] containing the hitherto unpublished correspondence of the Prince’s tutor, Philippe Le Bas (of the Institut), with many original illustrations, some from the Prince’s own pencil, others by Queen Hortense and by artists familiar with Arenenberg.

“Prince Louis Bonaparte,” wrote Alphonse Karr, in “Les Guêpes,” “born in Paris in 1808, educated abroad, knew neither France nor its ways. He spoke our language with difficulty, with a very strong German accent. His early youth has left no souvenir, even in the mind of his most complaisant biographers.”

Even his partisans confine themselves to generalities, stupidly inaccurate. “Although far from France,” says M. Stéfane-Pol, “we read in a contemporary publication describing the coup d’état, ‘the education of the young Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely French. His mother imbued him with a love of his natal land, and his father taught him, at an early age, to sacrifice everything—life, honours, and fortune—for the holy and sacred cause of the people; taught him, too, to dare and to suffer all things for the triumph of such great interests. Later, his parents, in order to complete his education, confided him to the care of M. Le Bas, son of the Conventionnel of that name, from whom the Prince acquired the wisest and most solid Republican principles.’”

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, youngest son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, and of Hortense de Beauharnais, was born on April 20, 1808. He was Napoleon I.’s nephew, and the Empress Joséphine’s grandson. He was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau by Cardinal Fesch, uncle of Napoleon I., and held at the font by the Great Emperor himself. In the Moniteur of April 21 his birth was thus chronicled:

Yesterday (Wednesday) Her Majesty the Queen of Holland was happily delivered of a Prince. In conformity with Article XL. of the Act of the Constitutions of the 20 Florial, year XII., his Serene Highness Monseigneur the Prince Arch-Chancellor of the Empire was present at the birth. His Highness wrote immediately to His Majesty the Emperor and King, to Her Majesty the Empress and Queen, and to His Majesty the King of Holland, informing them of the event. At 5 p.m. the certificate of birth was received by His Serene Highness the Prince Arch-Chancellor, assisted by His Excellency M. Régnault de St. Jean d’Angély, Minister of State and Secretary of the Imperial Family. In the absence of His Majesty the Emperor and King, the infant did not receive any Christian name; this he will be given by a later act, in accordance with His Majesty’s orders.

Napoleon I. and Joséphine had been divorced previous to the birth of the child, whose godmother was Marie Louise, Napoleon’s second consort. At the time of his birth the parents of the future Napoleon III. were living apart. “I am sorry Louis is not here,” said the mother; “this infant would have reconciled us.”

It was said that the King of Holland was not the father of the young Louis Napoleon.[21] It is difficult, however, to adduce proofs of that assertion. There is one fact concerning which there is general agreement. There was no physical or moral resemblance between the brother of Napoleon I. and the son of Hortense de Beauharnais. The infant had neither the face nor the character of the Bonapartes; on the contrary, he was the image of his mother, whose large heart, as well as many other characteristics, he inherited. Ambition and superstition were the principal features of the life of Queen Hortense. “She inspired her son,” said Henri Martin, “with a fanatical faith in his destiny,” and circumstances developed in both mother and son a firm belief in their lucky star. With the exception of the King of Rome, Louis Napoleon was the only Prince born under the imperial régime—the only one whose birth was greeted by military honours and the people’s homage. Was not that (asks M. Stéfane-Pol) a presage of his destiny? A family register, devoted to the children of the imperial dynasty, was deposited at the Senate as the grand-livre of the right of succession. The name of Prince Louis was the first to be inscribed in it, with all the pomp of a consecration. What better auspices could there have been for an aspirant Emperor?

Later, when the Duchesse de Saint-Leu (Queen Hortense), mother of Prince Louis Napoleon, occupied the leisure afforded her by her exile in roaming through Switzerland with Mlle. Cochelet, she had no object in view except that which chance offered. “All our distractions during these wanderings,” wrote Mlle. Cochelet, “were confined to searching for four-leaved shamrocks, to which were attached various ideas. ‘If,’ said the Duchesse, ‘I find a four-leaved shamrock, it will signify that we shall return to France before very long, or that I shall receive a letter from my son to-morrow,’ and so on.” The author does not add, “Or perhaps I shall reign through my son,” but that is implied in most of the wishes of the ex-Queen of Holland.

In 1834 Louis Napoleon and his mother travelled in Italy. They had been in Rome for some time, when one day Hortense consulted a negress, a somnambulist, who, according to M. de La Guéronnière, had produced some remarkable phenomena. A clever magnetizer sent the negress to sleep, and presently, in response to the eager questions of Hortense, the somnambulist exclaimed suddenly, as if inspired, “I see your son happy and triumphant. A great nation takes him for chief.” “For Emperor, you mean, do you not?” asked the mother breathlessly. “For chief,” replied the somnambulist. Hortense could not obtain from the negress anything more satisfactory, but the prediction was confirmed subsequently by what the doyen of Paris priests said to Louis Napoleon, then President of the Republic: “Monseigneur, the will of God will be fulfilled quand même.”

Louis Napoleon was imbued with all his mother’s superstitious ideas. One of his friends having asked him why the attempt at Strasburg had failed, the Prince smilingly furnished an explanation which doubtless accorded with his fatalistic instincts—a wheel of his carriage had come off between Lehr and Strasburg! But his instincts required guiding, and Hortense was not equal to the task. While she was making lint for the wounded and weaving patriotic romances to cheer the faint-hearted, the mother of the future Emperor (then Queen of Holland) inculcated in the young Louis those bellicose ideas which were quite foreign to his calm and dreamy nature. “Supposing you had not a sou in the world to call your own,” she said to her eldest boy one day, “what would you do, Napoleon, to gain a livelihood?” “I should go for a soldier,” was the reply. “And you, Louis, what would you do?” “I should sell violets, like the little boy who stands at the gates of the Tuileries,” answered the child whom Destiny had marked out for an Emperor. There was something in this boy’s character to reform, and his mother set about the task, invoking the aid of all around her—amongst them Napoleon I. and Mme. Bure, the faithful nurse, who was jealous of the attention bestowed upon the boy by Mme. de Boubers and the Abbé Bertrand.

Henceforward the young Louis made considerable progress. Although he was always extremely sensitive, he longed to share the dangers of others. Renault, imitating Mlle. Cochelet, tells this story of him:

At this time Prince Louis Napoleon was seven years old. One day, on the eve of the departure for that fatal campaign which, after two striking victories, ended with the disaster of Waterloo, Napoleon I., accompanied by Marshal Soult, entered his cabinet. He appeared sad and thoughtful. The tones of his voice, sharp and emphatic, revealed the preoccupation of his mind. Suddenly a child slips into the room. His features are stamped with grief, and he vainly struggles to restrain his emotion. He approaches, kneels before the Emperor, and, laying his head and hands on Napoleon’s knees, bursts into tears.

“What is the matter with you, Louis?” exclaims the Emperor, in a tone showing his annoyance at being interrupted. “Why have you come here? Why are you crying?”

The child, frightened, can only reply with sobs. By degrees he becomes calm, and then, in a sweet, sad voice, says: “Sire, my governess has just told me that you are leaving for the war. Oh! do not go—do not go!”

The Emperor could not but be touched by this solicitude, for the child was Prince Louis, the nephew whom he loved above all others.

“And why do you wish me not to go?” asked the Emperor sadly. Then, passing his hand through the child’s golden curls, he said: “Mon enfant, it is not the first time that I go to the war. Why should it trouble you? Never mind; I shall soon return.”

“Oh, my dear uncle,” said the boy, again bursting into tears, “those wicked Allies want to kill you! Oh, uncle, let me go with you!”

For a time the Emperor did not speak. Taking the child on his knee, he pressed him to his heart and embraced him warmly. The Emperor was deeply moved, but presently, when he had steadied his voice, he called, “Hortense! Hortense!” And as the Queen came hurrying into the room, Napoleon said: “Here, take my nephew out and give his governess a severe scolding for thoughtlessly putting such words into his mouth and exalting his sensibility.” Then, after addressing the boy affectionately, the Emperor, turning to Marshal Soult, who was labouring under deep emotion, said vivaciously: “Embrace him—he will have a good heart and a beautiful soul. He may be the hope of my race.”

Hortense must have relished these last words. Are not great captains regarded as oracles? When, at Paris, as at St. Leu, some of the visitors discussed metaphysics, or grouped themselves around La Bédoyère, reading Racine or Shakespeare; when others posed to Garnerey for their portraits, and others played billiards, Louis Napoleon and his brother listened open-mouthed to the tales of heroism which Mlle. Cochelet was instructed to tell them. Later, in the land of exile, while the Duchesse de St. Leu and her suite played diabolo—one room serving as salon and salle à manger—and when the only book at their disposal was a volume of “Anecdotes de la Cour de Philippe-Auguste,” discovered, after a long search, by the Abbé Bernard, the ex-Queen of Holland would watch her sons playing at soldiers with the common children. And the day came when she saw Louis at the military school of Thün learning how to command, and then at Rome, at the house of his grandmother, Lætitia Bonaparte—scenes which enabled her to record the story of Prince Louis Napoleon’s youth.

The character of the Prince, according to Mlle. Cochelet, was amiable, timid, self-contained. He spoke very little, and Le Bas (his tutor) adds that he was naturally distrait and inactive. Thus he always remained. Those who most flattered Napoleon III. never concealed, in rhetorical phrases, the evident inertness of his physical nature; morally, he was a docile slave.

His look of inertness and apparent insensibility is only the mark of an ardent and powerful inner life. His eyes are dull, but they are as deep as the thought in which they are plunged, which appears now and again as the flame leaps from the hearth. His forehead is as sombre as fate, but it is large, like its conception. The lips are white, but fine, delicate, discreet, only sufficiently opened to allow of the escape of sharp and precise expressions of a reflecting and ordered will. His speech is indolent and slow, but he is sure of himself, and his apparent indifference is but the excess of his self-confidence. Audacity veiled by timidity, firmness dissimulated by mildness, inflexibility compensated for by goodness, finesse concealed by bonhomie, life under the marble, fire beneath the cinders—in a word, something of Augustus and of Titus under the look of Werther, that type of German dreaminess: such was the appearance of Louis Bonaparte.[22]

M. de La Guéronnière finds, in this portrait which he gives of the Prince, a justification for the various appreciations formulated of his mind and character. But do we not see, on the contrary, in the portrait a simple play of antitheses, a fantastic interpretation of that which appeared to be the evident reality?—which is to say that Louis Napoleon was a young man of average intelligence, without mental unbending, and characterized by an absolute lack of willpower. Like all who hesitate and dream, he finished by attaching an idea to himself and adopting it, in order not to be submerged by other ideas. Thus he deserved the title of “doux entêté” given to him by his mother. But his impassiveness, his stiffness, were only timidity, and his resolutions to act showed themselves only after delays or with sudden coups, which emphasized his weakness.

He had doubtless a certain fatalistic power of resistance, but this side of his character only showed the absence of an active mind; the enterprises of Stratford and Boulogne do not contradict this view. As to the coup d’état, one might explain it by many causes foreign to a ripe will. Besides, was not the coup d’état predicted by the “Grand Albert,” and did not that prediction give the rein to the superstitious docility of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte?[23]

However this may be, whatsoever his faults may have been, we must recognize in him who was Napoleon III. one quality: he had a heart. Even his adversaries knew this, and some of them—those who were sincere—admitted it with a good grace. The words of Georges Sand, written when the Prince was a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, would have remained true if events, stronger than his apparent energy, had not let loose against him hatreds at once tenacious and justified. “Two or three of us,” she wrote, “often talk about you, and we always say, after recognizing the dangers which would follow your accession to power of any kind, ‘He possesses the gift of making himself loved; it is impossible not to love him.’”

Le Bas, who knew the Prince better than anyone else, speaks of his excellent heart, and quotes examples of the sensitiveness and the generous instincts of him whom his mother and the Abbé Bertrand long called “notre petit oui-oui.”

The character of the child reflects, in an exaggerated form, the qualities and the defects of those by whom he was surrounded. It is sufficient to peruse the letters of the Abbé Bertrand to understand the lightness and the inconsistency which vitiated the education of the future Emperor Napoleon III. The Republican Le Bas, on the contrary, enunciated more severe, and at the same time more generous, ideas, which his pupil transmitted into Utopian reveries. Later, the Prince’s initiation into military studies gave him a taste for the profession of arms, and inspired him with the secret hope of continuing, by modifying and even socializing it, the work of Napoleon I.

The docility of the child bent under the influence of his preceptors, as it had previously given way under that of his mother and the intimates of the household. But, besides this, the fashionable life, the soirées, the concerts, the drawing-room theatricals, and the organization of lotteries, as well as the excessive walks and drives, disarranged the carefully-elaborated programmes of education, so that the personality of Prince Louis could not prevail against the numerous changes of scene, to say nothing of the drawbacks to study caused by the life in exile and the uncertainty of what might happen at any moment.

It would be a curious study to examine the writings of Napoleon III., and to ascertain who amongst those by whom he was surrounded in his youth inspired him with the thoughts which he has put into his book, “Idées Napoléoniennes.” That work, his essays on military subjects, and his “Extinction de Paupérisme,” all reveal the accurate memory of the former pupil of the camp of Thün, and show how well he recollected the lessons of Le Bas and the advice of the ambitious Hortense, while they also give evidences of that futility for which the Abbé Bertrand was to some extent responsible.

“Slave of the souvenirs of his childhood,” wrote the Emperor, “the man obeys all his life, without doubting them, the impressions which he received when he was young, and the experiences and influences of which he has been the object.”[24]

If (concludes M. Stéfane-Pol) circumstances had not been stronger than the free-will of Napoleon III., those impressions, experiences, and influences, many and various as they were, would never have brought about the unheard-of metamorphosis of a man of heart and delicacy, if not of reason, until popular sentiment, refusing to analyze him in order to arrive at a result, finished by execrating him.

CHAPTER III
FROM LONDON TO HAM VIÂ BOULOGNE

Between 1839 and 1848 Prince Louis Napoleon (allowing for the six years which he spent at Ham) resided mostly, if not entirely, in London. In the first part of those years—on his arrival here from Switzerland, which he had left under pressure of Louis Philippe’s Government—he lodged at Fenton’s Hotel, St. James’s Street,[25] soon removing to Carlton Terrace, Pall Mall. In 1846, upon his escape from Ham and his return to London (May 27), he stayed for a while at the Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn Street; then changed his quarters to King Street, St. James’s, where he was living when he acted as a special constable during the Chartist riots.[26] From King Street he wrote (February 15, 1847) to a friend, M. Vieillard:

For the last fortnight I have been installed in a new house, and for the first time in seven years I enjoy the pleasure of being at home. I have assembled here all my books, my albums, and family portraits—in a word, all the precious objects which have escaped shipwreck. The portrait of the Emperor, by Paul Delaroche, is very fine. This generous present has given me great pleasure, and forms the most beautiful ornament of my salon.

An intimate friend of the Prince (the pseudonymous “Baron d’Ambès”) asserts that Louis Napoleon “left Lord Cardigan’s house to occupy Lord Ripon’s, Carlton Gardens. He did not lose by the change.”[27] His drawing-rooms were “full of glorious souvenirs and sacred relics. There were portraits of the Emperor, the Empress, and Queen Hortense; the ring of the ‘crowning’; the ring worn by Napoleon I. at his marriage with Joséphine; the tricolour cashmere scarf which he wore at the Battle of the Pyramids; the portraits of all the members of the imperial family; the famous talisman of Charlemagne, found in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, and sent to Napoleon by the cathedral clergy in 1804; a medallion with two portraits, painted by Isabey; and other marvels, doubly dear to him who religiously preserves them.”

The Prince drove or rode every day. His cabriolet, driven by himself, soon became familiar in the West End; in the Ladies’ Mile it was much remarked, for the Prince soon made a number of friends, well-known men and pretty élégantes, some of whom were to be seen at Lady Blessington’s. “In London he visited only important personages. He was an assiduous frequenter of the libraries, and a good customer of the booksellers. He now (1840) published his volume, ‘Les Idées Napoléoniennes,’ a résumé of that programme of democratic empire which he always upheld.”

About this time De Persigny appeared among the authors. His “book” was a very small one, but it was read in Paris by everybody, for it was a cleverly-written account of a “visit to Prince Louis” (it was so entitled). It was published anonymously, but people soon gave a name to it. De Persigny, it seems, had read Vertot’s “Révolutions Romaines” (a favourite book of Napoleon I.), and discovered a parallel between Prince Louis, nephew of Napoleon, and Octavius, grandnephew of Julius Cæsar. De Persigny’s work touched the Prince, whose hopes were revived by its emotional passages.

Louis Napoleon’s attempts—first at Strasburg in 1836, and next at Boulogne in 1840—to arouse France to a sense of his merits were signal failures, so farcical as to cover him with ridicule in a country where that defect is popularly supposed to “kill.” He was a laughing-stock, yet he survived both contempt and obloquy, to say nothing of six years’ imprisonment. In the Strasburg plot the Prince was assisted by a lady (of the same age as himself) who called herself Mrs. Gordon, and who was born Bruault-Eléonore Bruault. She had been a singer, and had received lessons in Paris from Rossini. Some time in the year 1836, beautiful and poor, she was in London, where she came in contact with De Persigny, who probably introduced her to the Prince. After the fiasco at Strasburg she was quick enough to burn all compromising documents before the police could seize them. Moreover, she contrived to get De Persigny, disguised as a cook, out of the town. He reached London safely, and narrated the story of the “attempt” in a pamphlet published in London and in Paris. Fleury joined De Persigny in London; they shared lodgings, belonged to the same club, and were presently joined by the Marquis de Gricourt.[28]

For his attempt to make the troops at Strasburg mutiny in his favour Louis Napoleon was deported to America, where he arrived on March 30, 1837, after a long voyage, which he fully described in letters to his mother. At New York, on the evening of his arrival, the Prince dined with two American Generals, his brothers-in-law, and others, and later met his cousins, Achille and Lucien Murat and Pierre Bonaparte. Achille Murat was employed at the post-office; Lucien was married to a school-mistress; Prince Pierre was leading a gay life. The illness of Prince Louis’ mother brought him back from the United States. He reached London on July 10, 1837, and, by means of a passport borrowed from a Mr. Robinson, got to Arenenberg early in August, after frequently evading the Continental police. Queen Hortense died on October 5, consoled in her last moments by her son’s presence and Dr. Conneau’s promise that he would never leave him.[29]

One night in the first week of August, 1840, the walls of Boulogne-sur-Mer were placarded with proclamations signed “Napoleon.” These “posters,” which had been printed in London, were headed respectively, “To the French People,” “To the Army,” and “To the Inhabitants of the Department of the Pas de Calais” (Boulogne, of course, included). The “proclamations,” couched in very lofty terms, aroused no enthusiasm, but much merriment; they were really as amusing as anything in “Charivari.” “Soldats, aux armes! Vive la France!”—so ended the appeal to the troops.

Then, on the same wall, the Boulogne burgesses stared their hardest at a “Decree” which they read without a thrill. “Prince Napoleon, in the name of the French people, decrees as follows: The Dynasty of the Bourbons-d’Orléans has ceased to reign” (excusez du peu!) “The French people has entered into its rights. The troops are relieved from their oath of fidelity;” with much more similar rhodomontade. Without a tremor—doubtless with many a wink—Boulogne read that M. Thiers was appointed President of the Provisional Government, and that all who showed energetically their sympathy for “the national cause” would be recompensed “in a striking manner” in the name of the country! One would like to have seen the faces of the conspirators when the “proofs” of these grandiloquent pronunciamientos were taken to Carlton Terrace. How unenterprising of the Times, the Herald, and the Post not to have obtained early copies! Nor could those journals have suspected that the Prince between times—between gallivanting at Lady Blessington’s, riding one of his two saddle-horses (there were three others) in the Row, and “beating the town”—the aspiring, talented, and pertinacious Nephew of the Uncle, had devoted himself to the onerous task of “developing his programme”—

All admirable ideas, and all to be carried out one day, but not by entreating Strasburg troops to mutiny, or by “landings” at Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The Boulogne expedition was planned at Carlton Terrace in June, 1840. A steamer, the Edinburgh Castle, was purchased for the Prince, ostensibly for the use of “some gentlemen who wanted to cruise on the Scottish coast” (the name of the good ship seemed not altogether inappropriate). Guns were bought at Birmingham. Uniforms were brought over from the “Temple,” in Paris—all but the buttons; these were bought in London, and sewn on by Dr. Conneau! “Servants” were imported from France; they had all served in the army.

Between August 3 and August 5 the Edinburgh Castle made four trips to Boulogne. On the night of the 5th the vessel was anchored off Wimereux. All told, the imperial force numbered sixty-two, including thirty ex-soldiers (the “servants”). Ammunition, money, and horses were all taken safely across the Channel. And there was a live Eagle, symbolizing the return of “the other.” Money had been offered to the douaniers, who scorned the proffered bribes—a bad omen. The audacious conspirators went through Boulogne, shouting “Vive l’Empereur!” They tried to get the 42nd Line Regiment to “rise,” but the honest fellows turned deaf ears to the charmers. A detachment of that regiment attacked the conspirators. The Prince wanted to die at the foot of the Column of the Grande Armée, after “running-up” the imperial flag, but he was dragged away. Pursued by a handful of the National Guard, the conspirators took to their heels and made for the beach. The Prince and some of his friends jumped into the sea, hoping to regain “the lugger.” They were “shot down like ducks.” One was fatally wounded, another was drowned, others were badly hit. It was said that a bullet grazed the Prince “without hurting him.” Louis Napoleon, De Persigny, Dr. Conneau, and Mésonan were picked up by gendarmes, dragged into a boat, and taken to prison.

These things happened on August 6. On the 7th, in the afternoon, the Moniteur published a statement, signed by the War Minister, Cubières, that the conspirators had been “driven into the waves, which vomited them up again. Louis Napoleon and all his adherents have been captured, killed, or drowned.” The Prince, on the 9th, was taken from the château at Boulogne to the fortress of Ham. On the 12th he arrived in Paris in a carriage, escorted by departmental gendarmes and men of the Municipal Guard. He was kept, until his trial, in the strong-room of the Conciergerie, three gaolers never leaving him. Even his valet, Charles Thélin, was not allowed to see his forlorn, but not dejected, master.

While the Prince was under lock and key his ever-faithful valet wrote to a friend in London the subjoined letter (cited by Baron d’Ambès in his very remarkable volumes):

Paris, à la Conciergerie,
August 21, 1840.

My dear Fritz,

You will have sent to Mr. Farquhar the letter which the Prince left with you on his departure from London [for Boulogne]. It contains his instructions to sell everything except the toilette articles of His Highness and of those persons who left them [at the Prince’s residence]. As to the cabriolet and the horse, the two sets of harness, and the sporting gun, Mr. Farquhar will doubtless have already told you that they were the Prince’s gifts to him. The Prince thinks that the housemaids and the kitchen servants have been discharged with a month’s wages [in lieu of notice].

You will remain in the house, with Lord Ripon’s chambermaid, until further orders. The Prince will allow you £4 a month, besides what you are now getting, for your board. You are to preserve all the English newspapers which have appeared since the Prince’s departure, and send them to him when he asks for them. Keep in the house the articles belonging to other persons, and put the name of each on the trunks and packages. Arrange all these things so that they may be sent off when you get orders about them. See that the lodgings of these gentlemen are paid, and tell all the tradespeople to apply to Mr. Farquhar for payment of their accounts.

You are to buy two leather trunks at £3 each, and put in them all the things which are in the wardrobe in His Highness’s bedroom, with the two pairs of sheets, the two pillows, and the towels in the same room which are marked with an “N” and a crown. Put with them also the two little nécessaires de toilette, the boots, shoes, etc. The two trunks should be got ready for sending away at any moment. You are to take for yourself the old red shooting [or hunting] coat, the leather breeches and the white breeches, the large boots, the green overcoat, the green trousers, the hunting-boots, the large brown overcoat, the two vieilles du matin, and the hats. In the dressing-room you will find a brand-new hat.

I left in my room a leather trunk containing my things. You will find in a drawer a little box containing some papers and other things which I highly value. Take great care of them. There is also in my wardrobe some linen for shirts. Take care of my paletot, my trousers (if there are any), and my little nécessaire. Do what you like with the rest of the things.

Adieu, my dear friend. The Prince is quite well.

Ch. Thélin.

On September 28, 1840, Prince Louis Napoleon and some of his fellow-conspirators were tried at the Luxembourg before the Cour des Pairs, M. Pasquier presiding over the tribunal. Fifty-five persons had been arrested at Boulogne, but only twenty-two were proceeded against. The Prince was defended by the ablest advocate of his day, Berryer, whose brief was marked with a fee of £600; with him were MM. Marie and Ferdinand Barrot. M. Jules Favre defended other of the prisoners.

After President Pasquier had begun the “interrogation of identity,” the Prince rose and requested permission to read a short written statement in his defence. He began: “For the first time in my life I am allowed to raise my voice in France and to speak freely to Frenchmen.”

Towards the end of his address he said: “A last word, gentlemen. I represent before you a principle, a cause, a defeat. The principle is the sovereignty of the people; the cause that of the Empire; the defeat, Waterloo. The principle you have recognized, the cause you have served, the defeat you wish to avenge.”

The trial lasted until October 6, when the prisoners were sentenced: the Prince to perpetual imprisonment in a fortress; Montholon, Lombard, Conneau, and De Persigny to five years’ imprisonment; one was deported; others were sent to gaol for fifteen, ten, five, and two years.

The Prince heard his fate unmoved. To the greffier he remarked spiritedly: “Sir, they said formerly that the word ‘impossible’ was not French; to-day the same may be said of the word ‘perpetual.’”

During the trial the Prince sat in a fauteuil, guarded by two soldiers with fixed bayonets. He was a trim, alert-looking figure, in frock-coat and high black stock, wearing to and fro a tall hat.

His six years’ isolation at Ham—a huge fortress, with a moat—converted Louis Napoleon into a littérateur of almost the first rank. His industry was excessive. Reams of paper were covered with his straggling, careless writing, chiefly on military subjects. His foster-sister, Mme. Cornu, gave him valuable assistance by forwarding books which otherwise he would probably have been unable to obtain, looking after his proof-sheets, writing to his publishers, and sending him extracts from volumes for which she ransacked libraries. When, in his stonemason’s or bricklayer’s long blouse, cap, and canvas trousers, carrying a plank and smoking a pipe, he made his escape, “Badinguet” was the father of at least two children, boys, for whose maintenance and education he made adequate provision.[30]

On May 27, 1846, Louis Napoleon reached London, and put up at the Brunswick Hotel, where his name was entered as Comte d’Arenenberg. He is said to have astonished Lady Blessington and the friends who were dining with her by appearing at Gore House the same evening. He wrote to the French Ambassador (M. de Saint-Hilaire, who had been a friend of Queen Hortense) informing him that he had escaped from Ham solely to revisit his old father, and that he had no intention of making any more “attempts” against the French Government, his previous efforts having resulted so disastrously to himself. The Prince’s widowed father, the Comte de Saint-Leu, ex-King Louis of Holland, was residing at Florence, and Louis Napoleon vainly applied to the Austrian Ambassador in London and to the Grand Duke Leopold for permission to visit his father, who passed away in the following July.

All that the Comte de Saint-Leu possessed he left to his only surviving son, Louis Napoleon—his palace at Florence, his landed property at Civita Nuova, his money, and all his relics of Napoleon I. By his father’s death the Prince became a comparatively wealthy man. D’Ambès asserts that he had to his credit at Barings 150,000 francs (£6,000), and at Farquhar’s 3,000,000 francs (£120,000). We are led to believe that the Prince was unmercifully “bled” on all sides, and that he was soon deluged with begging letters from France, Switzerland, and Poland. “He spends a great deal. He already owns several houses in London, and has bought a house in Berkeley Street for Miss Howard.”

CHAPTER IV
COURTSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT

When Prince Louis Napoleon was rather over twenty-six he wrote to his father, the Comte de Saint-Leu:[31]

Arenenberg,
June 5, 1834.

My dear Papa,

Since I wrote to you, the death of Mlle. de P.’s father has somewhat changed my marriage plans, for until now I did not know any of the ladies whose names had been placed before me. I had given attention only to the conventionalities, not to the affections, which can only display themselves when one sees people personally. Besides, the advantages I saw in the alliance which I desired to contract no longer exist, and should I persist in my matrimonial views, the best thing I can do is to cast my eyes upon Mlle. de Padoue. You will give me much pleasure by replying to me on this point, and giving me your advice, although I am in no hurry to marry.

I enclose you a copy of a law just passed by the Government, which has evidently been enacted against us, for it cuts short all the claims that my family may have respecting the debts owing to it by the French Government. In these circumstances, I believe that, if it is intended to press the claim, there is only one way of doing it—by commencing an action against the Government. It is unfortunate that we did not hear earlier of this law, which was passed without any noise, so that we might not be enabled to take any steps in reference to it.

I have received a letter from Charlotte, and am going to answer it.

As I have not been very well for the last month, I am going very shortly to take the waters at Baden, near Zurich, for a month.

With sincere attachment,
Your loving and respectful son,
Napoléon-Louis B.

It was not until the following year, 1835, that the question of the Prince’s marriage was publicly mooted. He was then living with his mother in Switzerland, at the villa of Arenenberg. It was erroneously reported that the Prince was about to marry Queen Doña Maria of Portugal. Not sorry, perhaps, to attract attention by denying in the Press the report of a marriage which he knew was impossible, the Prince wrote the following letter to a provincial paper:

Sir,

Various journals publish that I am leaving for Portugal in the character of a pretender to the hand of Queen Doña Maria. Flattered as I am at the thought of an alliance with a young, beautiful, and virtuous Sovereign, the widow of a cousin who was dear to me, it is my duty to deny this rumour. I may add that, despite the interest I feel in a nation which has conquered its liberty, I should certainly refuse to share the throne of Portugal, if, by chance, it were offered to me.

Louis Napoléon.

The historian will search in vain should he attempt to identify the other ladies “whose names had been placed before” the Prince.

The next heard of is the young Englishwoman, Miss Emily Rowles, of Camden Place, Chislehurst, the home in later years of the Emperor and Empress and their son. Miss Rowles indignantly terminated the engagement—which had been definitively arranged—when she heard of the relations which existed between the Prince and Miss Howard.

When he was residing in London (1847) the Prince aspired to the hand of Lady Clementina Villiers, daughter of Lord and Lady Jersey. Lady Jersey, however, disliked the suitor, and the affair was nipped in the bud. The Prince had asked Lord Malmesbury if he had any chance of success with the young lady, and was not encouraged by the reply, which appears to have been in the nature of a gentle snub.

Miss Burdett-Coutts was not to be won by an adventurous French Prince, although he was the nephew of Napoleon I.

Turn and turn about the Prince made advances to—

1. The daughter of the Prince de Wasa, husband of a daughter of the Grand Duchess of Baden (née Stéphanie Louise Adrienne de Beauharnais).

2. Princess Adelaide of Hohenzollern, niece of Queen Victoria’s consort, and sister of that Prince Leopold whose selection by Prim to occupy the vacant throne of Spain, in 1870, led up to the war.

3. A daughter of the Prince de Wagram, who “did not please him,” and who married Prince Joachim Murat.

4. The Infante Marie Christine, a daughter of Don François de Paule, and sister of the consort of Queen Isabelle II.

Doubtless he had an affection for his cousin, Princesse Mathilde, and felt a pang when the news reached him, at Ham, of her marriage with the Russian Prince, Anatole Demidoff. Neither as President of the Republic nor as Emperor of the French would the royal houses of Europe have anything to do with the son of Queen Hortense.

Mlle. Eugénie de Montijo, Comtesse de Téba? She was unheard of as yet.

There was never any question in the minds of those who were ever so little behind the scenes that Napoleon III. so completely “lost his head” over “the beautiful Spaniard” that he seriously proposed to her without knowing whither his impetuosity was carrying him. That marriage was far from the Emperor’s intentions originally is highly probable. When, however, he saw there was nothing for it but to make the young lady his Empress, he allowed himself to be led with scarcely a word of remonstrance and only the faintest of objections. His Majesty had to deal with an experienced woman of the world in Mme. de Montijo, and with a clever one in the person of Mlle. Eugénie de Montijo. It was a question of “marriage or no marriage,” and the ladies gained the day. The flirtation was remarkably strong while it lasted, and the Emperor made himself the laughing-stock and butt of most of his monde, whose ridicule, however, could not divert His Majesty from pursuing his campaign with infatuated ardour.

Numberless stories are told of this diverting love-chase. Every year, in October, there was a great gathering of guests at Compiègne. On one of these occasions a société d’élite sat round a table playing cards while waiting for tea. It was noticed that Mlle. de Montijo sat on the Emperor’s right, and, the wives of some of the Ministers being present, the circumstance was regarded as a sign of the times. The game was vingt-et-un, and Mlle. de Montijo, who did not seem to be very expert, consulted her neighbour on the left when she was in doubt what to do. Presently, after looking at her cards, she showed them to the Emperor, letting her eyes play the part of an inquirer. Napoleon III. replied, “Keep them; you have a very good hand.” “No,” she remarked, “they’re not good enough; I want all or nothing!” and she asked for more cards, whereupon the dealer tossed her what proved to be an ace. Of course she won, and she took up the stake with a smile which was interpreted by those present as the triumph of the will over fortune.

The courting was nearly all done at Compiègne, and Mlle. de Montijo got herself much talked about by her beauty, her grace, and her coquetry with the Emperor, who, on his side, was driven almost frantic by the malicious pleasantries of his uncle, King Jérôme, who, with the wickedest smile, never omitted to ask the Emperor the first thing every morning how matters were going. The attitude of the ladies of the Court towards the woman whom they regarded as a usurper will be best understood by what follows. One night, as they were going into dinner at Compiègne, Mlle. de Montijo, conducted by Colonel de Toulongeon, was walking immediately behind Mme. Fortoul, wife of the Minister of that name. Quite by accident the first-mentioned couple took precedence of Mme. Fortoul, who said to her escort, in a tone which all could hear, “Why did you let that woman pass before us?”

Mlle. de Montijo heard the remark, and almost fainted. Her blue eyes filled with tears, she ate nothing for dinner, and replied to all the Emperor’s observations with a profound melancholy. After dinner the Emperor went up to her and said:

“Are you unwell, mademoiselle?”

“No, sire. Why do you ask?”

“Because I noticed that you ate nothing, and I suppose that——”

“No sire; I repeat, I am not suffering; but here, in this very room—here, chez vous, I have been insulted in the most flagrant manner, and I think it my duty to tell your Majesty that I intend to leave Compiègne this very evening.”

The Emperor begged her to explain, and the young lady told him, as well as she could through her tears, what had happened.

“Mademoiselle,” said the Emperor, “promise me that you will not leave Compiègne, and I promise you, in turn, that to-morrow nobody will dare to insult you.” And the next day came the Emperor’s offer of marriage.

The Emperor’s intention to take to himself a wife was announced on January 22, 1853, by a speech from the throne, in the course of which His Majesty said the union which he was about to contract was not in accordance with political tradition; but that was an advantage. “She who is the object of my choice is of high birth. French by heart, by education, by remembrance of the blood which her father shed for the cause of the Empire, she has, as a Spaniard, the advantage of not having in France a family upon whom it would be necessary to bestow honours and dignities. Endowed with all the qualities of the soul, she will be an ornament to the throne, even as in the hour of danger she will become one of its courageous supports. Catholic and pious, she will address to Heaven the same prayers that I myself offer for the happiness of France. Gracious and good, she will, I firmly hope, revive, in the same position, the virtues of the Empress Joséphine. Then, gentlemen, I say to France, ‘I have preferred a woman that I love and respect to an unknown woman, whose alliance might have had advantages mixed with sacrifices.’ Presently, at Notre Dame, I shall present the Empress to the people and to the army. The confidence which they have in me will cause them to give their sympathies to her whom I have chosen; and you, gentlemen, when you have learnt to know her, will be convinced that this time again I have been inspired by Providence.”

Thus did Napoleon III. reverse the policy of his uncle, who divorced and abandoned a woman who was loved to espouse a daughter of the Cæsars; the former renounced the possibility of a royal marriage in order to wed a woman whom he loved. The Court of the Tuileries was greatly divided on the subject of the Emperor’s marriage. King Jérôme, Drouyn de Lhuys (Minister of Foreign Affairs), and Persigny (Minister of the Interior) were, with others, in favour of a dynastic alliance; Morny, Fould, and the military party (nicknamed “the clan of the amoureux”), at the head of whom were Edgar Ney, Toulongeon, etc., were for the marriage with the fair daughter of the Montijos. The Emperor had, however, made up his mind, and, despite his hesitating, uncertain character, which presently accentuated itself still more, he resisted all the pressure put upon him by his family. In vain did Princesse Mathilde throw herself, theatrically, at his feet, beseeching him to abandon a marriage which could only lower his prestige; Cæsar was immovable. Drouyn de Lhuys felt so strongly about the marriage that he asked the Emperor’s permission to resign his portfolio; but he must have changed his mind when he went to do homage to Mlle. de Montijo. “I congratulate you,” she said; “I thank you for the advice which you have given to the Emperor relative to his marriage. Your advice was similar to mine.”

“The Emperor has betrayed me, then,” said the Minister.

“No; it is not betraying you to render homage to your sincerity, and to tell me the opinion of a devoted servant—one who has expressed my own sentiments. Like you, I have represented to the Emperor that he ought to consider the interests of his throne; but I have not had to be his judge, and to decide whether he is right or wrong.”

De Morny told one of his colleagues that the Emperor, having once got an idea into his head, could not be disabused of it. More than one of his courtiers said: “He is mad, and this marriage is an act of the grossest stupidity.”

If the Emperor believed in his star, so did Mlle. de Montijo place an implicit reliance upon hers. A gipsy fortune-teller once told her that she would be a Queen. She might have made a good—nay, a splendid—marriage long before she set her cap at the Emperor. The Duc d’Ossuna was madly in love with her, and wished to make her his Duchess. The Duc de Sesto proposed to her, but she declared she would only marry a Frenchman.

The Emperor’s private friends were more difficult than the Ministers to argue with, and he had many a mauvais quart d’heure with Mme. Drouyn de Lhuys, Mme. Fortoul,[32] and Mme. de St. Arnaud, the latter the wife of the celebrated Marshal who fought with us in the Crimea. These grandes dames sneered at the fair interloper, as they considered Eugénie de Montijo. When they were at Compiègne they did all in their power to snub her and make her look small. To such a point, indeed, did they carry their persecution that the victim complained to the Emperor, who, observing that all the ladies in question were close by, broke a branch off a tree, and, twisting it into a crown, put it on Eugénie’s head, with the remark (which all had the satisfaction of hearing), “Take this until I give you the other!”

Judging by those who are, or were, in a position to know, it would seem that the Empress was somewhat coquettish. Her Imperial Majesty, however, never publicly compromised herself, as the ex-Queen Isabella of Spain is credited with having done. She was flirty, that was all: the sort of woman that “Gyp” has sketched in “Autour du Mariage”; perhaps “Gyp” got her idea of Paulette d’Alaly from the former fair ruler of the Tuileries. “You know,” said the Emperor to one of his Ministers who had complained of the Empress’s attitude towards him—“you know the Empress is very hasty, but, au fond, she likes you very much.” She was not, however, hypocritical, but may be compared to a child who has got tired of a toy and cries for another. She became possessed of all manner of fancies, and was exceedingly romantic, while remaining perfectly mistress of herself.

“It is a delicate question,” writes one of her biographers, “and I approach it with the greatest circumspection; but was the Empress the passionnée she was said to be, and was she faithful to the Emperor? Merely to ask the question was to misunderstand the Empress. Had she any love intrigues? Was she always the woman who is said to have confessed to the Emperor before marriage, ‘J’ai aimée, mais je suis restée Mademoiselle de Montijo’? The answer to this is—‘No; the Empress had no weaknesses. Yes; the Empress always remained the slave of her marital duties.’” There were, doubtless, times when it seemed as if she thought of somebody of more consequence than her imperial consort; but her leanings in this direction appear to have been platonic—the griserie to have been of very slight duration. “It was with her as with a fire of straw, which burnt and burnt, making one think and fear that it was going to destroy everything. Then the individual who flattered himself with having set light to it was surprised at the flame which had illuminated and warmed him, and turned away, his only consolation being the parody of a celebrated sonnet. The Empress was one of those women who like to be made (platonic) love to. If she flirted, it was without real peril to her honour and sans rien céder de son intimité.” When she was a prominent figure in the salon of the Comtesse de Laborde, it is told of her that she was “très libre d’allures.” Eugénie de Montijo tutoyait people very freely, and when she ascended the throne she made any lady who had been a friend in former days “thou” and “thee” her as of yore.

Much may be forgiven the Empress in consideration of her bringing up. From the first she knew what opinion the Emperor really entertained of her—how he saw in her a beautiful woman whom he had marked down as a pretty plaything, the toy of a week, a month, or mayhap a year. She quickly undeceived him, and brought him to his senses almost ere he had taken leave of them. It must not be forgotten that she was thrown among those who composed the gayest Court in Europe. Money was of no more value in the Paris of the “sixties” than it is to-day in the neighbourhood of Monte Carlo, where a sovereign is thought less of than a fourpenny-piece in London. That was the time when champagne baths were the vogue, and beauty was worth ten times the market value of respectability. Those were the days when adventurers flocked to Paris as to a promised land, when the Emperor’s favourites—the De Mornys, the De Persignys, et hoc genus omne—got concessions for every “enterprise” that fertile brains could devise, and when to be “in the swim” was to be in the way of making your fortune.

At the reveillon du jour de l’an at the Tuileries—December-January, 1853—the Emperor, in accordance with French custom, kissed all the ladies on the cheek. He approached Mlle. de Montijo with the same agreeable object; but she drew back, and, curtseying, said to the astonished Sovereign, “Sire, only my husband shall ever kiss me.” This rebuff would have chilled most men, but the Emperor took it very good-humouredly, although such a display of excessive modesty was a new experience for him. Among those who had tried to put Mlle. de Montijo on her guard against the Emperor’s compromising attentions was the Duchesse de Bassano. “Take care,” said this lady; “you are preparing either regret or remorse for yourself. But do not forget that I warned you.” A few days later the engagement was known, and Mlle. de Montijo was able to write to the Duchesse: “I marry Louis without regret and without remorse.”

Towards the close of 1849—when the poor man whom she had seen under arrest, after the Boulogne fiasco, was in the second year of his Presidency—a Spanish gipsy told Mlle. de Montijo that she would marry an Emperor. The señorita knew very well that at the moment there was not one marriageable Emperor in existence, and she asked the gitana if she did not mean a King or a Prince. “No,” was the reply, “I mean an Emperor—an Emperor of a great country.” “Then it must be Souloque,” said the Comte de Breda, then a French attaché, “for there is no other Emperor in the matrimonial market, and he would not be particular as to the number of his wives.”

The proposed marriage was very obnoxious to some of the Emperor’s Ministers; but when they began to remonstrate, His Majesty cut them short with that abruptness which characterized him when his wishes were opposed. “Gentlemen, there is nothing more to say. My marriage with Mlle. de Montijo is an arranged affair. I am resolved upon it.”

The discomfited Ministers withdrew, but they did not cease to protest. There were people whose anger led them to say unpleasant things about both mother and daughter. The former, they asserted, held a very free-and-easy salon at her hôtel in the Place Vendôme. People gathered there after the opera, and the “goings-on” were of the liveliest. “Adventures” of the young lady in former years were fabricated, and openly discussed. People who stuck at nothing asserted that she had had a “past.”

One of the numerous malcontents was M. Thiers, who appears to have had a sardonic kind of humour. “There is nothing to fear from people who are only tipsy,” he murmured; “but they are to be dreaded when they get quite drunk.” The French appreciate this description of wit, and the saying “went the rounds.”

Prince Napoleon, for reasons, and his sister, Princesse Mathilde, for none, bitterly inveighed against what they regarded as sheer lunacy on the Emperor’s part. The Prince, who, as long as there was no legitimate son of the Emperor in existence, stood next in the succession, had some sort of excuse for denouncing his cousin’s marriage with “a mere femme du monde,” who had nothing but her good looks to recommend her. Princesse Mathilde, who had contracted a most unhappy alliance with Prince Anatole Demidoff, but had been long freed from her tyrant, made theatrical appeals to the Emperor to abandon his intention. What was to be done with a man whose infatuation made him cover with kisses Nieuwerkerke’s little bust of Mlle. de Montijo?

M. Vieil-Castel, a Rochefort born out of his time, marvelled what the Emperor would do when an Empress was at the head of a Court numbering among the officials so many men whose lives were the reverse of edifying. “Perhaps a day would come when Mlle. de Montijo would see herself allegorically depicted as a Hercules cleansing the Augean stables.”

The Emperor, however, was supported by a few, among whom was the celebrated Lamartine. Another of the friendly minority declared that His Majesty was doing the right thing in marrying a lady whom he loved, and refusing to bargain for “some scrofulous German Princess with feet as large as a man’s.”

Before the projected marriage was officially announced, Princesse Mathilde gave a ball. Among the guests were the Emperor, the Duc de Morny, the Comtesse de Montijo, and her daughter. The Marquise de Contades wrote, in later years, of this entertainment: “The Emperor, as usual, paid the greatest attention to Mlle. de Montijo. For more than an hour she and the Emperor were engaged in a confidential chat, which no one had the audacity to interrupt. Mlle. de Montijo bears herself easily and gracefully. She and her mother both hope for a marriage, and all their diplomacy is directed to securing it. Everybody courts Mlle. de Montijo, curries favour with her, and seeks her intervention with the Emperor on their behalf. Ministers make much of her. She goes to all the fêtes. She is the actual rising sun.”

Mlle. de Montijo, Comtesse de Téba, in November and December, 1852, and in the following month, monopolized attention in Paris. When she appeared in her box at the opera (Mauget tells us) people had no ears for the music, but they had eyes to see the young lady’s peerless loveliness and graceful bearing. Nothing else mattered. She looked the Empress. The courrieristes of the papers followed her about; nothing escaped their lynx eyes. In newspaper argot, she made splendid “copy.”

“Yesterday and to-day the Comtesse de Téba, accompanied by her mother, the Comtesse de Montijo, visited several shops on the boulevards and in the Rue Vivienne. The future Empress, being recognized by the crowd, was most sympathetically greeted. The hearts of all were conciliated by her simple yet distinguished manners, and by the alms which she bestowed upon several poor women whom she encountered during her stroll.”

Sharp-tongued ladies like the Marquise de Taisey-Chatenoy (but this amiable person is not of much account) had an abundance of cutting things to say of Mlle. de Montijo when she had won the imperial crown. For example: “The Empress has a great taste for jeux d’esprit—I do not know why, for it is not by excess of brilliancy in this direction that she shines.” And M. Irénée Mauget[33] is even more unflattering: “Of changeable disposition, she lacked judgment and reason. She was excessively nervous. Very impulsive, she acted under the influence of good or bad moods, and slighted and wounded many people by her unjust anger, regretting afterwards the pain she had caused. She was not untruthful.... Her sudden elevation, although not unforeseen, dazzled her—stunned her somewhat. Not having been born to occupy a throne, the transition was too brusque. She lacked proportion, and wanted to appear too much the Empress. She continued to be very much attached and very faithful to some of those who had been her intimates in early days, but she was capricious to most of the others, giving and withholding her favours with disconcerting fickleness. She was not loved like the Emperor. When she appeared in public she acknowledged with inimitable grace the salutations she received, and the French, very gallant, were won by this charm.... Had she been solidly educated she would have been capable of exercising the absolute power which she coveted.”

M. Mauget apparently shares M. Rochefort’s unfavourable opinion of the Comtesse de Montijo, who, simultaneously with her daughter’s advancement in life, was said to have become miserly. “She made purchases right and left, and sent the bills to her daughter, sometimes to the Emperor. But Napoleon, always strongly épris of Eugénie, often shut his eyes at his mother-in-law’s demands and revelled in the delights of the honeymoon. Was it the same with Eugénie? We may be permitted to doubt it. What she loved especially in her husband was the Emperor.”

The Madrid journals waxed enthusiastic over the engagement—e.g., the España (January 26, 1853):

It is a Spanish woman who is going to impart to the throne of a great nation the lustre of her grace. The Comtesse de Téba, who was the ornament of our aristocracy, is about to assume the purple of the Cæsars, and share the destiny of him who is at once the heir of the man of the century and the conqueror of anarchy.... The lustre of a throne, however brilliant, will not eclipse the lustre of Marie Eugénie’s eyes, and the fortune which is crowning her with all its gifts will not alter the noble serenity of her heart. For the glory of our country we express the wish, and have the firm expectation, that the former pearl of Castilian aristocracy will be the best of French women.

The Duchesse de Dino wrote:

Nice,
January 21, 1853.

Letters received here from Paris always turn upon the same subject—the marriage of Louis Napoleon. I read in the newspapers the surprising speech which he made to the Senate and the Constituted Bodies [announcing his marriage].

The sister of Mme. de Montijo married Lesseps, formerly a Consul. There is a little relationship toute gentille! Eugénie has chosen as her witnesses the Duc d’Ossuna and the Marquis de Bedmar, who have promised to lead her to the altar. They wanted to marry the son of Jérôme[34] to Mlle. de Wagram, but he recoiled in view of the Clary relationship, which he deemed beneath his dignity. That is flattering to the King of Sweden! What tohu-bohu all this is!

Nice,
January 22, 1853.

It is decidedly a love marriage which Louis Napoleon is making. They tell me that Mlle. de Montijo, who was educated at a Paris pension, is very beautiful, and of high birth on her father’s side. Her mother is the daughter of an English Consul, which explains the English kind of beauty—not at all Spanish—of the new Empress; for it is not a question of morganatic forms; so, point de princesse. I am charmed. But what a responsibility, at the age and with the health of the sposo, to have a young wife, beautiful and Southern! And that in the Bonaparte entourage and in the atmosphere which envelopes it.

Here are some other details, which I have gleaned from my letters from Paris, which are full of nothing but the marriage.

Mlle. de Montijo’s age is from twenty-five to twenty-seven; of great beauty, with auburn hair, which she gets from her Irish mother; she has a bold look. It is said that, as they were playing cache-cache in the saturnalia of Compiègne, the Emperor discovered her concealed behind the curtain of a room, where, believing he was alone with her, he tried to embrace her, and that she pushed him away, saying, “Not before I am Empress.” Another person who was similarly concealed professes to have heard these words.

Legitimists and Orleanists are charmed with this matrimonal affair and with all that it promises.

Nice [after the marriage].

The Empress is very beautiful. They say her only imperfection is that she looks much taller when seated than she actually is when standing up. She says that, in sacrificing her freedom and her youth, she gave more than she received; but she lets herself be adored. The ladies have a down-on-the-ground look, but decent. The decorations of Notre Dame were splendid, but the Cardinals did not make much of an appearance; in fact, excepting M. de Bonald, not one of them is of good family.

On returning [from the cathedral to the Palace] the imperial carriage, which was surmounted by a large crown, was passing under the archway of the Pavillon de l’Horloge when the horses stopped, unable to proceed. The surprised coachman whipped them, and then the obstacle to their progress fell: it was that crown, which was too high to pass under the arch, and, when it fell, was broken to atoms. Ominous!

Nice,
February 6, 1853.

Mme. d’Avenas writes to my daughter that two days before her marriage the Empress Eugénie went to [the convent of] the Sacré-Cœur, Paris, in which she had passed some years of her infancy—Mme. d’Avenas happened to be there also, and thought the Empress charming, natural, and simple—wanting to see once more all the souvenirs of her youth, even to the lay-sister who used to wash her. This visit has had a good effect in the pious world.

Another correspondent wrote to the Duchesse de Dino’s son (February 15), telling him of the flood of sonnets, pamphlets, and riddles which inundated the Empress’s salons. “As to me,” this unknown Parisian said, “the Empress made a conquest of me at Notre Dame—not by her beauty, but by her dignity and her pious, thoughtful bearing.”

The Maréchale d’Albuféra gave the Duchesse a specimen of the jokes made about the Empress. The Maréchale, after noting that “the Empress has blue eyes, and paints her eyebrows and eyelashes black,” asked, “Do you know why the Empress Eugénie is the best horsewoman in France? Because she leapt over the barrière du Trône! This is one of the jokes with which we amuse ourselves here.”

The Duchesse, as a talented diplomatist, noted: “The Empress, until now, decides nothing for herself. She submits everything to the Emperor, even as to the dress which she ought to wear.”

On December 7, 1860, the Duchesse wrote:

The Empress’s annoyance with Fould arose from two causes. When the Duc d’Albe came to see him about the funeral of his wife [the Empress’s sister] Fould replied, “That is a matter for the pompes funèbres.”

The Empress wanted to sell some of her diamonds for “Peter’s Pence.” Fould heard of her intention, and told the Emperor of it.[35]

The foreign Powers did not display particular alacrity in “recognizing” Napoleon III. There seemed to be much curiosity anent the genealogy of the Emperor’s future bride, and an elaborate statement was issued by the Heralds’ College at Paris, informing all whom it might concern that the lady who was about to become Empress of the French belonged “to the House of Guzman, whose origin dates back to the earliest times of the Spanish Monarchy,” several historians asserting that the Guzmans were the issue of royal blood. “All the branches of this family have played a distinguished part in history. Amongst them were the Dukes of Medina, Las Torres, Medina-Sidonia, and Olivares; the Counts of Montijo, of Téba (or Téva), and of Villaverde; the Marquis de Ardales, the Marquis de la Algera, etc., grandees of Spain. The Duchesse de Téba, Comtesse de Montijo, descends from this last branch. This is not the first time this family has been called to ascend the throne, for in 1633 a daughter of the eighth Duke of Medina-Sidonia married the King of Portugal, Dom Juan IV. of Braganza. The Counts of Montijo have the same arms as the Dukes of Medina-Sidonia; they are near relations, and bear the same name, which is De Guzman.”

CHAPTER V
CÆSAR’S WIFE

The Empress, to say it for the thousandth time, was incomparably beautiful, “divine,” and, like most pretty women—although a Sovereign, and perhaps because she was a Sovereign—liked people to occupy themselves about her, liked to be courted. “Although romantic, her physical sense did not seek emotions which are foreign to those which the most elementary virtue imposes upon a woman. Her heart was in no wise desirous of sensations such as those which agitate tender and sentimental women.” She was neither “tender” nor “sentimental.” She loved the Emperor. When they were apart, her thoughts were always with him. Her letters prove it. Once, on her fête-day, she wrote: “This year again I have passed to-day far from the Emperor. This makes the day sadder; but I hope to rejoin him very soon.”

A phrase uttered by the Empress provoked some harsh criticism at the time, and has been, even to this day, quoted against her. It was ungraciously and unjustly assumed that she had special ideas on virtue. But there is really nothing in her remark to justify the implication that she took advantage of that moral freedom which she sometimes apparently seemed disposed to favour.

It was at the Tuileries that, in the early years of the reign, she was credited with saying:

One cannot guard young girls too closely, cannot keep them too far from danger and evil. I constantly watch over them and their surroundings. As to married women, that is another matter, and I admit that I am indifferent about them. Their virtues and their weaknesses are to me perfectly equal: that is their business. They can look after themselves. And, besides, have they not their husbands to protect and watch over them?

Brought up in a milieu quite foreign to any Court (that of Spain always excepted), the Empress, as Sovereign, sometimes lacked that overpowering gravity which women destined to reign are taught from the cradle. She believed sincerely, and without arrière pensée, that it was open to her to enjoy life as she found it. She saw no harm in causing the hearts of men to beat with sentiments which really only flattered her. She was curious to read the souls of others; and the adulation bestowed upon her interested and moved her as a powerful romance would have done. In a word, she was the popular idol. She knew that she was adored, and, receiving all this homage in a perfectly passive manner, felt that she was surrounding herself by friends and devoted admirers, whose sole object was to serve her and to love her. Besides, she was very fond of discussion and argument, and consequently sought the society of men capable, by their esprit, of entertaining her.

Fully aware that a person cannot charm and fascinate people without taking some little trouble over it, the Empress, before talking to a politician, a savant, an author, or an artist of any kind, “got up” her subjects, and made up her mind as to what she must say in order to take the man captive. Moreover, she was as careful to conquer him by the attractions of her person as by those of her conversation; and when she had captured him, when she felt assured that he belonged to her—“when,” in her own phrase, “she found his homage agreeable and amusing,” when she knew that she had stirred his heart, then, and only then, she checked the pretty poem or the half-finished sketch, and wrote with her own fair hand at the bottom of the page which she had read the one word “Fin!” All this was, no doubt, imprudent, and not in conformity with the gravity which ought to have been hers: it may even have been cruel; but what pretty (and virtuous) woman will rise to blame the Empress? What pretty (and virtuous) woman will dare to say that she has never acted in the same way in the drawing-rooms which she frequents? And what man, not entirely virtuous, but amoureux, has not been the victim of similar feminine perfidies? “Le péché veniel des unes, les bourgeoises; deviendrait-il le péché mortel des autres, les reines?” Shall we be wrong in answering the question in the negative?

From the outset the Empress displayed no little fickleness, now lavishing attentions upon those who pleased her, then suddenly dismissing them with a word or a gesture, and henceforth ignoring them. She appeared to act upon uncontrollable impulses, the most glaring temperamental defect in her otherwise generous nature. It was one of the “defects of her qualities,” calling less for censure than for record in an impartial narrative. With all this, however, the Empress was loyal and susceptible of great devotion to her friends, and one sought without finding anything approaching egotism or vaingloriousness in her many inconsistencies. When she gave her hand to a woman or a man she was perfectly sincere, and when she sealed a friendship, or an attachment, with some signal mark of her approbation, she did so in all good faith and in all honour. The Emperor deplored, and with reason, the waywardness displayed by his consort in the choice of her friends, and had often to allay the bitter enmities and discontent which she heedlessly, and perhaps unconsciously, aroused.

The cynical saying of François I., “Souvent femme varie,” might have been applied to the Empress, who was as fickle in her sensations as in her sentiments. She was a Spaniard, and to that fact may be attributed her somewhat eccentric manner. Her character was truly remarkable; she took all sorts of fancies into her head: was very romantic even while remaining practical, prosaic, and mistress of herself. In her romantic disposition the Empress, strange to say, found a certain strength, as letters written by her in the first year of her marriage confirm. One of these epistles may be cited in proof of this view of her character.

The Empress, much pressed by Mme. de M., one of the leading members of the Legitimist party, to obtain for her husband a diplomatic post, did not rest until she had gratified the applicant’s wishes. It should not be forgotten that the Emperor always cherished the idea of rallying to his dynasty the notabilities of the Faubourg St. Germain, and showed every courtesy to those Legitimists who attended the Court of the Tuileries. It is doubtful if the Empress seconded his efforts in this direction, but in the matter alluded to she certainly laid herself out to do a kindly action.

“Mme. de M.,” wrote the Empress to the Emperor, “wants the vacancy at The Hague for her husband, and I much wish him to have it.” She added, as one who was worried by repeated applications of this kind: “Comme ça on me laisserait tranquille!”

A week afterwards the Empress wrote: “I saw Mme. de M. on Sunday, and she seemed perfectly satisfied.”

Writing immediately afterwards about another lady—also one of the Royalist group—for whom she had done something, Her Majesty said: “As to Mme. de C., up to now she hasn’t uttered a word of thanks to me. If you should see her—especially if you should see her husband—say that he does not owe his post entirely to his personal merits. As to gratitude, I have my own opinion about that; and, as I never expect any, I am never disappointed.”

These letters reveal a melancholy philosophy, throwing much light upon the Emperor’s entourage, and showing that, if the Sovereigns did their utmost to conciliate members of all parties, they were too often rewarded only with ingratitude by those on whom they had bestowed favours, or to whom they had accorded high positions in the public service.

That the Empress, strong in her own virtue, should have been grievously pained, and sometimes exasperated, by her inflammatory consort’s peccadilloes is not very surprising. That there were “scenes” was but natural. It was, then, all the more to her credit that in public she invariably showed the Emperor the greatest deference; even in her own apartments, if he appeared, as he sometimes did, when the Empress was entertaining friends, she would rise directly he entered the room, and make him a profound reverence. At one time, too, she sought to amuse the Emperor in a variety of ways, and when one or other of her suite mustered up sufficient courage to repeat to her the rumours and the cancans of the hour, Her Majesty would remark: “Really, they blame us for amusing ourselves at the Tuileries! Surely the very least I can do is to give some distraction to the poor Emperor (who is ennuyé all day by politics), and show him some pretty women!”

It need hardly be said that the observation, coupled with what the Empress had previously said touching the conjugal fidelity of women generally, did not tend to diminish the reputation for légèreté which she had acquired even before her accession to the throne. This frivolity, although perhaps it was more apparent than real, was made the most of by certain ladies, and particularly by the Princesse de Metternich.

That there were evil counsellors among his consort’s bosom friends none knew better than the Emperor, who said to her:

You admit to your most intimate friendship a heap of people who do not wish either of us any good, and who are no better than spies. You tell them a thousand things without thinking of what you are saying. Nigra [he was the Italian Ambassador], Metternich, and the rest only “spoon” you to get your secrets out of you! You may take it as certain that every word you say to them, or in their hearing, finds its way to Turin or Vienna. You place too much reliance in them, and in return for your confidence they are for ever doing their best to “pump” you.

Did not events prove that the Emperor was right?

Quite early in the reign the Empress became a dissatisfied and disappointed woman. Many untoward circumstances combined to produce, with welcome intervals, a disorganization of the family life at the Tuileries, or wherever the Court happened to be. There were, too, those famous charades, remarkable for the lavish display of feminine charms, and resulting in much hostile criticism at second-hand. This entertainment was referred to by the Empress in a letter written by her to the Emperor (July 13, 1860):

I thank you for your welcome letter. I am much better now than I was a few days ago. When I left Fontainebleau I felt ill both in mind and body, having been feverish, and suffering from an irritation of the chest which compelled me on two successive days to go to bed soon after I was up. The weather and the calm of St. Cloud have worked wonders for me, and you will find me in good health and delighted to see you.

Your philosophic reflections are very beautiful; the thing is to put them in practice. I am very weak against that malice which is not based upon hatred. When, by chance, I find in my way people endeavouring to make mischief out of nothing, and tearing reputations to tatters for lack of something better to do, I feel inexpressibly sad, because I say to myself: “One must be very wicked to find pleasure in vexing and injuring those with whom one shakes hands, for not only do the blows show, but defiance takes the place of all other sentiments, and, as the anonymous is masked by friendship, we distrust people without knowing why.” These are the reasons why you found me so sad lately at Fontainebleau.

That innocent charade, unveiled by the papers, was described in a manner which shows it to have been supplied by somebody who was present at the performance, and who got it published either out of malice or to satisfy people’s curiosity. It must have been published by a friend, or, at least, by a guest, and this is one of those things to which I cannot get accustomed. I shall always be strong against my enemies; I cannot say I shall ever be so against my friends.

If those who seek to deprive us of the little time that we have for enjoying the air and for liberty knew how precious this time is to those who are condemned to the preoccupations of the present and fears for the future, they would leave us this oasis, where we try to forget that we must march, always march, with the passions of some and the fears of others.

I have written you this long letter to explain to you that the little tear in the corner of my eye has not even dropped. My eight pages are sprinkled with orthographical blunders, which give originality to my letter, and prove that when I write to you I forget myself.

Does not this letter show the Empress at her best?

Mlle. de Montijo, wrote M. de Mazade in the Revue des Deux Mondes shortly after her engagement, “impressed one by a sort of virile grace, which might easily have made her a heroine of romance, and before assuming the imperial diadem she proudly wore that crown of hair whose colour a Venetian painter would have loved.”

The relations which existed between the Emperor and Empress used to be discussed in the most unreserved fashion, not only in Paris clubs and salons, but in many London circles. All manner of stories were told about their Majesties. Some strong sidelights are thrown upon the lives of the imperial couple by Mme. Carette, in her entertaining “Souvenirs.” If that estimable woman be accurate (and as she was “reader” to the Empress for several years, she should be, and, I have been recently informed, is, a competent witness), the trouble began some eight years after the marriage, by which time “the Empress had known more than one sadness.”

“The Emperor,” says Mme. Carette, whose resemblance to the Empress seems to have been very marked, “led away by his old habits of pleasure, by the easy manners of some of those by whom he was surrounded, was not invariably mindful of his consort’s feelings as Sovereign and wife. The Empress, in all the splendour of her youth and beauty, had made acquaintance with the subtle poison which corrupts all which is most delicate in woman’s heart. After distractions, some of which had a regrettable notoriety, the Emperor, who, like many men, attached no importance to his fleeting liaisons, appeared to be always surprised that he had wounded his wife’s feelings at a time when she occupied the largest place in his life. Sisterly friendship had supported the Empress in these trying experiences. The Duchesse d’Albe, all sweetness and tenderness, consoled her sister, whose ardent nature increased her sufferings tenfold. She helped the Empress to reconcile herself to her hours of trouble and bitterness and to find strength to pardon [the Emperor]. When the Duchesse d’Albe died, the Empress felt for the first time the loneliness which grandeur brings with it. She remained alone with her grief, with nothing to distract her, having no courage to fulfil her worldly duties. Her health suffered greatly, and the doctors urged the Emperor to persuade her to travel in order to remove the painful strain which she was enduring. The Empress accordingly left on a visit to Scotland, where she remained a few weeks.[36] She returned to Paris much improved in health, ready to take up the duties of her position, but she had been irremediably touched by her melancholy situation. From that time dated a profound change in her tastes, as well as in her habits. Her youthfulness seemed to have vanished, and under the charming features of the woman ripened by sorrow appeared the Sovereign whom one had not hitherto seen.”

When Napoleon III. was writing his “Life of Cæsar,” and casting ambitious glances at a chair in the Academy, a poet wrote a few verses on the Emperor’s work, referring to him as the “greatest Cæsar of these later years.” In return for this compliment the Emperor sent his panegyrist a diamond ring and an invitation to call at the Tuileries. The Emperor received him very graciously, and, after some casual talk, asked him if he were married. “No, sire,” was the reply. “Why don’t you marry? Would you marry a lady who is young, beautiful, of ardent disposition, and with a handsome dowry, if you met such a one who was willing to have you?” The young man began to wonder if he was in, not the Palace of the Tuileries, of the glories of which he had heard and read so much, but in Aladdin’s cave. But, though dazed at the prospect, he speedily recovered himself, and replied: “Yes, sire, I should be only too happy.” “Well, then,” said the Emperor, “come here to-morrow night at ten o’clock, and I will present you to her.”

At the appointed time the poet, still rather fancying that he was dreaming, entered the Palace, and was immediately ushered into the Emperor’s cabinet. Napoleon III. was in morning dress; he donned a large cloak and a hat which concealed his identity, and led the poet to a side door. A carriage was waiting, and in it they were driven to a bijou villa which stood in spacious grounds in a retired part of Paris.