VIII.
FONTAINEBLEAU, _August 17, 1868_.
MY DEAR STOFFEL,
I send you with this letter a memorandum which was dictated to me, and which requests you to explain some things mentioned therein. I preferred to send it in the shape of a memorandum rather than to copy it and add it to my letter, as the E. [the Emperor] told me to do....
[M. Pietri notes the Emperor’s satisfaction with Colonel Stoffel’s last two letters, and with his last reports to the War Minister, which His Majesty said were “très bien faits.” The writer proceeds:]
I must tell you, on my own account, that I should think your admiration of the Prussian army and of the country itself was exaggerated if I did not know that you intentionally exaggerated your views of both a little, with an object which I understand--viz., to give France a good idea of the strength and vitality of those who may one day become our enemies, as to-day they are our adversaries. I believe everybody is in accord upon this point.... It has made us feel the necessity of making great efforts in order not to be outdistanced. These efforts have been made, and are being made every day.... We are ready for every event, big as it might be. That we have committed faults, no one, I think, will deny; that we have lacked foresight is not to be doubted; but from all that we have learnt a good lesson, and it is not to be believed that in future we shall leave even the smallest things to chance. If our diplomacy has not always been skilful, we must do it the justice of saying that for some time past it has not done badly by remaining tranquil and by giving way, while not losing sight of things, but observing them attentively. We have been out of luck up to now, and we must hope that fortune will not delay to turn, and that it will bring us some good coups, of which we shall have to take clever advantage.
* * * * *
In the first week of December, 1868, the Court was at Compiègne. M. Pietri writes to Colonel Stoffel to say that at Compiègne everything was proceeding on traditional lines: hunting, shooting, rides and walks to Pierrefonds, and in the evening “monster dinners and dances.” One improvement had been made: the barrel-organ, which the Emperor sometimes “ground,” was replaced by a live pianist, M. Waldteuffel.
Writing from Paris on May 27, 1869, M. Pietri reproaches Stoffel for having left Paris without hearing Rossini’s Mass. “I like it less than the _Stabat_, but that did not prevent me from going to hear it three times.”
On December 10, in the same year, M. Pietri wrote to tell the Colonel that Paris was going through a crisis, and that men’s minds were unsettled. Matters had not improved at the date of the next letter (February 4, 1870). Victor Noir had been shot by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, and on the next day Rochefort published in the “Marseillaise” an appeal to the people. Thus what was destined to be the “Terrible Year” began most unfortunately.
I am told (writes M. Pietri) that the English Government will insist upon Prussia disarming. It is thought that nothing would come from such a step, and that it would be un coup d’épée dans l’eau.... What do you think of it? Do you think that it would be sufficient to say to the Federal Chancellor, “You must disarm,” to cause him to disarm? I should be curious to know what answer he would make to anybody who made such a proposition to him, and what he would really think and express privately. I am certain that he would make many promises without intending to keep one of them. No doubt you think as I do, and if you can find time (try to find it) tell me if I deceive myself.
In April, 1870, Colonel Stoffel was in Paris, and M. Pietri wrote on the 9th: “The Emperor wishes to see you to-morrow morning at ten. Be punctual, and come and breakfast with us.”
After that date there is a gap in the correspondence. In a long letter, dated March 5, 1871, M. Pietri says: “What sorrows since we parted! More than once I thought I should go mad, and that my heart would be unable to withstand so many troubles. To look on powerlessly at the cutting of the throat of one’s own country; to see all that one holds dearest ruined, destroyed; and, after the disasters caused by the foreigners, to foresee others
[Illustration: H.H. PRINCE ROLAND BONAPARTE.
President of the Geographical Society of France. Father of H.R.H. Princess George of Greece.
_Photographed by Boissonas et Taponier, Paris, and lent for this work by the Prince._
_To face p. 336._]
caused by the madness of our citizens--are not these things sufficient to fill with despair the heart of every Frenchman who sincerely loves his country?...”
A week later M. Pietri writes to tell Stoffel that all the news coming from France is very sad. He despairs of the future. Then comes a most remarkable passage, which I take upon myself to emphasize, for it shows, as I have always argued--years before this book was written--that Colonel Stoffel, if his warnings had been taken, might, and probably would, have saved France. M. Pietri himself admits it, and there is no more trustworthy surviving authority than the Empress Eugénie’s devoted Secretary and valued friend. M. Pietri writes to Stoffel: “I have always done you justice, and to-day more than ever _I recognize that you were right, and that if you had been listened to we should not have been where we are; but all were blind--Ministers, statesmen, the Deputies who were in the majority and those who formed the Opposition. Everybody worked against the country. The Emperor alone, perhaps, saw correctly, but, blocked every moment by the remarks of some and by the ill-will of others, he was carried away_ [by the current] _and unable to carry out many of the plans which he had formed. I admit that he must bear the responsibility, for in this world there must always be a scapegoat; but_ [public] _opinion will calm down, and by degrees will better appreciate the responsibility of each_ [individual]. _The Emperor’s responsibility will then be lessened._” These are noble words, ringing with patriotism and a desire to render justice to The Man who gave the Warning. And I rejoice that the Editor of the “Revue de Paris” has so generously afforded me an opportunity of making the English peoples acquainted with the fact that France had in Colonel Stoffel the most devoted and most prescient of servants, who made it as clear as daylight, not once, but again and again, that Bismarck meant to have war and meant to goad France into beginning it. At Grenoble most of us have gazed admiringly at the statue of Bayard, the preux Chevalier, who was “sans peur et sans reproche.” When will Paris “do the right thing” by Stoffel? _When?_
## CHAPTER XXIII
PRINCE NAPOLEON
THE EMPRESS IN 1910-11.
[⁂ THESE POLITICAL VIEWS OF H.I.H. PRINCE NAPOLEON NOW APPEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME IN CONCRETE FORM. QUESTIONED IN LONDON, IN JUNE, 1911, AS TO HIS “PROGRAMME,” THE PRINCE REPLIED: “THE NAME OF BONAPARTE IS A PROGRAMME.”]
It has been recently said that I adhere to the Republic, the actual Government. That is an exaggeration. In the actual Government there are statesmen, men of order, and, without mentioning names, I may add that there are talented chiefs. I am, above all, a man of my epoch, a lover of progress. The time has gone for coups d’état and for proscriptions in France. I could, to-morrow, work with some past Ministers, or with some who are retiring. I should have considered it an honour to have voted for the social laws enacted by the Government. I think only that the laws ought to be prepared more juridically. A Council of State should give a legal shape to the informal opinions of legislators not thoroughly versed in the laws. That could be done without injury to Parliamentary initiative.
All régimes have some good in them. Take, for instance, the family of Louis Philippe. Well, Louis Philippe did some excellent things. He prepared the way for the Empire admirably. If I am not with the Extreme Left, I am still less with the Right. I have none of the ideas, none of the illusions, cherished by the Parliamentary party of the Right. I am in the Centre, with legality. I put my country above dynastic questions; I would not disturb order. I crave for the Revolution, the mother of all of us--the Revolution, from which modern France has sprung. It has been said that yesterday I asked that the “Marseillaise” should be played. At my marriage, which was celebrated privately, no national air was played; but in the evening a local band of musicians serenaded us. I was asked if I should like to hear the “Marseillaise,” with the “Brabançonne”[171] and the Italian Hymn, and I heard it with a feeling of respect. Did it not precede the Eagles across Europe? The “Marseillaise” is the only French [national] hymn the Moncalieri bandsmen know. I was pleased with it. The words of the “Marseillaise” have now only an historic sense, and it was with that air that my great-uncle led his armies across the world.
I note with the deepest interest all that happens in France--everything that is done and everything that is said. I admit with pleasure that some excellent things are often done there. The longer we--nous autres Français--live abroad, the more we love our France. For me the word “Republic” always preserves its Latin sense, res publica (the “public thing”), but there were, and there still are, in France men who have regarded, and continue to regard, it in that sense, and I do not hesitate to say that I approve from the bottom of my heart their
## actions. Excellent things have been done for the army, for the military
service; but more attention ought to have been paid to the cadres, in order to have assured the re-engagement of the bons sousofficers; more especially should anti-militarism not have been encouraged.
France has especially need of order. I am often accused of not concerning myself sufficiently with politics; but there they make a mistake. I think I should concern myself with politics still less. That Ministers of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs should be political Ministers is perfectly natural; but Commerce, Public Works, and Agriculture ought to be only administrations.[172] That a pension should be given to every Frenchman upon attaining a certain age is an idea which I entirely approve; but how many millions of francs would that cost, and where would they come from? No Government which increases the taxes would be popular.
The Empire! Do you really believe that France could still exist under all the laws of the First, and even of the Second, Empire? The times have progressed. We have railways, telephones, newspapers. The conditions of the peoples have changed. A good Government, you see, is one which, above all other things, sees to the needs of the epoch in which we live.
To be unable to visit our museums in France is one of the most painful phases of my exile. So much has been done for the museums: they have been so greatly enriched. My deep love of art suffers from my inability to inspect their treasures. What emotion I should feel at seeing again Fontainebleau and the Malmaison, where there are so many souvenirs of my family! And Versailles!
It seems to me that my exile, in proportion as it is prolonged, exalts the national sentiment in me. I love France as a good Frenchman, with a
## particular and disinterested affection. I am with all those who
contribute to its greatness and prosperity, wherever they come from, and to whatever party they belong. They know me very imperfectly, and many errors have been spread about me. I am of my time; I am a man of progress. I do not live in the past, with old-fashioned sentiments. I desire above everything the well-being of my country. Narrow political formulas embarrass me only very slightly.
In all camps I see those who work to realize the greatness of France, and I am their unknown friend. I have never abandoned my own projects. Whether it is this one or that one who secures the happiness and greatness of France matters little to me--that, for me, is a secondary question. I am with all who collaborate for that purpose. France first! I am, beside, un sage. I do not believe in adventures. In a modern country the army alone is powerless to bring about a change of régime, if it has not behind it the assent and the willingness of the country.
One must know how to await opportunities, and never attempt to precipitate events.
* * * * *
M. Jules Delafosse, the eminent Deputy for Calvados, and a zealous member of H.I.H. Prince Napoleon’s party, has defined “Bonapartism” as being, “not a doctrine,” but “an absolutism”:
It is the régime which Napoleon I. inaugurated, and which Napoleon III. adopted, that is represented to-day by their dynastic heir [the Pretender]. At present no one occupies himself with Bonapartism, and the Prince does nothing to direct attention to himself. For the indifferent and the satisfied the Bonapartist programme is only a purely speculative indication, which is of no more value in their eyes than a prospectus; it will have no value until the Republic expires, and the Republic will not die until it has lost the right to live. That may come sooner than one imagines. The accidental causes which may any day sweep away the régime include the increasing dissatisfaction caused by the horrible unpopularity of Parliament, which is the visible figure and the hidden soul of the Republic. The spectacles which it daily gives us reproduce the prophetic features which mark the “agony,” generally disgusting, of dying régimes. That, perhaps, is not a reason why the Empire should necessarily succeed it; but it is a reason for thinking of it. One may think of it in all ranks of society, and even in all camps, because the Empire is not a party, but a refuge. It is not impossible that the heir of the Napoleons may attain to power by the political paths that anarchy fatally opens to the predestined man. It is by the Consulate or the Presidency that the elect of his race were conducted to the throne. There is no worse servitude than that of oligarchies, those especially which have the appetites and passions of negroes. It is to this miserable condition of affairs--in which the germs of revolution are already, thank God! apparent--that Republican Parliamentarism has led us; and that is why from all hearts there rises the same cry of desire and of hope--“Exoriare aliquis!”
The years 1896 and 1898 were marked by exceptional exultation in the Bonapartist camp. In 1896 there were serious differences amongst the rival Orleanist factions. Some of the younger and more ardent Royalists, recalling the début in political life of Napoleon III., were desirous of putting forward the Duc d’Orléans as a Parliamentary candidate. The managing committee of the party, however, decided that “a son of France should not parody a Bonaparte.” The Duc d’Audiffret Pasquier communicated this decision to the Duc d’Orléans, who curtly replied that the committee should have consulted him upon the subject before expressing an opinion. Pasquier repelled this snub by resigning his membership of the committee, which, guided by Buffet, De Broglie, and d’Haussonville, was accused by the stalwarts of lack of energy in the propaganda. A cleavage seemed imminent among the Royalist sections, for many Catholics abandoned the party, and the Pope repudiated it.
Taking advantage of the misfortunes of others, the Bonapartists became more of a militant party. On August 15, 1898 (the old Napoleonic fête-day), they mustered in force at a banquet, made speeches ridiculing the Republic, and cheered to the echo a letter from the Pretender containing a promise to “appear at the proper moment,” which he declared to be “at hand.” In the intervening thirteen years the Royalists have done most of the “shouting,” or, rather, it has been done by the “Camelots du Roy,” led by the two sons of the late Paul de Cassagnac, M. Léon Daudet, and even M. Henri Rochefort!
THE MARRIAGE AT MONCALIERI.
The marriage contract of Prince Napoleon and Princesse Clémentine was signed at Brussels on November 7, 1910.
The banns of marriage were published on October 9, on which day the subjoined official announcement was affixed to the notice-board of the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels, where it remained for ten days, in compliance with the law:
A marriage is to take place at Moncalieri (Italy) between his Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Victor Gerome Frederick, domiciled in Paris, 8th Arrondissement (Seine, France), living at Brussels, No. 241, Avenue Louise, eldest son of his late Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul and of Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Dowager Princess Marie Clotilde Napoleon, Princess of Savoy, domiciled and residing at the Royal Castle of Moncalieri, near Turin (Italy), and Her Royal Highness Princess Clementine Albertine Marie Leopoldine, Princess of Belgium, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, domiciled at Brussels, No. 1, Place des Palais, eldest[173] daughter of his late Majesty Leopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor, Leopold II., King of the Belgians, Duke of Saxe, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and of her late Majesty Marie Henriette Anne, Queen of the Belgians, Archduchess of Austria.
English people of all creeds will learn with surprise and amusement that the Government of the French Republic will not allow Prince Napoleon to be described in official documents published in France as “Imperial”; nor may his father (the late Prince “Jérôme”) or his mother (Princesse Clotilde, daughter of the renowned Victor Emmanuel II.) be so designated, even in banns of marriage.
Prince Napoleon was described in the “banns” published at Brussels and at Moncalieri as having a “domicile” in the 8th Arrondissement, Paris--as, in fact, he always has had, although the law prevents him from entering his native country. The document containing an announcement of the marriage was affixed to the wall of the Mairie of the 8th Arrondissement, Paris, but the words “Imperial” and “domiciled in Paris” were suppressed by the “Parquet” (otherwise the Public Prosecutor).
Many who read the banns of marriage were probably surprised at finding that neither in that document nor in other official papers does Prince Napoleon use the historic name of “Bonaparte.” I may, therefore, explain that under the Second Empire it was decreed by a Family Statute that henceforward “Napoleon” should be the designation of those branches of the Imperial Family who might be called upon to reign. The other members of the family preserved the name of “Bonaparte,” but constituted the “civil” family of the Emperor Napoleon III., and were not included in the “Imperial” Family. This distinction is noted in the “Almanach de Gotha” without explanation--an omission which should be rectified in future editions of the world’s libro d’oro.[174]
In the _Times_ of November 26, 1909, it was noted that “Prince Victor Napoleon Bonaparte, after a week’s stay at the Savoy Hotel, left yesterday for Brussels.”
Our official Court Circular of the same date described the Pretender as “His Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Both those designations are incorrect. Upon the death of his father (1891), Victor, as eldest son, became “Prince Napoleon”; and it will be observed that in the original banns of marriage he is so styled, plus his Christian names, “Victor Gerome [correctly “Jérôme”] Frederick.”
For the solemnization of these princely imperial and royal nuptials on November 14, 1910, the old château of Moncalieri shook off the dust of centuries; the chevaliers, in their suits of mail, who sleep their last long sleep under the tombstones; the more modern heroes, whose great deeds are narrated in the war-pictures adorning the immense and melancholy corridors--all these reawoke for some days. Momentarily they saw once more the venerable citadel, perched, like a great eagle’s nest, on the flank of the picturesque hills leaning over the River Po, a few miles from Turin, in which, for so many lustres, Princesse Clotilde has unrolled the autumnal stages of her saintly existence, divided between penance and charity. At the jubilant strains of the “Alléluia” the old home of the Princes of Piedmont, which resembles a fortress charged to watch over the mausoleum of the Superga,[175] saw itself resuscitated.
After these rapid souvenirs we ascend the slopes of the park, arrest our steps on the terrace to admire the magnificent panorama of the immense valley of the Po; then enter this moyen-âge château, with its interminable galleries and great salles, ordinarily so solitary and indescribably sombre, but to-day rejuvenated, made comfortable, bedecked with sumptuous stuffs, with carpets and with flowers, luxuriously furnished by royal command--by the orders of the King of Italy. And it is the Administration of the Royal Domains which has sent to Moncalieri the beautiful services of plate for the wedding repast--something between a State déjeuner and a State banquet. King Victor Emmanuel III. had indeed, with kindly and generous tyranny, decreed that, although celebrated with the strictest princely privacy, there should be lacking no noble and dignified elements in the solemnization of the marriage of his cousin-german--great-nephew of Napoleon I., Emperor of the French, King of Italy--and Princesse Clémentine of Belgium, daughter and granddaughter of two great monarchs, and great-granddaughter of Louis Philippe I., King of the French.
If Prince Napoleon was married at his mother’s residence, and in the midst of his nearest relatives, it was far otherwise with Princesse Clémentine, who, for political reasons, had to make a long journey to obtain the fulfilment of a happiness which she had so long awaited. She had, however, even before the marriage, been received in Italy, not only as a Princess, but as a relative. The daughter of Queen Henrietta, Archduchess of Austria, the Princesse is, in fact, distantly related to the Italian royal family, and, previous to her alliance with Prince Napoleon, “dispensations” had to be obtained from Rome.
By yet another delicate attention of the King of Italy, Princesse Clémentine and her aunt, the widowed Comtesse de Flandre, mother of the King of the Belgians, who accompanied her to the altar, were not obliged, before the wedding, to face the ennui--in such circumstances--inseparable from the occupation of apartments at an hotel. The left wing of the Royal Palace at Turin was, for the special gratification of these two royal ladies, decorated as it is on great fête-days; and it was through a forest of chrysanthemums, adorning even the portraits of their ancestors, that they entered the old palace of the Kings of Sardinia. The Dowager Duchesse d’Aoste (Princesse Lætitia) presided, with her wonted taste and grace, over the installation of the apartments reserved for the two Princesses and their suite; and it was Princesse Lætitia who, earlier in the year, had chaperoned the fiancée on her first visit to her future mother-in-law at Moncalieri, the scene of the fiançailles.
H.I.H. Prince Napoleon arrived at the château of Moncalieri three days before the wedding, attended by M. Thouvenel, the senior member of the Prince’s service d’honneur, and by the Marquis de Girardin (who had accompanied the Prince from Brussels). The other members of the suite were lodged at Turin. Princesse Lætitia and her son and General Prince Louis Napoleon stayed at the château of Moncalieri.
At half-past ten on the morning of the wedding the Princes, Princesses, and their suites assembled in the large salon des Suisses, in which the Mayor of Moncalieri (M. Protti) celebrated the civil marriage of the imperial and royal couple. The witnesses at this function were the Comte de Salemi (son of H.I.H. Princesse Lætitia), the Marquis Ferreri di Cambiano (Deputy for Moncalieri), Comte Balbo Bertone di Sambuy, and Comte Negri di Lamporo, the two latter being selected as residing at Moncalieri (the Italian law requiring that two of the witnesses at the civil union are residents of the place of the marriage). After the brief ceremony, the Mayor expressed his hopes that the future of the imperial couple would be of the happiest; then, on behalf of the Municipality of Moncalieri, he gave Prince Napoleon the gold pen with which the act of marriage had been signed; and to the Princesse the Mayor presented a bouquet of orchids. The procès-verbal of the civil marriage was afterwards registered at the French Consulate at Turin.
The religious marriage was solemnized in the chapel (which is decorated with frescoes) of the château. Green plants and white chrysanthemums covered the altar.
Prince Napoleon (who escorted his mother, Princesse Marie Clotilde Napoleon) was in plain evening dress, over which appeared the riband of the Order of Leopold, which had been sent to him through Prince Ernest de Ligne on the previous day by King Albert. (Some saw in the sombre garb of the bridegroom the symbol of exile.)
Princesse Clémentine, radiant in beauty and charm, looking equally majestic and amiable, came next, on the arm of her brother-in-law, Prince Philippe de Saxe-Coburg (who married, and separated from, Princesse Louise of Belgium). The bride’s magnificent robe was of embroidered white satin, covered with lace; her veil and corsage, of exquisite lace, were the gift of a number of Belgian ladies--in fact, the subscribers were the “ladies of all Belgium.”
Following the bride came--
H.R.H. the Duc d’Aoste and the Queen-Mother Marguerite (mother of the present King of Italy);
Prince Ernest de Ligne and H.R.H. the Comtesse de Flandre;
H.I.H. Prince Louis Napoleon and his sister, H.I.H. Princesse Lætitia, Duchesse Douairière d’Aoste;
H.R.H. the Comte de Turin and H.R.H. the Duchesse de Gênes;
H.R.H. the Duc de Gênes;
H.R.H. the Duc de Abruzzes;
Comte de Salemi (son of Princesse Lætitia and nephew of the bridegroom);
Prince d’Udine;
Duc de Pistoie;
Duc de Bergame (son of the Duc de Gênes); and
M. de Borchgrave (Belgian Chargé d’Affaires at Rome).
The witnesses at the religious ceremony were Prince Philippe de Saxe-Coburg and Prince Ernest de Ligne--representing the King of the Belgians; Prince Louis Napoleon, and the Duc d’Aoste (the former representing his brother, and the last attending as proxy for the King of Italy).
Other witnesses were--
For PRINCE NAPOLEON: M. Thouvenel, Marquis de Girardin, Baron de Serlay, Prince Aymon de Lucinge, Lieutenant-Colonel Nitot, Baron Antoine de Brimont, and Monsieur H. Beneyton (His Imperial Highness’s Private Secretary).
For PRINCESSE CLÉMENTINE: Comtesse d’Ursel, Baronne d’Hoogworst, Mlle. de Bassompierre (all three Belgian ladies), General Daelman (Belgian chevalier d’honneur), and Mlle. de Bassano (a French lady).[176]
The dames d’honneur of Queen Marguerite and of Princesse Lætitia were also witnesses.
H.R.H. the Comtesse de Flandre was attended by the Vicomte de Beughem, grand-maître of Her Royal Highness’s household; and by the Comtesse de Borchgrave, dame d’honneur.
Mass was said by Monsignor Masera, Bishop of Biella, who used the historical chalice presented to Princesse Clotilde on the day of her marriage by King Jérôme, who for a while reigned in Westphalia. Two of Princesse Clotilde’s chaplains assisted the Bishop, who delivered a very inspiring address, recalling the great deeds of the ancestors of the bridal pair.
The music was exclusively Beethoven’s and Mendelssohn’s, and included the latter’s celebrated “Wedding March.”
There were no street or any other decorations in the little town. This accorded with the wishes of Princesse Clotilde, who took the greatest pains to avoid all possibility of political embarrassments. In this laudable task she was seconded by Prince Napoleon, who, ever since the death of the Prince Imperial and his consequent succession to the rôle of Pretender to the throne, has evinced the most commendable desire to remain outside the pale of politics.
Princesse Napoleon’s wedding-presents were artistically arranged in one of the large salons. They were of the estimated value of 2,500,000 francs (£100,000). The Empress Eugénie sent Her Imperial and Royal Highness a diamond tiara; the King of Italy a diamond diadem. A group of French ladies presented the Princesse with a very handsome toilette-service (table coiffeuse is the technical name for it).[177] This artistic gift consists of a magnificent toilette, Empire style, in mahogany, on which stand the various items of a magnificent nécessaire in silver gilt, also in the purest “Empire,” executed, from several famous models of the art of the First Empire, by MM. Falize, of Paris. Accompanying this “all-French” gift was a livre d’or, containing the names of all the donors. Several of the subscribers were persons in the humblest walks of life, and their names were read by the Prince and Princesse with much emotion.
When the “ladies of Belgium” asked the Princess what form she would like their wedding-gift to take, she expressed her patriotic preference for lace, because she would be stimulating a national industry. Her Royal Highness’s choice highly gratified the presentation committee, at the head of which were Her Highness Princesse Ernest de Ligne and the Comtesse de Smet de Naeyer, two of the most popular leaders of Brussels society. This beautiful gift (veil and corsage) was presented to Princesse Clémentine at the Palais Belle-Vue, accompanied by a splendidly-bound album containing the names of all the subscribers.
The Princess’s intimate friends greatly admired the Empress Eugénie’s wedding-gift--a tiara of brilliants--the stones being specially selected and set in the most artistic manner. Her Imperial Majesty is a connaisseuse in precious stones of every description, especially diamonds and emeralds, of which, as well as pearls, she still possesses a large collection. The wearing of gems she has discarded for forty years, with the exception of one occasion--that of the visit to Farnborough Hill of the King and Queen of Spain--when, at the State dinner and the “At Home” the same evening, one small jewel was observable, relieving her invariable black costume. Princesse Clémentine received a number of smaller jewels, in the shape of pendants, earrings, finger-rings, and hatpins, some of which came from H.I.H. Princesse Clotilde, the Dowager Duchesse and the Duchesse d’Aoste, the Comtesse de Flandre, and the Queens of Italy, and others from her friends in Belgium.
The Empress’s wedding-present to Prince Napoleon was fully appreciated by His Imperial Highness, whose collection of historical souvenirs has been increased from time to time by gifts from the august lady. The Prince’s father was a cousin of the Emperor Napoleon III., so that the “relationship” of the Pretender and the Empress is of the slightest. As a result of the injunctions contained in the Prince Imperial’s will, however, the imperial lady has displayed in the fortunes of Prince Napoleon as much kindly interest as if he were her second son. From his men friends the Prince received a number of presents, these including souvenirs from the Sovereigns of Austria-Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Servia, whom he visited in 1908, when he was also the guest for several days of the ex-Sultan of Turkey.
The honeymoon was passed in Italy. From Moncalieri the newly-married couple went to Rome, where they were the guests for a few days of the King and Queen of Italy at the Quirinal. The fact that they did not visit the Pope during their stay in the Eternal City gave umbrage to a section of the Belgian Catholics, one of their organs asserting that the Pretender deliberately kept out of the way of His Holiness. “The declarations made by the Prince on the day after the wedding at Moncalieri, the incident of his recent visit to the King and Queen of Italy, and his affected ignoring of the Vatican, have,” it was stated, “definitely alienated from Prince and Princess Napoleon the sympathies of the Belgian Catholics, who would, as a matter of course, have been friendly to them by reason of the blind hatred evinced by the Catholics towards the French Republicans.” Not since 1870, it was asserted, “has there been witnessed the spectacle of a member of a Catholic royal family visiting Rome without paying his respects to the Pope.”[178]
The Belgian Liberal papers expressed their gratification at the omission of the Pretender to call upon “the prisoner of the Vatican.” “Let the Prince become a real Liberal, and he will not have to complain of a lack of sympathy.”
The sojourn of Prince and Princess Napoleon at Vienna was made additionally pleasant owing to the very friendly reception given to the former by the Emperor Francis Joseph when the Prince was entertained by His Majesty at the Hofburg in 1908, the Pretender’s “great year” of visits to foreign Sovereigns, including the ex-Sultan of Turkey. On that occasion the Emperor wore, as his only decorations, the insignia of the Legion of Honour, presented to him by Napoleon III.
The anniversary of the election of Prince Louis Napoleon (afterwards Emperor) to the Presidency of the Republic was celebrated in 1910 by a banquet at St. Mandé, at which there were present numerous prominent members of the Bonapartist party. The Marquis de Dion, who presided, expressed the hope that they would see France, “which had been struck in its beliefs and in its dreams of social fraternity,” rally to the cause which his party defended. During the banquet an address expressing devotion to “the cause” was telegraphed to the Prince; and another was sent to the Princess, congratulating her upon “bringing to the defenders of the plebiscitary doctrine the support of her great charm and her tenacious energy to secure the triumph of the great name of Napoleon.”
Italy--both in the official world and in the Press--was somewhat gênée by Prince Napoleon’s marriage. From all that was said and printed it appeared clear that neither the Court, nor the Government, nor the more influential journals had ventured to give to the wedding of the grandson of Victor Emmanuel II. and cousin of the reigning King the importance and the éclat with which they would have surrounded the nuptial fêtes of any Prince who was not, like Victor Napoleon, the issue, through his mother, of the stock of the Savoys. M. Jean Carrère told in the _Temps_, in November, 1910, that a very influential Italian politician had said to him at the period of the nuptials at Moncalieri: “Do you not think that all the noise made in the Press will disturb your [French] compatriots, and will make them believe that Italy supports the dynastic claims of the heir of the Napoleons?”
How many others in Italy (asked M. Carrère) still believe that contemporary France is vaguely susceptible in all matters relating to the Pretenders? But times have greatly changed since the expulsion of the Orleanist and Bonapartist Princes, “and I believe that amongst all Frenchmen under the age of thirty the song of MacNab is as remote in history as are the refrains of former days upon Soubise or Marlborough. However this may be, one can only thank Italy, and especially those who govern the country, for their extreme discretion in this event. If they have exaggerated their scruples, it only proves how very correctly the Court and the people have acted in respect of the French Republic.”
This intention to be agreeable to France was said to be the more meritorious on the part of the Italians because in reality the Bonapartes--or, if the word be preferred, the Napoleons--have remained very popular in Italy, more particularly the Jérôme branch. The battles of Solferino, Magenta, and Palestro, which covered the Napoleonic name with so much lustre, are legendary. It is, however, true that Mentana and the mistakes made towards the end of the Second Empire have slightly tarnished the memory of Napoleon III. The souvenirs still preserved in Italy prove that Prince Jérôme--cousin of Napoleon III. and father of Prince Victor--did not lessen the prestige attached to the name of Napoleon; he was, in fact, always very popular in Italy. Princesse Lætitia, Duchesse d’Aoste Douairière, who resides at Turin, is among the Princesses of the House of Savoy who are most loved by the people, and she is much cheered whenever she appears at theatres or fètes. It is not betraying a secret to recall the deep personal affection always displayed by King Victor Emmanuel III. for his two cousins, the Princes Victor and Louis, whose cultivated minds and serious characters he so much appreciates.
At Moncalieri, where Princesse Clotilde’s infancy was passed, and where her daughter, Princesse Lætitia, was married to her uncle, the Duc d’Aoste, the widowed consort of the Emperor Napoleon’s cousin Jérôme (whom the Emperor always addressed as “Napoleon”) saw her dearest wishes gratified by the union of her eldest son, Prince Napoleon, with a Princess who is exceptionally accomplished, beautiful, spirituelle, cultivated, endowed with a taste for the arts, and a fervent Catholic, with whom the Holy Father evidenced his great sympathy by sending her a magnificent gift, accompanied by a much-prized autograph letter of congratulation.
If, as in a vision, Princesse-mère, the august châtelaine of Moncalieri, evoked the brilliant, or the sad, events which furrowed her life, clouded by melancholy episodes which her ardent faith in Providence helped her to face courageously, she saw again the fêtes celebrated for her own marriage at Turin--the prelude to the union of her beloved Savoy with France; the cradle of her House offered in exchange for an independence which France--the France of the Pale Emperor--assisted the Italians to obtain; she saw again the struggle between the newly-born Italy and the Holy See; and she saw herself, the patient and devoted wife, bien Française in the moment of danger, refusing, in a charming letter, the asylum offered to her by her father, King Victor Emmanuel, when France was bleeding from the wounds inflicted upon her in the year of disaster. “At this moment,” wrote Princesse Clotilde to her father, “I cannot accept your advice, because, if I fled from France, my sons would blush for me, and you know that the House of Savoy and fear have never met. You would not wish them to meet in me.” Similarly noble sentiments were contained in a memorable letter written by Queen Catherine to the King of Würtemburg, when, urged by her father in 1814 to forsake King Jérôme and take refuge at Stuttgart, she loftily refused, resolved to share the fate of her proscribed husband.
If, in 1870, events proved to be stronger than the firm will of Princesse Clotilde, and if she was compelled to quit France, then in the throes of revolution as well as war, we remember how calmly and with what dignity, on September 5,[179] she drove en daumont to the Lyons railway-station, traversing the quarters where the revolutionary danger was greatest, and still saluted on all sides by a populace disarmed by this noble woman’s courage. The Princess, looking back through the years--through forty years!--saw herself once more at Prangins, by her husband’s side; saw her sons en pension at Vevey; then, her consort having returned to France after the chute of Thiers, she would have recalled her arrival at Moncalieri, her home ever since.
At Moncalieri, then, the Princesse Clotilde has voluntarily lived her cloistered life. Not, however, that she has ever failed to discharge her family duties. Twice she journeyed to Rome--the first time in January, 1878. Her father, King Victor Emmanuel, was dying, and, despite her repugnance to enter a Rome which had become the capital, she wished, as a devoted daughter, to receive the King’s last words. Learning en route, however, that her father had expired, she abandoned her intention of going to Rome, and returned to Moncalieri. Early in March, 1891, her consort, Prince (Jérôme) Napoleon, who had resided in Rome all the winter, was struck down by an attack of nephritis, complicated by pneumonia. The Princesse, accompanied by her daughter, the Duchesse d’Aoste, set out once more for Rome. Only a very few persons are acquainted with the incidents of the Prince’s last illness, and I will not recall those painful episodes. One detail may, however, be recorded here, as it shows how the perseverance of Princesse Clotilde triumphed on that melancholy occasion. Twice had Cardinal Mermillod knelt by the bedside of the dying Prince, who was still fully conscious. When the Bishop of Geneva left the sick-room the second time, he seemed relieved of a great weight, and the face of Princesse Clotilde evidenced her gratitude at the “good end” made by her husband.[180] With her children she watched, praying--always praying--by the side of the dead. After the interment at the Superga (March 30) the widowed Princesse took the hands of her children, joined them in hers, and said: “Promise to remain united.” They promised, and they have kept their word. Princesse Clotilde was last seen in Paris during the illness and at the death of Princesse Mathilde, the cousin of Napoleon III. On that occasion she fulfilled once again the rôle of a sœur de charité.[181]
THE HOME.
Perhaps--I do not assert it--secret party meetings have been, and are, held now and again at No. 241, Avenue Louise, in those beautiful salons, so rich in relics, or in the garden of the imperial residence, now more than ever an object of public curiosity, with its modest blue stone façade and its oak door with carved eagles, guarded only by those tall chestnut-trees which serve as a curtain to many a demeure bourgeoise of more ambitious aspect. The Prince’s partisans, the associates of his hopes, evidently come and go very unobtrusively, for no one at Brussels hears or sees anything of them. The Prince’s voice is raised at long intervals--whenever he thinks it desirable to formulate the Imperialist idea--in succinct and frank letters addressed, now to the Bonapartist Committees of the Seine, anon to personalities like M. Malbert. But this is done so discreetly, these letters are written in so dignified a style, without any reference to the question of personal banishment from France, that the sharpest-sighted critic is unable to trace in them the faintest infraction of the duty which an exile owes to a country which shelters him.
Prince Napoleon returns to Brussels from his rare visits to the Empress Eugénie at Farnborough Hill, and to his sister, the Duchesse d’Aoste Douairière, at Turin, without getting himself talked about; for on no account would he say or do anything which might compromise the country in which he has found an agreeable asylum for half his life. When he comes to England two lines in the “Times,” “Telegraph,” or “Post” sometimes announce the fact, either on his arrival or departure. His “movements” at the Carlton or the Savoy (the hotels of his predilection) are not watched and reported upon; the names of his visitors are not publicly, or even privately, mentioned. His friendly visit to King Manoel at Buckingham Palace in November, 1909, was recorded in the Court Circular (which scrupulously noted his rank of “Imperial” Highness) and mentioned in the “Times”--that was all. And perhaps it was enough; for the Prince it was certainly ample. Let him alone, and he is grateful.
It was amusingly said of him by a Brussels critic: “Prince Napoleon is a Pretender who seems to have no pretensions.” Probably the author of the mot was unaware of the homage which he was paying to the Prince’s correct interpretation of a rôle so difficult to sustain.
The daily life of the Prince has never ceased to be governed, in all its details, by the same prudent and admirable reserve. His existence is that of a grand seigneur, too distinguished to “make an exhibition of himself” for the entertainment of the crowd, too cultivated not to know how to vary the preoccupations of an exile by useful toil. In the morning one may often catch a flying glimpse of his tall, robust, dominating figure among the riders galloping in the beautiful Bois de la Cambre, or at the “meets” of M. Saint-Pol de Sinçay and of the Prince de Chimay. But he is seldom to be seen in the afternoon. He is then at home, studying some work on political economy or some scientific volume, or, to assist his memory concerning some historical point, turning the leaves of one or other of the 6,000 books composing his “Napoleonic” library--those 6,000 volumes of the prodigious annals of the Revolution, the Consulate, and the Empire. The Prince’s library is, of its special kind, unique. Of his collection of books and relics he has said:[182] “I live my darkest hours in the midst of souvenirs of the First Emperor. Each one of these, in recalling a period of his life, teaches me a lesson. Force has driven me from the cradle and from the tomb of the great Emperor. I take refuge in his thoughts. To him alone I go to ask for inspirations.”
If you have been granted an audience of the Prince--a favour not accorded to more than a very few of those who seek it, unless an application is well backed--you wait your turn in one of the rooms on the left of the entrance-hall, into which you have been shown by a footman in a light-coloured livery. Here you may find a few of the Prince’s friends who have come from Paris to spend the day with him, and who will leave in these rooms some “good mouthfuls” of the air of France.
When the moment arrives for your interview with the Prince, you pass through a vestibule gleaming with white marble, and your gaze falls upon a bronze statuette of Bonaparte, at the age of twelve, reading a book. You proceed through a vast corridor, paved, like the vestibule, with white marble. Before entering the cabinet in which Prince Napoleon receives his visitors, you cast an admiring coup d’œil upon a spacious landing where portraits and statues of the imperial family form an incomparable museum, seeming to mount guard on the threshold of this last representative of the Bonapartes. They are all here--the grandfathers and the grandmothers. Here Lætitia, robust and bonne, in her ample senaro of a Roman matron, regards reposefully her peaceable husband. Neither this Corsican--a humble deputy of the island, not long become French--nor this Florentine, by origin and temperament, seems to divine, around the head of the pale infant before them, the unperishable aureole that awaits him. There Bonaparte, at all the ages of his life, and at all the stages of his apotheosis, glances, with his cold eye, at the Kings his brothers and the Queens his sisters. Here is Joseph of Spain, whose handsome and open countenance is less that of a King than of a dilettante, épris of belles-lettres. Here is Louis of Holland, with the cunning eye, observing, not without melancholy, Hortense de Beauharnais, who seems to turn her head from him. Here is Jérôme of Westphalia, sanguine, ready-witted, adventurous, regretting that Napoleon had not allowed him to conquer the crown by his own daring. He avenged himself, however, many times--among others, on the day when, not yet having a hair upon his face, he bought, for 12,000 francs (£480), at the Emperor’s expense (!), at the sign of the “Singe Violet,” the famous travelling “necessary,” with its ivory-handled razors and silver-plated wash-hand basins.
Then, in this marvellous gallery, come the women. Here is Pauline Borghèse, an ideal Diane chasseresse--Canova’s. You remember this marvellous creature’s reply to someone who had reproached her for posing for this statue in her splendid nudity, “Oh, il y avait un poèle!” (But there was a fire!). You linger a moment to gaze upon Joséphine de Beauharnais, like the lava of a sleeping volcano under the calm envelope of this warm beauty of the isles of the West--this mortal who, as someone has said, “had the audacity to love a god.” And here is the Archduchesse Louise, in the midst of her parrots and her dogs, indifferent and dreamy as an Austrian woman, and also as far from Napoleon as from the Schönbrunn, which she prefers even to the Tuileries.
Napoleon III., fearing lest you should surprise him in the midst of his dreams, flies from you, his eyes almost effaced, as if lost in a mist. Here is Eugénie, reigning as much by her blonde beauty as by that imperial crown whose gold seems to be expiring in her glowing hair. Her eyes, in particular, strike you as strange--tranquil eyes, with their far-off, melancholy look; eyes like two tears; eyes which are about to weep, whose too large eyelids resemble inexhaustible wells, from which sorrow has nothing more to do but to draw the water. Last of all, there is Napoleon IV., with the eyes, the look, and all the sweet resignation of his mother: the “little Prince,” in the bearskin of the Imperial Guard; the Prince, grown taller, as the Woolwich cadet; the Prince--having attained his majority--in a British soldier’s cap, mournfully posed upon that languid head, already enveloped by the night of Death.
But you have arrived at the door of the Prince’s cabinet, an immense room; and here is the Prince himself, giving you a hearty and hospitable shake of the hand. The Prince’s broad chest, strong head, wide shoulders, and firm pressure of the hand which clasps yours indicate frankness and sympathy.
“Victor or Napoleon? Say, rather, a Savoyard!” exclaimed one of his opponents, who, however, could not more aptly have described or more pleased the Prince. Prince Victor is a Napoleon through his father, a Savoyard through his mother, whose saintly virtues do honour to the upright, proud character of her son. A little habit of the Prince amuses you: when he speaks he takes the large triple ring from the finger on his right hand and transfers it mechanically to his left hand. You note also that his deep, strong voice is well fitted to utter words of command--like that of all the Napoleons. The Republic of which he is so fond of talking is neither Liberal nor Conservative, but an “authoritative” Republic, with its hierarchical chief at its head.
His words, energetically hammered out, resound through the large salon, full of cases containing the spolia opima of nearly a century of imperial grandeurs. Here are sabres, there swords; elsewhere crosses and medals; hats, browned by powder; redingotes, no longer grey, but faded, colourless. Ah! that Napoleon--what rays of light he leaves behind him in his hats, his greatcoats, and his swords, the latter still gleaming, and all forming a noble cradle for the heir, born to preserve the immortal memory of the great Emperor! These bullets, mortars, swords, guns, banners, hats, greatcoats, spurs--all the conqueror’s battle paraphernalia, sorted and classified--must perturb the mind of even the most stoical and unsympathetic; and the chances are that you will leave No. 241 without having studied the Napoleon of to-day as calmly and as thoroughly as you had intended to. In that dominating head there is a mixture of the Carignan Savoyards and the Napoleon Bonapartes. The convex forehead, arched, low, stubborn, is that of Clotilde, his mother. The moustache, long and sèche, is that of King Humbert, his uncle; but it is in the chin, prominent and handsome as that in a Greek statue; it is in the black eyes, sphinx-like in their penetration, and as steel-bright as an eagle’s (as is said of the Bonapartes), that Prince Napoleon so strongly resembles his father, as that father resembled Napoleon I. Summing up, you feel that you have seen a Prince robust alike in body and mind--mens sana in corpore sano. France, without distinction of party, may be proud of this scion of a glorious race. And who knows if the Republic is not damaged by depriving itself of the services of this citizen?
Some of the privileged few who are received by this descendant of Napoleon I., in the midst of those rare prints which faithfully reproduce the episodes of that dazzling career, have dined or supped off the selfsame campaign plate on which were served the hasty repasts of the conqueror of Austerlitz or of Jena before or after the victory. “The privileged ones of whom I speak,” says the most amiable and gifted of confrères, M. Gérard Harry, “are numerically few, mais de choix. By his admirable fulfilment of the rôle of a silent and studious exile, by the charm of his conversation--the talk of an érudit and an artist--and by his sportsmanlike qualities, Prince Napoleon has made, in the royal family and in the ‘high society’ of Belgium, friends whose circle he has restricted only from a sentiment of proud reserve, and the better to preserve himself from the bothers inseparable from ‘fashionable’ existence. One seldom sees him at the theatre, concealed in the semi-obscurity of a box, except when some chef-d’œuvre of French dramatic art is produced; or at the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire; or at ‘Wauxhall,’ when the attraction is some literary piece brought from his natal land. On such occasions he is accompanied only by one or other of the Bonapartist notabilities who come in turn from Paris, like the ‘relief’ of a guard of honour.”
I recall an audience granted by the Prince to the “Figaro” in 1910, at which the heir of the Napoleons expressed his initiation in the art of aviation, and his pride that Frenchmen of to-day--Frenchmen of the Republic--have been the heroes and the conquerors of so many aerial contests.
That so many merits should have attracted Princesse Clémentine is not more surprising than the attachment of the Prince to a King’s daughter so morally royal. This youngest of the daughters of Leopold II. has the same tastes as her consort--a heart as French as his own. It was her affection for France which led her for so many years to make one of the Mediterranean plages--St. Raphael--her winter home. She is the only one of the daughters of King
[Illustration:
The Empress. Comte Primoli. M. Pietri.
H.I.M. THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE IN THE EMPRESS JOSÉPHINE’S BEDROOM AT LA MALMAISON, 1910.
The Empress Joséphine died in this room on June 1, 1814.
_Courteously lent by the Proprietors of the illustrated Paris journal, “Femina.” The Photograph by “Central-Photo,” Paris._
_To face p. 368._]
Leopold who did not trouble his last years; and she set a good example to others by submitting to her father’s rigorous will, and by delaying an alliance which she so long desired. Her artistic education and her penchant for “glory” make her the ideal companion of an exiled Prince.
From the outset of her acquaintance with the Prince, Princesse Clémentine has been a fervent upholder of the Napoleonic legend, and has made a close study of the works of M. Frédéric Masson, M. Émile Ollivier, and other historians of the First and Second Empires. She, at all events, does not regard the imperial cause as a lost one; and her friends laughingly assert that she is really plus Bonapartiste que le Prince. In her new home she is surrounded by many historical emblems of her culte--precious souvenirs of the First and Third Emperors and of the ill-fated “Napoléon Quatre,” these latter including presents from the Empress and others bequeathed to the present Head of the House of Bonaparte by the “little Prince” himself.
From her birth Princesse Clémentine was linked in relationship--very slightly, only in the seventh degree--to Prince Napoleon; for the youngest daughter of Leopold II. had for her maternal granduncle the Archduke Régnier of Austria, great-grandfather of the Prince-Pretender. But “the élans of two hearts are of more avail as a means of bringing two persons together than the drooping boughs of two genealogical trees.”[183]
Prince Napoleon’s exile dates from a quarter of a century ago; and some ten years have elapsed since there was an entente cordiale between His Imperial Highness and Princesse Clémentine. There was one obstacle (and, let it be emphatically said here, only one) in the way of a realization of their hopes--the fatal raison d’état! King Leopold was, or professed to be, haunted by the fear that such an alliance might possibly place Belgium in a delicate position vis-à-vis the French Republic. Has that apprehension vanished? Anyway, “Leopold the Builder” has gone to his last account, and Princesse Napoleon is not the daughter, but simply the cousin, of the reigning Sovereign.
Machiavelli outlined the line of conduct to be followed by Princes who reign or who will surely reign. He would, perhaps, have found it difficult to formulate the troublesome rules of existence of a Pretender in exile, who is obliged to firmly maintain his historical rights to the government of a neighbouring country, and to keep them sufficiently in the background, so that they may not compromise the nation which shelters him and whose hospitality he enjoys. How many banished Princes have known how to comply with two such contradictory conditions? The Comte de Chambord, Victor Hugo, and General Boulanger failed to grasp this essential point, and had to leave Belgian territory. It is by having known, since June, 1886, by his consummate tact, how to scrupulously respect the laws of hospitality, without in the slightest degree abdicating his dynastic claims, that Prince Napoleon has secured the respect and esteem of all Belgians, whether Conservatives or Liberals. They thank their guest because he has never been the cause of the least friction between Belgium and the French Republic; and they have admired him because, without going back upon his principles, he has never troubled the friendly relations which exist between Belgium and France.[184]
By the civil law of Belgium, Princesse Clémentine was under no obligation (her father being dead) to request permission to marry. When the Constitution was revised in 1893 a clause was inserted providing that any “Prince” who married without the consent of the King would lose all rights to the Crown. No mention was made of “Princesses.” If Prince Napoleon had married the Princesse and created difficulties of an international character during her father’s lifetime, the Government, by virtue of Article 1 of the Law of February 12, 1897, could have expelled him from Belgium. King Leopold’s death changed the situation.
By her marriage Princesse Napoleon became connected with a reigning King (Victor Emmanuel), a former Queen (Maria Pia of Portugal), and a former Empress (Eugénie). One of her aunts (the Comtesse de Flandre) is the mother of a King (Belgium), and another aunt is an ex-Empress (of Mexico). The latter was deprived of her reason when on her fruitless mission to Napoleon III. and to Pope Pius IX. to crave their support for her consort, and was thus spared all knowledge of the execution by the insurgents at Queretaro, in June, 1867, of the Emperor Maximilian, brother of the present Emperor of Austria-Hungary. For forty-four years the Empress Charlotte has lived in complete seclusion in the residences provided for her by her brother, the late King of the Belgians--first, at the château of Tervueren, which was destroyed by fire in 1874; and then at the château of Bouchout, a few miles from the Royal Palace at Laeken. The veuve tragique (as the Empress of Austria pathetically described her) wore her imperial crown for only three years--a period of continuous anxiety, trouble, and bitter humiliations. She had a devoted friend in the late Queen of the Belgians, and she found another in Princesse Clémentine.
Princesse Napoléon’s arrival at and departure from the church at which she hears Mass on Sundays is witnessed by an eager and admiring crowd of “the faithful”--and others; and she herself related this little episode to the eminent Belgian sculptor, M. Lucien Pallez, one day, when she was sitting for the bust which was completed in April, 1911. As Her Imperial Highness was leaving the church she heard a young girl of the people say to a companion: “How happy our Princesse looks!” This tribute, said the sculptor to a friend, touched her more than all her wedding-presents. The impression of supreme elegance which one derives from a glance at the bust--a chef-d’œuvre of Pallez--results from the harmony of the lines and the graceful curve of the neck and shoulders. The general allure of the bust recalls the Dianes chasseresses of the Renaissance. “I had only to look at my model to get my inspiration,” said the sculptor. On the imperial lady’s head (coiffée in Empire style) is a diamond and pearl diadem; the delicate ears and the supple neck are unadorned. M. Pallez has previously exhibited at the Paris Salon busts of the young Queen of Spain and the Queen-Mother, Pope Pius X., and Cardinal Rampolla.
The German Emperor and Empress met H.I.H. Princesse Clémentine for the first time during their visit to Brussels in the autumn of 1910. Prince Napoléon had a long conversation with the Emperor William, whom the Bonapartist Prince had not previously met. The Kaiser had, however, made the acquaintance of the Empress Eugénie in July, 1907, when Her Imperial Majesty received him one Sunday on board her yacht _Thistle_ off Bergen. It was a memorable meeting, but not a single detail of the interview has ever been published, and never will be during the Empress’s lifetime.
THE IDYLL.
Some two months prior to the marriage the illustrious fiancés visited Farnborough Hill, where, in the Empress’s Oratory, the nuptials would have been solemnized but for the weak health of the Prince’s mother, Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princesse Clotilde.
Prince Napoléon’s consort was no stranger to the august lady who entertained her in Hampshire in September, 1910; for the Princesse, her sister Stéphanie, and their father were the Empress Eugénie’s guests at Cap Martin some few seasons ago. To her unfeigned gratification, the Empress witnessed the enactment, chez elle, of an idyll the consequences of which may ultimately prove to be of high import to Europe. “The legends woven by the peoples around their Sovereigns must not be destroyed,” said the Empress one day. Prince Napoléon’s prospects of ruling France may not be very apparent at the moment; nor, in June, 1870, was the downfall of the Second Empire deemed within the region of possibility. But one September morning that terrible “shout from Paris” went up, and the imperial crown “flew off” with a suddenness which startled and thrilled the world. In France, more surely than in any other country, it is “the unexpected” which happens oftenest; and it may be that one day there may be another plébiscite, and that another Bonaparte may be invested with the imperial purple.
It needs a Ruskin or a Matthew Arnold to depict the Nature-glories of Farnborough Hill, the scene of this idyll. The rustic gabled mansion, the terraced slopes, the bosky lanes and dells, the “forest” which skirts the imperial domain, and the smiling Arcadian landscape provide all the materials for a great painter’s canvas, a poet’s tuneful lay. “How many walks,” says one of the venerable châtelaine’s French guests, “I recall in the alleys of the park at Farnborough Hill in the evenings of glorious days; or in winter, when the great trees were powdered with frosty rime, giving to the English landscape the semblance of some phantom picture; or in the early morning, in the second park, which has been christened ‘Compiègne,’ planted with rhododendrons and young pine-trees. The black dogs gambol round us, now racing off like mad things, then returning at the call of their mistress. The Empress’s firm voice mounts higher and higher in the pure invigorating air, as, leaning on her cane, with which she taps the sandy path, she gazes around, drinking in the freshness of the morning which she loves. Her features are more than usually animated. ‘Compiègne’ has revived memories of the past.”[185]
In “Compiègne,” those glorious autumn days, the story which is never old was once more told, to the accompaniment of the birds’ music and the rustle of the falling leaves, with, for spectator, an Empress, dethroned, ’tis true, but perhaps greater in her fall than in her elevation. Amid these beautiful surroundings, gladdened by the sympathy of one who has seen the world at her feet, the lovers’ days flew on lightning wing. For the Princesse, whose charm exercised a spell over all, those September days were of the nature of an imperial fête. The “auto” in which she and the Prince sped through the Hampshire and Berkshire lanes was not, certainly, preceded by piqueurs in the green-and-gold livery of the vénerie of the other Compiègne; but, to compensate for the absence of such luxe, the imperial guests revelled in that blissful solitude which is the one thing needful for the complete enjoyment of “love’s young dream.”
An excursion to Windsor awakened memories of happy days which the Princesse had spent at the royal château with her father as guests of the beloved “Great Queen,” whose good graces King Leopold’s youngest daughter enjoyed to the full. And, further, she was befriended at Sandringham by the then “Prince” and “Princess.” In Victorian days, too, Prince Victor had received hospitable entertainment at Windsor. His father had presented him to the Queen at Camden Place, Chislehurst, after the obsequies of the young Prince who had willed Prince Jérôme’s eldest son as his successor to the headship of the House of Bonaparte. Prince Victor could recall to his fiancée how, a score of years ago, he was taken along those same roads to Windsor, and how, at Queen Victoria’s dinner-table, he had met the Tsar of to-day, who later had also his idyll on the marge of the Thames.
Accompanied by M. Franceschini Pietri, the Princesse and the Prince paid their homage to the Empress’s beloved dead. They bore with them two crosses of violets, which with reverent hands they laid on the tombs of the Emperor and his son, the young victim of the assegais, who, as Monsignor Goddard said of him, had “the soul of a Sidney and the heart of a Bayard.” The then newly-erected arched tomb--the “arcosolium”[186]--for the surviving member of the illustrious trio was gazed upon by the Princesse with moistened eyes; the beautiful vestments in the sacristy--some made by the Empress and by the widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, the devoted friend of nearly half a century--were unfolded, to the royal lady’s inexpressible admiration; and she was shown the Sultan’s humeral veil; the illuminated altar-cards, whereon is traced a passage from the Prince Imperial’s “Prayer” (said by Cardinal Manning to be one of the most beautiful outpourings of a pure, devout soul he had ever read); the priestly purple vestments made from the Emperor’s pall, and the ecclesiastical apparel fashioned
[Illustration: H.R.H. PRINCESS GEORGE OF GREECE
(_née_ PRINCESSE MARIE BONAPARTE, ONLY DAUGHTER OR H.H. PRINCE ROLAND BONAPARTE).
Princess George and her Consort were the guests of the King and Queen at the Coronation of their Majesties. The Princess is the only member of the House of Bonaparte who ever attended the Coronation of an English Sovereign. Before leaving England, Prince and Princess George were the guests of Her Majesty Queen Alexandra at Sandringham.
_Specially photographed by Boissonas et Taponier, Paris, and lent for this work by H.H. Prince Roland Bonaparte._
_To face p. 376._]
out of the Empress’s wedding-robe. There were no spectators of this pious pilgrimage of the Princesse and the Prince, or they would have witnessed the pathetic figure of the royal pair kneeling side by side at the foot of the high altar, and imploring the Divine blessing upon their union. Warm thanks for his genial courtesy were bestowed upon the Lord Abbot, Dom Cabrol, who had summoned all the members of the Benedictine community to witness the arrival and departure of the visitors, and to be presented to the Princesse.
Princesse Napoléon’s intimate friendship with the members of the Royal Family dates from as far back as 1895. Queen Victoria had expressed a wish to make the acquaintance of the youngest daughter, and on December 3 King Leopold and Princesse Clémentine proceeded to Windsor Castle, where they spent three days. Prince Christian and Princess (and the late Prince) Henry of Battenberg met the visitors at the railway-station, and escorted them to the Castle. Queen Victoria’s guests at the royal dinner-party that evening included the Belgian Minister and the Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne. While at Windsor Princesse Clémentine was taken to the cavalry barracks at Spittal, where she saw a “double ride” by non-commissioned officers and men of the 2nd Life Guards. From Windsor King Leopold and the Princesse went to Sandringham on a visit, from Saturday until Monday, to the then Prince and Princess of Wales, the former accompanying them to St. Pancras on the conclusion of their visit.
Princesse Napoléon has two sisters: one, Stéphanie, married, as her first husband, the Austrian Archduke Rudolf, and, secondly, Comte Lonyay; the other, Louise, became the wife of Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg, a son of the celebrated Princesse Clémentine (daughter of Louis Philippe, King of the French until his abdication in 1848), and consequently brother of Ferdinand, King and Tsar of the Bulgarians. Princesse Stéphanie’s widowhood was brought about by the Archduke’s tragic death in his hunting-box at Meyerling--a mysterious drama of which there are many versions, all of them unsatisfactory.
The story of Princesse Louise’s wedded life is only a shade less poignant than that of her sister Stéphanie. It has been told, in all its harrowing details, by a young Austrian officer, Count Mattachich, in a volume which had a sale of more than 30,000 before it was seized and its further circulation in the Austrian Empire prohibited by the Government. It is a narrative of dissensions between Princesse Louise and her husband, of bills of exchange bearing the signatures of herself and her sister, the widowed Archduchess, of a charge of falsification brought against the Lieutenant, of his imprisonment, of the placing of Princesse Louise under surveillance as being of weak mind, and of a discussion on all these circumstances in the Reichsrath. The death of King Leopold led to the opening of another chapter of family quarrels relating to the manner in which he had disposed of much of his large fortune by gifts to the lady whom he had made Baroness Vaughan, and to whom, it was publicly asserted by an ecclesiastical dignitary, he had been married. Princesse Louise displayed no indications of feeble-mindedness when, in May, 1911, she contested her father’s will. The little ironies of royal lives, as well as those of humbler rank, are illustrated by the fact that Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg was among the wedding-guests bidden to Moncalieri.
THE FAMILY.
Before ending this narrative of the most important event in the history of Bonapartism since the martyrdom in Zululand of the only child of Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugénie--that tragedy which made Prince Victor, in accordance with the explicit terms of the Prince Imperial’s will, Head of the House--a few lines may be fittingly devoted to the Pretender’s brother and sister and their father.
At the period of the Prince Imperial’s death, in 1879, the Bonapartist Pretender of to-day and his only brother, Louis, now a General in the Russian army, were being educated in Paris. Their tutor was M. Blanchet, one of the most eminent scholars in France. He lived at No. 13, Rue de la Cerisaie, and the two sons of Prince Jérôme Napoleon were his only boarders. One of my friends asked M. Blanchet if Prince Victor was clever. “Very,” was the reply. “His early education was neglected, and it is wonderful how he holds his own with others who began the race long before him. [Prince Victor was then going through a year’s course at the Lycée Charlemagne, under his tutor’s supervision.] Before he came to me he was at a school at Vevey, and then at Vanves. He is, perhaps, best in physical sciences, history, and French. His mathematics might be better, but they were neglected in early youth. He excels in all field sports and all physical exercises. His great ambition is to be a distinguished soldier. [Later he studied at St. Cyr, the French Sandhurst.] Everything relating to military matters interests him, and he takes special pleasure in his fencing lessons, which are given him once a week. He is brought up very strictly. His father desired me to train him in the most liberal ideas, and keep him away from the many temptations which beset a youth in Paris. He hardly ever goes to theatres and races.”
Both Prince (Victor) Napoleon and his brother have worn the uniform of the French army. They entered the ranks as volontaires, and served for the regulation period, one year--Victor in the artillery, and Louis in the infantry. In 1908 Prince Napoleon made his “grand tour.” Accompanied by Prince Aymon de Lucinge and Colonel Nicot, he visited the Emperor of Austria-Hungary (who wore the Cross of the Legion of Honour given him by his young friend’s relative, Napoleon III.), the ex-Sultan of Turkey, and the Sovereigns of Bulgaria, Roumania, and Servia. In November, 1909, he was to be seen at Buckingham Palace, in friendly converse with one who, like himself, was to become an exile--King Manoel.
Princesse Lætitia’s marriage with her uncle, the Duc d’Aoste, aroused intense interest in Italy in September, 1888, owing to the high position of the bridegroom and bride and to their close relationship. The Duc’s daughters were not over-pleased at the prospect of having a stepmother of only two-and-twenty, who was also their cousin. Their two brothers showed their good-feeling by desiring their father to continue to reside at the castle of Cisterna, which had come to him by his first wife. The bridegroom (a one-time King of Spain) was double the age of the Princesse, who had the ripened intelligence of much older women, and exercised great influence in the family councils, more especially over her father. No one could manage Prince Jérôme better than Princesse Lætitia. Sometimes he rebelled, but only to yield with the protest, “Where did you get that strong little head?” In consenting to the marriage, she made it a condition that she should be allowed to see her brother, Prince Victor, as often as she chose.
Princesse Lætitia was only four when, in 1870, the day after the flight of the Empress from the Tuileries, she left Paris with her mother for Prangins, on the Lake of Geneva. Five years later she accompanied her mother, Princesse Clotilde, to the château of Moncalieri, an immense square edifice, then almost uninhabitable, situated on the hills above Turin. Owls and bats had made their homes in the castle; the vast rooms contain the portraits of many undistinguished members of the House of Savoy. Here the young Princesse spent her girlhood, going daily to a school at Turin, and, later, entering the convent school of the Sacré Cœur at Lyons, where the Sisters of the Adoration supervised her education. Thirsting for more knowledge after her return to Moncalieri, she received instruction from tutors of both sexes, the present King’s father (the ill-fated Humbert, who was assassinated at Monza) placing at her disposal rooms in the Royal Palace at Turin. Her principal studies were drawing, painting, music, and languages. She speaks with equal ease French, Italian, German, and English, has still a fine voice, and sings with taste and feeling. Turin society thought that a more suitable consort for the Princesse would have been her cousin, the Duca delle Puglie, then nineteen, the present head of the ducal house of Aoste, who married the Princesse Hélène d’Orléans in 1895.
Princesse Lætitia’s wedding was not lacking in incidents. There was an evident coolness between the members of the House of Savoy and the Bonapartes. When the bride’s father and his youngest son, Prince Louis (now a General in the Russian army), arrived at Turin nobody awaited them at the station. The Court officials had been instructed to attend, but at the last moment the order was cancelled, and Prince (Jérôme) Napoleon and his son drove to the Hôtel de l’Europe, all the other wedding-guests staying at the Royal Palace. Even Princesse Clotilde abstained from meeting her consort on his arrival, and Princesse Lætitia sided with her mother. Prince Jérôme carried his resentment so far as to refuse to meet his eldest son, the Pretender, who was consequently, to the general regret, not present at his sister’s wedding. These family differences, arising out of the nomination by the Prince Imperial of Prince Victor as his successor, had their effect upon the Empress Eugénie, who did not attend the wedding, although she had given a qualified promise to be present if Prince Jérôme “made it up” with his eldest son. But even Princesse Lætitia never succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between her father and her brother.
Prince Jérôme Napoleon (as it has been usual, although incorrectly, to style him) never recovered from the blow to his pride inflicted by the Prince Imperial. He died in Rome in 1891, refusing to be reconciled to his eldest son, and on his death-bed nominating his other son, Prince Louis, as Head of the House of Bonaparte. That position Louis declined to accept, and “recognized” his brother forthwith. Prince Jérôme’s death was described by M. Duruy, son of one of the most distinguished of Napoleon III.’s Ministers, as “the end of a dream.” Princesse Mathilde, Jérôme’s sister, died thirteen years after her brother, and with her passed away the last niece of the “Great” Emperor.
One act of Prince Victor’s father will always be remembered to his credit. He condemned the declaration of war in 1870 from the first. When the fatal missive went forth, he foresaw what would, and did, happen, and said to the Emperor: “Tout est fini, et nous avec.” It was at Châlons, in the “blood month,” August, that Prince Jérôme next saw his imperial cousin. At a council held on the 17th the Prince, in angry mood, shouted to the Emperor, racked with pain and in the deepest despair: “To take part in this war you abdicated by leaving Paris, and now, by leaving Metz, you have abdicated the command of the army. Unless you cross over to Belgium, you must do one of two things--either re-assume the command, which is impossible; or go back to Paris, which will be difficult and dangerous. But, damn it! if we _must_ fall, let us fall like men!”
Prince Jérôme Napoleon disinherited his eldest son and his only daughter, and left all he possessed to his second son, Prince Louis, who has long held the rank of General in the Russian army. Prince Louis’ inheritance amounted to about £100,000; and his aunt, Princesse Mathilde, Jérôme’s only sister, made further provision for him under her will, leaving him also many valuable jewels and objets d’art. Scarcely anything was left by the Prince to his wife. As a Princess of the House of Savoy, the Italian Government allowed her £4,000 a year, a sum which, as she had lived a very retired and simple life since her husband’s death, sufficed for her wants. Princesse Lætitia was adequately provided for by her consort, or she would have been practically sans le sou, and this despite the fact that her mother brought Prince Jérôme a very handsome dot. Jérôme dissipated many thousands in wild speculations, and lost heavily by maintaining three newspapers--the “Peuple,” the “Ordre,” and the “Napoléon.”
The number of Bonapartist marriages since Napoleon III. ascended the throne is very limited. They include the wedding of the Emperor to “the beautiful Spaniard,” Mlle. Eugénie de Montijo, “Grandee of Spain of the first class,” in 1853; the late Prince Jérôme Napoleon (father of the present Pretender) and Princesse Clotilde, daughter of King Victor Emmanuel II.; the late Princesse Mathilde (sister of Prince Jérôme, and consequently aunt of Prince Victor and General Prince Louis Napoleon), who made an ill-starred marriage with the Russian Prince Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato; Prince Pierre Bonaparte, who, although a first cousin of Napoleon III., made the reverse of a “great” marriage;
[Illustration: THE LATE MARQUISE DE VILLENEUVE
(_née_ PRINCESSE JEANNE BONAPARTE, ONLY SISTER OF PRINCE ROLAND, AND AUNT OF H.R.H. PRINCESS GEORGE OF GREECE).
_Photographed “for her friends” by Reutlinger, Paris, and lent for this work by H.H. Prince Roland Bonaparte._
_To face p. 384._]
Prince Roland Bonaparte (only son of Prince Pierre), who espoused a daughter of the late M. François Blanc, of Homburg and Monte Carlo fame; the recently deceased Princesse Jeanne Bonaparte (Prince Pierre’s only daughter), who married the Marquis de Villeneuve; Princesse Lætitia (sister of the Pretender), the widowed Dowager Duchesse d’Aoste, who married as her second husband her uncle, the late Duc d’Aoste, the sometime King Amadeus of Spain; and Princesse Marie Bonaparte, the only child of Prince Roland, the consort of H.R.H. Prince George of Greece, a nephew of Queen Alexandra.
On April 2, 1910, at St. Paul’s, Grove Park, Chiswick, Miss Gertrude Crowther married Mr. Napoleon Gerald Bonaparte-Wyse, youngest son of the late Mr. C. W. Bonaparte-Wyse, of the manor of St. John’s, Waterford, and grandson of the late Right Hon. Sir W. T. Wyse, K.C.B., and Princesse Lætitia Bonaparte, daughter of Prince Lucien, brother of Napoleon I. There is a species of relationship--very remote, it is true--between Madame Sarah Bernhardt and one branch of the Bonaparte family. Prince Lucien, brother of Napoleon I., married as his second wife a Mlle. de Bleschamp, mother of Prince Pierre Bonaparte, Prince Roland’s father. Her daughter, by her marriage with a M. Maurice Jablonowski (her second husband), had a son, who, in 1860, married an American lady, Miss Mohr. The daughter of that union, Marie Terka Virginie Clotilde, married in 1887 M. Maurice Bernhardt, son of the famous actress, one of whose most successful parts is that of the “Aiglon” (the Duc de Reichstadt).
The marriage at Moncalieri revived general interest in the period of the Second Empire. The “great year” of the régime was that of 1867, when the Emperor and Empress of the French entertained foreign Sovereigns, Heirs-Apparent, Princes and Princesses, Generals, diplomatists, and the fine fleur of European society.
In 1911 there are still surviving several distinguished personages who were among the imperial guests in the summer and autumn of the most brilliant days of the Napoleonic reign. These include the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, whom the Empress Eugénie visited at Ischl in 1906; the King of Denmark; the King of the Hellenes; the King of Montenegro; the ex-Sultan of Turkey; Duke of Connaught; Comtesse de Flandre, Princesse Clémentine’s aunt; Prince Murat; the Duchesse de Mouchy (_née_ Princesse Anna Murat), the most cherished friend of the Empress; the Princesse de Metternich, who in 1910 was relating her recollections of Second Empire days to a select audience in her salon at Vienna; and the Comtesse Edmond de Pourtalès, who hastened to Chislehurst in 1870 to assist the Empress in a very practical way, and in 1911 is the valued friend of Prince Napoleon and his consort.
To this list must be added the familiar names of Mrs. Ronalds and Mme. De Arcos, both of whom have been for many years popular members of English society, and both residing in London. The last-mentioned lady and her sister, Mrs. Vaughan, are among the Empress’s most attached surviving friends; and Miss Vaughan has accompanied Her Majesty on some of her recent tours. M. Franceschini Pietri remains the most invaluable and devoted of secretaries.
Illustrious _disparus_ include King Edward and his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh; the King and Queen of the Belgians and the Comte de Flandre; the King of Denmark, Queen Alexandra’s father; the King of Holland, father of Queen Wilhelmina; Queen Sophia of Holland; the King of Sweden, father of his present Majesty; the King of Portugal, Dom Manoel’s grandfather; the Emperor William I.; the Emperors Alexander II. and Alexander III.; Ismaïl Pasha; Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Turkey from 1861 until 1876; Prince Jérôme Napoleon, father of the Bonapartist Pretender; Prince Pierre Bonaparte, father of Prince Roland and grandfather of Princess George of Greece; Princesse Mathilde, cousin of Napoleon III. and aunt of the Princes Victor and Louis; the Prince Imperial of France; the Prince of Monaco, father of the present ruler of the Principality; that Prince of the Netherlands popularly known as “Citron,” Bismarck, the great Moltke, Princesse Clotilde, and Queen Maria Pia.
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE: 1910-11.
Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Eugénie, who is deeply interested in the future of Prince and Princesse Napoleon, celebrated her eighty-fifth birthday on May 5, 1911. The unexpected and tragic death of King Edward, on May 6, 1910, came as a great shock to the Empress, who had known our beloved Sovereign from his boyhood--in fact, since 1855, when, some six months before he had attained his thirteenth year, he and his eldest sister (the Princess Royal, afterwards Crown Princess of Prussia, and later Empress Frederick) accompanied their august parents on their memorable return visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French. As Prince of Wales, King Edward had been present, earlier in that year, at the installation, at Windsor, of the Emperor Napoleon III. as a Knight of the Order of the Garter, and heard from his royal mother that, after the ceremony, the Emperor had expressed his gratitude for the honour conferred upon him, and, in a moment of rare expansiveness, had said to the Queen, “Now, at last, I feel I am a gentleman!”--a frank admission which much pleased, and probably amused, our beloved sovereign lady.
A week after the King’s death I learnt (although no mention of the fact had been made public) that early on the morning of May 7 (His Majesty passed away at a quarter before midnight on the 6th)--the Empress Eugénie had telegraphed “heart-felt condolences” to Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of Battenberg, and Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. It was also confided to me that, immediately after telegraphing, the Empress, although momentarily “stupefied” by the calamity which plunged our Empire into mourning, had written what were described to me as “very beautiful and most pathetic letters” to the three royal ladies. I was privileged to see other letters written by the Empress in May, 1910, and I do not hesitate to say that they were truly remarkable productions, revealing Her Imperial Majesty (as the Emperor once wrote of her) “in her true colours.”
I have a word to add. The Empress commissioned a Paris art firm to execute a very beautiful souvenir of King Edward. This she sent to Queen Alexandra, and in the autumn it was placed near the King’s tomb in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The Empress lunched (for the last time) with King Edward and Queen Alexandra, at Buckingham Palace, on December 16, 1907, when the imperial lady was accompanied by Mrs. Vaughan (whose sister, Mme. De Arcos, represented the Empress at the funeral of Queen Victoria) and M. Pietri.
In the summer of 1910 the Empress cruised in the _Thistle_ for more than two months, visiting, besides Italian ports, Corfu, Athens, the Dalmatian coast, Smyrna, and Constantinople, which she first saw in 1869, when she went to Egypt to inaugurate the Suez Canal. The Sultan of those distant days and the Sultan of these entertained her. In the August of 1910 the Empress was in the Solent, and witnessed the launch of the Orion at Portsmouth. Later in the year she lunched, for the first time, with the King and Queen at Marlborough House, M. Pietri accompanying her.
The Empress signalized her eighty-fifth birthday (May 5, 1911) by a very pleasant cruise in the Mediterranean, as the guest of Sir Thomas Lipton, Bart., on board his yacht _Erin_, and on June 24 she witnessed the review of the fleet.
In my previous volume[187] I dwelt upon the solicitude of Queen Victoria and other members of our Royal Family--notably King Edward and Queen Alexandra--for the Empress Eugénie and the fatherless Prince Imperial. I note the fact here because I am delighted to find that the details which I gave of that more than cordial--that affectionate--relationship are supplemented by M. Xavier Paoli in his volume of Souvenirs, entitled “Leurs Majestés....”[188] Some two years ago, in the “Pall Mall Gazette,” I announced M. Paoli’s intention to produce his reminiscences, and I emphasized the opinion that his work would contain some entertaining and piquant “indiscretions” concerning Queen Victoria and the Empress Eugénie. That my anticipations have been fully realized will be seen by what follows.
When Queen Victoria was at Nice a grave responsibility fell upon those who, like M. Paoli, the “Protector of Sovereigns,”[189] were charged with the onerous duty of guarding the royal residence without any great display of force, almost without any indication of it. The small body of infantry installed near the Queen’s abode had merely to present arms when the august lady appeared, and when French official personages called upon her.
One afternoon there was a “piquante adventure,” and all on account of “the” Empress. M. Paoli’s amazed gaze fell upon the little infantry force drawn up in the court, and he asked the officer in command “the cause of this mobilization, which was not in the day’s programme.” The officer replied that he had turned out the guard at the request of the Queen’s Courier, M. Dosse, who explained that Her Majesty was expecting the visit of “a crowned head.” Somewhat annoyed at his ignorance of what was about to happen, M. Paoli further questioned M. Dosse, who remarked: “Then you know nothing about it?” “Ma foi, non.” “Well, we are expecting the Empress Eugénie.” Paoli jumped. “What!” he exclaimed, “you want soldiers of the Republic to render honours to the former Empress of the French!” “I admit,” answered M. Dosse, “that I did not look at it from that point of view.” “But,” said M. Paoli, “I _do_ look at it from that point of view;” and he requested the officer to march his men off immediately.
A few days later M. Paoli related the incident to the Empress, who said: “Oh, how pleased I am that you have told me about it! Certain papers would have made me responsible for what happened, and my very delicate position would not have been improved.”
When the Empress attends a church in England other than St. Michael’s, Farnborough, it is an event. On Sunday, August 14, 1910, Her Majesty, accompanied by M. Pietri and Miss Vaughan, landed at Cowes and heard Mass at the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The celebrant was the Rev. John O’Hanlon, who told me he was born and brought up at Dumfries, less than a dozen miles from Closeburn, the home of the Kirkpatricks, from whom, through her mother, the imperial lady descends. The Empress walked up the steep road leading from Cowes Pier to St. Thomas’s Church. An observant spectator wrote of her: “Except for a slight lameness, the Empress has the activity and vigour of a well-preserved woman of sixty. The glorious chestnut hair, though now iron-grey, is still abundant, the eyes are bright, the features finely chiselled. The Empress, who once led fashions for all Europe, is now content to follow far in their wake, for the skirt of her simple costume was much ampler than those lately seen on the Royal Yacht Squadron’s lawns, while her coat had sleeves of a bygone fashion.” In the afternoon the Empress visited Princess Henry of Battenberg, at Osborne Cottage. On the following day (August 15, the date of the great fête in the Empire period) Princess Henry and Princess Christian took tea with the Empress on the _Thistle_, which remained in the Solent for several days. The Queen of Spain and Princess Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein were other visitors. The Empress was seen walking on the parade at Cowes, but no one noticed the “slight lameness” referred to, which, in fact, is non-existent.
On February 4, 1911, the daily papers announced the death of John Brown, of Southwold, aged seventy-four, “a pensioner of the Empress Eugénie”; and it was added that Brown “brought the Prince Imperial’s body home.” This was incorrect. Colonel Pemberton had charge of the remains from the Cape to Woolwich. The body was brought to England by the _Orontes_, and transhipped at Portsmouth to the _Enchantress_, which conveyed it to Woolwich. On board those vessels, besides Colonel Pemberton, were the Abbé Rooney, the Prince’s valet (Uhlmann, who died some four years ago), and two grooms (Lomas and Brown).
In January, 1911, the Empress’s friends read in the Paris papers the somewhat disquieting announcement that MM. André de Lorde and A. Binet had written a play called “Napoleon III.,” in which both the Emperor and the Empress Eugénie will figure. French dramatists have hitherto, I think, refrained from presenting the august lady on the stage, and it is only within the last five years that the Emperor was impersonated in a piece entitled
[Illustration: THE LATE COMTESSE DE MERCY-ARGENTEAU
(_née_ COMTESSE CARAMAN-CHIMAY).
From a private and unpublished photograph, courteously presented to the Author in 1911 by the Comte de Pimodan, the well-known author of a recently-issued valuable work on the Comte F. C. de Mercy-Argenteau, counsellor and confidant of Marie Antoinette.
_To face p. 392._]
“La Savelli,” by M. Max Maurey, produced by Mme. Réjane at her new theatre, Rue Blanche, in December, 1906. In the part of the Emperor M. Buguet acted with much distinction. His “makeup” was surprisingly good.
Very different was the treatment of the Emperor on the German stage, as recently narrated by M. Jules Claretie: “I was disgusted at seeing, at a Berlin theatre, in an adaptation of an old French féerie, Napoleon III., caricatured by a low comedian, dancing a cancan, his breast adorned with the grand cordon of the Légion d’Honneur.”
In December, 1907, MM. Julien and Marcel Priollet selected “Napoleon III.” as a title for their piece, produced at the Comédie de l’Époque, “amidst the bravos of the public.”
The Prince Imperial was dragged on the stage as a consequence of the “romantic” story first told to his detriment in 1879.[190] So persistently was the rumour spread that the Prince Imperial had lost his heart to an English girl that a German play was written on the subject and produced at the theatre at Kreuznach within a month of the Prince’s death in Zululand. In this amazing piece, which the German Government allowed to be performed at the fashionable watering-place (where the Empress Eugénie had “made a cure” some time after the war of 1870, and by whose inhabitants she was consequently well known), the Prince Imperial was portrayed in love with a gamekeeper’s daughter, “Miss Mary.” A rival tried to shoot the Prince, who escaped by the aid of a German servant, “Reinecke.” The story, as unfolded on the stage, showed that, when the Prince had made up his mind to go to the Cape, the Empress offered a bracelet to “Miss Mary,” who, regarding it as an attempted bribe, refused it, declaring melodramatically that woman’s love was “not to be bought with gold.” The dramatist made the most of the Zulus’ “surprise” of the reconnoitring party, numbering nine all told, led--or assumed to be led--by Lieutenant Carey, 98th Regiment; and the attack, the abandonment of the Prince by his comrades, and his cruel slaying by the savages were all enacted. The scene of the last act was described as “the crypt of the Catholic Church, Chislehurst,” and the Empress Eugénie was seen giving her dead son’s last letter to “Miss Mary,” who revealed to the imperial lady that she had been really married to the “little Prince” before he left for the Cape.
Not long after the tragedy of the First of June some Zulus were exhibited in Paris, and for fourpence, in a booth, illumined by oil lamps, M. Proudhon saw “how the Prince Imperial was killed”!
These fragments are pieced together for the sole purpose of completing the record of the history of the Empress given in my first volume. Such a record, imperfect as it may be, will not be found elsewhere. To be able to infuse into the narrative a note of gaiety is most agreeable to me, as I hope it will be to my readers at home and abroad.
One glorious summer afternoon[191] I roamed through rhododendron land. Oh the beauty of it!--the joy of living in so fair a world, a Paradise terrestrial! Through leafy mazes I wandered into gardens, where the air was laden with the perfume of roses and honeysuckles. For miles, and miles, and miles all was forest--dense, impenetrable forest. Unwillingly I left this scene of enchantment and entered a park. My brief midsummer day’s dream was over. I was invited to mount one of quite a “stable” of prancing steeds, galloping in a circle--“patronized by the Royal Family and the English aristocracy.” I was urged to “try my skill” in the art--say, rather, the science--of casting wooden rings over clocks, vases, and Lowther Arcade prettinesses in general. I was tempted by roundabouts, swings, “hooplas,” cocoanut shies, Aunt Sally, and “numerous side-shows.” “Zara,” the “celebrated Palmiste,” offered me “peeps into the future--the past laid bare”--“Zara,” whose “remarkable character readings” were guaranteed to “astonish you” (I felt sure of it). “Afternoon, 2s. 6d.; evening, 1s.” I could not, unfortunately, stay until the evening, or perhaps I might have made “Zara’s” acquaintance--at the reduced fee.
And what else? A Pastoral Play--scenes from “As You Like it,” presented by the “Marlboro’ Players”; a Venetian play, “The Honour of the Joscelyns”; a Vaudeville entertainment, by “The Bluebirds,” an “amateur association of ladies formed for the purpose of providing entertainments for the poor in winter, and also assisting deserving organizations”; a concert; Morris dances; a “display” by 100 boy scouts; daylight and evening fireworks.
It was a two days’ Coronation Fête, given at Farnborough Hill, “by kind permission of H.I.M. the Empress Eugénie,” in aid of the funds of the county branch of the National Service League. Farnborough had never seen the like, and rose to the occasion. I imagine that this garden festival “at the Empress’s” will be, as it deserves to be, writ large in Hampshire history.
Since the appearance of my first volume,[192] “the Empress’s Church”--St. Michael’s, Farnborough--has received an addition. While the Empress was on her unwontedly long cruise in the _Thistle_ during part of May and the whole of June and July, 1910, a striking scene was being enacted within the walls of St. Michael’s. For some months the quiet which ordinarily reigns in the Mausoleum was disturbed. Sculptors and masons--French and English--appeared, masses of stone were hauled into the church, and the sound of mallets and chisels reverberated through the great crypt, which extends beneath the choir and transepts. Entering the crypt, I gazed at the transformation which had been effected. I saw a third tomb! It is a graceful arch, rising from the back of and surmounting the high altar. All who have visited the Catacombs at Rome will recall the “table” tomb and the “arched” tomb, and will not need to be told that the latter, from its shape, is the arcosolium. These tombs differ only in the form of the surmounting recess. In the “table” tomb the recess above, essential for the reception of the entombed body, is square. In the arcosolium, a form of later date, the recess for the tomb is semicircular, as at Farnborough. These modes of interment were adopted by the early Christians. I leave it to the archæologists to tell us whether or no the Empress Eugénie’s arcosolium is unique in this country. I cannot recall anything resembling it. A space behind the altar is occupied by a massive block of masonry, with a flat surface, flush with the side walls from which the arch springs, and upon this the Empress’s sarcophagus (assuming it should take that form, and so harmonize with the granite tombs of the Emperor and the Prince Imperial) will rest.
Here, then,
“In God’s own time, but not before,”
Eugénie de Montijo, Empress, will sleep her last long sleep with her beloved Dead--Exiles all.
The historian who comes after us will find in this place of Napoleonic sepulture ample materials for a moving chapter. He will have to re-narrate, with the assistance of my modest records, the amazing rise and the more astounding downfall of an Emperor and the deplorable end of a Prince. But he will “use his best ink” in the endeavour to limn a faithful portrait of her who held the world in thrall by her beauty, who has endured her martyrdom with a resignation and fortitude so admirable as to have compelled the affectionate solicitude of the nation whose honoured guest she has been for forty-one sorrowful, yet not wholly gloomy, years.
As I write these closing lines the air is full of processional melody, the Town gay with colour. I think, not of the EMPRESS, when she, like our own beloved Albert Edward and Alexandra, was the centre of adulation, but of the WOMAN, in the not unkindly winter of her life, kneeling before a tomb--her own. It is All Saints’ Day--the Jour des Morts[193]--and in the crypt she mingles her prayers with the Benedictines’ “pour tous les fidèles défunts.” So I had seen her aforetime, and some words I heard then will not be kept back when the sluices of memory are opened:
... And now, as in a strain of music, the theme comes back again, and we end with the first notes with which we began, so, if our thoughts have for a while run in another channel, they fall back into the great deep of sweet sorrow, and, I will say, of thanksgiving, for that noble, princely youth who has passed before our eyes with the brightness of a ray of light, and from this world has disappeared for ever.... What a morning in life it was when that beautiful youth entered into this world! What a mother’s joy! If ever son was worthy of a mother’s love, it was he. And if ever mother loved a son as an only son can be loved, it was she. What a desolation now! The solitary home. All alone. Yet not alone; for they who believe are never lonely. They have come unto “Mount Sion, and to the City of the Living God; to the company of many thousands of angels; to the Church of the first-born, who are written in the heavens; to God, the Judge of all; to the spirits of the just made perfect”; to the great cloud of witnesses ever about them. And as the Mother, who, when her Divine Son was in the grave, looked on with certain confidence to the glory of the Resurrection, to the future recognition in personal identity, and in the restored bonds of Mother and of Son in all the perfection of maternal and filial love glorified in eternity, so is it now. And this will be her consolation.... And what is the longest life of waiting but a little while at last?[194]
The light beats down, the gates of pearl are wide: And she is passing to the floor of peace. And Mary of the seven times wounded heart Has kissed her lips ... the Light of Lights Looks always on the motive, not the deed, The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.
THE TIME WILL COME WHEN WE SHALL BE ABLE TO UNVEIL THE WHOLE TRUTH TO THE WORLD.
I SHALL CONTINUE TO HOPE FOR A FUTURE OF TRUTH AND OF JUSTICE.
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE.
THE PRINCE IMPERIAL
(THE POET LAUREATE’S SONNET)
FELIX OPPORTUNITATE MORTIS.
_Exile or Cæsar? Death hath solved thy doubt,_ _And made thee certain of thy changeless fate;_ _And thou no more hast wearily to wait,_ _Straining to catch the people’s tarrying shout_ _That from unrestful rest would drag thee out,_ _And push thee to those pinnacles of State_ _Round which throng courtly loves, uncourted hate,_ _Servility’s applause, and envy’s flout._ _Twice happy boy! though cut off in thy flower,_ _The timeliest doom of all thy race is thine:_ _Saved from the sad alternative, to pine_ _For heights unreached, or icily to tower,_ _Like Alpine crests that only specious shine,_ _And glitter on the lonely peak of Power._
ALFRED AUSTIN.
_June, 1879._
INDEX
A
Abdul-Aziz, 387
Aguado, Mme., 63, 153
Albany, Duchess of, 83
Albe, Duc d’, 4, 47 Duchesse d’, 57, 62, 107, 153 Mlles. d’, 293
Albuféra, Maréchale d’, 47 Duchesse d’, 353
Alcanises, Marquis d’, 60
Aldama, Mme. de, 153
Alexander II., Emperor, 297
Alexandra, Queen, 388, 389
Allsop, Mr. (Orsini), 83
Alten, Count von, 206
Alvensleben, General von, 208
Ambès, Baron d’, 24, 270
André, M., 269, 270
Angely, Marshal Regnault de Saint-Jean d’, 78
Aoste, Dowager Duchesse d’, 349, 351, 354, 358 (late), Duc d’, 380 Duc d’, 382 Duchesse d’, 382
Arcos, Mme. de, 73, 153, 386, 389
Argyll, Duchess of, 388
Arnaud, Mme. St., 37
Auber, M., 79
Augusta, Queen of Prussia, 291
Aumale, Duc d’, 201
Austin, Alfred (Poet-Laureate), 400
Austria, Empress of, 148 Emperor of, 168, 356, 371
Autemarre, General d’, 192, 193
Auvergne, Prince de La Tour d’, 194
Azeglio, Marquis d’, 230
B
Bacciochi, Comte, 100, 269
Baden, Grand Duchess of, 31
Bapst, M. Germain, 168, 184, 186, 190
Baroche, M., 271
Barron, Mrs., 155
Barrot, M., 271
Bartholini, Mme., 133, 134
Bassano, Duc de, 300 Mlle. de, 352
Bassano, Duchesse de, 40
Battenberg, Princess Henry of, 377, 388, 392 Prince Henry of, 377
Bazaine, Marshal, 181, 183, 192, 193, 196, 199, 201, 202, 203, 210, 294, 304, 305
Beaumont, Comtesse de, 149
Beckwith, Miss, 155
Bedmar, Marquis de, 45
Belgiojoso, Princesse, 154 Marquise de, 60
Benedetti, Comte, 282, 291
Beneyton, Monsieur H., 352
Bernhardt, Mme. Sarah, 385
Berryer, M., 26
Bertrand, M., 306
Beust, Count, 166, 298 M. and Mme. Maurice, 385
Bigelow, Mr. John, 108
Billault, M., 271
Bischoffsheim, Mme. Ferdinand, 155
Bismarck, Count von, 69, 75, 125, 208, 218, 220, 221, 275, 278, 291, 292, 332, 333
Blanchet, M., 379
Blessington, Lady, 19, 22, 28
Bojano, Duchesse de, 154
Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland, 8, 9, 28, 29 Prince Pierre, 21, 336 Prince Roland, 385 Princesse Jeanne, 385 Princesse Marie (Princess George of Greece), 385 Princesse Lætitia, 385 Prince Lucien, 385 Princess Lucien, 385
Boulanger, General, 370
Bourbaki, General, 291
Bourgoing, Baron de, 75, 133
Brown, Mr. John, 392
Bruat, Admiral, 328 Mlles., 328
Brunswick, Duke of, 80
Buguet, M., 393
Burdett-Coutts, Miss, 31
Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John, 231, 233, 234, 235 Lady, 231, 233
C
Cabanel, M., 135
Cabrol, Dom, Lord Abbot of St. Michael’s, Farnborough, 377
Calderon, M., 153
Calmette, M. Gaston, 278
Canisy, Mme. de, 149, 155
Canrobert, Marshal, 74, 78, 182, 192, 193, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200 Mme., 169
Carette, Mme., 57
Carey, Lieutenant, 306
Carrère, M. Jean, 357
Carroll, Mrs., 155
Cassagnac, MM. de, 345 Paul de, 217, 303
Castelbajac, Comte de, 153
Castellane, Marquis de, 274
Castelnau, General, 213
Castiglione, Comtesse de, 137, 141, 154
Cavour, Count, 229, 230
Chaband-Latour, General, 178
Chambord, Comte de, 370
Chambrier, M. James de, 88
Changarnier, General, 271
Chapelle, Comte de La, 301, 320 Vicomte de La, 301, 308
Chaplin, Mr., 72
Charette, General Baron de, 155
Chasseloup-Laubat, Marquise de, 155, 328
Chazal, General, 190, 222
Chigi, Mgr., 143
Chimay, Prince de, 363
Christian, Princess, 392
Circourt, Comtesse de, 229
Clarendon, Lord, 97, 111
Claretie, M. Jules, 393
Clary, Comte, 316, 317
Conegliano, Duc de, 236
Conneau, Dr., 23, 24, 103, 105, 228, 301 Mme., 72 M., jun., 133
Constantine, Grand Duke, 120
Contades, Marquise de, 42
Conti, M., 276
Cornu, Mme., 27, 275
Corvisart, Baron, 211
Courson, General de, 213
Courtval, Mme. de, 163, 164
Coventry, Lord, 72
Cowley, Lord, 100 Lady, 101
D
Daru, Comte, 284
David, M. Jérôme, 184, 185, 190, 286
Davilliers, Comte, 211
Delafosse, M. Jules, 343, 344
Delessert, Mme., 2 M. Edouard, 100
Demidoff, Prince Anatole, 32, 41, 384
Denmark, King of, 386
Diego, M., 153
Dino, Duchesse de, 45, 47
Dion, Marquis de, 356
Dosse, M., 390, 391
Douay, General, 169
Ducrot, General, 211
Dumas, Alexandre, 163
Dumont, General, 192
Dumoulin, M. Maurice, 227
Duperré, Charles, 180, 185, 192, 193, 194, 195
Durangel, M., 185
Duruy, M., 383
Duvernois, M. Clément, 286
E
Edinburgh, Duke of, 387
Edward VII., King, 387, 388, 389
Edwards, H. Sutherland, 206
Ellrichshausen, Colonel von, 220
Espinasse, M., 271
Eugénie, the Empress: sees her future Consort for the first time, 1; her Paris education, her friends, departure from Paris for Spain, 2; the school at Clifton, in her teens, at the bull-fights, the “élégants,” 3; “Ugenia” and the Spanish Dukes, the Comtesse de Montijo’s salon and her “pollos,” 4; a variegated life, travels, Eugénie at Buckingham Palace, 5; at the Palmerstons (London), in the Pyrenees, 6; Eugénie at Compiègne, the courting, the Fortoul incident, 33; the Emperor’s offer of marriage, 34; the Court divided on the question, 35; the gipsy fortune-teller, 36; the lovelorn Dukes, snubbing the fiancée, the hasty Empress, 37; “a delicate question,” 38; the Emperor’s real opinion of Eugénie, “only my husband shall kiss me,” 39; discomfited Ministers, 40; M. Thiers’ sarcasm, Princesse Mathilde’s appeal to the Emperor, 41; Eugénie at Princesse Mathilde’s ball, she is “the actual rising sun,” at the Opera, 42; she makes splendid “copy” for the papers, some unflattering people, 43; the Comtesse de Montijo’s parsimony, enthusiasm of the Madrid Press, 44; the Duchesse de Dino’s amusing letters, jokes made about the Empress, 45, 46, 47; the Heralds’ College, Paris, explains the genealogy of the Montijo-Guzmans, 48; portrait-in-words of the Empress, 49-69; at Biarritz, 70, 71; the Empress and the Grand Prix, 72; quality of the Tuileries’ wine criticized, “not so good as Pinard’s,” a military review, 73; Eugénie “in all the radiance of her beauty,” 74; the “Bal des Souverains,” 75; other fêtes to the Foreign Sovereigns and Princes, the Empress’s success as hostess, 76; the Empress and Isabelle, the flower-girl, 79; some distinguished people, 80; the Orsini “attempt,” the Empress’s courage, 83-87; as the result of “scenes,” the Empress goes to Scotland, 89; the Empress Eugénie and the Empress of Mexico, a scene at St. Cloud, the weeping Eugénie, 93; the Empress at Windsor Castle, the “Garter” conferred upon the Emperor in the Empress’s presence, 94, 95; the Empress with Queen Victoria at Osborne, 97; her happy days in the Isle of Wight, 98; the Empress’s “great” and “little” balls, 99; the Empress seldom dances, 100; she tells a story at one of the “Mondays,” 101, 102; the Duchess of Sutherland and the Empress, 105, 106; Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower describes the Empress at the Tuileries and at Windsor, 106, 107; visit of the Empress to Stafford House, 107; an American diplomatist describes the Empress “without a country,” 108; the Empress’s letter on cricket, 111, 112; the Empress at Fontainebleau, the Imperial Hunt, 115; Eugénie’s apartments at Fontainebleau formerly occupied by Marie Antoinette, the boudoir, “she would have liked to milk a cow and to make butter,” the procession to the imperial bedrooms, 117; the Empress improvises open-air dinners, her “turlututus,” she is a “romantic,” 119; Pierrefonds, the château which gave the Empress a travelling-name, she admires the eighteenth century, at Fontainebleau she is happiest, 120; the splendours of Fontainebleau, the ladies’ stories, 121; “talk to the Empress about her crinolines” (De Morny), 122; the Empress speaks loudly, her drives, luncheons, and excursions, 123; she enjoys herself when wet through, and pays a fine for being late at dinner, 124; a dramatic incident at Fontainebleau, the Empress in tears at a Ministerial Council, 126; the first of “the Compiègnes,” attended by Eugénie and her mother, both ardent sportswomen, 129; family gathering on the Empress’s fête-day, life at Compiègne, the Empress acts in a piece by Feuillet, 132; Her Majesty in high spirits, rejoicing at the coming struggle in Mexico, 135, 136; the Empress blamed for countenancing the “Exotics,” 137; she is thrown among cosmopolitan society, 138; the Empress, Princesse de Metternich, and the Comtesse de Castiglione, enthusiasm of the Austrian Ambassador for the Empress, 141; influence of the Princesse over Eugénie, 143; what she said about Her Majesty, 148; the beautiful Duchesse d’Albe, the Empress’s sister, 153; the Empress welcomes the Spanish ladies, 154; a great favourite of the Empress, 160; the Comtesse E. de Pourtalès and the Empress, 161; the Empress’s war telegrams to the Emperor, her courage and hopefulness, indefatigable exertions, and ability as Regent, 165-201; new versions of the Empress’s flight from the Tuileries and escape from Paris, 223-228; story of Chevalier Nigra and the Empress, 230-231; Sir John Burgoyne’s narrative of the Empress and the voyage from Deauville to Ryde, 231-234; what the Empress told Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower at Chislehurst, the bust of Marie Antoinette swept off the table, 235, 236; the exact hour of the Empress’s departure from the Tuileries, September 4, 1870, 237; “the Empress’s crown of thorns,” her heroic conduct after Sedan, 237, 238; plot to defraud the Empress described by M. Pietri, 238, 239; list of objects left at the Tuileries in 1870 by the Empress, the Emperor, and the Prince Imperial, 240-244; the Empress’s complaints to Queen Victoria of English newspaper attacks upon the Emperor, Bismarck a favourite of the Empress, 275; M. Émile Ollivier and the Empress, 277; the “Case” for the Empress, published in the volume, “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910,” her own statement, 278; what the Empress said upon reading that the Hohenzollern candidature was withdrawn, 291; “Do your duty, Louis!” 293; M. Émile Ollivier’s courageous defence of the Empress, and confirmation of her statements in the “Case,” 295; the Author’s remarks on the “Case,” 296; the critics, Comte de La Chapelle, and the Empress, 301; Marshal Bazaine and the Empress, 304; the Vicomte de La Chapelle confirms statements published in “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910,” 305; the Empress and the Comte de La Chapelle, 316, 317; the Empress and Colonel Stoffel, 323; the Empress’s presents to Prince and Princess Napoleon on their marriage, 353, 354; a portrait of the Empress chez Prince Napoleon, 365; Prince Napoleon and Princesse Clémentine visit the Empress at Farnborough Hill, 373; King Leopold, Princesse Clémentine, and Princesse Stéphanie visit the Empress at Cap Martin, _ibid._; the Empress at her Hampshire home, 374, 375; the Empress at eighty-five, her letters of condolence to Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of Battenberg, and Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, on the death of King Edward, and her Imperial Majesty’s beautiful souvenir of the King, 388, 389; the Empress’s last visit to King Edward and Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace, her long cruise in 1910, her visit to the Sultan, she witnesses the launch of the _Orion_ and lunches with King George and Queen Mary at Marlborough House, a cruise in the _Erin_ as the guest of Sir Thomas Lipton, she is present at the King’s Coronation Review of the Fleet, 389; M. Paoli narrates an adventure at Nice concerning the Empress, 390, 391; the Empress hears Mass at the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Cowes, 391; she visits and is visited by English Princesses, and walks on the Parade at Cowes, 392; death of one of her pensioners, _ibid._; a new French play, “Napoleon III.,” with the Empress and the Emperor as characters, other Napoleonic plays, 392-394; a garden festival in the park and grounds of the imperial residence, Farnborough Hill, 395; the Empress’s tomb at St. Michael’s Abbey Church, 396; Cardinal Manning’s eulogy of the Empress and the Prince Imperial, 398, 399; the words of the Empress, 399
Evans, Mr. T. W., 223, 226, 227, 231, 232
F
Falize, MM., 353
Farnborough Hill, idyll of, 373
Farquhar, Mr., 25
Fave, General, 75
Favre, Jules, 26, 288
Flandre, Comtesse de, 351, 352, 354, 371 Comte de, 387
Fleury, Comte, 21, 60, 68, 78, 271, 276 Comtesse, 78
Flowers, Miss, 3
Forest, Baron de, 158
Fortoul, M. and Mme., 33, 37, 128 M., 271
Fould, M. Achille, 35, 47, 48, 61, 149, 271
Frederick Charles, Prince, 219
Frias, Duchesse de, 153
Frossard, General, 171, 172, 173, 180, 181, 182, 293, 334
G
Galliera, Duchesse de, 142
Galliffet, Marquise de, 73, 106, 133, 155, 159, 160, 161 Marquis de, 79, 160, 161 Mlle. Diane de, 159
Gamble, Mr., 217
Gautier, Théophile, 79, 363
Geneva, Bishop of, 360
Gerlach, General von, 273
German Emperor and Empress, 372, 373
Glenesk, Lord (Mr. A. Borthwick), 110, 300
Goddard, Monsignor, 393
Goltz, Baron, 71 Major-General Count von, 75
Gordon, Mrs. (_née_ Bruault), 20
Gounod, M., 135
Goze, General, 212
Grammont-Caderousse, Duc de, 79, 151, 152, 160
Gramont, Duc de, 282, 291, 292, 293, 295, 296, 297, 298
Greece, King of, 386 H.R.H. Prince George of, 385
Gricourt, Marquis de, 21, 281, 282
Guadalcazar, Marquis de, 153
Guadalmina, Marquise de, 153
“Gyp,” 37
H
Halévy, M., 154
Hamilton, Duchess of, 73
Harry, M. Gérard, 349, 368
Hastings, Marquis of, 72, 73
Hatzfeldt, Count, 155
Haussmann, Baron, 75, 177, 178, 194
Hériot and Chauchart, MM., 150
Hérisson, Comte d’, 231, 259
Hertford, Marquis of, 152
Hilliers, Marshal Baraguay d’, 176, 186, 189, 190, 191
Hirsch, Baron, 158, 159
Hohenzollern, Princess Adelaide of, 31 Prince of, 285 Prince Leopold of, 31
Holland, King of, 80, 81, 82, 387 Prince of, 387
Hope, Mr., 156
Hortense, Queen, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 28, 32
Houssaye, Arsène, 79
Hugo, Victor, 370
I
Isabelle, 79, 153
Ismaïl Pasha, 387
Italy, King of, 168, 348, 349, 353, 355 Queens of, 354
J
Jablonowski, M. Maurice, 385
James, Sir Henry (Lord James of Hereford), 221
Jersey, Lord and Lady, 31
Joséphine, Empress, 19
Juarez, President, 136
K
Kératry, M. de, 286
L
Laborde, Comtesse de, 2, 38
Lafitte, M. Charles, 79
Lagrange, Comte de, 79
Lambert, Baron, 133, 162
Lano, Pierre de, 137, 140, 141, 143, 259
Lansdowne, Marquis and Marchioness of, 377
Lebœuf, Marshal, 75, 107, 170, 177, 181, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 195, 199, 201, 204
Lebreton-Bourbaki, Mme., 223, 224, 225, 226, 227
Lebrun, General, 183, 189, 199, 201, 212, 213, 214
Legge, Edward, 206, 222
Legouvé, M., 132
Lejeune, Mme., 328
Leopold II., 345, 370, 371
Lhuys, Drouyn, de, 35, 36, 37, 111, 271 Mme., 128
Lieven, Princesse de, 153
Ligne, Princesse E. de, 353
Lipton, Sir Thomas, 389
Lomas, Mr., 392
Lonyay, Comtesse (Princesse Stéphanie), 373, 377
Lorde, M. André de, 392
Louise (of Belgium), Princesse, 378
Louis XVIII., King, 234, 235
Lyons, Lord, 71, 73
M
Mackau, Baron de, 279, 280, 295
MacMahon, Marshal, 169, 170, 174, 176, 182, 195, 210, 211, 214, 215
Magnan, Marshal, 115, 271
Magne, M., 197, 271
Maillard, M. J., 236, 237
Malbert, M., 362
Malmesbury, Lord, 6, 31
Manchester, Duke and Duchess of, 206
Manning, Cardinal, 398, 399
Manoel, King of Portugal, 362, 380
Manzoni, Signor, 230
Marcello, Comtesse, 154
Maria Pia (the late), Queen, 371, 387
Marie Henriette Anne (the late), Queen of the Belgians, 345
Marrast, M., 268
Marx, Adrien, 73, 76, 77
Masera, Monsignor, 352
Massa, Marquis de, 79, 119, 132, 145, 162
Masson, M. Frédéric, 236, 369
Mathilde, Princesse, 32, 36, 41, 42, 62, 72, 128, 174, 218, 361, 383, 384
Mattachich, Count, 378
Mauget, M. Irénée, 43, 44, 61
Maupas, M., 270, 271
Maurey, M. Max, 393
Meilhac, M., 154
Meissonier, 135
Mentschikoff, Prince, 152
Mercy-Argenteau, Comtesse de, 245-258
Mérimée, Prosper, 1, 3, 61, 66, 230
Mermillod, Cardinal, 360
Metternich, Princesse de, 73, 106, 133, 134, 137, 141, 142, 143, 144, 149, 155, 173, 227, 297, 386
Metternich, Prince de, 79, 133, 141, 142, 173, 175, 197, 227, 228, 229, 297, 298
Mexico, Empress Charlotte of, 90-94, 371
Mitchell, M. Robert, 218
Mocquard, M., 103
Moltke, General von, 208, 387
Montmorency, Duc and Duchesse, 173
Monts, General Count von, 281, 282
Monaco, the late Prince of, 387
Moncalieri, the Mayor of, 350
Montijo, Comtesse de, 1, 4, 32, 42, 43, 48, 61, 129
Morny, Duc de, 35, 36, 79, 122, 153, 271, 276 Duchesse de, 72
Mouchy, Duc de, 80 Duchesse de, 376
Moulton, Mrs., 73, 155
Murat, Prince, 386
Murat, Princes Achille and Lucien, 21 Prince Joachim, 31
Musard, Mme., 81
Musset, Paul de, 135
N
Napoleon III., the Emperor: arrives in Paris under arrest, and is seen for the first time by Mlle. Eugénie de Montijo, 1; boyhood and youth, 7; his father and mother, 9; travels in Italy, the prophecy of a negress, Louis Napoleon imbued with his mother’s superstitious ideas, “What would you do to obtain a livelihood?” 10, 11; at the age of seven, he implores Napoleon I. “not to leave for the war,” a curious conversation with the Emperor, 12, 13; the boy’s character, “a type of German dreaminess,” 14; the “doux entêté,” a prediction of the “Grand Albert,” the boy’s one quality, 15; George Sand’s remark, the Prince’s education vitiated, his docility, effects of changes of scene, drawbacks to study, some of his writings, 16, 17; Louis Napoleon’s life in London, 18; his drawing-rooms full of souvenirs and relics, his rides and drives, he makes numerous friends, Lady Blessington, he publishe s his “Idées Napoléoniennes,” 19; De Persigny and the Prince, Louis Napoleon’s failure at Strasburg, Mrs. Gordon, 20; Fleury, De Persigny, and the Marquis de Gricourt, the Prince deported to America, he meets the Murats and Prince Pierre Bonaparte, returns to London, goes to Arenenberg, and is present at his mother’s death, his proclamations posted at Boulogne, 21; how Boulogne took the announcements, 22; the expedition to France, a fiasco, the conspirators fly, the Prince and others jump into the sea, some are drowned, arrest of the Prince and most of his adherents, 24; letter from Thélin, the Prince’s valet, dated from a Paris prison, 25, 26; the Prince and others are tried at the Luxembourg, 26; the sentences--the Prince to be perpetually imprisoned in a fortress, his six years at Ham, he is assisted by Mme. Cornu, his foster-sister, 27; escape of the Prince from Ham, his arrival in London, death of his father, the Prince becomes comparatively rich, and buys a house for Miss Howard, 28; Louis Napoleon’s letter to his father on the subject of marriage, 29, 30; he denies that he is a pretender to the hand of Queen Doña Maria, 30; the Prince’s matrimonial advances, 31; Mlle. Eugénie de Montijo and her mother, 32; the Montijos at Compiègne, card-playing, Eugénie has “a very good hand,” the courtship, Eugénie is insulted, 33, 34; the sympathetic Emperor, he offers marriage, and announces his intention in a speech from the throne, 34; objections to the marriage, 35; M. Drouyn de Lhuys and Mlle. de Montijo, De Morny’s saying, 36; ladies oppose the marriage, Eugénie is persecuted at Compiègne, 37; analysis of her temperament, 38; Mlle. de Montijo will not allow anyone to kiss her but her husband, 39; criticism of the Emperor’s fiancée, Princesse Mathilde begs the Emperor to abandon his intention, 41; Lamartine supports the Emperor, “everybody courts Mlle. de Montijo,” 42; the Comtesse de Montijo and the generous Emperor, 44; “what a responsibility to have a young wife, beautiful, and southern!” a story of the Emperor and Eugénie, 46; after the marriage, “the Empress submits everything to the Emperor,” 47; the Empress and her diamonds, 48; the Emperor deplores his Consort’s waywardness, “scenes,” some “distraction for the poor Emperor,” who is to be “shown some pretty women,” the Emperor cautions the Empress against “people who are no better than spies,” 54; a letter from the wife to the husband, 55; the Emperor and Empress much discussed in Paris and London, sidelights upon their lives, 57; the Emperor induces the Empress to travel in Scotland, 58; the Emperor provides an unknown poet with a wife, 58-60; the Emperor insists upon strict etiquette, 60; the Emperor and his wife’s letters, “scenes” between the Imperial couple, 61; the Emperor orders the Empress’s mother to leave Paris, the Empress’s playfulness with the Emperor in the garden, the Emperor refuses to allow the Comtesse de Montijo to return to Paris, 62; the Emperor “is suspicious and severe to excess,” he gives Mme. Aguado her congé, the Empress “chaffs” her Consort, 63; a charming letter from the Empress to Napoleon III., her Majesty’s letters to the Emperor before their marriage, 66; the Empress “knows how to deliver the Emperor from General Fleury and M. Émile Ollivier,” 68; the Emperor’s mispronunciation of some French words, Bismarck’s sarcasm, Napoleon “only looked a real Emperor when he was mounted,” 69; the Emperor and Biarritz, 70; the wife of His Majesty’s doctor, 72; the Emperor honours Alexander II., the Tsarevitch, the King of Prussia, and the Crown Prince, 74, 75; the Emperor shows his Royal guests his stables and his twelve saddle-horses, 76, 77; the story of “Mr. Allsop” (Orsini) and the attempted assassination of Napoleon III. and his wife, 83-87; the Emperor as the “Sire de Framboisy,” 87, 88; the Emperor’s “political successes and military glories,” 88; reconciliation of the French Sovereigns, 89; the Empress of Mexico at St. Cloud, a dramatic episode, Napoleon “bewildered,” “tears were in all eyes, even the Emperor’s,” the official account of the Empress Charlotte’s visit, 92-94; Queen Victoria invests Napoleon with the Order of the Garter, “Enfin, je suis gentilhomme,” 95-97; the Emperor and Empress visit Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort at Cowes, the Emperor’s mot, 97, 98; at a ball at the Tuileries, before the marriage, the Emperor dances with Lady Cowley and with Mlle. de Montijo, 101; the Emperor’s toilet, an amusing scene, 102-105; Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower describes the Emperor at a Tuileries ball, 106, 107; an American Minister’s opinion of Napoleon III., 108; Lord Glenesk’s comical story of the Emperor who “did not want to be snubbed again,” 110, 111; the Emperor’s liking for Fontainebleau, his curious Louis XV. hunting-dress, English friends welcomed, 113, 114; torchlight “curées” and gay “shoots,” 116; Napoleon III. sleeps in the room of Napoleon I., the forest the great attraction at Fontainebleau, 118; the Emperor and Empress are “romantics,” 119; when their Majesties arrive--“how different to the Tuileries!” 121; the Théâtre Impérial, Fontainebleau, Albéric Second’s amusing “saynète” and De Morny’s witty impromptu, 121, 122; the Emperor’s unconventional garb, 122; music at dinner, “the Emperor had no ear,” his favourite tunes, 123; at Fontainebleau the Emperor smokes and talks with Bismarck, they have a “political walk” through the grounds, 125; an incident at a Council at Fontainebleau, “the Empress burst into tears, and left the Council Chamber,” 126; the Emperor at Compiègne, the Imperial “buttons,” a “final act of diplomacy,” 129; Christmas theatricals, a big “meet” on Christmas Day, guests at the “séries,” a miscellaneous company, 130; good dinners and excellent music, 131; various games, amateur play-acting, the Emperor “plays” a piano-organ, the Marquis de Massa’s “skit” on the Emperor’s “Commentaires de César,” 132; enemies and intrigues, the Emperor “using himself up,” 143; the Emperor promises the Princesse de Metternich that “Tannhäuser” shall be produced, 145, 146; the Emperor gives Liszt the Cross of the Légion d’Honneur, 147; the Emperor and the Marquise de Galliffet, 160; the Comtesse Edmond de Pourtalès, a warm friend of the Emperor and Empress, warns them of Prussia’s intentions, 161; the Emperor’s war telegrams to the Empress, 166-196; Napoleon III. at Metz “seemed to be dreaming,” “he had become an embarrassment,” 199; the Emperor, Canrobert, Lebœuf, and Bazaine together at the Préfecture, Metz, Napoleon hands over the command to Bazaine, 201; the Emperor’s Aide-de-Camp, General Pajol, describes the battle of Sedan and the splendid courage of His Majesty, 210-216; was the Emperor rouged at Sedan?, 216-218; interviews of Napoleon with Bismarck, the King of Prussia, and the Crown Prince, 218-221; the Emperor en route to Wilhelmshöhe, he writes a full explanation of the causes which led to his defeat, 221-222; a list of the property left at the Tuileries in 1870 by the Emperor, the Empress, and their son, 240-244; the Emperor’s letters to the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau, 248-258; the Emperor’s other correspondence, 259-267; Napoleon as Citizen, President, and Emperor, his extraordinary letter concerning Miss Howard, 269, 270; the history of the coup d’état, 270-272; his four years’ Presidency of the Republic, 273; tributes of M. Émile Ollivier and Baron de Mackau to Napoleon III., 276-281; the Emperor, at Wilhelmshöhe, writes a detailed statement of his policy as regards Germany, 281-291; what the King of Prussia was asked to write to Napoleon III., 291-292; the people who forced the Emperor to declare war, 292; last words of Napoleon to M. Ollivier, 293; Napoleon III. is left without allies and goes to war single-handed, 298, 299; the Emperor and his collaborator, the Comte de La Chapelle, 301-304; how the Emperor and “the Cause” were financed, the Comte de La Chapelle’s letters to the Emperor, 308-318; letter of Napoleon III. to M. Rouher, 319, 320; in letters to Colonel Stoffel M. Franceschini Pietri speaks for the Emperor, 321-337
Napoleon, General Prince Louis, 379 Prince (the late), 41, 72, 128, 294, 297, 298, 326, 345, 358, 383, 384 Princesse (the late Clotilde), 100, 345, 347, 350, 352, 354, 358, 359-361, 381, 382, 384 Prince (the Pretender), 339-384 Princesse (Clémentine), 345, 348, 349, 350, 352, 353, 354, 355, 369-378 Emperor (I.), 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 19, 347
Naeyer, Comtesse de Smet de, 353
Ney, Edgar, 35, 115
Niel, Marshal, 181, 200, 279, 280, 323, 333
Nieuwerkerque, Comte de, 41, 79
Nigra, Chevalier, 124, 227, 228, 229, 230, 298
Noir, Victor, 336
O
Offenbach, Jacques, 79, 151
O’Hanlon, Rev. John, 391
Ollivier, M. Émile, 68, 168, 178, 180, 276, 277, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 301, 303, 324, 369
Orléans, Duc d’, 344 Princesse Hélène (Duchesse d’Aoste), 382
Ossuna, Duc d’, 4, 36, 45
_Owl, The_, and some of its writers, 110
P
Padoue, Mlle. de, 29
Padwick, Mr., 72
Pajol, General, 209, 211, 213, 215, 216
Palikao, General, 89, 186, 187, 188, 190, 192, 194, 201, 296 Mlles., 328
Pallez, M. Lucien, 372
Palmerston, Viscount and Viscountess, 6 Viscount, 97
Panizzi, Dr., 1
Paoli, M. Xavier, 389, 390, 391
Parieu, M. de, 271
Pasquier, M., 26 Duc d’Audiffet, 344
Patti, Adelina, 72
Paule, Don François de, 31
Payne, Mrs., 155
Pearl, Cora, 152
Pellé, General, 214
Pemberton, Colonel, 392
Pepa, 197
Perrin, M., 133
Persigny, Duc de, 20, 21, 24, 27, 35, 63, 276, 281 Duchesse de, 128, 151
Pestel, Captain von, 208
Philippe, King Louis, 18, 348
Pietri, M. Franceschini, 170, 183, 228, 238, 239, 276, 300, 321, 325-338, 376, 386, 389, 391
Pilié, Mrs., 155
Pinard, M., 73
Pius IX., Pope, 371
Plon, M., 331
Podbielski, Count von, 205, 207, 208
Poet Laureate (sonnet, “The Prince Imperial”), 400
Polk, Miss, 155
Poïlly, Mme. de, 133
Poniatowski, Prince, 174, 175
Pope, the, 355
Portugal, Queen (Doña Maria) of, 30 King of, and Infant Don Fernando, 135
Post, Mrs. and the Misses, 155
Pourtalès, Comtesse Edmond de, 73, 133, 134, 149, 155, 161, 162, 386
Prim, Marshal, 31
Prince Imperial, 71, 74, 78, 293, 294, 298, 304, 306, 307, 315-317, 379, 383, 393, 394, 398, 400
Priollet, MM. Julien and Marcel, 393
Proudhon, M., 394
Prussia, Crown Prince of, 77
Prussia, Frederick William, King of, 273 Crown Princess of, 107 Crown Prince of, 170, 218
R
Régnier, Archduke, 369
Réjane, Mme., 393
Riario-Storza, Duchesse, 154
Richard, M. Maurice, 187
Richter, Captain von, 208
Ridgway, Miss, 154
Ripon, Lord, 25
Rivas, Duchesse de, 153
Rochefort, M. Henri, 80, 284, 336, 345
Romieu, M., 271
Ronalds, Mrs., 155, 386
Rooney, the Abbé, 392
Rose, J. H., 277
Rostopchine, Comte, 152
Rothschild, Baron and Baronne Alphonse de, 162
Rouher, M., 271, 311-314, 320
Rowles, Miss, 31
Royer, M. de, 271
Rudolph, Archduke, 378
Russell, Lord John, 88
S
Sagan, Princesse de, 73, 149, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 164 Prince de, 158, 159, 160
Saint-Amand, Baron Imbert de, 101, 237
Saint-Arnaud, Marshal, 270, 271
Saint-Genest, M., 303
Salemi, Comte de, 350
Sandeau, Jules, 135
Sardou, M. Victorien, 80
“Savelli, La,” 393
Saxe-Coburg, Prince Philip of, 350, 379
Saxony, King (Albert) of, 208 Crown Prince of, 219
Schneider, Hortense, 151
Schneider, M., 193, 271
Schöler, General von, 210
Scholl, Aurélien, 144, 145
Schouvaloff, Count, 75
Seckendorff, Count von, 220
Seillière, Baron, 156 M. Frank, 159
Sesto, Duc de, 4, 37, 60
Seymour, Lord H., 152
Sheridan, General, 206
Silberer, Victor, 206
Sinçay, M. Saint-Pol de, 363
Sophia, Queen of Holland, 387
“Sornette,” 160, 161
Soubeyran, M., 149, 150
Soumain, General, 186
Spain, Queen of, 392
Stiegler, M. Gaston, 102-105
Stoffel, Colonel, 162, 279, 321-338
Sutherland, Duchess of, 105-107
Sutherland-Gower, Lord Ronald, 105-107, 235, 236
Sweden, King of, 387
Swetchine, Mme., 153
T
Taisey-Chatenoy, Marquise de, 43
Talhouët, M., 281
Thélin, Charles, 24, 25, 26, 102
Thérèsa, 142, 149
Thiers, M., 22, 41, 181, 286
Thompson, Sir H., 300, 301
Thouvenel, M., 125, 126
Toledo, M. de, 153
Torre, Duchesse de la, 153
Toulongeon, Colonel de, 33, 35
Trécesson, General de, 213
Trochu, General, 176, 177, 179, 193, 194, 224, 326
Tuileries, list of objects found at the, 240-244
Turkey, the Sultan of, 389
U
Uhlmann, M., 392
V
Vaillant, Marshal, 126
Valençay, Duc de, 156
Vambéry, Arminius, 275
Vassoigne, General, 211
Vaughan, Baroness, 378
Vaughan, Mrs., 73, 386, 389 Miss, 386, 391
Véron, M., 271
Victor Emmanuel II., 296, 359
Victor Emmanuel III., 348, 371
Victoria, Princess of Schleswig-Holstein, 392
Victoria, Queen, 5, 6, 94-98, 125, 127, 273, 275, 375, 376, 377, 389, 390
Vieil-Castel, M., 41
Villeneuve, Marquis de, 385
Villiers, Lady Clementina, 31
Vimercati, Count, 168, 298
Visconti-Venosta, Marquis, 166
Vitzthum, Count, 297
W
Wagner, Richard, 145, 146, 147
Wagram, Prince de (and daughter), 31, 45
Waldteuffel, M., 335
Wales, Prince and Princess, 128, 377 Prince of, 163, 164
Wedding of Prince Napoleon and Princesse Clémentine, 345-357
Welschinger, M. H., 291, 292
Westphalia, ex-King of, 33, 35, 272, 281
Whitehurst, Felix, 70, 71, 72, 73
William, King (of Prussia), 74, 76, 126, 204, 205, 206, 208, 215, 218, 219, 220, 281, 291, 296, 327
Wimpffen, General de, 210, 212, 213, 214, 215
Wolff, Sir Henry Drummond, 221
Worth, M., 144
Würtemburg, King of, 359
Wyse, Mr. Napoleon Gerald Bonaparte, 385 Mr. C. W. Bonaparte, 385
Z
Zola, Émile, 216, 217, 218, 318
THE END
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] This has been confirmed by M. Émile Ollivier in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” (1911).
[2] “Quarterly Review,” April, 1910.
[3] “Les Élégances du Second Empire.” Par Henri Bouchot. Paris: À la Librairie Illustrée. 1896.
[4] “La Cour des Tuileries” (Conférence prononcée à la Société des Conférences le 17 janvier, 1910). Paris: “La Revue Hebdomadaire” (Plon), 1910. “Mes Souvenirs et Impressions.” Par le Marquis de Massa. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
[5] General Palat, author of “La Guerre de 1870-1871,” completed in October, 1910. In seventeen volumes. Paris and Nancy: Levrault et Cie.
[6] Péladan, the “Figaro,” March 19, 1910.
[7] Author of an article on French Children in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” December, 1871.
[8] “Reminiscences of Carl Schurz.” London: John Murray. 1909.
[9] “Etions-nous prêts?” Par Émile Ollivier. Tome XV. Paris: Garnier. 1911.
[10] Paris: E. Dentu. 1868.
[11] Paris: Victor Havard. 1894. London and New York: Harper and Brothers.
[12] “L’Impératrice Eugénie.” Paris: Sociétés des Publications Littéraires Illustrées. 1909.
[13] “Amours Tragiques de Napoléon III.” Paris: Albin Michel. 1910.
[14] “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[15] Vide “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[16] “Contemporary France,” by Gabriel Hanotaux. London: Constable. 1907.
[17] This lady was at Chislehurst when, in 1873, the Emperor passed away.
[18] The Exhibition building was erected at the western end of the park, midway between Rotten Row and the Ladies’ Mile.
[19] “She is a very beautiful woman, who will be well able to maintain her position, inasmuch as they say she is ‘made for the part.’”
[20] Paris: Félix Juven.
[21] The King himself is asserted to have declared that “not a drop of Bonaparte blood flowed in the boy’s veins.”
[22] M. de La Guéronnière.
[23] At the Bibliothèque Nationale there is an interpretation of the “Prédiction Miraculeuse du Grand Albert sur Louis Napoléon Bonaparte,” published two years before December 2, 1851 (the date of the coup d’état).
[24] “Idées Napoléoniennes.”
[25] The site of the Royal Societies Club, which (1911) numbers among its members a Bonaparte (Prince Roland).
[26] The Prince is also said to have had lodgings at one time at Waterloo Place.
[27] “Mémoires inédits sur Napoléon III.” Par le Baron d’Ambès; Recueillis et Annotés par Charles Simond et M. C. Poinsot. Paris: Société des Publications Littéraires Illustrées.
[28] The nominal author of a remarkable pamphlet written at Wilhelmshöhe by Napoleon III.
[29] This promise Conneau kept. He shared the Prince’s captivity at Ham, and heard the last words Spoken by Napoleon III. on January 9, 1873: “Etiez-vous à Sedan?”
[30] The mother was Alexandrine Vergeot, a maker of sabots, who helped the prison-porter’s wife to keep the canteen tidy. She married Louis Napoleon’s foster-brother, and died poor at Paris in 1886.
[31] King of Holland, 1806-1810.
[32] This lady died in 1910.
[33] “L’Impératrice Eugénie.” Paris: Société des Publications Littéraires Illustrées. 1909.
[34] King of Westphalia, grandfather of Prince Victor and General Prince Louis Napoleon.
[35] “Souvenirs de la Duchesse de Dino” (_Chronique_, tome iv.). Paris: Plon.
[36] The ever-recurring infidelities of her consort prompted the long-suffering Empress to absent herself from France for a while, and to confide her troubles to Queen Victoria.
[37] Mme. de Ferronays.
[38] A prominent Minister of the period.
[39] The Emperor’s description in the local records.
[40] M. Pinard was a prominent Minister, who died in 1910.
[41] Mme. De Arcos and her sister, Mrs. Vaughan, reside in London (1911). The first-named lady represented the Empress Eugénie at the funeral of Queen Victoria.
[42] His son, the present Baron, one of the doughtiest of Bonapartists, after the war married the celebrated actress, Mme. Reichenberg, who assisted at a charitable fête in 1911.
[43] A well-known artiste.
[44] General Roguet, who was sitting outside, had been badly injured in the neck, and bled profusely.
[45] Derived from “Amours tragiques de Napoléon III.,” by Gaston Stiegler. Dedicated to M. Adrien Hébrard, rédacteur-en-chief of _Le Temps_.
[46] For what is known as “the Orsini attempt” to murder the Emperor and Empress on January 14, 1858, Orsini and Pierri were executed. Gomez and Count Rudio were sent to the galleys for life, the latter having been reprieved at the last moment. Rudio escaped from his prison, and died in California in 1910, aged seventy-seven.
[47] Then Prime Minister.
[48] Palikao (Montauban) was War Minister, under the Empress’s Regency, at the downfall of the Empire.
[49] The idea of Napoleon III. appears to have been to secure what he called “the American equilibrium” by founding in Mexico “a regenerating Empire.”
[50] Prosper Mérimée.
[51] “Amours Tragiques de Napoléon III.” Par Gaston Stiegler. Paris: Albin Michel.
[52] Dr. Conneau was with the Emperor at Sedan, at Wilhelmshöhe, and at Chislehurst until the end came in January, 1873.
[53] The Duchess of Sutherland.
[54] There had been serious misunderstandings between the Emperor and Empress, and the latter came to London for a few days, staying at Claridge’s, en route to Scotland.
[55] Napoleon III. made a somewhat similar present to the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII.).
[56] “Reminiscences,” 3 vols., 1910. London: Unwin.
[57] “Salathiel,” a romance, by George Croly, on the subject of the Wandering Jew.
[58] Until the autumn of 1910 the Flora Pavilion remained undisturbed. Then some changes were made for Government purposes in the rez-de-chaussée and the two floors, the kitchens being left intact, just as they were prior to 1870.
[59] Nothing remains of the cellars but the walls. All the furniture, fittings, and utensils of the Tuileries kitchens have been preserved intact, and this sous-sol of the Flora Pavilion is now one of the curiosities of the Louvre.
[60] The late Lord Glenesk, in a conversation with Lady Dorothy Nevill shortly before his death.
[61] Uncle of Mrs. Borthwick (Lady Glenesk).
[62] “Partant pour la Syrie,” composed by Queen Hortense, became the French National Hymn under Napoleon III. It was founded upon the imaginary exploits of a soldier, Dunois, in Palestine, and, translated, was a very popular song in England in the fifties and sixties.
[63] Bismarck had been recalled from St. Petersburg to replace Comte Albert de Pourtalès at Paris.
[64] James de Chambrier.
[65] The Comtesse Edmond de Pourtalès (who happily survives in 1911) had, it is true, courageously uttered no vague warnings; but they fell on heedless ears.
[66] “Souvenirs et Impressions.” Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
[67] Of the five ladies mentioned, two survive in 1911--Princesse de Metternich and Mme. E. de Pourtalès. Mme. Bartholoni died this year.
[68] “L’Impératrice Eugénie.” Par Pierre de Lano. Paris: Victor-Havard.
[69] M. Pierre de Lano.
[70] The “star” of the Alcazar--the Yvette Guilbert of the Second Empire period.
[71] The Empress.
[72] She still (1911) resides at Vienna, and is one of the rapidly-vanishing participants in the splendours of the Second Empire.
[73] This was a pardonable exaggeration. We know from the Princess’s own lips that her fan was too valuable to be destroyed in a moment of anger.
[74] M. Chauchart died in 1910, leaving an enormous fortune and a marvellous collection of works of art.
[75] “Entre l’Apogée et le Déclin,” par James de Chambrier. Paris: Fontremoing.
[76] Ludovic de Grammont (sometimes spelt with one “m”), Duc de Caderousse, died in 1865.
[77] The Irish Emma Crouch, whose father composed “Kathleen Mavourneen.”
[78] Brother of Prince Anatole Demidoff, who married Princesse Mathilde, aunt of the Princes Victor and Louis Napoleon.
[79] “Sornette.”
[80] It was this old soldier whose support was so anxiously sought by Napoleon III. after Sedan.
[81] Mme. (Edmond) de Pourtalès is (1911) the sole survivor of these four charmeuses.
[82] The wealthy gentleman who adopted the Baron de Forest as his son.
[83] One of the heroes of the historical cavalry charge at Sedan.
[84] Daughter of Baron Lionel, sister of Lord Rothschild, and widow of Baron Alphonse. She died on January 6, 1911.
[85] Needless to say, Sunday is the great race-day in Paris: the reason why “the Prince”--the King--of happy memory never witnessed the contest for the Grand Prix.
[86] In other words, the question of protecting the Pope.
[87] The Prince Imperial’s so-called “baptism of fire.”
[88] Count Vimercati, one of the Emperor of Austria’s representatives.
[89] M. Franceschini Pietri, the Emperor’s Secretary.
[90] The day of her flight from the Tuileries.
[91] Subsequently the late Baron de Hirsch purchased this hôtel, No. 1, Rue de l’Elysée, at the corner of the Avenue Gabriel.
[92] After Sedan General Chazal conducted Napoleon III. from Belgium to Verviers (Prussia).
[93] This officer is now an Admiral. He visited the Empress Eugénie at Cap Martin in February, 1911.
[94] All these valuables were delivered to the Empress soon after her arrival in this country (September 8, 1870).
[95] I am greatly indebted to MM. Plon-Nourrit, the eminent Paris publishers, for most kindly permitting me to print the Sovereigns’ war despatches and the summary of events in August, 1870. They are from the valuable work, “Le Maréchal Canrobert,” by the well-known writer, M. Germain Bapst, an admitted authority on the subject. Five volumes of this brilliant historical work have already appeared through MM. Plon-Nourrit et Cie., and M. Bapst is engaged upon the sixth volume, to be issued in 1912.
[96] August, 1870.
[97] H. Sutherland Edwards, Edward Legge, and Victor Silberer.
[98] The narrative of General V. Pajol, aide-de-camp of Napoleon III. To the best of my belief it has not appeared in any French, and certainly not in any English, volume.
[99] “La Débâcle.”
[100] _Revue des Deux Mondes._
[101] This historical episode had an echo in 1888. The Colonel, then a member of the Reichstag, was unexpectedly sent for by Bismarck, who said: “The Press has been stating that I treated Napoleon with undue roughness upon the occasion of our meeting at Donchéry. You were the only eye-witness of the scene, so do you tell them the truth.”
[102] This remarkable document appears textually only in “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper & Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[103] From the late Duc de Conegliano’s volume (1897), “La Maison de l’Empereur,” preface by Frédéric Masson. Paris: Calmann Lévy.
[104] Statement by M. Pietri to “Le Matin” in 1910.
[105] This pavilion was not destroyed by the Communards in 1871. It contains the kitchens of the Tuileries (_vide_ p. 108).
[106] Mother of Napoleon I.
[107] Of these four ladies, two survive in 1911--the Duchesse de Mouchy and the Comtesse E. de Pourtalès.
[108] The letters are reproduced by arrangement with Herrn Paul Lindenberg.
[109] The Emperor’s former Secretary, and later a Deputy.
[110] “Les Forces Militaires de la France en 1870.”
[111] Charles Thelin had been the Emperor’s valet at Ham, and was employed in a confidential capacity during the reign.
[112] “Mémoires inédits sur Napoléon III.,” par le Baron d’Ambès. Recueillis et Annotés par Charles Simond et M. C. Poinsot. Paris: Société des Publications Littéraires Illustrées.
[113] “Memoirs of General von Gerlach.” Published, in German only, in 1891.
[114] “Men and Things of My Time,” by the Marquis de Castellane. London: Chatto and Windus. 1911.
[115] Probably a reference to a public religious service in connection with the Crimean War.
[116] “The Story of my Struggles,” by Arminius Vambéry.
[117] In Roman history the period of the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius was generally characterized by domestic tranquillity.
[118] “The Development of Nations,” by J. H. Rose. London: Constable. 1905.
[119] Napoleon III., January 3, 1870.
[120] Editor of “Le Figaro.”
[121] His Majesty’s own detailed statement of the causes which, in his opinion, led to the defeat of his army at Sedan appears textually in the volume, “The Empress Eugénie: 1870--1910” (and, I think, in no other work). London: Harper and Brothers; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[122] “La Captivité de Napoléon III. en Allemagne,” par le Général Comte C. de Monts, Gouverneur de Cassel. “Souvenirs traduits de l’Allemand,” par Paul Bruck Gilbert et Paul Lévy. Préface de Jules Claretie, de l’Académie Française. Paris, Pierre Lafitte et Cie. 1910.
This positive statement of General von Monts is confirmed by M. Émile Ollivier (“Le Figaro,” October 22, 1910). The Marquis de Gricourt was a Chamberlain of Napoleon III. and also a Senator.
[123] Through the Liberal Empire.
[124] One of the cardinal points of the Emperor’s policy, foreshadowed by him when he was in London in 1839-40.
[125] M. Ollivier’s critics condemn him for disregarding Marshal Niel’s earnest appeals to increase the military forces of the Empire, and so put the country in a proper state of defence. The annual contingent was, in fact, as the Emperor notes, _reduced_ by 10,000 men!
[126] His Majesty ignores the fact that for at least two years there had been throughout the country a growing feeling of discontent, aroused, to a large extent, by M. Henri Rochefort’s denunciations (in the “Lanterne”) of the Emperor, the Empress, and the Court.
[127] These extracts were doubtless translated by the Emperor himself, for not one of those who were with him at Wilhelmshöhe could speak a word or read a line of German! Napoleon III. had an almost better acquaintance with German than with French, and he spoke French as many Germans speak it, the result of his early education in Germany and Switzerland.
[128] A Bonapartist intransigeant who greatly influenced the Empress.
[129] Strictly speaking, it was exactly five weeks later.
[130] July, 1870.
[131] “Les Causes et les Responsabilités de la Guerre de 1870.” Par H. Welschinger. Paris: Plon. 1910.
[132] To similar assertions the Empress Eugénie, in her Reply to her Accusers, gives an emphatic denial.
[133] Part of the chorus of one of Nadaud’s popular songs.
[134] _Revue des Deux Mondes_ (January 1, 1911). “La Guerre de 1870: Notre Première Défaite.”
[135] _Ibid._
[136] The Baron de Mackau (previously referred to in this chapter).
[137] Known at the Foreign Offices, but unknown to the outside world, the Press included.
[138] From the hitherto unpublished correspondence of Count Beust, Chancellor of Austria-Hungary, July, 1870.--“Deutsche Rundschau,” 1910.
[139] London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[140] “Peasants, you are being deceived.”
[141] Communicated by the Vicomte de La Chapelle (1911). The Comte de La Chapelle’s dramatic description of the painful scene at Camden Place, Chislehurst, on the day of the Emperor’s death is given in the volume, “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[142] He had been convicted of treason in December, 1870, but the death-sentence was commuted to twenty years’ imprisonment. He escaped on August 9, 1874.
[143] The Vicomte thus confirms the assertions on this point published in “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[144] Communicated by the Vicomte de La Chapelle (1911).
[145] The loans for paying the war indemnity of five milliards (£200,000,000).
[146] The Emperor.
[147] The Emperor died on January 9.
[148] The Comte de La Chapelle had supported Zola in the Press respecting one of the historical passages in “La Débâcle.”
[149] See the facsimile on the previous page.
[150] Colonel Stoffel’s Reports were published in 1871 under the title, “Rapports Militaires Ecrits de Berlin: 1866-1870.” Paris: Garnier.
[151] The Colonel died in 1907, aged eighty-eight.
[152] M. Émile Ollivier, writing in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” (December 1, 1910), proves that Lebœuf was absolutely accurate when, in July, 1870, he said emphatically, “Nous sommes prêts, archi-prêts” (We are ready--more than ready).
[153] M. Pietri’s deeply-interesting and historically-important letters appeared in the influential and deservedly popular magazine, the “Revue de Paris,” on June 15 and July 1, 1911. I am greatly indebted to the Editor of the “Revue de Paris” for very kindly allowing me to print some extracts from these valuable documents, which are “revelations” in the best sense of the word.
[154] General Trochu, the valiant soldier who deserted the Empress in her great extremity (September, 1870).
[155] Prince Napoleon, father of the Bonapartist Pretender of to-day.
[156] The needle-gun (Zundnadelgewehr), first used by the Prussians in warfare that year (1866) in the Austrian campaign.
[157] Wife of the Minister of Marine in 1851, and again from March, 1859, until January, 1867.
[158] Daughters of General Cousin-Montauban, Comte de Palikao.
[159] Daughters of Admiral Bruat (who died at sea on returning from the Crimea to France).
[160] The Imperial Hunt.
[161] A devoted ally of the Empress Eugénie. He survives in 1911.
[162] M. Pietri hints that the Prussian postal officials were “très indiscrets.”
[163] “Who goes slowly, goes well. Who goes well, goes far.”
[164] Literally, “drinkers of blood”; figuratively, “bloodthirsty.”
[165] It may be safely assumed that these amounts came from the Emperor’s purse.
[166] The Emperor.
[167] The Bismarcks.
[168] Bismarck.
[169] The chassepot.
[170] Divisional-General Frossard, aide-de-camp of the Emperor, member of the Committee of Fortifications. Governor and chief of the Military Household of the Prince Imperial from 1868.
[171] The Belgian National Anthem.
[172] It was pointed out to the Prince that “la République a bien du monde à caser; elle a fait beaucoup d’enfants qui veulent être nourris et pensionnés.”
[173] By inadvertence the Princess was described in the “banns” as the “eldest,” instead of the “youngest,” daughter of the late King and Queen!
[174] Napoleon I. always objected to the use of the surname “Bonaparte”; consequently, the three stones (now to be seen at the Invalides) on his tomb at St. Helena bore, and bear, no inscription.
[175] The Royal Basilica, near Turin.
[176] This lady, one of Princesse Napoleon’s dames d’honneur, is a daughter of that Duc de Bassano who was the Grand Chamberlain of Napoleon III. He was at Chislehurst with the Imperial Family, and, later, was often to be seen at the Empress Eugénie’s residence, Farnborough Hill. The author has occasion to remember him with gratitude.
[177] This was presented to Princesse Napoléon on April 6, 1911, by the Duchesse d’Albuféra, who was begged by the imperial couple to convey their grateful thanks to the dames Françaises for their superb gift.
[178] This was nonsensical. Etiquette precludes the King’s guests from visiting the Pope.
[179] The day following the Empress Eugénie’s flight from the Tuileries, and the same day on which Her Imperial Majesty actually left Paris for the coast.
[180] It would be idle to suppress a fact which everybody knew, and knows, that the Prince had been a Freethinker all his life.
[181] Princesse Clotilde died at Moncalieri on June 25, 1911.
[182] In a letter to Théophile Gautier.
[183] M. Gérard Harry, the celebrated Belgian publicist, author of a very pungent, detailed, and erudite criticism, in “La Grande Revue” (Paris), of the volume “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[184] M. Harry Gérard.
[185] “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. This volume contains the only “intimate” account of the Empress’s English home ever published.
[186] Constructed and erected in 1910, a few months before the visit of Prince Napoléon and Princesse Clémentine to the Empress at Farnborough Hill.
[187] “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[188] Paris: Ollendorff. 1911.
[189] His official title was “Commissaire Spécial, attaché aux Souverains étrangers en France,” a post which he resigned nearly two years ago.
[190] When this monstrous tale of an alleged liaison was widely published eight years later--in January, 1887--I denied it in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, on the authority of Monsignor Goddard. In 1911 it was again revived.
[191] June 7 and 8, 1911.
[192] “The Empress Eugénie, 1870-1910.” London: Harper and Brothers; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1910.
[193] November 2, 1910: St. Michael’s, Farnborough.
[194] “In Memory of the Prince Imperial.” Sermon at St. Mary’s, Chislehurst, on Sunday, July 13, 1879, by Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop.