The Empress Eugénie and her son

LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

SANTA BARBARA

PRESENTED BY

Mrs. MacKinley Helm

'Wu

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE
AND HER SON

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in 2007 witii funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

littp://www.arcliive.org/details/empresseugenielieOOIeggiala

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soli) in i'aris, with ai.l. thk othkr works ok thk cki.k-
bratei) scui-I'tor, in 1914. Thk Kmprkss rki.ictanti.v
posKD for this portrait. Carpkaux was so vexki) with

HER KAINT PRAISK OK HIS WORK THAT HE THREW IT INTO

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RECOVERED IT LONG AITKR WARDS

THE

EMPRESS EUGfiNIE
AND HER SON

BY

EDWARD LEGGE

AUTHOR OF
"KING EDWARD IN HIS TRUE COLOURS'

^

WITH TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

191 6

MINTED IN GREAT .RITAIN BV THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
BOINBURGH

PREFACE

" History has only learned of late to dispel the mists
both of glamour and of prejudice, and to study in
the true mood of human sympathy and impartial
insight the amazing years of the Second Empire." *

Prosper Merimee, the intimate friend of the
Empress Eugenie, her sister and their mother,
the Comtesse de Montijo, said the only things in
histories which interested him were the anecdotes.
This being so, Merimee, who, I suppose, " the
skilled gentry of the " Times " Literary Supple-
ment permitting, may be termed a French classic,
might possibly have smiled a qualified approval of
the twelve hundred pages which I have now
devoted to the Empress, Napoleon III., the Prince
Imperial (" Napoleon IV.") and many of the most
prominent personages and events of the Second
Empire and after.

I have not attempted to pen cut-and-dried
" biographies." Such things are to be found m
bulky tomes containing amazing views of Emperors
and Empresses — and Kings. (By " biographies "
I do not, needless to say, mean " lives " such as
those by Lord Fitzmaurice of Lord Granville, by
Lord Morley of Mr Gladstone, and by Sir Edward
Cook of " Delane of the ' Times ' " — all brilliant
and accurate, unsurpassable.) To write ordinary
biographies is as easy as planting cabbages, and less
useful.

But while I have studiously eschewed the common-
place, unattractive biographical method — dates follow-

*" Daily Telegraph," one of the few English papers which
has always dealt fairly with the Napoleonic regime and
remains consistently sympathetic with the Empress.

5

6 PREFACE

ing each other in chronological precision, from
the subject's birth to death — I have essayed to
present all the obtainable episodes which marked
the careers of my characters. My method was not
inaptly described by the " Times " reviewer of " The
Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire "
(September 14, 191 1): " Mr Legge, who published
' The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910/ and who has
an expansive literary manner, has ransacked for
piquant detail all the chief sources of information
(he even quotes from M. Ollivier's latest volume),
and quotes the original documents — telegrams
between the Emperor and Empress during the first
weeks of the war — with much effect." The amiable
reviewer might have added that I was an eye-
witness of many of the events described in my
previous volumes. This may also be said of the
present work. I prefer writing of people and
things, " seen with my eyes " to writing about what
I have " heard with my ears." What I see I can
narrate accurately. What I hear depends for its
value upon the truthfulness of my informants.
I have never had the slightest cause of complaint
on this score. From all alike I have received
invaluable assistance.

From the beginning of this trilogy down to its
completion in January-February, 19 16, I have
had the most liberal and valued assistance of many
who are justly entitled authorities; others have
given me their encouragement and countenance.
Among them was the late M. Emile Ollivier,
whose final volumes of " L'Empire Liberal " *
I have now analysed for the purpose of giving
some at least of the readers of these pages information

* The last of the series was issued in August, 1915, and the
first review of it in this country was written by me for the
" Pall Mall Gazette " before copies of the work were
obtainable in London.

PREFACE 7

which will enable them to realise more completely
than they have perhaps hitherto done the facts
concerning the two foremost personages in the
narrative.

To M. Lucien Alphonse Daudet I am particularly
indebted for permission to present what is certainly
the most perfect, as it is the most charming and
faithful, portrait of the Empress hitherto given to
the world. This minute psychological study will
be, I think, regarded by competent judges as a
gem of literature. It could not have been achieved
by anyone else for the simple reason that, as a
protege of her Imperial Majesty, M. Daudet has
had for many years exceptional facilities for
accomplishing his task both at Farnborough Hill
and Cap Martin (Villa Cyrnos, which the Empress
has not seen since the summer preceding the war).
Moreover, as a Frenchman he has gifts of style and
expression in this branch of literature which have
been denied to most writers of other nationalities,
those of Italy excepted. Among our own living
authors I think he is most nearly approached by
Mr Filson Young. Friends of the Empress (and
of M. Daudet) whose acquaintance I have been
privileged to make have been not unfriendly to
me — far from it. Of such was the late Mme de
Arcos, one of the two best-loved friends of the
Empress, the other being her sister, Mrs Vaughan,
whose daughter, Miss Vaughan, has long been one
of her Majesty's companions and favourities.

In justice to M. Daudet I wish to make it quite
clear that he is not responsible (so to put it) for a
single line or word in this volume other than the
pages from his own pen. He did not know what I
was going to write and have written and quoted
from M. Ollivier's works and those of other and
lesser authors; nor will he know until he sees
this volume. I think it quite possible that Mme

8 PREFACE

de Arcos, in her kindly, benevolent way, may have
hinted to him that I had maintained a sympathetic
attitude towards her Majesty. But there is a gulf
between sympathy and servility. And above all
else I had to write impartially and conscientiously
according to my lights. This a " hired " author,
or one upon whom pressure had been put, could
not have done. That devoted friend of Napoleon
III., Lord Glenesk, did not hesitate (when Mr
Algernon Borthwick) to criticise the Empress and
some of those who surrounded her at Chislehurst in
1 87 1 when the Emperor was at Wilhelmshohe, and
on occasion I also have spoken my mind.

In introducing M. Daudet to that large circle
of readers whose favour I have enjoyed through
my Second Empire, King Edward, and Kaiser
books, I should like to reinforce my expressed view
of his charm and gift of personal analysis by
citing a few lines from a review of his " LTmperatrice
Eugenie " in the " Times " Literary Supplement.
Speaking of his " portrait (or at least a sketch from
life) of one of the most enigmatic of historical
personages " the writer said : " We all know the
Empress of modern legend : frivolous and dangerous,
loveliest of women, high-spirited, irreductible, * more
clerical than the Pope — the Empress on whose
slim shoulders the Republicans laid all the weight
of the war — ' Ma guerre a moi.' ... In M. Daudet's
likeness there is just enough of these lineaments
for us to understand all the cruelty of the democratic
caricature ; as Perseus looked at the image of
Medusa in a fountain, let us consider the redoubt-
able Sphinx of modern France as she is mirrored in

* Irreductible : that cannot be reduced. Vide Tarver's
Royal Phraseological English-French, French-English Diction-
ary (Dulau & Co.). The word is not given in the Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Current English, adapted from the
Oxford Dictionary, edition 191 1,

PREFACE 9

the consciousness of a young novelist, prepared
to understand her by character, heredity and circum-
stance. . . . Like the Empress of Austria, she
might say : ' Nous ne marchons pas comme doivent
marcher les Reines. Les Bourbons, qui presque
jamais ne sont sortis a pied, ont pris une allure
speciale — celle d'oies majestueuses.' There was
nothing of the majestic goose in either of these
intrepid, solitary and courageous Empresses — they
were eagles rather, the eagles of their empires —
eagles or swans. In both of them the final note is
a solitary self-sufficiency, a secret source of courage,
sufficient to all the hard trials of their existence."

It will assist the readers of my pages to form a
just estimate of the Empress if I quote a few
other lines from the " Times " appreciation of
M. Daudet's " portrait (or at least a sketch from
life)," for the article is a masterly one throughout.
" The Empress of the French [the title sounds oddly
in 1916] is a woman of the keenest positive
intelligence and rare political capacity." This much
I claimed for her after reading a long letter
which she wrote to one of her oldest and dearest
woman friends on the day after King Edward's
death — a letter in which she dwelt in statesmanlike
fashion upon the possible European results of
that calamity.

She has a feeling not uncommon in the Stoics (nor in the
least contrary to their doctrine) for certain personal advantages
often conducive to morality, or at least conformable to the
ideal of human nature — such as beauty, health, strength,
wealth, honour, breeding, high connexions, which increase
the usefulness and influence of those who possess them.
She is full of experience and often formulates, with singular
eloquence, the result of her observations ; but these axioms
and views, however original, have something precise and
individual — " I'lmp^ratrice n'aime que les certitudes et la
lumi^re." [This is an extract from M. Daudet's "portrait."]
Beautiful, witty and wise, just sufficiently capricious still

lo PREFACE

to enchain the attention of her courtiers, she has kept in
her old age and after all her sorrows a freshness of sentiment,
a keenness in simple pleasures, which endear her to the
young-. Yet behind this agreeable surface the depth is an
entire renunciation, with never a reminiscence, with never
a complaint. Voluntarily anonymous henceforth, the mistress
of the Tuileries lives these many years in a Hampshire
manor which bears on its stone frontage neither the bees
nor the eagle of Imperial France, but the blazon of a London
publisher. * Unmoved she stays in Paris in one of those
cosmopolitan hotels whose balconies look out on the gardens
where she used to reign and where the Prince Imperial had
his playground.

Nearly thirty-seven years have elapsed since the
Zulus' assegais robbed the Empress of her son.
After the tragedy French authors and journalists
began a new campaign against the mother, based
upon statements purporting to have been made by
various persons, admirers of the Prince Imperial,
but hostile to the Empress, who was alleged to have
made the young man's life at Chislehurst unbear-
able. Hence his departure for Zululand. All these
malevolent assertions and innuendoes have naturally
deeply grieved the Empress, and I am glad of
the opportunity which has been given to me to
refute them en bloc. No exculpation of the
Empress could be more complete. I present it as a
souvenir of the boy of fourteen whose " baptism
of fire on the heights overlooking Saarbriicken I
witnessed forty-four years before the second invasion
of France by the fiendish Huns in 19 14; while
a month after the " baptism " I was a spectator
of the crowning French disaster at Sedan and a
participant in the conquerors' march upon that Paris
which for nearly six months so heroically defied
the besieging hosts.

The collection of Cardinal Bonaparte's letters
relating to Napoleon HI., the Empress and the

* The reference is to the late Mr Thomas Longman.

PREFACE II

Prince Imperial is, I submit, a primeur of value.
This hieroglyphical correspondence was translated
for me by my esteemed young friend, Father
Gougaud, O.S.B., of St Michael's Abbey, Farn-
borough. He was one of the first to be called
to the colours in 19 14, was taken prisoner in the
battle of Maubeuge, after a few weeks' service,
and in February, 19 16, was still a captive. Another
of the Benedictines is a prisoner at Stuttgart, three
have been and are doing infirmary work, one is
in the trenches, one has been missing from April,
19 1 5, and one (of Italian birth) is a chaplain
with the Italian forces. Brother Emile Moreau
(whom most visitors to St Michael's Abbey will
remember at the lodge, at which picture post cards,
photographs, etc., are obtainable) has two nephews,
eight cousins and several friends all on active service
with the French armies.

As St Michael's Abbey Church was the Empress's
free gift to the Benedictines, it is no more than
their due to record here their patriotism. At " Farn-
borough Court," their property, they began war
relief work on October 16, 19 14;, when they took
charge of twenty-five wounded Belgians, tending
them until they were cured. Since then there have
been regularly occupied by British wounded or
ailing thirty-five, forty, or fifty beds. This good work,
of which hitherto no public mention has been
made, is under the personal surveillance and direction
of the revered Lord Abbot, the Very Rev. Dom
Cabrol, whose erudition is known to Benedictines
all over the world, and particularly in England,
France and Italy. This Benedictine foundation
is not now dependent in any way upon the Imperial
donor of the extensive property; it supports itself,
with the aid of any donations it may receive
voluntarily.

The Imperial chronicle of every-day events is

12 PREFACE

continued, in a composite chapter, from 1910-1911 to
the beginning of February, 19 16.

The late M. Emile OUivier, who was President
of the Council when France declared war with
Prussia in 1870, was not much beholden to English
writers, some of whom have regarded him as a target
for their barbed shafts. His own countrymen made
the author of " L'Empire Liberal," the Emperor,
the Empress and Marshal Bazaine scapegoats,
and in France and England he has been held
up to ridicule as the man who declared that he
entered upon the war " with a light heart," his
qualifying words being "burked." In many parts of
Ollivier's gigantic work the Empress is a prominent
figure. The final volume appeared in the autumn
of 19 1 5, and of that and its predecessor I have given
some account and a friendly letter (one of several)
which I received from M. Ollivier in reference to
some observations by her Majesty.

As this volume is appearing at an opportune
moment and will probably divert the thoughts of
many to Farnborough Hill, I am emboldened to
hope that some at least will be sufficiently sympathetic
to fallen greatness to wish her (as I respectfully do)
" many happy returns " on her " ninetieth " (May 5).

E. L.

CONTENTS

I. The Empress's "Ninetieth"
II. Le Quatorze Juillet, 19 15

III. A Lifelong Friend of the Empress .

IV. The Empress's Gift to Paris .
V. Jean Baptiste Franceschini Pietri

VI. The Empress Eugi^nie and her Son
VII. M. Filon's "Life"
VIII. Cardinal Bonaparte's Letters .
IX. Emperor, Empress and Last Premier .
X. The Empress in her own Country
XI. Psychology of the Empress
XII. A French Lady's " Appreciation "

XIII. Rochbfort and the Empress

XIV. The Empress Eugenie's Family Tree .
XV. The Empress's Tears

XVI. The Empress's " Indiscretions "

XVII, How THE Germans treated their Emperor
Prisoner .....

XVIII. The " Little Man "...

XIX. Fabled Wealth of the Napoleons
13

rAGE

17

22
29
35
38

49
58
63

77

102

III

135
142
149

157
161

172
184
188

H

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XX. Lord Granville and the Empress — Lady
Cowley visits the Captive Emperor

XXL Our Tribute to the " Little Prince "

XXIL "Identifying" the Prince Imperial.

XXIII. The Empress's Critics .

XXIV. Louis Napoleon in London .
XXV. Poets' Tributes ....

XXVI. The Empress and Sarah Bernhardt
XXVII. Some Voices that are still .
XXVIII. Bonapartism before the War
XXIX. The Empress a Successful Defendant
XXX. Lampooning the Empress
XXXI. The Prince who lived at Bayswater
XXXII. Bazaine, Lebceuf, Canrobert and Napo

LEON III. ....

XXXIII. Parentage of Napoleon III. .

XXXIV. The Empress, her Son and the Family
Index .....

193
200

212
227
241

275

287

295
299

306

311
316
380

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Empress Eugenie .... Frontispiece

By Carpeaux

The Empress Eugenie leaving the Church of

the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street . To face page 32

The widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, nee Princess

Anna Murat, and Princess Murat . „ „ 36

The celebrated Due de Morny (Half-Brother of

Napoleon III.) and his Wife . • >» » 36

The late M. Franceschini Pietri . • >f » 3^

Princess Pauline de Metternich . » » 52

The late Countess Walewska . . • « »> 52

The Empress Eugenie, the Prince Imperial and

Prince Murat . . . . ,, „ 60

The Emperor Napoleon III. and the Prince

Imperial . . . . . „ „ 60

The King of Prussia (afterwards Emperor

William I.) . . . . „ „ 78

The present Kaiser, William II., at the age

of four . , . . • » » 78

The Empress Eugenie . . . • » .» II4

After the portrait by Winterkalter

The Empress Eugenie in the grounds of her

Villa at Cap Martin . . • » 1, 130

Madame Adelina Patti (now Baroness Rolf

Cederstrom) . . . • >t » 254

Madame Sarah Bernhardt in 1867 , • » >j 254

15

i6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Empress Eugenie before her Marriage

The Empress en Crinoline

The Empress Eugenie in 1915 .

The Prince Imperial in Costume of the Imperial
Hunt ....

Prince Metternich

The Empress Eugenie in Evening Costume

The Empress Eugenie in State Robes .

Napoleon III., the Prince Imperial and the
Empress ....

The Empress in Afternoon Dress

The Empress and Prince Murat

The Prince Imperial in Court Dress

260

u >1

320

ll

338

>) >)

338

ti ))

346

M ))

346

e

356

JJ >)

356

> ) J !

364

») )>

364

CHAPTER I

THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH "

MAY 5, 1916

The little old lady — so very old — swathed in black
of unfashionable cut, with no eyes for anything but
her Prayer Book, follows the annual Mass of Requiem
for her husband and her son at St Michael's Abbey,
Farnborough, with the assiduity of a young nun in her
novitiate. And presently she toils down the staircase
to the crypt, the Imperial Mausoleum, and glances
up at the cavity in the wall behind the altar in which
she will sleep the last sleep. A strange idea, perhaps,
but she is original in all she does and all she says, as
some day the world — the English world — will learn
for itself. It has fallen to my lot to see her in all her
hours of agony — the passing of the Emperor at Chisle-
hurst, the slaughter of her son by the Zulus' assegais
and his burial within sight of his Kentish home,
and the removal of the two coffins from the little church
in the lane to the glorious fabric which she built on the
knoll among the pines and the rhododendrons, which
she can gaze upon from her room. She landed at
Ryde from Sir John Burgoyne's yacht in September,
1870, a fugitive — youthful-looking, sunny-faced,
golden-haired, a paragon of beauty and grace — one
(I suspect) of King Edward's *' three most beautiful
women I have ever seen."

The Empress Eugenie's whim in 19 15 was to have
B 17

i8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

her yacht fitted with a wireless installation. The
Imperial idea would not have given occasion for
comment in peace times ; but her friends at a distance
marvelled as to what may have been her Majesty's
object.

The war had the effect of cutting the Empress
off from France in a manner which she could never
have seriously contemplated, although when the
" declarations " began flying about in August, 19 14,
she professed no surprise. As a rule she has passed
the latter part of the winter and the early spring
months at Cap Martin. She was in Italy shortly
before the war broke out and returned to England in
mid-July.

One of the Empress's greatest delights is to see
King George drive up to the picturesque house in which
the most remarkable of women will probably end
her days. The King, Queen Mary, the Prince of
Wales and Princess Mary had a long chat with the
Empress in 19 15, driving over from Aldershot. King
Edward's son reminds her in many ways of her
only child, the Prince Imperial, who was, however,
nearly ten years King George's senior, and died at
three-and-twenty.

On the 29th of May, 19 15, the King and Queen
(then at Aldershot) were accompanied to Farnborough
Hill by Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria.
The august widow of Edward VII. had not often
visited the Empress, for whom she has the highest
regard. The venerable lady could not restrain her
emotion when greeting King George's mother.
Needless to say. Prince and Princess Napoleon were
gratified at this opportunity of meeting Queen
Alexandra and her daughter.

THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 19

Few visitors to Farnborough Hill get a warmer
welcome than the Due d'Albe, a descendant of the
wealthy Spaniard who married the Empress's only
sister some sixty odd years ago. That Duchesse
d'Albe is supposed to have been preferred to her more
beautiful sister, Eugenie, who had not at the time ever
dreamt of one day becoming Empress of the French.
The Due d'Albe, one of King Alfonso's intimates,
is a champion polo player, and has been seen in many
games with our crack poloists. He was among the
Empress's visitors at Farnborough in 1915; and,
as noted elsewhere, his brother, the Due de Penaranda,
was the guest of her Majesty in the middle of
December in the same year.

Even in her dreams (and they were many), the
Empress could never have imagined —

That at the age of forty-four and three months she
would be compelled to fly secretly from Paris and take
refuge in England ;

That less than three years later her consort,
Napoleon III., would die quite unexpectedly at
Chislehurst ;

That in another half-dozen years her only son would
be slain by Zulus;

That, from and after the 8th of September, 1870,
her permanent home would be England ;

That forty-four years after Sedan and the dismem-
berment of France by the Germans she would still
be living, while the Kaiser's armies were once more
attempting to conquer the country over which her
husband had ruled and she had throned it for eighteen
years ;

And that two months before entering upon her
ninetieth year the son of her dear friend, Edward VII.,

20 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

would, with his consort, their eldest son and their
daughter, be " five-o'clocking " with her, Eugenie
de Montijo, the one-time Empress of the French, at
her beautiful Hampshire home.

No crazy prophet or prophetess ever predicted
any of these things, but, like so many other events in
this marvellous woman's history, they have all come
to pass, and none can say what may be in store for her
between now and the celebration of her ninetieth
birthday on the 5th of May, 19 16.

Surely one of the strangest episodes in the Empress's
long life of surprises is that which we witnessed for
ourselves at the beginning of August, 19 14, when the
Imperial mistress of Farnborough Hill, a refugee
herself, threw open her doors to Prince (Victor)
Napoleon, his wife and their children — all equally
refugees ! The Prince is still theoretically the
Bonapartist Pretender to the Throne of France, which
has had no occupant since the 4th of September, 1870.
Princess Clementine is a daughter of the late King
of the Belgians, cousin of the present warrior-King,
and she and her consort were living in their home of
treasures. Avenue Louise, Brussels, when the rapid
march of events converted them, like tens of thousands
of others, into refugees. With their august relative
they are, and have been from the first, thoroughly
at home. That " Farnborough Hill " will ultimately
be their permanent abode is now practically certain.
They would be less happy at the Tuileries than among
the Hampshire pine-trees.

When, if ever. Princess Napoleon finds time hanging
heavily on her hands, she can slip on an apron and
become an infirmiere. To see and cheer her wounded
compatriots she journeyed to Manchester — the first

THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 21

time a Princess Napoleon had been seen in those parts.
She had only to be seen to conquer, for not only is she
a beautiful woman, but versed in all those little ways
which inspire admiration and love. Needless to say
how the hearts of the sufferers went out to their
charming compatriot or how delighted the Empress was
to hear her experiences.

The Empress passed her twenty-fourth successive
season at Cap Martin in 19 14. The spring of 19 15
found her in England, and here she will probably
remain until the nations are at peace.

A personage now seldom seen at Farnborough Hill
stayed there for a few days in October, 19 15. This
was the widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, who is
still often spoken of as Princess Anna Murat, her
maiden name. She is the oldest surviving friend of
the Empress.

Although in all works of reference the Empress
is described as " Eugenie de Montijo," she has always
signed, and still signs, legal documents " Eugenie
de Guzman," one of her twenty-one titles, fewer than
those which were borne by her sister, the Duchesse
d'Albe.

CHAPTER II

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915

The Empress Eugenie has lived to see France again
invaded by the relentless foe of 1870; to see the
armies of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Russia,
Italy, Montenegro and Serbia massed against the
Hunnish legions; and to see London and many
provincial centres honour the Republic by an
enthusiastic observance of the Fete Nationale !

In many respects the celebration in Monarchical
England of the National Fete of the French Republic
in 19 1 5 was the most striking episode in the history
of the two countries for three centuries. It was
one of those unanticipated events which confirm
the Disraelian axiom : " It is the unexpected which
always happens." While we are maintaining, and
shall successfully maintain, the existence of the
Republic it is well to remember that for centuries
France was as Monarchical as England — that for a
thousand years she was ruled by Kings and by two
Emperors. Not to be forgotten, either, is the fact
that, as recently as 1873, there was for a brief space
the likelihood that France would again place a King
on the overturned throne of her last Imperial ruler.
In that year the Comte de Paris (grandson of Louis
Philippe, who had abdicated and taken refuge in
England as "Mr Smith" in 1848), and the other Princes
of the Royal House of France, declared to the sensi-
tive Comte de Chambord, then at Vienna, that they

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 23

recognised in him " the head of our House and the
sole representative of the principle of Monarchy
in France." But in the November of that year
" Chambord," at Versailles, definitively refused to
accept the tricolour and stubbornly stood out for the
White flag as the emblem of sovereignty. From that
moment it was " all up " with the Monarchy, and the
National Assembly confided to Marshal MacMahon,
Duke of Magenta, a Royalist sailing under Bonapartist
colours, the powers appertaining to the Presidency of
the Republic for seven years. France has flourished
under the wise rule of the Republic, which was never
stronger, never more deeply rooted in the hearts of the
people, than on the anniversary (July 14, 191 5) of
the taking of the Bastille, the opening event of the
French Revolution, the anniversary likewise of the
liberation of France.

The Royalists had sworn that, come what may,
the Bastille should never be given over to the " Reds,"
the originators of that " Terror " with which every
schoolboy is supposed to be familiar. Its custodian
was one De Launay, and Carlyle has depicted it in its
death throes : " What shall De Launay do ? One
thing only De Launay could have done : what he said
he would do. Fancy him sitting from the first with
lighted taper within arm's length of the Powder Magaz-
ine; motionless, like old Roman Senator or Bronze
Lampholder ; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men,
by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was.
Harmless he sat there while unharmed; but the
King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would, or
should, in nowise be surrendered save to the King's
Messenger : one old man's life is worthless, so it be
lost with honour; but think, ye brawling mob, how it

24 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

will be when the whole Bastille springs skyward.
And yet, withal, he could not do it. . . . De Launay
could not do it. Distracted, he hovers between two
hopes in the middle of despair; surrenders not his
Fortress ; declares that he will blow it up, and does not
blow it. Unhappy old De Launay, it is the death-
agony of thy Bastille and thee ! Jail, Jailering and
Jailer, all three, such as they may have been, must
finish."

The first to " finish " was the " Jail," the Bastille,
which, after the outbreak of the Revolution, was
attacked and razed to the ground on July 14, 1789.

Every year the French Royalists commemorate
the tragedy enacted on that winter day in 1793, the
execution of Louis XVL They assembled, as of
yore, on the 21st of January 191 5, at the church of
Saint-Germain TAuxerrois, formerly the parish of the
Kings of France, when Mass was celebrated for the
repose of the august victim of the " Terror." It was
the 122nd anniversary of the crime. There were to
be seen the fine fleur of Parisian Royalist society —
the presidents of the Royalist Committees, the pro-
vincial delegates of the Due d'Orleans (the banished
Pretender to the Throne), and Baron Tristan Lambert,
formerly a Bonapartist, who accompanied the Empress
Eugenie's son, the Prince Imperial, to the little church
at Chislehurst on the morning of his departure for
Zululand, there to meet his fate at three-and-twenty.

The register of death was not drawn up until two
months after the execution of Louis XVI. This
document is now in the archives of the City of
Paris, and it is a memento of the event which may be
recalled a propos of the National Fete. It is textually
as follows : —

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 25

" Monday, i8th March 1793, second year of the
Republic. Act of decease of Louis Capet on the 21st
of January last, at 22 minutes past 10 in the morn-
ing. Profession — last King of the French. Age —
39. Native of Versailles, in the parish of Notre
Dame. Residing at Paris, Tour du Temple. Mar-
ried to Marie Antoinette of Austria. The said Louis
Capet [was] executed on the Place de la Revolution
in accordance with the decrees of the National
Convention."

The " Acte de Deces " states that the execution
took place in the presence of two members of the
Directory of the Seine, the commissaires deputed by
the Provincial Executive Council, and two commis-
saires of the Paris Municipality.

The Fete Nationale of to-day is the Fete Imperiale
of yesterday. " Change but the name, and the tale
is told of " it. The latter, founded by the Great
Corsican, was kept on the 15th of August, the Church
Festival of the Assumption, and it was celebrated for
the last time in 1869. When the next Assumption
Day came France, after thirteen fateful days' fighting,
was being pulverised and disintegrated by the pre-
decessors of the ruthless foes of 1914-1916. But
that would not have happened had the Anglo-French
Alliance been in existence.

The reasons for the defeat in 1870 have been elo-
quently and adequately explained by M. Emile Ollivier
and many other authorities of varying degrees of
eminence. Of these one of the most recent is General
Bazaine-Hayter, who, in an elaborate defence of his
relative, Marshal Bazaine, from one of innumerable
attacks, wrote in 191 1 : —

26 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

" It took a fortnight to get together 203,000 men,
who were opposed to 434,000 perfectly-equipped
Germans. We had made no preparations. There
were no horses for the artillery reserve and the wagons
carrying the bridges (pontoons) ; no tools for making
trenches. Our mitrailleuses arrived direct from the
manufacturers, and those who were to serve them were
quite ignorant. Our artillery was inferior in numbers
and in efficiency — in short, powerless. We had no
regularly-formed service for the transport of food.
Our formation in battle, which was old even in 1859,
was entirely out of date. Our rosters were thirty
years old. Our method of command was very defec-
tive, and without initiative. These were the causes of
our defeats — of all our defeats."

From the middle of August the functions of the
generals in the field were usurped by the Empress and
General de Palikao. Distracted by telegrams from
the Tuileries, Marshal MacMahon made the fatal
mistake of concentrating all his available forces in and
near Sedan. " Now we have got him in the mouse-
trap," said Moltke. It was true.

We English did not " take our pleasure sadly " in
Paris year after year on the 15th of August. Our
language was heard on all sides, just as French now
rings in our ears in London. Perhaps the Imperial
Fete and the National Fete resembled each other
in many of their features; but those who, like myself,
saw the Napoleonic festival " with their eyes " retain
memories of its unsurpassable splendours and its
myriad gaieties. The French have a great liking and
respect for dates. The 14th of July 19 15 was, then, a
" date " of high import alike for Republicans,

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 27

Royalists and Bonapartists. France had her " great "
year in 1867, when the Napoleonic star was at its
brightest. It was the year of the Exhibition, the
fourteenth which had been held since 1798 (" Year 6 "
of the Republic). The sovereigns of the world and
members of their families foregathered in Paris at the
invitation of Napoleon III. and his Empress. Of the
Imperial guests there is one specially notable survivor,
the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Among the visitors
were the grandfather and the father of Kaiser William
II., both of whom three years later were leading
their forces against those of their former Imperial
entertainers. The Prince of Wales (Edward VII.)
represented England on behalf of Queen Victoria :
with him were two of his brothers, the late Duke of
Edinburgh and the surviving Duke of Connaught.
Survivors (in 19 16) included the wealthy Duchesse
de Mouchy (Princesse Anna Murat), the Duchesse de
Conegliano (widow of the Chamberlain of the Em-
peror's Household), the Princesse Pauline de Metter-
nich (widow of the Austrian Ambassador to France
until 1870), and others whom it boots not to mention.
In the golden days of 1867 the last things thought of
were war with Germany and the overthrow of the
Empire in 1870, the internment of Napoleon III. at
Wilhelmshohe for nearly seven months, and the
establishment of a Republic, the third of its kind since
the accession to the throne of a Bourbon.

In 1870 and during a portion of 1871 France had
a Government of National Defence; in 1871 Adolphe
Thiers became the first President of the Republic,
and so remained until 1873; and since then France
has had as Presidents MacMahon, Grevy, F. Sadi
Carnot (assassinated), Casimir Perier, Felix Faure,

28 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Emile Loubet, Armand Fallieres and Raymond
Poincare. The three latter have been familiarised
to us by their visits to London. MM. Loubet and
Fallieres were the guests of King Edward, King
George entertained M. Poincare in 19 13. The state
visit to Paris of King George and his consort in 19 14
did much to consolidate the happy relations between
the two countries which originated with Edward VIL
in 1903, and may now be considered indissoluble.

CHAPTER III

A LIFELONG FRIEND OF THE EMPRESS

Madame Christine Vaughan de Arcos died on
November 24, 19 13, aged seventy-eight. She married
Don Domingo de Arcos in 1859, and from then till
1872, when she became a widow, she lived in Paris.
Her mother had known the Empress as a child, and
so when she came to Paris she was brought into touch
with the Imperial Family. But it was after the
Empress came to England that Madame de Arcos
really came to enjoy her close friendship. She never
held any actual appointment in the Empress's entour-
age, but she was her constant companion, and was with
her during the years of her heaviest troubles. At one
period the Empress went every year to Scotland
to stay at Abergeldie, which Queen Victoria placed
at her disposal, and in these visits to the north
Madame de Arcos always accompanied her.

At the funeral, at Brewood, Staffordshire, on
November 29, the chief mourners were Mrs Vaughan
(sister). Captain Ernest Vaughan and Miss Vaughan.
Among the floral and other tributes were a wreath from
Queen Alexandra, with card attached, " In Sorrowing
Remembrance, from Alexandra," the Empress
Eugenie, Princess Henry of Battenberg, the Duchess
of Rutland, Mary Duchess of Hamilton, the Duchesse
de Mouchy, Earl and Countess Bathurst, the Earl
of Lisburne and Lady Enid Vaughan, the Countess
of Lisburne, Countess Amherst, the Earl and Countess
29

30 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

of Dartmouth, the Earl and Countess of Bradford,
Sir William and Lady Noreen Bass, Mr and Mrs
Leopold de Rothschild, Mrs Standish, Sir Henry
and Lady Chamberlain, Lord and Lady Stamfordham.
Captain George Vaughan; Erny, Louise and Eddy,
the servants at 21 Wilton Crescent, and the servants
at Lapley.

The Empress sent (and it was placed on the coffin)
a large bunch of South African rushes, the produce of
the original plants which she brought back from
Zululand after her visit to the Prince Imperial's
grave in 1880 (the year after his death). The Em-
press received messages of sympathy from the King,
Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of Battenberg and
other members of the Royal Family.

A solemn High Mass of Requiem for the repose of
the soul of Madame de Arcos was sung at the Church
of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, on
November 29. The celebrant was the Rev. Father
George Pollen, the Deacon was Father J. Bampton,
and Father Ryan acted as Sub-Deacon. During the
seating of the congregation Mr J. F. Brewer played
Chopin's " Marche Funebre " and other voluntaries.
A catafalque was placed outside the chancel rails and
covered with a purple pall of velvet. The music
of the Mass was Gregorian, harmonised, con-
ducted by Mr J. F. Smith, the Director of Music, and
the offertory was Neidermeyer's " Pie Jesu." The
mourners were received at the west door by the
Rev. Father Charles Nicholson, the Superior, who
presented them with the goupillon (the holy-water
sprinkler).

The Queen of Spain was present, attended by the
Duke of Santa Mauro and the Duchess of San Carlos.

A LIFELONG FRIEND 31

Her Majesty was accompanied by Princess Henry of
Battenberg, who was attended by Lieutenant-Colonel
Cuthbertson and Miss Minnie Cochrane. The Em-
press Eugenie was also present, attended by Madame
d'Attainville and the late Monsieur Franceschini Pietri.

Others in the congregation were the Spanish Am-
bassador and Madame Merry del Val, the Argentine
Minister and Madame Dominguez, the Marquise
d'Hautpoul, Alice Countess Amherst, Countess
Koenigsmarck, the Dowager Countess de la Warr,
Lord Lisburne, Lord and Lady Stamfordham, Lady
William Nevill, Lady Margaret Orr-Ewing, Lady
Margaret Douglas, Lady Chetwode, Lady Enid
Vaughan, the Hon. Lady Oliphant, Colonel the Hon.
Francis Colborne, Sir Henry and Lady Chamberlain,
Mrs Thorold, Dr Procter, Mrs Silvertop, Mr Carlisle
Spedding, Mrs John Delacour, Mrs Scott Murray,
Mrs Edward Eyre, Mrs Lawrence Currie, Mrs Rod-
rick Segrave, Miss Alice Bagot, Mrs and Miss de
Halpert, Mr and Mrs J. Mott, Madame Specht, Lieu-
tenant R. F. Eyre, R.N., Mrs Murray of Polmaise,
Mrs Bedingfield, Miss Rosamond Grosvenor and the
author of this work.

The solemnity in the Farm Street Church was a
striking episode in the English life of the widow of
Napoleon III. and mother of the Prince Imperial.
I write under correction, but, as far as my memory goes,
it was the first time the Empress had been seen in a
London church as one of the ordinary congregation.
I know of no record to the contrary; but I may be
under a misapprehension. Perhaps it is safer to say
that it was the first time her Imperial Majesty had
attended a funeral service for one of her friends in
a Metropolitan church, strange as this may appear.

32 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

I do not remember hearing that she had ever before
or since Lord Sydney's funeral attended a Protestant
service. Although it had occurred to me that her
Majesty might possibly, out of her love for Madame
de Arcos, nerve herself to the ordeal of attending the
Requiem Mass, her absence would not have surprised
me. I am sure very few of the congregation, apart
from relatives and intimate friends, were aware of her
intention; nor did all the Jesuit Fathers know of it,
for one to whom I announced it looked incredulous.

The Requiem began at eleven o'clock. Ten minutes
or so later all doubts were dispelled by the principal
officiant, attended by three acolytes, proceeding to
the entrance door, and we who were standing there
saw the Empress slowly ascending the steps, gently
assisted by M. Pietri and Madame d'Attainville.
Stopping for a moment, the Empress made the holy
sign, in accordance with the Spanish, not the English,
usage (there is a slight difference between the two),
and, preceded by the reverend Father and the boys,
walked up the nave to the chair reserved for her on
the left of and close to the catafalque, which was
covered by a magnificent gold-embroidered pall and
flanked by three large tapers on either side. Immed-
iately opposite were the Queen of Spain and her
mother. The Empress walked to her place unassisted.
She did not use the familiar ebony cane as a walking-
stick, but occasionally tapped the floor with it. She
gave me the impression of being stronger and in better
health generally than when I had last seen her in the
Imperial Mausoleum at Farnborough on the 9th of
January 19 12, the date of the annual memorial service
for the Emperor. As on that occasion, so now, she sat,
knelt, and stood, like everybody else, throughout

The Empress Eugenie (Mme. d'Attainvili.e am> the
late m. pletki on either side) i.eavinc, the c^hurch

OF THE iMMAf II.ATE ("ONCErTION, FaRM STREET,

London, after the FtNEKAi. service for her devoted

FRIEND, Mme. de Arcos, November 29, 1913. One of

THE Empress's rare visits to a London chi rch

A LIFELONG FRIEND 33

the whole of the service, rising from her kneeling posi-
tion without any effort; yet in May, 19 16, she will be
ninety, and will then have been among us close upon
forty-six years, one-half of her lifetime. During
the service she did not lift her eyes from the gilt-
edged Prayer Book which she brought with her.
At first she read without the use of glasses, but after
a few minutes (the light not being particularly strong)
she put on her pince-nez, and did not remove it until
the service ended.

Upon rising she was immediately greeted, close to
the catafalque, by her Royal god-daughter and Princess
Henry of Battenberg, whom apparently she had
not expected to see. Again without any apparent
effort the Empress walked to the door. The scene
here is difficult to adequately describe. I tax my
memory in vain for its parallel. As the Empress stood
at the entrance, her back to the wall, waiting for her
" auto," she was the object of a truly extraordinary
demonstration, which seemingly amazed, and perhaps
momentarily dazed, her. Her many friends of both
sexes hastened to greet her. While some ladies
grasped her hand and kissed it, others laid an arm on
her shoulder and embraced her on the cheek. Men
knelt and kissed her hand. She was greeted in
Spanish, French and English, and to all she essayed
to address an affectionate word or two. Something of
her old winning smile lit up her pale face as she re-
ceived this homage, and she looked the thanks for which
she could not find utterance. All the men stood with
bared heads as at length she departed for Farnborough
Hill.

The Empress, despite her grief at the loss of so
dear a friend as Madame de Arcos was to her for some

34 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

forty years, appeared to be in the most satisfactory
state of health. Before the day was over I received
from a friend at Brussels information that there was
a general impression in the Belgian capital (Prince
Napoleon's then home) that the Empress was very ill.
I was even begged to telegraph her exact condition.
I communicated the facts, which were made known by
the Brussels Press.

Probate of the will of Madame de Arcos, dated Janu-
ary 17, 1908, was granted to her niece, Miss Louise
Mary Vaughan, 21 Wilton Crescent. The testatrix
bequeathed ;^5oo to that lady, ;i^iooo to her nephew,
Captain Ernest Mallet Vaughan, of the Grenadier
Guards; ;^iooo to her nephew. Captain George
Edmund Vaughan, Coldstream Guards ; ;^ 100 to her
brother, George Augustus Vaughan, and the residue
of her estate to her sister, Mary Vaughan, whom
failing, to her niece, Louise Mary Vaughan, absolutely.
The total amount of the estate was ;^ 26,974.

CHAPTER IV

THE EMPRESS'S GIFT TO PARIS

In January 19 14 Parisians learnt, to their intense
surprise and gratification, that the Empress Eugenie,
who had been prohibited from permanently residing in
France for more than twenty years after the war of
1 870- 1 87 1, had purchased for ;!^ 12,000 apiece of land,
from 25,000 to 30,000 metres in extent, adjoining
the part of La Malmaison with which the names of
Napoleon I., his mother and the Empress Josephine
will be always associated.

Immediately after the death of the Prince Imperial
in Zululand (June i, 1879), a committee was formed
in Paris in order to provide a lasting memorial of
the only child of Napoleon III. and the Empress
Eugenie. The committee was presided over by Prince
Joachim Murat, and among its members were the
Due de Mouchy, the Due de Cambaceres, the Due
d'Albufera, the Due de Padoue, the Due de Cadore,
Prince de la Moskowa and Baron Haussmann. There
was also a Press Committee, of which there is a sur-
viving member in that popular journalist, M. Arthur
Meyer, in whose paper, the " Gaulois," the general
committee's statement of the object in view was pub-
lished. This document was as follows : —

" The moment the news of the death of the Prince
Imperial was made known in Paris, it was resolved to
35

36 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

open a subscription for perpetuating his memory
by erecting a monument, and a committee was
immediately formed to give the movement a national
sanction. A great neighbouring country showed itself
jealous of its national duties towards our beloved
Prince, and we cannot enter into rivalry with England,
which desires to give him a place in Westminster
Abbey among the most illustrious of her men of whom
she is proud. But there remains for us a means
of giving to the memory of the Prince the one thing
which he would have preferred above all others, and
that is to raise in his own country a simple monument
to perpetuate our inconsolable sorrow. A chapel in
the centre of Paris, which saw him grow up and loved
him, would consecrate for ever the explosion of grief
caused by the heroic death of a Prince who, in
his last crusade, knew how to die like St Louis after
having known how to pray like him. Politics, with
their implacable hatreds and burning passions, have
not yet had time to obscure that dazzling youthf ulness,
that indomitable courage, that faith so living, that
life so pure. He did not reign until after his death.
It is to this son of France, this soldier falling in heroic
combat, this youth over whom all women have wept
with a patriotic solidarity of heart, this proud and
saintly figure before whom all Parties were disarmed,
that we wish to give an asylum upon French soil.
Being unable to bring back his body, we wish at
least to have his soul among us, so that it may find
its home here."

M. Arthur Meyer added these few words to the
above : " It was in the office of the ' Gaulois ' that the
idea of raising a fund originated on the personal

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THE EMPRESS'S GIFT TO PARIS 37

initiative of M. Tarbe. To-day it has become some-
thing of a national work."

By the 6th of September the subscriptions amounte'd
to over ;^4430. A piece of land (which had been sold
by the Ministry of War) in the Avenue de la
Bourdonnais was purchased, and on it, close to
the house No. 6, a little "chapel," or rather
"temple," was erected by the architect Destailleurs.
M. d'Epinay made a bronze bust, to be placed on a
pedestal in the little " temple." Eleven years passed,
and the pedestal had not been completed. The
bust had been executed several years previously,
and remained in the house No. 6, next to the residence
of the Comte de Poix. There appears to have been
some apprehension lest " roughs " should overturn,
or steal, the bust, or in some way damage it. So
matters apparently remained when the whole subject
came up for discussion in January, 19 14, consequent
upon the Empress's acquisition of land at La Mal-
maison, whither the " temple " and the bust have been
removed.

The Empress's simple intentions in 19 14 were singu-
larly misinterpreted by some Paris journals, and the
mistakes reappeared in London papers. It was said
that her Majesty desired to have the " tomb " of the
Prince Imperial taken from the Imperial Mausoleum
at St Michael's, Farnborough, to the Malmaison !
One paper boldly spoke of the intended removal of
" the Prince's mausoleum."

CHAPTER V

JEAN BAPTISTE FRANCESCHINI PIETRI

Died December 14, 1915

On the coffin lid, in large gilded raised letters, was
inscribed : " Franceschini Pietri. Aged 82." Pietri
was his mother's maiden name. In private documents
he signed *' Jean Baptiste Franceschini." The
London papers, in recording his death, described
him as the " son of that Prefect of Police in Paris
who, on September 4, 1870, rushed into the Tuileries
crying : ' We cannot resist. . . . The one hope for her
Majesty lies in immediate flight.' " Other accounts
stated that the deceased accompanied the Empress
on her flight from Paris to England. He was not
the son of any Prefect of Paris : he was the nephew
of two Prefects, both Pietris. When the Empress
crossed the Channel in Sir John Burgoyne's yacht,
M. Pietri was with the Emperor, the prisoner of the
Emperor William I., at Wilhelmshohe. These are
the facts, as opposed to the newspaper fictions.

The Lord Abbot, the Very Reverend Dom Cabrol,
officiated at the High Requiem Mass which was cele-
brated in the Abbey Church, on December 17, at
half-past ten. The deacon was the Rev. Pere Boudot,
and the subdeacon the Rev. Pere Cluzel. A dozen
members of the Benedictine community assisted, all
these wearing the black robes of the order. There

38

Till-; I.ATK M. KkAN(KS( MINI I'lKTKI, WHO r)lKI> Al
TIIK KmI'KKSS KI'CKMK's KKSIDKNt'K, l"'AKNl«1Kl»lt;il

Mil. I., IN 1913. IIk was srccKssiVEi.v Skcrkiaky

01 NaI'OI.KoN III, TIIK I'RINCK ImI'KRIAI. AND THK

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SkcONI) KmI'IRK. AM> was TIIK K\1I'RKS>>'> CONM

DAN I 1 NTH. II 1^ DKAIII, AdKD S2

FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 39

was no instrumental music. At the conclusion of the
Mass the Lord Abbot, the priests and the whole of
the congregation walked in procession through the
shrubbery and the monks' cemetery to the grave,
where the concluding portions of the service were said
by Dom Cabrol. Immediately behind the coffin
(which had been placed in the crypt, the Imperial
Mausoleum, on Wednesday, and there remained until
the day of the burial, when it was taken into the church)
walked H.I.H. Prince Napoleon. Next came the
deceased's niece, Mile Baciocchi * and the other
mourners and friends. When the Lord Abbot's final
words had been said all present sprinkled holy water
on the coffin. Prince Napoleon being the first and the
Empress's chauffeur the last to do so. The grave,
which was lined with laurel leaves, is close to the
church, near the entrance to the crypt. Three
invalided British soldiers were spectators of the burial.
They had walked over from Farnborough Court,
the property of the Benedictines, who had generously
devoted it to the use of wounded and invalided soldiers.
In the autumn of 19 15 the Lord Abbot placed the
" Court " at the disposal of the Government.

Not more than about fifty persons, all told, attended
the obsequies. Among them, besides Prince Napo-
leon, I recognised the Due de Peneranda (brother
of the Due d'Albe, one of whose predecessors was the
husband of the Empress's only sister), the Comte de
Mora and his wife (nee De Lesseps), Miss Vaughan
(niece of the late Mme de Arcos and daughter of that

* Elise Baciocchi was a cousin of Napoleon III. Comte
Baciocchi held a high position at the Imperial Court, and his
wife left a very handsome legacy to the Prince Imperial ; the
gift (landed property) passed into the hands of the Empress.

40 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

lady's sister), Mrs Blount (nee De Bassano), Mile de
Bassompierre (Princess Napoleon's dame d'honneur),
Mme d'Attainville, Mile Gaubert (who dispenses
the Empress's bounties), Sir Thomas Lipton (on
board whose yacht the Empress celebrated one of her
birthdays cruising in the Mediterranean seven or
eight years ago), Mr Victor Corkran and Mr Edmon-
ston (representing Princess Henry of Battenberg and
Princess Christian, intimate friends of the Empress
since her arrival in England in the autumn of 1870),
Miss Dalrymple and Miss Hollings (two of the Red
Cross nurses attached to the Benedictines' hospital
at Farnborough Court), Mr Hollings (father of the
last-mentioned lady), Dr Smith (the French doctor who
accompanied M. Pietri on his last journey to England
from Paris), Colonel Scott (whose brother, Dr Scott,
embalmed the Prince Imperial's body at the Cape in
1879), and M. Pietri's French nurse.

Princess Napoleon, much to her regret, was unable
to attend the funeral ; she remained with the Empress
during the celebration of the low Mass for the deceased
in her Majesty's Oratory at half -past ten, when the
officiant was the Rev. Pere Eudine, of St Michael's
Abbey. Shortly after the obsequies the Princess,
accompanied by the Prince, visited the grave.

M. Pietri passed for a wealthy man.

I first made M. Pietri's acquaintance at Chislehurst.
At that time I was attached to the " Morning Post "
staff and was also reading for the Bar. On the day
of the Emperor's death I hastened to Chislehurst
and had an interview with Pietri, who declined to give
me any information relating to the Emperor's death.
But the venerable Due de Bassano was very communi-
cative, so that I was fortunately able to furnish " my

FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 41

paper " with a fairly complete report on the following
day. *

I was in frequent corresponHence with M. Pietri
until a year or so before his death. Some of his
letters to me appear in the two works here referred to.
Both have been largely circulated in English-speaking
countries, and are still in demand in 191 6. An edition,
in French, of the first of these books will be
issued by MM. Pierre Lafitte et Cie., the well-known
Paris publishers. No other work of the kind has been
translated.

M. Pietri's short, sturdy figure was not very familiar
to our public, although he had lived among us, off and
on, since early in 1871. He passed through our
streets unrecognised, save by a very few. He never
showed any desire to mingle with London society.
He was absorbed in his arduous secretarial duties,
which left him scant leisure for recreation of any
kind. Many who had never before set eyes upon him
saw him with the Empress at the funeral service
for Mme de Arcos at the Jesuits' Church, in Farm
Street, Berkeley Square, on the 29th of November,
191 3. He then appeared to me to be in quite good
health. It was only in 19 15 that his friends began to
be anxious about him. In the autumn he had gone
officially to Paris, where the illness began which
prevented him from leaving the Hotel Crillon until
towards the end of November. Those who met him
on his arrival at Farnborough saw that the end was

* In my previous volumes, "The Empress Eugenie :
1870 — 1910," and "The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second
Empire," will be found the full story of the lives of the Imperial
exiles. Published by Harper & Brothers, London and New
York,

42 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

approaching. Upon alighting from the train he
insisted upon first being driven to St Michael's Abbey
and descending to the crypt, the Imperial Mausoleum,
where are the tombs of the Emperor and the Prince
Imperial. Before them he knelt and prayed — then
passed on to his home, the residence of the Empress.
He had so weakened that it was necessary to support
him as he tottered down and up the steps in the crypt.

In 1848, just before the Revolution, Louis Napo-
leon, after his many adventures, returned to France.
From the day of his arrival Mocquard was by his side,
became chef du cabinet of the Prince-President,
and was one of his ablest collaborators in the pre-
paration of the coup d'etat (December 2, 1851) The
then Prefect of Police was M. de Maupas. When
the Empire was made Mocquard retained his former
position, and later became a Senator and Grand Officer
of the Legion d'Honneur. For some years before
his death he was regarded as one of the grands
ecrivains of the period and a successful dramatic
author. M. Conti (another famous figure of the
Second Empire) succeeded Mocquard as the chief of
the Emperor's cabinet, with a salary of twelve hundred
pounds a year and " free lodgings." Conti had
neither the entrain nor the brilliance of Mocquard.

Before Franceschini Pietri entered the Emperor's
service the chef de cabinet of his Majesty was that
M. Mocquard, a very old friend of Napoleon III.
In 1817, thirty-five years before the nephew of the
Great Emperor assumed the Imperial dignity, Moc-
quard, while " travelling on business in Germany "
(I take this to mean that he was a commercial traveller),
had the good fortune to be presented, at Arenenberg,
to Queen Hortense, mother of the future Emperor.

FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 43

He so ingratiated himself with the royal lady that
she invited him to visit her again, and thenceforth
he became her attached friend and a fervent admirer
of her then comparatively unknown son, Louis
Napoleon. Both Mocquard and F. Pietri came, in
due course, in close contact with that celebrated
personage the Due de Morny, who was the illegitimate
son of Queen Hortense, and consequently the half-
brother of Napoleon III. So proud was De Morny
of his birth that he had " hortensias " painted on the
panels of his carriage in lieu of a coat of arms. To
put an end to this scandal, which impaired the prestige
of the dynasty, the Emperor granted his relative
a new coat of arms, conditional on the removal of the
offending emblem. It was De Morny who, when
asked how he contrived to get into the Chamber
of Deputies, replied : " I promised all who voted for
me an eclipse of the sun ! "

Pietri was selected by M. Mocquard as a copyist of
documents. Thus he had often occasion to approach
his Majesty, whom he pleased by his modest and
reserved manner. Becoming private secretary of the
Emperor, he accompanied his Imperial Majesty
everywhere, and always, even to Italy during the
war in 1859. From that date the Emperor's various
ciphers (chiffres) were given into his charge; he was
with Napoleon in the war of 1870, remained with
him during his seven months' captivity at Wilhelms-
hohe (September, 1870 — March, 1871), and came to
England with the deposed Sovereign.

Pietri's life until 1870 was a very full one. He
received all reports and dispatches, and answered
them. Typewriting had not then been invented.
He lived at the Tuileries, and, except when there were

44 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

balls or State visits to the opera and other theatres,
passed the whole of his time at the side of the Emperor.
His heaviest work was in the evening, when most
of the important dispatches poured in. Pietri lived
tres en camarade with all the members of the Imperial
household, of whom the chief was the late Due (then
Marquis) de Conegliano, whose widow was surviving
in March 19 16. Gay and amiable as Pietri then
was, he had no time for amusement. He had only at
his disposal one or two half-evenings weekly when at
the Tuileries, and not even those when the Emperor
and Empress were at their other residences. He
retained his secretarial functions with the Emperor
in England, then with the Prince Imperial and
Empress, and finally, until his death, with the Empress.

The historical importance of Franceschini Pietri
has never been recognised by the English Press. He
was not, I think, ever made the subject of personal
articles. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he was
regarded as a nullity. Of the English " interviewer "
he had a horror; but he surrendered to one or two
French journalists, and talked with them upon certain
misrepresentations of the Empress which had appeared
in the Paris papers — never, however, in the "Figaro"
or the " Gaulois." The brief paragraphs published
from time to time in the first-named paper were
always accurate, because they were communicated
to it by the secretary at Farnborough Hill. The
short notices of his death were all more or less inaccu-
rate, some of them absurdly so, even, in one or two
cases, to the misspelling of his name " Pietrie."

He succeeded in surrounding the Empress with
a screen. *' At Palaces," wrote the late Arminius
Vambery to me from Budapest, " the blinds are always

FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 45

down." They were certainly seldom " up " either
at Chislehurst or at Farnborough Hill. Pietri once
told me that the Empress never read anything which
was published about her. But that, I know, was not
precisely accurate. I heard a very different story
from at least one who was for years a most intimate
friend of the Imperial lady. The fact remains,
however, that Pietri was " the power behind the
throne."

M. Filon acknowledges that he could not have
produced his elaborate " Life " of the Prince Imperial
without the assistance of his devoted collaborators,
Franceschini Pietri and the Abbe Misset (of Paris).
Pietri's " unexampled fidelity made him for more
than half a century the witness of the intimate
existence and the confidant of the thoughts of the
Imperial family, and was my guide " in matters
relating to the later years of the young Prince. The
Empress and Pietri endeavoured to dissuade him
from going to the Cape. Pietri offered to accompany
the Prince on his fatal journey, but he would take
no one with him except his valet, Uhlmann, who
died at Farnborough Hill a few years ago.

The Prince, we are reminded by M. Filon, spent his
last night at Camden Place, Chislehurst, on February
26-27, 1879. On the morning of the 27th Pietri
entered the Prince's room very early. The Prince
handed him his will, which he had dated and signed,
and Pietri placed the document in an iron box, which
the secretary locked and sealed, taking charge of
the key. The Prince then went to the little Church
of St Mary (Baron Tristan Lambert accompanying
him), and received from Monsignor Goddard, another
devoted friend, his last Communion in England. All

46 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

those named travelled to Southampton with the Prince
and saw him depart for the Cape.

On the 2 1 St of April the Prince wrote to Pietri
explaining his future movements with our troops. " I
have just returned from a reconnaissance," he said.
" We were absent six days. There have been shots
on both sides, but nothing serious. We remained
in the saddle twenty hours of the twenty-four."

When the body was brought to Woolwich Prince
Murat placed in the coffin a religious medal and
Pietri deposited in it a medal (struck during the
Imperial reign) bearing on one side an effigy of the
Prince in his infancy. The medal had been given
to Pietri by the Emperor. The secretary then kissed
the forehead of the young victim of the Zulus'
assegais (as did Monsignor Goddard), and the coffin
was closed and taken to Chislehurst. The Empress
never saw the remains of her son. Why.'*

The Empress's late secretary was only thirty-seven
when he accompanied his Imperial master from Sedan
to Wilhelmshohe. General Count von Monts, * who
was in charge of the captive Sovereign, writes :
" Of Corsican origin and cousin [nephew] of the
former Prefet of Police in Paris, M. Franceschini
Pietri, as private secretary, was in the closest contact
with the Emperor. To him were confided those of
his Majesty's letters which required special attention.
His services were naturally of the greatest value to the
Emperor, for no one else was kept, as Pietri was,
au courant of everything. He seldom left the
Emperor's ante-chamber, which he had arranged as
a little office. Here he was at his master's beck and
call day and night. If he was engaged with the
♦ Vide Chapter XVII.

FRANCESCHINI PIETRI 47

Emperor when I arrived Pietri hastily gathered
up his papers and left the room. I seldom had
occasion to speak with him, but he gave me the
impression of a man faithfully devoted to the Emperor.
He continued to show himself devoted to the Imperial
family, for he followed Napoleon III. to England,
and after the Emperor's death he remained in the
service of the Empress."

Early in March, 187 1, a fortnight or so before
the Emperor's release from captivity, a great sensation
was caused at Versailles (the headquarters of the
German Emperor, as King William had become
in the previous January) and Berlin by the publication
of a " Petition of the French Army," which was
widely circulated. " It seemed," says General Monts,
" to have been drawn up by the French officers who
were interned in Germany. At the headquarters
at Versailles the document was supposed to have
emanated from Wilhelmshohe, and it was sent to me
in order that I might discover the authors. It was
absolutely in our interest, and even, I may say, in that
of all Europe, to nip in the bud everything which
might produce complications. My investigations
showed that Pietri was one of the principal authors
of the petition." All that apparently happened was
that Monts ordered the Director of Telegraphs to
send him, in future, copies of all telegrams dispatched
from Wilhelmshohe.

Franceschini Pietri's uncle, the former Prefet, called
upon Monts at Cassel, giving his name as " Polloni."
He had such a common appearance that Monts
" thought him a sort of domestic. . . . M. Pietri
was, however, an amiable man of the world, of perfect
manners, intelligent, erudite, with whom it was a

48 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

pleasure to converse. . . . The Emperor had evidently
long been expecting to see him. Pietri often left and
returned. Probably the Emperor had sent him on
confidential missions."*

* " La Captivity de Napoleon III. en Allemag-ne." Par le
General Comte C. de Monts. Paris : Pierre Lafitte et Cie.

CHAPTER VI

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

By an intimate surviving Friend, who lived with them
for many years

[Prefatory Note. — Soon after the death of the
Prince Imperial in Zululand certain French writers of
repute accused the Empress of having treated her
son in so unmotherly a manner that, to escape from the
restrictions imposed upon him at Chislehurst, he
sought, and finally obtained, the permission of the
Queen and the Duke of Cambridge (the Commander-
in-Chief) to join our forces in Zululand, not as a
combatant, but merely, in the written instructions
of the Duke, "as a spectator." He was, however,
allowed to wear our uniform. On the ist of June,
1879, he accompanied a handful of our men on a
reconnoitring expedition. The Zulus surprised the
party, and the Prince was killed. Stories were
published to the effect that the Empress had kept the
Prince so short of money that, on one occasion, when
he had entertained two or three friends at dinner at a
West End hotel, he was unable to pay the bill, which
was settled by the well-known Comte Fleury.

The perfect harmony of the relations between
the Empress and her son is here shown authoritatively
for the first time. The statement is comprised in
the mass of interesting " papers " of the late
Monsignor Goddard, who was the Almoner of the
D 49

50 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Empress until she left Chislehurst for Farnborough
Hill, and who was necessarily well acquainted with
the writer of this historical fragment. All the Mon-
signor's "papers" (documents) were placed in my
hands by his family, the letters written to the priest by
the Empress and the Prince Imperial included. — E. L.]

What were the motives which brought about the
grave and sudden decision of the Prince Imperial
to take part in the war in Zululand — a decision which
led to his heroic death at Ityoyosi? I will divide
the reasons into three groups : (i) the Prince's char-
acter, (2) his patriotism, and (3) the military and
English circle in which he lived when, with the force
of a thunderbolt, the news reached London of the
defeat at Isandula and the horrible massacre which
succeeded it — news which caused in England and
in the army a display of emotion difficult to realise
in France, but which, without exaggeration, may be
compared with that, less the feeling of personal and
immediate peril, caused in Paris by the glorious defeat
of Reichshofen in 1870.

I know of no other motives except these three;
believe me when I say that no others exist. To seek
for other causes — inaccurate, futile or romantic — for
a decision so grave taken by the Prince Imperial,
who was fully aware of his great responsibilities and
duties, would be to disagree with those who study
events with truth, without passion and with the resolve
to sweep aside the torrent of imaginative stories
which never fails to flow after an event so unexpected,
so sad and so great.

The Prince Imperial's decision to go to the Cape
was brought about in the first place by his character.

EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 51

He was, in the fullest sense of the word, a Christian
and French chevalier. A Napoleon, he loved glory,
and from his earliest youth his taste led him to study
military questions. ,The blood which he inherited
from his mother, one of the ancient and illustrious
ducal race of the Guzmans, gave him the love of
chivalry and heroic enterprises. As a child, nothing
gave him greater delight than military reviews and
his visits to the camp at Chalons, where he was in the
midst of our army. As a youth, he was in the thick of
it in 1870, displaying his sang-froid and courage in
the first engagement (that at Saarbriicken), not a
very considerable one, but having a successful result.
He was the deeply grieved witness of our first reverses,
and his sorrows were increased by the defeats of our
forces, his separation from his parents, and by exile.

As a young man, he studied the art of war in the
principal artillery school in England. He witnessed
with passionate admiration, and with bitterness at
his powerlessness to imitate them, the debuts of his
greatest friends in the ranks of the British army.
He loved and sought out danger for himself, but he
would never have exposed others to it, nor would he
ever have abandoned anyone. French, profoundly
French, the Prince Imperial was deeply imbued with
this truth — that the egotistical and sterile debates of
parliaments have never saved nations.

He felt that when the hour of supreme crisis arrived
his energy would enable him to crush the revolutionary
evil which, under the name of the Republic, leads
France to the tomb. He desired to conquer by a
glorious deed of arms the renown necessary for him
to command, one day, those who would have resolved
to save the country at the risk of their lives. The base

52 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

calumnies of revolutionary pamphlets and newspapers
did not leave him indifferent to their effect. He
felt himself superior to their venom, but he wished to
acquire the incontestable glory of some heroic action
to enable him the better to confound them.

England, in which he lived, had felt an immense
emotion at the news of the first disasters at the Cape.
Young officers, his companions at Woolwich, sailed
gleefully for the campaign in Zululand, preparing
themselves for it before his eyes. He listened to
them as one in a dream. One day his ardent tem-
perament forced him to imitate them. Unknown to
all, not even telling the Empress until he had taken
the decisive step, in order to spare her alarm and to
avoid the obstacles which her tender anxiety for her
son might have put in his way, he asked, as an honour,
to be allowed to go to South Africa and share the
fatigues and dangers of those who had been his
companions at the Royal Military Academy. His
persistence, his charm, the regrets that the first
refusals of his request caused him, triumphed over
all difficulties, and the departure of the Prince Imperial
was decided upon.

I have narrated the three motives which determined
his departure for the Cape. There are no others
which, in my opinion, deserve examination. I
opposed his generous, but hazardous, resolution with
all my power, but without the slightest appearance of
success.

You ask me to give you my sincere impression
respecting the relations which existed between the
Prince and the Empress, between the son and the
mother. In all truth, on both sides they were char-
acterised by the dee-pest affection; a deferential

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EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 53

tenderness on the part of the Prince, a passionate
tenderness on the part of his mother.

I lived with them for many years, and I never saw
anything but the affectionate respect, manifested with
the tact of a perfect gentleman, which was the
Prince's distinctive characteristic. I never saw any-
thing but the ardent and passionate affection shown
by the Empress which adorned this triple character :
that affection of the mother for her son, that unique
love for her son of the woman who had lost everything
else, the affection of the Sovereign for the last hope
of her Dynasty.

The Prince Imperial enjoyed in everj^hing the
fullest liberty; he never misused it, and nothing
tarnished the admirable dignity of his life. None
of the divergences or discussions which might arise
between two equally ardent natures ever appeared
to me to be serious : they never exceeded the limits
of the disquieting and jealous tenderness of a mother
who has nothing in the world but her son, and which
sometimes led her involuntarily to forget that she
had before her not a child, but a man — a mother who
would remove from his path all dangers and all
intrigues. On the other side was the impatient feeling
of the young man who, conscious of his strength,
regarded as useless the solicitude an'd the precautions
accumulated by the mother's alarmed affection.

I wish all mothers had a son as affectionate, as
deferential, and as tender as was the Prince Imperial.
I wish all sons could be watched over and loved
by an affection as ardent and profound as was that
of the Empress. I have seen her at the bedside of
her son when he was ill, and seldom have I witnessed
a more touching spectacle. No young man ever

54 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

led a more reputable existence; none occasioned
less chagrin to those who loved him; none better
deserved regret and respect.

A profound Catholic, a worthy godson of the
immortal and saintly Pius IX., his last visit on English
soil was to that little church at Chislehurst in which
[roj^m*- his father reposed, and to which(jJalone accompanied
<j him when, on the 26th of February, 1879, an hour
before his departure for the Cape, he repaired thither
at dawn to receive his God. His filial affection led
him also, while he yet stood upon English soil, to
bestow his last look and his last embrace upon his
mother, whose tears and grievous swoons seemed to
prophesy the coming catastrophe.

Often it is the proper character of great dramas to
be devoid of mysteries anH secrets and of all similitude
of romance. Believe me, it is this character of simple
grandeur and of noble and serene tranquillity which
marked the resolves taken by the Prince Imperial.
As to his life, it was as limpid and pure as water from
the crystal rock, and it was with the fullest truth and
justice that Cardinal Manning, when preaching his
funeral sermon at Chislehurst on the day following
the obsequies, was able to hold him up as an example
to all Christians, as a model of virtue to all young
people, and of heroism to all soldiers. In his last
prayer he offered himself as a sacrifice to God for the
welfare of all. He concluded one of the few political
addresses which he made with the words : " May
God watch over France and restore her prosperity
and her greatness ! "

It often happens that the most tender-hearted
people display a complete lack of pity for others
when they themselves are overwhelmed by their own

EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 55

sorrows. The Empress Eugenie is not one of these.
She has always the same compassion for the unfortun-
ate and grief-stricken. She who when on the throne
was the personification of charity, the good angel
of the humble, shows in exile that her benevolence
was not a service practised for reasons of policy,
but very real and abiding. Ever since, forty-five
years ago, she found an asylum in England, all who
have knocked at her door and appealed for help
have been succoured. Often they have not even
had to ask. One winter, a Frenchwoman, living
at Chislehurst, was about to become a mother. She
was very badly off, but her pride would not have
allowed her to accept alms. Learning of the circum-
stances, the Empress made, with her own hands,
a complete layette, and sent it in such a manner that
the poor creature was led to regard the gift as a little
compliment from one woman to another.

Another time the Empress considerably helped
a family of Communistic refugees. Someone remon-
strated with her for assisting " those wretches," but
the Empress replied : " Neither the mother nor the
child is responsible for the faults of the father."

This pleasure, this necessity of giving, continued
to be also the characteristic of the Emperor during
his life at Chislehurst. When he strolled across
the common he gave to all who asked, as he had done
at Fontainebleau, at Compiegne, and at St Cloud.

It passes comprehension that anyone capable of
putting his ideas on paper should have endeavoured
to seriously associate the death of the Prince Imperial
with the machinations of foreign Freemasons ! To
the Due d'Orleans the craft which was held in such

56 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

high estimation by King Edward is, we know,
" anathema maranatha," for the grandson of Louis
Philippe has often denounced it in the bitterest terms
in those encyclicals with which he revived the hopes
of his followers from time to time until the outbreak
of war in 19 14. And it was in a Royalist — that is to
say an Orleanist — ^journal that I found this reference
to the detested " crimes magonniques " and the Prince
Imperial :

" It is religion which is the constant object of their
murderous attacks, because a people has never
survived its religion, and it is by killing religion that
the Brethren will have at their mercy the law and
property, and will be able to establish upon their
debris Masonic religion, Masonic law, and Masonic
property.

" Well, is this man (this Freemason) capable of
assassination? Assuredly he is, and it would be
madness to attempt to deny it. In the long series
of crimes which form its history Freemasonry has
always acted in one of the following manners vis-a-vis
princes or powerful personages who trouble it. The
man who had entered into engagements vis-a-vis
such personages, and who failed to carry them out
to the bitter end, was doomed. The man who, while
submitting to the yoke of the sect, was thought capable
of deserting it, had to perish. Example : Gambetta.

" When a Prince was the sole representative of the
future of his dynasty, and when he was known to have
resolved to combat the secret societies. Masonic
justice immediately decreed his death. It is this which
happened to the Due de Berri, and, in our opinion,
to the Prince Imperial.

EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON 57

" A profound Catholic, the Prince Imperial knew
a fond the dangers and the perfidious designs of
Freemasonry and the secret sects. He had resolved
to crush them and to rid France of this occult domina-
tion— international, or rather sans patrie, and so
dangerous. When he was only fifteen he had pro-
mised one of his friends (Baron Tristan Lambert)
he would never give to any of these sects the slightest
acquiescence. The Prince Imperial was the only
son of Napoleon III., and he personified the Imperial
Monarchy, the Napoleonic legend. Has Freemasonry
done for the Prince Imperial that which it did for the
Due de Berri? This will be the subject of our
investigation."

CHAPTER VII

M. FILON'S "LIFE"

In the summer of 1912 M. Augustin Filon's "Life"
of the Prince Imperial * was published, and my review
of it in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of July 8 was the
first to appear in this country. That criticism may
well be reproduced here :

Placing some of her son's letters in M. Filon's hands,
the Empress said : " Je vous confie ce que j'ai de
plus precieux au monde. Je ne vous donnerait qu'un
conseil : gardez toute votre liberte d'ecrivain."
M. Filon tells us he has done so, and that what he
has written came from his memory and his con-
science, and that he has endeavoured to set down the
truth. I have no doubt whatsoever about his accur-
acy; for, with some few exceptions, all that is
contained in his sumptuous volume of two hundred
and seventy-six pages, beautifully produced, and
charmingly and lavishly illustrated, is familiar to me.
The talented author has had the advantage of seeing
the Prince Imperial's letters to his mother. Moreover,
he was for many years the boy's tutor, and remained
his devoted friend to the last. He was, therefore,
the precise man for the task which he has fulfilled, to,
I am sure, the complete satisfaction of the Imperial
lady and her legion of friends in all countries.

*"Le Prince Imperial: Souvenirs et Documents, 1856 — 1879."
Ouvrage lUustrd. Par Augustin Filon. Paris : Hachette et
Cie. Price 2of.

58

M. FILON'S "LIFE" 59

It is doing only bare justice to M. Filon to acknow-
ledge that he has traced the Prince's career with the
utmost particularity. He begins of his own know-
ledge from 1867, when he entered upon his duties,
until 1879; and reliable persons have furnished him
with the details of the period between 1856 until the
year he became the youth's preceptor. Many writers,
of course, have devoted themselves to narrating
incidents of the Prince's life. Comte d'Herisson
and M. Deleage have recorded the events in Zululand
— the former in an unofficial, yet graphic, manner.
But it is to M. Filon's book that we must turn for
absolute facts — so far as he has been authorised to
record them. There are disputed points to which,
as might have been expected, he does not refer.
They have been treated by the friends of " Napoleon
IV." as " commerages." The Empress has herself
publicly stigmatised them as " lies " ; and I gave
them the first authoritative denial in the " Pall Mall
Gazette " at the moment they were appearing in the
newspapers here and abroad.

All that M. Filon tells us about the Prince between
the date of his birth (1856) and the outbreak of the
war in 1870 will have greater interest for the French
readers whom he primarily addresses than for the
English public. The wanderings of the Emperor
and his son between the end of July and September
4, 1870, have been described by English writers —
some, generally speaking, accurately; others less
correctly- In M. Filon's volume all this part of
their Odyssey is narrated with as much exactitude
as possible. The pluck under fire at Saarbriicken
(August 2) of this child of fourteen years and four
months was amazing. As one who assisted at the

6o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

" baptism of fire " I can testify the same. As the
Emperor and his son were about to start for the front,
says M. Filon, a small black portmanteau, similar
to that with which every sous-lieutenant was provided,
was taken into the Prince's room. " Voila ma
cantine," he said to Filon; " all my things must be
got into it." The Empress saw them off to Metz —
saw " the pale and pensive face of her husband and
the enthusiastic and gay countenance of her son."
Concealing her face with her hands, the wife and
mother wept as the train disappeared. In a postscript
to a letterwritten to M. Filon by the Prince immediately
after the hot fight (for such it was) at Saarbriicken,
he said, " All the bands played the ' Marseillaise ' ;
it was splendid. The Prussians heard it, but it could
not have comforted them."

Three or four days before the crowning disaster
(September i), the Prince was sent by his father with
his suite into Sedan, where, even on August 28, the
people were panic-stricken. When the Prince was
told that he would have to leave the town and go to
Avesnes, he flatly refused. " The Prussians are
coming? Well, we will defend ourselves ! " Finally
he was induced to leave, and was taken to Avesnes.
While the battle was in progress the Emperor's little
son went for a drive — the last he ever took in his native
country.

Those who have studied the campaign of 1870 will
remember that, after the defeats in August, the Emperor
wished to return to Paris with a sufficient force to
protect the capital. MacMahon agreed with him.
The Empress strongly objected, for (M. Filon tells
us) she considered her husband and her son would
be safest in the midst of the army, " no matter what

The Emi'kkss El(;i';.mk i.n iikr " Due" cakkia(;i;. The PkIxNck
Imperial on his pony, "Bout<in d'Or." Pkinck Murat in

I'MKOKM

The Kmi'eror Napoleon III and the I'rin* e
Imperial in the "Due"' carkiace

M. FILON'S "LIFE" 6i

might happen." General de Palikao, Minister for
War, was also opposed to the return to the capital of
the Emperor; and the Emperor was compelled (the
word is not too strong, as M. Emile Ollivier has often
declared) to remain with his vanquished and dispirited
legions, with the result that he personally surrendered
to King William, who was the more surprised, as he,
Moltke and Bismarck did not even know that the
Emperor was in the town of Sedan while fighting was
still going on ! As to the Empress, we are told by
M. Filon that she remained at her post in Paris (I may
add until, and three days after, the battle of Sedan)
because she considered the capital the most dangerous
place she could be in. No one doubts her courage;
and perhaps she did right in declaring that the Emperor
should not — must not — return to Paris at a critical
juncture.

Although M. Filon's book has made a tardy
appearance, it is none the less to be treasured as the
only authorised Life of the gallant Prince Imperial,
of whom our late King said :

" The premature death of this young man has caused
pain and sympathy in our country from the highest to
the lowest. A more charming young man, and one
having more promise, has never existed."

The curious thing is that we should have had to wait
thirty-three years for this official Life of the son of
Napoleon IIL and the Empress Eugenie. The
Prince, revolver in one hand and sword in the other,
fell, facing his Zulu foes, on June i, 1879. Less than
three months before his death he had celebrated
his twenty-third birthday. There cannot fail to be
much speculation as to the non-appearance of this
imposing volume until the present month. Has

62 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

its publication any particular significance at this
moment? There were, doubtless, good reasons why
it was not issued years ago; and it is probably only
a coincidence that it appears at a time when, judging
by what one hears and reads, the Bonapartist cause is
more to the fore than it has been since the Emperor's
death in January, 1873.

At the end of the " Life " M. Filon makes this
explanation, which some will probably accept under
reserve. He says he did not wish to make it a vehicle
for the revival of polemics which have died out; still
less did he desire to make the dead Prince the
posthumous advocate of a cause of which he cannot
be the champion. " The Party to which I have had
the honour to belong is not accustomed to transform
a funeral ceremony into an emeute; and the noble
Prince who is now the head of the Bonaparte family
would be the first to blame me if I attempted to make
a political manoeuvre out of the pious homage which
I have rendered to his cousin."

All who took part in the Prince Imperial's educa-
tion and bringing-up are particularised — all but one :
Monsignor Goddard ! *

* An Eng-lish edition of M. Filon 's book has been issued by
Mr W. Heinemann.

CHAPTER VIII

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS

The " papers " left by Monsignor Goddard, of Chisle-
hurst, the Empress Eugenie's "director," include
a number of letters of Cardinal Bonaparte, a cousin
of the Emperor Napoleon IIL Lucien Louis Joseph
Napoleon was born at Rome in 1828, ordained priest
in 1853 (the year of his Emperor-cousin's marriage
with Mile Eugenie de Montijo), elevated to the
cardinalate in 1868, and died at Rome in 1895,
aged sixty-seven. He was the second son of Charles
Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, and
grandson of Lucien (also Prince of Canino),. the
second brother of Napoleon L The Cardinal's mother
was a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, and he was a
nephew of that eminent philologist, Prince Louis
Lucien Bonaparte, who resided for many years at
Bayswater, and is remembered for his striking
resemblance to the Great Emperor. One of the
sisters of his Eminence married Comte Primoli,
another became Princess Gabrielli, and a third married
the Comte de Cambaceres. Until the overthrow of the
Second Empire, in September, 1870, the Cardinal
was regarded by many as a possible successor of
Pope Pius IX. ^, With Napoleon III., the Empress
Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial, as the letters prove,
his Eminence maintained the most cordial relations.
The letters show that an English priest who seeks
Vatican honours must have powerful supporters, and

64 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

that Pius IX. was immeasurably gratified at the
Chislehurst mission priest's success in obtaining the
" abjurations " of many Protestants. " In his love
for souls," the venerable Pontiff " was very happy
at the spiritual victory " gained by Father Goddard,
two of whose letters may serve as an introduction to
the Cardinal's.

Camden Place, Chislehurst,
January 9, 1873.
MONSEIGNEUR, —

You have learnt the sad news of the death of
the Emperor. I entreat you to go immediately to
his Holiness our Lord the Pope and ask for his
benediction, and tell him how convinced I am of the
Emperor's good frame of mind. Also that I only
awaited the moment to speak to him of his duties to
the Holy See, and that I am fully convinced he would
have listened to me with the greatest respect.

Since I have had the honour of knowing the
Emperor, I have been very much touched by his faith
and his goodness.

I beg you to mention all this, and more, to his
Holiness, and request him to send his benediction, so
that we may be enabled to render all suitable honours
to the august dead.

I write in the greatest haste, Monseigneur, begging
you to accept all my apologies and the assurance of my
deepest homage.

I. Goddard,
Priest.

I beg you to send me an immediate reply by
telegram.

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 65

Chislehurst, Janxiary, 1873.

Eminence, —

In compliance with the desire of her Majesty
the Empress, and in answer to the pious solicitude
expressed in your letter of condolence, allow me,
as cure of the parish, to tell you what I know of the
dispositions and the religious feelings of our august
dead.

Several times before his death the Emperor ful-
filled the duties of a good and fervent Catholic
in receiving the Holy Communion in my church.
His faith and his piety were to me the subject of pro-
found and perfect edification. On several occasions
I had the honour of conversations with his Majesty on
the religious questions of the day, and I can certify
that his sentiments were full of devotion for the
church and for the great interests of religion.

Alas ! when least expected, came the last terrible
trial. I was summoned in all haste, without being
able to render to the dying any other service but that
of giving him absolution.

I hope the information which I have the honour to
send will be of a nature to satisfy your Eminence's
benevolent hopes.

Pray accept the homage of respect with which I have
the honour to be, Monsignor, yours, etc.,

I. GODDARD,

66 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

The Cardinals " beloved Cousin, the Prince
Imperial"

Rome, July 29, 1873.

Monsieur l'Abb£, —

I thank you for your letter and for the inter-
esting details that you have given me about my
beloved cousin, the Prince Imperial.

I am ill, and unable to go to the Vatican. I have,
however, written, and yesterday evening our Holy
Father was good enough to inquire after me, and to
inform me that he accorded you his holy Apostolic
benediction. I hasten to make this known to you,
Monsieur I'Abbe, knowing how happy it will make you.

I have not failed to execute your commission
concerning my aunt, a religious of the Sacre Coeur,
whose brother, my uncle [Prince], Louis Lucien,
is in London. I believe you know him; and I shall
be grateful to you if you will tell him of my profound
attachment when you see him.

Accept, Monsieur I'Abbe, all my best sentiments
of esteem and of very high consideration, and be good
enough not to forget me in your fervent prayers, as
I will remember you at the holy altar^ where every
morning I offer the holy sacrifice for the repose of the
soul of the beloved and ever-to-be-regretted Emperor.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

" The Angelic Heir of 'Napoleon III."

Rome, August 15, 1874.

Monsieur l'Abb6, —

I hasten to tell you that I received your letter,
and that I have already written to the Holy Father
(for the state of my health prevents me from going

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 67

to the Vatican), forwarding to his Holiness your
letter.

I am very happy to hear all that you tell me — all
that is so edifying — about the Prince Imperial, my
beloved cousin. I should much like to be able to
assist with him at your Mass, Monsieur I'Abbe.
For several months I have said mine seated, the
Sovereign Pontiff, in his paternal goodness, having
accorded me permission to do so.

The Holy Sacrifice has been offered on the occasion
of this beautiful fete (the Festival of the Assumption),
at the altar where the Saint Pere celebrates the holy
mysteries, for the soul of the Emperor, and I asked
him to pray for the happiness of the Prince Imperial,
who is the consolation of his august mother and the
hope of France and of Catholicism.

My good aunt at the Sacre Cceur continues to
suffer. We often speak of you and of the dear Prince
Imperial, and with all our hearts we hope you will
receive the Divine blessing for your true attachment
to the angelic heir of Napoleon III.

Accept, Monsieur I'Abbe, my sentiments of high
consideration, and do not forget me in your fervent
prayers.

L. Card. Bonaparte,

The ungranted " Dispensation^

Rome, November 27, 1874.

Monsieur L'ABBifc, —

After reading your letter I hastened to send it
by my secretary to Monseigneur Bartolini, Secretary
of the Holy Congregation of Rites. Monseigneur
Bartolini made a long search of the Index, which is
in his custody, and found that the dispensation which

68 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

you wish for has never been granted. He told
the Canon that he much regretted being unable to
satisfy you or me, and he added, in proof of his good
will, that the ceremony might be postponed to the
Octave.

I hasten to tell you, Monsieur I'Abbe, how dear to
me is the consoling news which you have given me :
and to renew the expression of my most distinguished
sentiments of esteem and high consideration, begging
you not to forget me at the altar of the Divine Master.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

" The Pope will nominate you Prelate^

Rome, April 4, 1875.

Monsieur l'Abb6, —

I have again spoken to the Holy Father about
your matter. It was on the jeudi saint that his Holi-
ness was good enough to give me an audience; and
I have delayed writing to you until to-day in the hope
that the Majordomo would send me a letter, the
Sovereign Pontiff having expressed his intention to
nominate you Prelate, as I was nominated three years
ago; after which his Holiness sent me a letter from
the Cardinal Secretary of State, appointing me a
Prelate of his Household, and about a year later his
Holiness sent me the Brief conferring upon me the
dignity of Protonotary, with which I had been
invested ten years previously, when the Sovereign
Pontiff deigned to create me a Cardinal. I have
not yet sent to the Majordomo, because I was told
that, it being the Easter vacation, it was not surprising
that the letter had not been forwarded to me. . . .
[The Cardinal refers to a domestic calamity which

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 69

he had sustained, but this portion of his letter is
undecipherable. His Eminence concludes:] The
dear Prince and her Majesty (the Empress Eugenie)
have been, as always, perfect in these circumstances.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

The Prince Imperial and the French Throne.

Rome, February i8, 1877.

Monsieur l'Abb6, —

As soon as I could get a moment to myself I
wrote to the Prince (Imperial). He replied in terms
of affection towards you as well as to myself. I
immediately read it to the Holy Father, who told me
that he would give the necessary orders. I read also
to his Holiness the letter from your Bishop, and as
soon as I receive the letter nominating you a Prelate
I will forward it to you. . . .

I believe the young Prince will do immense good if
God permits him to occupy the throne of that beloved
France which his great and unfortunate father so
much loved and made so great and prosperous. The
Prince and the Empress have been, I know, very
sensible of this new proof of your sympathy.

Do not forget me in your fervent prayers, Monsieur
I'Abbe, and accept all my best sentiments of esteem
in N.S.JC.

L, Card. Bonaparte.

" The essential thing " at the Vatican.

Rome, April 13, 1877.

Monseigneur, —

I have at this instant received your two letters
of the 9th, and I hasten to tell you that I have
[written to] H. I. H. [to say] that the Holy Father

70 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

had forwarded me your letter of nomination. Besides,
her Majesty [the Empress] told me that I might
send it to his Imperial Highness [the Prince Imperial],
who would hand it to you. Believe me that there
was no other means of carrying the matter out for
the moment. Unintentionally, it was a badly
managed affair.

Now, be good enough to send me, for the Holy
Father, a letter, tendering him your best thanks for
this mark of his paternal benevolence. That is
the essential thing. In the next place, I think you
might ask your venerable Bishop to write to his
Holiness, telling him . . . that which I myself
ignored; and I am convinced that, before long, you
will receive what your worthy Bishop desires. He
knows thoroughly well how devoted you have been.
[Many words are illegible, and the letter is unsigned.]

The Pope '* will be satisfied^

Rome, April 30, 1877.
MONSEIGNEUR,

I have returned from a visit to the Holy
Father, to whom I delivered your letter of compli-
ments, as well as a letter from the dear Prince Imperial.
His Holiness, as always, displayed a quite paternal
goodness. He blessed you, Monseigneur, from the
depths of his heart, and was much touched by the
sentiments which you asked me to express. By the
same post I am writing to S.A.I, [the Prince Imperial],
who is so belove'd by his august godfather [Pope
Pius IX.].

I shall be happy, Monseigneur, to again see your
venerable Bishop, and to place myself at his disposal.
His Lordship will certainly not fail to tell his Holi-

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 71

ness all that you have done, Monseigneur, for the
welfare of souls, and the Sovereign Pontiff will be very
satisfied.

Accept, Monseigneur, my most distinguished senti-
ments in N.S.J.C., and be good enough not to forget
me in your fervent prayers.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

" Preparing the way " for Vatican honours.

Rome, August 5, 1877.
Monseigneur, —

I have received your letter of the ist, and
hasten to tell you what I have already told, in heart-
felt sincerity, Monseigneur, your venerable Bishop —
i.e. that I have asked the Holy Father to accord you
an ecclesiastical dignity, without speaking of a
Prelacy or a . . . [undecipherable].

We spoke a long time about you, Monseigneur,
to your worthy Prelate, and I permit myself to say that
he referred in terms of hearty eulogy of you to his
Holiness, and in a manner to prepare the way for
obtaining what you desire. I have not seen Monseign-
eur since his audience of the Holy Father. We
called upon each other without, unfortunately,
meeting. I permitted myself to tell the Bishop that,
if he considered it well to do so, he might, after a
certain interval, send me a letter for the Holy Father,
asking him to appoint you a Prelate of the Mantelletta;
or, if the Bishop preferred it, he might write me a
letter asking me to make the request to the Holy
Father.

I am happy to hear the good news which you send
me of the dear Prince Imperial. I have sent him by

72 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Monseigneur your Bishop the medal which the
Cardinals have offered to his Holiness for his episcopal
jubilee.

I am very pleased to hear that her Majesty the
Empress has happily returned from the long journey
which her filial piety led her to undertake. * I have
sent her the medal which the Holy Father forwarded
to me for the Prince.

Accept, Monseigneur, all my most distinguished
sentiments in N.S'

L. Card. Bonaparte.

The Chislehurst Priest must he patient.

Rome, December 2, 1877.

Monseigneur, —

I thank you for having sent to his Imperial
Highness the medal, and I am happy to hear what you
tell me about his precious health and that of her
Majesty the Empress.

I have just returned from an audience of the Holy
Father, and I am pleased to be able to tell you that
his Holiness accords you his Apostolic benediction.
He spoke to me about the dear Prince with the
greatest paternal affection.

I have well considered your affair, Monseigneur,
and I believe your Bishop should write to the high
personage of whom you speak. The letter which
the Bishop wrote to me I have forwarded to the Holy
Father, who has remitted it to the Majordomo.
Consequently I shall not have it again, as it will have
to be placed in the archives of the Majordomo.

You will understand, Monseigneur, that, as only

* The Empress had gone to Madrid to see her mother, the
Comtesse de Montijo, who died two years later, aged eighty-four.

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 73

five months have elapsed since his Holiness made
you his Private Chaplain, I cannot afresh immediately
ask him to accord you a new Prelacy. That is
easier said [than done]. The illustrious personne
of whom you speak in your letter is not at Rome at
the moment.

The [Pope] will not accord you more than you
think until after a certain time. Time is a necessary
element.

Pray for me, and believe all my distinguished
sentiments in N.S.J.C.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

The Pope blesses Mgr. Goddard for more
" Abjurations^

Rome, December 24, 1877.
MONSEIGNEUR,

I have just returned from the Vatican [where
I saw], seventeen Cardinals round the sick bed of
our Holy Father. I asked them to request him to
give you his holy benediction, and to tell him of the
sweet and precious consolation you felt at receiving
the abjurations of six Protestants. His Holiness
blessed you from the bottom of his heart, and, in his
love for souls, was very happy at the spiritual victory
which you have obtained. I am greatly afflicted,
Monseigneur, at your sorrow, and beg you to accept
my very sincere condolences. The death of a father
is such a great calamity ! May the good God give you
courage and holy resignation !

I have written to her Majesty [the Empress] and
to the dear Prince Imperial, to offer them my wishes
for a happy fete and a happy new year, and have sent
them the blessing of the Holy Father.

74 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

You will do well to avail yourself of the amiable
intervention of the great personage you mention. . . .

Accept, Monseigneur, all my sentiments, and pray
for me.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

The Empress's example to " the fervent Catholics of
England^ Further " abjurations !'

Rome, January 5, 1879.

Monseigneur, —

I thank you for your letter and for the wishes
that you express on the occasion of the New Year,
and beg you at the same time to accept my own sincere
wishes for the accomplishment of all that you can
desire.

I am happy to be able to announce the Apostolic
benediction of our Holy Father, which you desired,
Monseigneur, and to tell you that the last time I had
the joy of seeing his Holiness he spoke of you, and
wished me to recommend to you more and more our
beloved Prince Imperial. Very shortly I shall take
him your letter, which will give him pleasure; for
at this Christmastide the Sovereign Pontiff is so over-
whelmed by his occupations that I thought it better
to wait before taking it. He will be well pleased
to see how edifying is the example of the dear Prince
and the good Empress to the fervent Catholics
of England; and will feel, like ourselves, happy
at the abjurations of several Protestants which you,
Monseigneur, have received.

Accept anew, Monseigneur, all my most distin-
guished wishes, and be good enough not to forget me
in your fervent prayers.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

CARDINAL BONAPARTE'S LETTERS 75

The Prince Imperial's last Communion at Ckislehurst*

Rome.

MONSEIGNEUR, —

Without delay I thank you for your good
letter, which has been to me a very great consolation.
I hastened to place it under the eyes of the Very Holy
Father, who perused it with great interest, and to
whom it was very satisfactory.

I am happy, Monseigneur, to be able to send you
the Apostolic benediction, which, in your letter, you
expressed a wish to receive. This holy benediction
of the venerated Sovereign Pontiff will bring happiness
to you and also to her Majesty [the Empress Eugenie]
and the dear Prince Imperial. It is a touching
consolation to think that his Highness received the
Holy Communion on the very day of his departure
from Chislehurst for Zululand. I pray several times
during the day for that noble heart. Poor Empress !
How much she must suffer from this sad separation !
Her admirable courage and her fervent piety will give
her the necessary strength.

I have seen the good Archbishop of Avignon and
the excellent Mgr. Mermillod, who have spoken to me
of the dear Prince Imperial with great sympathy.

Do not forget me in your fervent prayers,
Monseigneur; and when you see her Majesty [the
Empress] be good enough to present my respects to
her. I wrote to her a few days ago.

Accept, Monseigneur, all my most sincere thanks.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

* This letter is undated. The contents show that it was
written immediately after the Prince Imperial's departure for
Zululand on February 27, 1879.

76 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

The Pope's -pleasure at the " great progress " of
Catholicism in England.

Rome, March 2, 1879.
MONSEIGNEUR, —

Your heart will readily understand that I
address myself to your well-known attachment to the
Prince Imperial, my beloved cousin, to ask you [to
invoke the Divine protection for] the expedition
which an admirable courage has led him to take part in.

[The Cardinal expresses his gratitude at hearing
that " our holy religion is making such progress
in England," and acknowledges Mgr. Goddard's help
in that direction]. ... The Holy Father, whom I
went to see yesterday, to talk about the dear Prince,
is gratified with these results. His Holiness spoke
about you very kindly, and is full of paternal
solicitude for his Imperial Highness; I wrote to
him last night, to her Majesty the Empress.

Do not forget me in your fervent prayers. Pray for
the Prince and her Majesty.

Accept, Monseigneur, all my sentiments of esteem.

L. Card. Bonaparte.

It was said in Paris that the Emperor had died
without having received the Sacraments of the Church.
This was denied by, among others, M. Francis Aubert,
who had chronicled the funeral ceremonies for one
of the leading French papers, and who declared that
Father Goddard administered the last Sacraments.
" This," said M. Aubert, was " the truth." M. Aubert,
however, was not correctly informed. The proof
of this is the letter written by the Chislehurst priest
to Cardinal Bonaparte.

CHAPTER IX

EMPEROR, EMPRESS AND LAST PREMIER

Entile Olliviers Expiation and Exculpation

" My narrative is of granite, because it is the truth."*

That a man who survived to celebrate his eighty-
eighth birthday should have devoted a score of his last
years to writing an ^apology for his conduct of a
Ministry which lasted only just over six months is in
its way phenomenal, and stamps him as one endowed
with an almost abnormal strength of will. Those
who, for various reasons, shrank from the attempt
even to glance at the many volumes of " L'Empire
Liberal " attributed Ollivier's determination to " clear
himself " to overweening vanity. Those who have read
only what they may regard as the salient portions of
this recital of a great crisis in the life of an empire take
a different view of this stupendous work. Thiers,
after seeing an example of De Blowitz's first contribu-
tion to the " Times," said, " You want a roomy paper
to write in " ; and when Laurence Oliphant spread out
on the carpet what was then known on the Continent
as " the journal of the City," Delane's new recruit
gazed upon it with admiration for its Brobdingnagian
dimensions. So it was with Ollivier, to whom a
canvas which satisfied Meissonier would have been
as useless as an envelope. To narrate one incident

* " L'Empire Liberal," vol. xvi.
77

78 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

only (but it was a tremendous one) he occupies a volume
of 640 pages ! In it there are only two or three
repetitions, and those are necessary to make the epic
intelligible — different versions of the same circum-
stances. That volume (xv.) is " La Guerre." " Le
Suicide " (xvi.) was issued in 191 2, and three years
later (August, 19 15) came the volume (xvii.) concluding
the series, appropriately entitled " La Fin." It is incom-
plete, for while the veteran was writing the chapters
on Sedan and the Revolution of three days later
" God's glory smote him on the face," and we shall
never know from Ollivier's own pen the impression
made upon him by those events. It can, however,
now be surmised by his vivid portrayal of MacMahon's
engulfment " dans la route de perdition." " La Fin,"
which has fire and fury stamped on many of its pages,
is of special value for the absolute proof it affords
of the striking fact that there should never have
been a Sedan, with its resultant overthrow of the
Second Empire. The tragedy was caused by the
obstinate determination of the Regent and her obtuse
and evil counsellors. Generals Palikao and Trochu,
that on no account should the Emperor or MacMahon,
with his army, be allowed to return to Paris, but
should embark, in the third week of August, on the
mad course of marching to the aid of Bazaine in
Metz. Even Thiers, and many other dispassionate
observers, denounced that step as " insane." No
great harm would have resulted from Bazaine being
left unrelieved in the fortress. On the other hand, the
Empire would have been saved had MacMahon,
accompanied by the Emperor, led his force to Paris,
which could then have successfully withstood the
enemy's siege and compelled the Germans to make

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EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 79

peace upon terms acceptable to France. But, as
Ollivier says in his final volume, " The Regent had
supplanted the Emperor since the 9th of August " —
only a week after the first clash of arms at Saarbriicken,
on the 2nd of the month. The reins of power were,
most unfortunately as it proved, in the hands of the
Empress, the victim not only of Palikao, but of
Trochu, who, in the opinion of the public, had " taken
the place of the Empress" ! Thus were the Emperor,
the generals and the armies handicapped from the
outset : thus was the final issue inevitable.

In a forceful passage Ollivier now shows us how
" the war was disavowed by those who had demanded
it and voted for it : the only Ministry which could
have directed affairs was turned out of office; the
Emperor suspended from his functions as military
and political chief; everything left in the hands
of weak or inexperienced Ministers; the cry of
' sauve-qui-peut ' heard in the Chamber and outside ;
Thiers, Gambetta and Jules Favre became the orators
and directors of a crazy majority; the revolutionaries
distributed arms to their adepts and watched for the
first defeat in order to destroy what remained of the
[old] institutions ; and Trochu used his power against
that of the Empress."

These words were written with the life's blood
of the old patriot who passed away under the shadow
of Mont Blanc only a year before the second invasion
of his country. What happiness would have been
his had he been spared to witness the regeneration of
France and the triumphs of her armies and of seeing
Gaul and Briton, side by side, stemming the Teutonic
current !

Two men in particular have had to bear the blame

8o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

for the unsuccessful war of 1870 — Napoleon III. and
Emile Ollivier, and both were averse to entering
upon it. The real culprit was the Due de Gramont,
the Foreign Minister of OUivier's Cabinet, although,
later, Palikao and Trochu materially contributed to
the downfall. Bismarck said of Gramont : " He
is the stupidest man I have ever met." He was the
man who delivered France into the hands of Prussia.
Acting on his own initiative, without informing anyone
of his intentions, he instructed Benedetti, the diplo-
matic representative of France at Berlin, to endeavour
to extort from King William a promise that he
would not in future support the candidature of any
Hohenzollern prince for the Spanish throne. It is
said, and with justice, that Ollivier ought not to have
allowed Gramont to take such a step before consulting
his colleagues. But the mischief was done, as the
facts prove, behind the backs of the Cabinet. All
the devices employed by Ollivier to mitigate the
blunder failed. New instructions were sent to
Benedetti — Ollivier and the other Ministers concurring
— but in all the dispatches Benedetti was urged to
press the King to say something which would save the
faces of the members of OUivier's Cabinet. The
King had already assured Benedetti that the candida-
ture of Prince Leopold had been withdrawn, and,
to paraphrase his Majesty's words, there was an end
of the matter. And there, of course, it ought to
have ended. King William rightly declined to give
any " promise " as to the future, and, but very mildly,
resented Benedetti's importunities for another
audience. Bismarck telegraphed his intention of
resigning if the Kng consented to accord the French
Ambassador another interview. As he received no

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 8i

reply to this threat, he telegraphed again to the same
effect.

" The consequences," writes Ollivier very frankly,
" of the importunity, si peu sagace, of our Ambassador
were immediate. The King, fatigued by his obses-
sions, after [his Majesty's] absolute refusals, appealed
to Bismarck." By the King's order, Abeken, an
official employee, in consultation with Eulenberg
and Camphausen, sent a cypher telegram of two
hundred words to Bismarck, detailing precisely what
had occurred at Ems, and concluding : " His Majesty
leaves your Excellency to decide whether the new
request made by Count Benedetti and the refusal which
has been given him should be immediately communi-
cated to our Ministers, to those abroad, and to the
Press." Bismarck, given a free hand by his
Sovereign, certainly " edited " the King's telegram
to an appreciable extent, but he did not " falsify " it,
as he was alleged to have done. And even Ollivier,
when he speaks of " falsification," is careful, with his
wonted honesty, to explain that he does not employ
the word as meaning an actual falsifying of the
document. Others, less conscientious, less acquainted
perhaps with the science of language, have boldly
accused, and still accuse, Bismarck of " forging "
the King's message !

The Due de Gramont, then, had ordered Benedetti
to ask King William for " guarantees " as to the
future, a fact unknown, as indicated above, to
Ollivier, who saw the telegram only four hours after
it had been dispatched (July 12). At eleven p.m.
Gramont showed the telegram to Ollivier, who was
reading it when an aide-de-camp brought in a letter
from the Emperor at St Cloud. Gramont read it and

82 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

handed it to Ollivier. In it the Emperor said Bene-
detti should now be instructed to lay before the King
these points :

1. We have been dealing with Prussia, not with Spain.

2. The dispatch sent by Prince Antoine of HohenzoUern
[father of the candidate] to Prim is not for us an official docu-
ment, nor was anyone instructed to deliver it to us.

3. Prince Leopold accepted the candidature for the Spanish
throne, and his father renounced it [for him].

4. Benedetti must, then, insist, as he has been ordered to do
[by Gramont], upon having [from King William] a cate-
gorical answer by which the King will promise for the future
not to allow Prince Leopold to follow his brother's example
and leave for Spain one fine day. *

5. As long as we have no official communication from Ems
we have not had an answer to our just demands.

6. Until we get that answer we shall continue our armaments.

7. It is impossible to make any communication to the Chamber
until we are better informed.

The Emperor's letter made matters worse than they
already were. Moreover, his Majesty had not, as
courtesy demanded, consulted his Prime Minister before
writing to Gramont. The Emperor had written his
letter under the influence of two members of the Right,
Jerome David and the journalist Cassagnac, both
firebrands, crazy for war, and exciting the Empress,
who did not require much stimulating in this direction.
Ollivier felt that he had been badly treated by not
having been confided in by his Foreign Minister or
by the Emperor. He says : " II y avait de quoi
justifier une explosion de rudes paroles." But he
kept his temper. " At the moment," he asks plain-
tively, " what was I to do? I had not the power
[which he ought to have had as head of the Govern-

* The brother referred to was the late King of Roumania.

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 83

ment] to tell Gramont to recall his first telegram to
Benedetti [the one which was the original cause of the
war], nor to prevent him from carrying out the order
which he had just received [from the Emperor]. At
the utmost I could only have asked him to accompany
me to the Emperor in order to get his Majesty to with-
draw his instructions. Had it been in the daytime
I should have done this; but at midnight I could
not think of doing so. . . . The deed was irrevocably
done. I had to take one of two courses — to protest
by resigning, or to seek to annul the consequences
of an act which I was unable to prevent."

In a letter complaining of an article which had
appeared in the " Historische Zeitschrif t," asserting that
he had misrepresented the Ems incident, Ollivier
wrote : " I am made to say that I have striven
to demonstrate that the lettre d'excuses was inoffensive.
On the contrary, I have shown in my volume xiv.
that to ask [the King] for a lettre d'excuses would
have been an impertinence to which the King would
have replied by sending our Ambassador across the
frontier and by ordering the mobilisation of the army.
... It was a spontaneous letter of friendship, not
a lettre d'excuses, which we asked for. Neither
Gramont nor I was such an imbecile as not to have
known that to have asked for a lettre d'excuses would
have been to put the match to the powder." But,
despite all Ollivier's ingenious pleading, Gramont's
letter did provoke Bismarck's soufflet, which probably
brought to the Duke's recollection the proverb,
" Cracher en I'air pour que cela vous retombe dans
la bouche."

Ollivier told Gramont that he would be accused of
having premeditated the war, and advised him not to

84 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

obey the Emperor's suggestion to stiffen the first
dispatch to Benedetti, but to attenuate it. The
Premier then drafted his idea of the new instructions
which Gramont should send to Benedetti. The
difference between Ollivier's draft and Gramont's first
telegram was, he says, considerable. The first tele-
gram instructed Benedetti to obtain from the King
" a general guarantee in view of future eventualities.
My draft limited the guarantee to the present, and was
only applicable in case Prince Leopold did not
concur in the actual renunciation of his candidature
made by his father." Gramont thought Ollivier's
advice good, but he adopted only half of it ; and this
second telegram, dispatched at eleven forty-five p.m.,
did not reach Benedetti until ten-thirty the next morn-
ing, after he had seen the King and had presented his
first, and fatal, instructions.

Thousands of books, pamphlets and magazine and
newspaper articles have been written to explain the
actual cause of the war which destroyed the Bonapart-
ist dynasty and made the German Empire. * But
the bare facts are outlined in the foregoing few lines.

" Make it known," wrote the Emperor to Ollivier
from his "prison" at Wilhelmshohe f "that it is
Thiers and Jules Favre who, since 1866, have so often
repeated that France was so weakened by the success
of Prussia as to make une revanche necessary, so that
the first incident [that at Ems] sufficed to cause

* There were previous contributory causes, extending over
several years.

t The Emperor's captivity lasted from the first days of
September, 1870, until the third week of March, 1871, when he
took up his residence with the Empress and the Prince Imperial
at Chislehurst, where he died somewhat unexpectedly on January

9. ^^73'

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 85

an explosion of public opinion. They have heaped
up the incendiary material, and a single spark was
sufficient to cause a fire."

It will have been seen that, at the critical moment,
the Emperor, like Gramont, did not give that full
confidence to OUivier which the President of the
Council had a right to expect, even to demand. Faced
by a reticent Emperor on one hand and a secretive
Foreign Minister on the other, an infinitely stronger
man than Ollivier would have been baffled. Nor, if we
accept his oft-repeateH assertions, did the President
of the Council receive much, if any, support from the
Empress. " Undoubtedly," he says, referring to
the period preceding the declaration of war, " the
Empress and her camarilla were for war, but the
Emperor was still undecided," and this after he had
suggested to Gramont to " accentuate " his second
telegram to Benedetti. Not only did the Empress, at
luncheon one day during the " negotiations," if so
they can be called, snub Ollivier ; she turned her back
towards him while he was sitting next to her at the
table. When Gramont read the declaration of war
at St Cloud " she clapped her hands."

On another occasion, also during the crisis, the
Emperor, in his consort's presence, told Marshal
Le Boeuf that there was a scheme for trying to arrange
for a conference of the Powers to consider the whole
question. " Well, Marshal, what do you think of the
project? " the Empress asked the then Minister for
War. He replied that war would certainly have
been preferable, but, as all idea of fighting had been
abandoned, the Government's proposal of a confer-
ence appeared to him to be the best thing to do. The
Marshal's answer exasperated her Majesty, who

86 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

excitedly exclaimed : " What ! AnH do you, too,
approve of this cowardice ? If you wish to dishonour
yourselves, do not dishonour the Emperor." " Oh ! "
said the Emperor, " how can you speak like that to
a man who has given so many proofs of devotion? "
She saw that she had made a mistake, expressed her
deep regret, and embraced the Marshal, begging
him to forget her " vivacity." Ollivier, who could
have had no particular desire to flatter her, says :
" The Empress wished, through the Marshal, to aim
at the middle course which we had reached, and she
had not spoken too strongly. That evening she felt,
thought and spoke justly. Her revolt was legitimate,
and she was right to use her power to discard an
expedient which, without preserving peace, would have
discredited the Emperor for ever." From the first
she had not regarded Ollivier favourably : the proof
of this assertion is to be found in a letter written by the
Emperor to Ollivier (not mentioned by him in his work)
asking him to enter the Tuileries through one of the
small garden gates, so that the Empress might not be
aware of his visits !

Those possessed of the legal mind will best appreci-
ate the construction of " L'Empire Liberal " and the
author's deft manipulation of facts. The seventeen
volumes are indeed mosaics of facts, from which we
can safely draw our inferences. We may all admire
Ollivier as a literary artificer — one who is his own
architect and his own builder. In forming an opinion
of his great gifts as a litterateur, we must remember
that he had been a successful practising barrister.
In that capacity he had read so many briefs that the
unusual task of preparing one in his own defence
was comparatively easy. His main difficulty at the

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 87

outset was that of sifting the mountains of detail.
In his latest years he had to face the terror of almost
complete blindness. Even this disability did not
dismay him, and he struggled on with the aid of his
wife and daughter. In the handling of his case,
Ollivier reminds one of Lord Russell of Killowen
when he was at the Bar, and also of Henry Matthews
(Lord Llandaff). Perhaps the last comparison is the
better of the two, for some incline to the opinion that
in the presentation of cases to juries Matthews sur-
passed Russell, simply because his education had
given him the finesse of the Frenchman. However this
may be, Ollivier, in the preparation of his plaidoirie,
proved himself to be at least the equals of Russell
and Matthews, and probably of Berryer. For the
rest, he was a Meridional, and had all the exuberance
of the Southerner combined with much of the level-
headedness and common-sense of the Northerner. He
has made out a case for himself which is incontro-
vertible because it is composed of facts; some of
these have been questioned by M. Welschinger and
others, but not very convincingly, although Ollivier's
indignation and bitterness occasionally led him into
unintentional exaggerations.

In 191 1 I was in active correspondence with
M. Ollivier on matters which he deemed of great
importance; and it may be not uninteresting to give
a few translated extracts from some of his letters to
me, as they show his extreme sensitiveness respecting
all that was published about him by others, particularly
when statements attributed on the merest hearsay
to the Empress Eugenie were adduced as evidence
against him.

On September 23, 191 1, he wrote :

88 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

" I am having read to me your very interesting- volume. *
Before finishing it and meditating upon it, I shall be greatly
obliged by your enlightening me upon two points. In one
chapter there are some extracts, taken from * Her Own Chaplet
of Memories,' in which the Empress Eugenie is made to say :
' I know how to get rid of them [General Fleury and Ollivier]
and to deliver the Emperor from them.' You will be render-
ing me real service by telling me from what document you have
taken that phrase and the date of it.

" Again, you narrate what passed between Palikao [ Ollivier 's
successor as President of the Council] and the Empress when
the former arrived at the Tuileries on August 9, 1870, in the
morning. I particularly want to know the source from whence
you derived that information.

" You will have received a week ago a letter in which I
thanked you for your amiable dedication. Believe me when I say
I am much touched by it, and that it is with my whole heart
that I repeat my expressions of sincere sympathy.

"la little regret that you have given credence to the allega-
tion of M. Welschinger respecting a pretended letter of excuse
asked of the King of Prussia by the Due de Gramont. The
statement as presented by that writer is absolutely false. He
shows himself in his book a malicious imbecile, of bad faith.
He has calumniated Gramont, as I have demonstrated in my
volumes xiv. and xv. "

I furnished M. Ollivier with all the information he
desired, and he wrote (October 14, 191 1) :

" The various letters in which you have so obligingly given
me the information which I asked you for, and the excellent
article [in which I had defended him from an attack in re the
' light heart * phrase] you have sent me, have given me extreme
pleasure. They prove your love of and respect for the truth.
I thank you a thousand times, and am still more sensible of
the beautiful dedication which you have so kindly written.

" (Signed) Emile Ollivier." t

* " The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire " (dedi-
cated to him).

t His handwriting was very large, bold, firm and somewhat
resembled that of a boy of seven or eight.

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 89

M. Ollivier's letter of thanks shows that he was
greatly soothed by my assurance that, upon investiga-
tion, I had ascertained that the statement quoted
by me and attributed to the Empress Eugenie [" I
shall know how to get rid of them "] referred only
to General Fleury, not to M. Ollivier.

M. Welschinger, with whom Ollivier was so char-
acteristically irate, is the author of the admirable
and, I believe, reliable and thoroughly impartial
work, " Les Causes et les Responsabilites de la Guerre
de 1870," which appeared in 19 10. One of the pass-
ages in my book concerning him which evoked
Ollivier's wrath is as follows : —

" An extraordinary story, told by M. Welschinger," I wrote,
** makes one wonder whether some of those surrounding- the
Empress in 1870 were in their right minds. It was proposed
that the King of Prussia should be asked to write a letter to
Napoleon III. to satisfy the 6nergum^nes [fanatics], of whom
the Empress was one, and the Due de Gramont actually
drafted and sent to the King a note of what his Majesty was
to say ! King William had been very pleased when he thought
that all danger of war had vanished by the withdrawal of
the HohenzoUern Prince from the Spanish candidature, and
in so uselessly and gratuitously wounding him the French
Cabinet alienated the only person who could check Bismarck.
King William was disgusted. ' Was there ever such insol-
ence? ' he wrote to Queen Augusta. ' They want me to appear
before the world as a repentant sinner.' "

Reference to volumes xv. and xvi. of " L'Empire
Liberal " will show that Gramont did, as M. Wel-
schinger stated, and as I quoted from his book,
draft and send a letter to the King coolly telling him,
in so many words, what he was to say ! All that
Ollivier denies is that what was demanded was a

90 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

lettre d'excuses. On this point it is difficult to agree
with him.

During his gilded and in every way agreeable
captivity in Germany, in 1 870-1 871, the Emperor said :
" Ollivier is not responsible for the war. He is
as innocent as I am. My enemies know that well, and
so does M, Bismarck. Ollivier is not responsible
for any of the misfortunes of France. Neither he nor
I desired war." *

This handsome tribute does not deter Ollivier from
speaking his mind about Napoleon HI. Inter alia
he says : —

" The first evidence I instinctively had, which was confirmed
by all the evidence, was that our ill-luck at the outset was due
to the pitiable state of health of the Emperor ; that his being
in command had compromised the army and would finish it if
someone did not remove him. . . . From letters and visits I
gathered that the unanimous opinion was that it was physically
impossible for him to continue in supreme command. ' He
does not command,' they said, 'and he will not allow anyone
else to command.* "

There were early signs that the " solidity " of
the army was weakening. The intolerable va-et-vient
over the same ground was tiring it. It was troubled
by the reports of the defeats of Worth and Forbach.
It was no longer the " invincible " army; but with
an active chief at its head Ollivier thought it would
regain its moral ; otherwise all was lost. One way of
retiring the Emperor from his command was to
replace him at the head of the State by recalling him
to Paris. To those who urged that such a course
would be unprecedented the encyclopaedic Ollivier

*" WilhelmshShe," by Dr Mels, the Emperor's medical attend-
ant during his Majesty's " imprisonment."

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 91

produced two precedents — the cases of the Tsars
Alexander I. (1812) anH Nicholas I. (1828-1829).
The return of Napoleon to Paris in August would
have secured him the thanks of the nation and also
put an end to the Regency. Either the Emperor as
Commander-in-Chief, or the Regency, said Ollivier,
must be suppressed. But neither of these possibilities
happened. The Empress had many remarkable gifts,
but that of " authority " was not among them. It
was a quality which emanated naturally from the
Emperor, causing certain men to follow him blindly
without question. " With him at the head of affairs
in Paris many things would have been easy ; with the
Empress as Regent such things would have been,"
in fact were, " difficult, if not impossible."

Every conceivable change was effected except
this one, the most desirable of all in the opinion of the
Empire's best friends. Napoleon III., strongly
supported by " our cousin," the often intractable
Prince Napoleon, had fully reconciled himself to it.
The Empress would not assent to Ollivier's proposal,
although there was a moment when, amidst her tears,
she appeared to be giving way to the Prime Minister's
entreaties to save the army, the dynasty, and the
country by " permitting " her consort and their son
to return. At this moment a full week had not
elapsed since the clash of arms was first heard at
Saarbriicken (August 2), but already three sanguinary
battles had been fought, and the thinking world
regarded France as a spent force. The boldest
prophets had not predicted the imminence of a Sedan,
the capture of an army of 80,000 survivors, , the
personal surrender of the Emperor, and his imprison-
ment in Germany for nearly seven months.

92 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Ollivier knew more than most men about the causes
of and responsibilities for the war, but there was one
living within rifle range of Aldershot who knew even
more than the author of " L' Empire Liberal," although
he was too modest to admit it. M. Franceschini Pietri
had been in England forty-five years, but outside of
Farnborough Hill he was not much better known
by the English public than when he arrived at
Chislehurst from Wilhelmshohe with the Emperor
in March, 1871. I did not think I should have had
occasion again to name him. It is, however, appro-
priate to present him here as, until his death in 191 5,
he was the only survivor of the men of the Second
Empire who could have revealed to us the whole story
of the events many of which, but not all, have
been narrated by Ollivier. The most amiable and
gentle of men, he was likewise the most reticent : he
personified Silence. I have been the flattered recipient
of many letters from him in the course of years.
Only one was meant for publication, but it was of
exceptional importance, for in it M. Pietri revealed
the secret of the forged " Memoirs " of the Empress
Eugenie which, at all hazards, will, I suspect, be
thrown on the book-markets of the world some day,
for it is known that thousands of copies were printed
in all languages and bound, ready for issue at any
moment. (Vide Chapter V.)

In the years 1866- 1870 the French Military Attache
at Berlin was Colonel Stoffel. His reports on Prussian
military affairs — reforms, preparations for contingen-
cies and the like — were intended to be warnings
to Napoleon III. and his ministers. Had they been
heeded there would have been no war in 1870, and we
should have had no " apology for my life " from

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 93

M. Emile ' Ollivier. Colonel Stoffel's reports — or
many of them — were sent to M. Pietri, and by him
handed to the Emperor. Stoffel and Pietri also
corresponded privately. One day I was surprised
at seeing in a leading Paris review * a series of
letters exchanged between Stoffel and the Emperor
Napoleon's (later the Empress Eugenie's) secretary.
One of these letters tends to exculpate Ollivier. In
1 87 1 M. Pietri wrote to Colonel Stoffel :

" I have always done you justice, and to-day more than
ever I recognise 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 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 opinion will calm down,
and by degrees will better appreciate the responsibility of each.
The Emperor's responsibility will then be lessened."

M. Pietri's opinion, as expressed in this letter, will
strike many as of greater value than anything con-
tained in either of the seventeen volumes of " L' Empire
Liberal," and for this reason : all that Ollivier has
written was intended for publication; M. Pietri could
hardly have anticipated that his letters to Stoffel
would one day see the light. I cannot guess what
impulse moved him to allow these letters to appear
during the Empress's lifetime. It will be seen that he

*The " Revue de Paris," June 15 — July i, 191 1. M. Pietri's
valuable letters occupy several pages of " The Comedy and
Tragedy of the Second Empire," published by Messrs Harper &
Brothers, London and New York.

94 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

does not refer to any individual by name, except
the Emperor. With one sweep of the pen he makes
all responsible. " Everybody worked against the
country." They had been so working for years : many
authentic records of the time prove it.

Only M. Pietri could have answered this question :
" Were Stoffel's reports seen and read by Ollivier.'' "
Marshal Niel, Le Boeuf 's predecessor as War Minister,
must have seen them, for M. Pietri tells us that
after his appointment to that post Niel " accomplished
veritable tours de force "; and he significantly adds
(March 22, 1868): " We can say that we are ready
for all events." Le Boeuf did not say more.

In another letter to Stoffel (May 28, 1868) M. Pietri
says : " You appear to be highly thought of at the
Ministry of War, where your reports are appreciated
in a manner very flattering to you. ... I am happy
to tell you to-day that our military position is superb.
Never have we had so many resources — never a finer
army." * What more did Le Boeuf say.-^ Ollivier
was much less precise.

When Thiers came into power Stoffel got his
reward : on some frivolous pretext he was dismissed
from the army, and died in 1907 at the age of eighty-
eight. While Stoffel was so splendidly serving France
at Berlin, the Prussian Military Attache at Paris
was General von Loe, whose reports convinced his
Government of the inferiority of the French army.
In two of Ollivier's volumes (xiv. and xvi.) I have not
met with the names of these attaches, all-important
as were the parts they played in the four years pre-
ceding the war. As regards Stoffel, I find that

* " The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire."
Harper & Brothers, London and New York.

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 95

during the war the " Times" published extracts from his
reports, with the comment that " it was a puzzle how
anyone who had read those documents could have
ever dreamed of plunging France into a war with
Prussia." Yet Stoffel has been unaccountably over-
looked by many historians of the period, and it was to
M. Pietri that we are now indebted for our most
extensive knowledge of " the man who gave the
warning " which should have saved France.

As Stoffel's reports were under the eyes of Marshal
Niel, it is safe to assume that Marshal Le Boeuf saw
them, in which case the latter was justified in saying,
a few days before the outbreak of the war : " We are
ready, more than ready." * What he did not say
was " il ne nous manque pas un bouton de guetre,"
although this " corporal's language," as Ollivier terms
it, has been used against him for forty-five years.

Le Boeuf and Ollivier were on intimate terms, and
the latter claims that he has completely rehabilitated
his friend, as in volume xvii. he presents an innocent,
unfortunate Bazaine. It is, then, also fair to assume
— yet it is only an assumption — that Ollivier knew
all about Stoffel's reports, and that, fortified by
Le Boeuf's promptings, in a measure based upon
those documents, he felt justified in expressing the
belief that France could embark on war with Prussia
with full confidence in the result. Ollivier is, like the
Emperor, very firm in his declaration that Le Boeuf
was in no way blameable. I suggest that when that
general asserted the readiness of France to enter
upon war he spoke, in the accepted legal phrase,
according to the best of his knowledge and belief.

* Nous sommes pr6ts, archi-prets," the phrase which de-
stroyed Le Boeuf, as the " cceur l^ger " destroyed Ollivier.

96 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

He should have added, after " we are ready, more
than ready," the saving clause, " provided that all do
their duty." He had no reason to suppose that some
chiefs of departments would fail him at the critical
moment and that others would lose their heads.
To ridicule and cast opprobrium upon men like
Ollivier, Le Boeuf and Bazaine must necessarily be
the reverse of gratifying to their successors ; similarly
we fail to appreciate criticisms of our statesmen and
generals by foreigners. We have had, even recently,
our own failures ; but only the few recall them when
fancied opportunities to do so arise, although there
can always be found in every country superior persons
ready to spoil good paper by resurrecting the defects
of those endowed with less intelligence than them-
selves. " 'Tis not in mortals to command success,"
but most men endeavour to deserve it. France, in
1870, had many good generals and some who, for
various reasons, fell far below the expectations which
had been formed of them. All who saw the French
forces in the field forty-five years ago have borne
witness to their valour. Their cavalry charges at
Sedan, led by De Galliffet and others, can never be
forgotten. The artillery duel on that day, I remember,
was waged from early morning until the late after-
noon. The French infantry, like the Germans, fought
stubbornly during the greater part of the day, until
it was obvious that further resistance would have
been madness; then it was that the agonised Emperor
stopped the carnage. Bearing in mind all the cir-
cumstances it was not very surprising that insubordina-
tion broke out, not in the field, but in the doomed
town of Sedan. That was the culminating misfortune
of the day for France; but surely it was more a
matter for pity than for harsh criticism.

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 97

Historians — competent ones — agree, as does Olli-
vier, that the presence of the Emperor with the army
was a calamity of itself. His health was so bad that
he could be of no use. In his early days — when
he was a prisoner at Ham — he had been a devoted
student of military subjects. Between 1866 and
1870 (as we now know from M. Pietri's letters to
Stoffel) he had read very attentively the latter's
reports, and should consequently have been able
to gauge the value of the Prussian army. But he
does not seem to have derived much practical benefit
from his study of those illuminating documents.
It was not, needless to say, for him to prepare the
plan of campaign ; that was based partly on the ideas
of Marshals Niel and Le Boeuf, the War Ministers;
MacMahon, Bazaine, Frossard, Trochu and other
generals following the trend of their own ideas — good
sometimes, but too frequently indifferent. Bazaine,
for example, after doing magnificently, allowed him-
self to be shut up, with his fine army, none finer, in
Metz; and MacMahon, weary of protesting, allowed
himself to be driven into Moltke's mouse-trap. He
was, however, acting on orders, and so must be held
wholly blameless. Admittedly the French had no
one gifted with the strategic genius of Moltke,
although they had more than one Steinmetz. * If
enthusiasm could always be relied upon to win battles,
the French would have won many, as they have done
in 1 9 1 4- 1 9 1 5 and will do again. But enthusiasm minus
consummate generalship, such, for example, as that
of Joffre and French, is of little avail. The German
plans were cut-and-dried, and had been in their

*This general was superseded in his command, as his brain
had become affected.

98 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

pigeon-holes almost long enough to have got dusty;
but I will venture to say that, when they were taken
out and fondly looked at, early in July, when Benedetti
began, by order, his senseless worryings of King
William at Ems, they were virgin white — not a speck
of dust upon them. On the other side there was, of
course, Trochu with his famous "plan," which was
seen to be useless on the first day it was attempted
to put it into practice (August 2, at Saarbriicken).
Yet on that day the French gained a " victory "
— their first and last. And it was won merely by
overpowering numbers ; even so, Frossard blundered
badly by not taking advantage of the " success "
by following it up ; for the handful of Germans had
to fly for their lives. At that time, as I have cause
to remember, and for several days after, the German
forces, as I saw " with my eyes," were still being
mobilised. Prince Hohenlohe says in his "Memoirs" :
" We left Berlin on July 30, and it was not until August
16 that all our troops were collected together." But
in the interim some of the greatest battles of the
campaign were won by the invaders.

" The whirligig of Time " brought Ollivier his
" revenge " for all the contumely which was heaped
upon him. What the world at large, with a sublime
indifference to, and ignorance of, the exact grammatical
meaning of his coeur leger, condemned and still con-
demns him for uttering in the Chamber has had the
happy result of placing him in the shrine of Memory.

Emile Ollivier had three homes : one in the Rue
Desbordes-Valmore, Passy; another, his " hermi-
tage," at St Gervais, in the Savoy mountains, where he
died on the 30th of August, 191 3 ; and a third at St
Tropez, in the Mediterranean, at the point of the

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 99

Cap de la Moutte, where he was buried. Rising
at daybreak, he began work immediately, and con-
tinued it uninterruptedly until the evening. When,
in his latter years, his eyesight failed him, he dictated
to his two secretaries, his wife and daughter. Those
who have read his seventeen volumes, bristling with
names, dates and extracts from books, letters, diaries
and journals, varied and illustrated by quotations
from classic authors, will realise the arduous duties of
his assistants.

" He could not prevent himself from being eloquent. He was
so even in conversation. His Sunday receptions at Passy were
a fete de la parole, and will remain graven in the memories
of the few friends who faithfully grouped themselves round
him. He seemed at first somewhat distrait, as if he was in a
dream which he could not banish ; but when a matter of general
interest came up, when allusions to historical events were made,
or someone referred to contemporary discussions, he was
suddenly metamorphosed. He liked best to evoke his souvenirs
of the Liberal Empire. He so described the actors in those
scenes that his listeners saw them. It was a marvel of
evocation. I remember Henry Houssaye saying one day of
these evenings at Passy : * Never in my life have I heard
anything more beautiful.' He might have added : ' Or more
impressive.' The man was charming, with his grace, his
desire to please and a sort of natural coquetry. He loved to
share the cares of others. He who had seen so much, and
had had such rough experiences, had preserved an ingenuous-
ness, a candour, I might almost say a naivet^, which made all
love him immediately they were brought into contact with him.
He lived the simplest life, indifferent to luxury, comfort and
exterior pleasures. To tell the truth, he was insensible to all
these. He lived with his thoughts, I often saw him in the
bosom of his family at the chalet of St Gervais where he spent
his summers. It is a rustic chSlet, almost a peasant's house.
Close by is the glorious panorama of the Alps. His great
happiness was his daily walk in the incomparable region.
In the winter he went to his home at the Moutte, near St Tropez,

loo EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

where he passed the cold months in work and meditation.
There he had prepared his tomb, and there he sleeps." *

About Ollivier the man there was something of
a Gladstonian charm and obstinacy. It happened that
one of my friends spent many hours with the author
of " L' Empire Liberal " at Passy, a few weeks before
his death in August, 19 13, discussing with him a
proposal to issue his final volume in a new cheap series
of eminent authors. Ollivier had just celebrated his
eighty-eighth birthday — a period when the majority
of men think more about " making their soul " than
about the making of books. But he greeted the
idea with all the enthusiasm of a literary beginner.
There was a hitch in the negotiations. Ollivier's
publishers disapproved of the proposition, and it
was certainly within their right to object, for the
volumes of " L' Empire Liberal " are priced at
3 f. 50 c, and the issue of one of them, also in
French, by a rival, at a shilling, seemed to them a
thing to avoid. Hence a contest between author and
publishers. But even literary quarrels come to an
end sooner or later, and Ollivier ended this one in his
fearless old fashion. " If," he declared emphatically,
" they continue to object, I will bring an action
against them." Then matters " arranged them-
selves." " Now," he remarked gleefully, " I can
say, ' Nunc Dimittis.' "

The " Libre Parole " is the organ of M. Edouard
Drumont, noted for his active participation in the
" Judenhetze," and in that journal he devoted a
sympathetic article to Ollivier two Hays after his

* Ren6 Doumic (de 1 'Academic Frangaise), in the " Gaulois,"
August, 1913.

EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER loi

death, thus discounting the effect produced by a
"disabling" obituary notice, published on the previous
day in the same paper from the pen of M. Paul
Vergnet, who wrote : " D'un coeur leger M. Emile
Ollivier nous mena a Sedan." This leads me to
note that Ollivier said to a mutual friend a month
before his death : " I must tell you that I have never
felt the least hurt by the use of this phrase against
me; nor haVe I ever attributed my unpopularity to
it. That unpopularity resulted from other causes,
and would have existed even if I had never spoken
of a ' light heart.' Do not unduly exaggerate little
things."

CHAPTER X

THE EMPRESS IN HER OWN
COUNTRY

In 19 1 5 the Empress once more visited Spain. Her
intimate acquaintance with the Royal House extends
over a period of seventy years. She saw Queen
Isabella married in 1846; after she had become the
consort of Napoleon III. she visited the Queen in
1863; and in 1868, when Isabella was compelled
to leave Spain, the Emperor and Empress received
her at Biarritz. For a couple of years or so the sons
of the ex-Queen and the Empress were playmates in
Paris. Later, the two youths had renewed their
childish friendship in London, when the late
Alfonso XII. was a Sandhurst student and the Prince
Imperial was being prepared for Woolwich. Isabella's
son ascended the throne in January, 1875, and as,
between that date and the end of 1879, when the
Comtesse de Montijo passed away, the Empress
visited her mother at Madrid, she could hardly have
failed to see the late King, who had begun to reign
a few days before his eighteenth birthday. Thus,
from 1846, first as Mile de Montijo, then as Empress,
and later as a dethroned sovereign, the august lady,
godmother of the present Queen, has been au mieux
with the members of the Royal House of Spain.

Before the engagement of Alfonso XIII. to the
only daughter of Princess Henry of Battenberg the

102

IN HER OWN COUNTRY 103

Empress was again seen at Madrid. The King's
gaze — so it was said — had been turned in another
direction ; but the attraction appears not to have been
mutual. Let us (for it will do no great harm) take
the romantic view of the situation, and assume that
the venerable, and always delightful, chatelaine of
Farnborough Hill appeared on the scene, fulfilled
the role of fairy godmother with complete success,
and was the means of making two young people very
happy. Such things do not often happen out of the
story-books ; but every rule has its exception.

At Madrid, then, in 1915, the Empress was chez elle.
Everything she saw was more or less familiar to her.
Many of the faces were new.

In January, 1875, in the war time, I was at the
late King's " reception." The army, the navy, the
official world, the professions and the trades sent their
picked men. Beautiful women, and others, swarmed.
It was less a Royal than an Aladdin's Palace.
Four Englishmen * — no, one was an Italian, by name
Gallenga — did homage to the boy- King, who stood
the ordeal of the interminable defile as one petrified,
gazing not at the bespangled throng, but over their
heads. He who was to be thereafter known as the
" Rey-Caballero," standing on the dais for long hours,
looked as one in a dream. Eleven days before
I had seen him, in Paris, taking farewell of his
mother at the Gare de Lyon, and Count Mirasol
and Colonel Velasco (his " governors " while he
was at Sandhurst) were bidding him hasten, for the
Marseilles rapide was starting, and would wait for no

* Mr Gallenga (" Times "), Mr G. A. Sala (" Daily Tele-
graph), Mr A. Forbes ("Daily News"), and the author
(" Morning Post"). Only the last survives in 1916.

I04 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

man, be he king or peasant. I had, and presented,
a letter of introduction to King Alfonso, and was
invited to travel to Spain with the suite as the
representative of the " Morning Post." It was one of
my own " great " years.

On the 1 6th of May, 1909, the niece of King Edward
had been Queen of Spain three years less a fortnight,
and the Empress had an opportunity of gauging
the sentiments of the ruling classes vis-a-vis her
goddaughter. In those three years the august god-
mother had doubtless, as we all had, heard and read
not a little concerning Queen Victoria Eugenie's
popularity or otherwise. One thing is certain : by all
she was admitted to be " a beautiful girl." " Es
una real moya " — this was the phrase on everybody's
lips. But what your Spaniard says to-day has been
known to differ from what he has said on the morrow.
When, in 1875, I could not conceal my amazement
at the frantic demonstrations of joy evoked at
Barcelona, at Valencia, at Madrid and at Saragossa at
the sight of the erewhile Sandhurst Cadet, some
who had long resided in the Peninsula waxed
sarcastic over the " vivas," and the triumphal arches,
and the flights of the gaily decorated pigeons, and the
addresses of welcome. All these outward tokens of
enthusiasm, they told me, had greeted King Amadeus
(afterwards Prince Napoleon's brother-in-law), who,
none the less, after reigning some three years, had
taken the only course which seemed open to him —
that of abdication. A handful of officials gathered
at the railway station to " speed the parting guest,"
and " saw him off " with much composure. But tears
glistened in the ex-King's eyes.

While the Empress's goddaughter won aristocrats

IN HER OWN COUNTRY 105

and plebeians alike by her personal loveliness, the
Madrilenians soon began to criticise her " English
ways." This was a repetition of the treatment meted
out to Queen Marie Christine, who, for a long time
after her marriage with Alfonso XII., was contemptu-
ously spoken of as " The Austrian." The consort
of Alfonso XIII. (cousin of King George V.) was
voted too exclusive. One day she had actually com-
plained to an official that the Palace stairs were
dusty; and people went about saying that it was
undignified for a queen to notice such trifles. Queen
Victoria Eugenie did not appreciate the free-and-easy
way in which the sovereign people — some in rags
and some in tags — stroll about the precincts of the
Palace. All the street urchins and beggars of Madrid
assemble (I have seen them) in the morning to witness
the guard-mounting in the fortress which forms part
of the Palace; they may enter the inner courtyard
from the Orient Square at all hours of the day;
neither sentries nor halberdiers take any notice of
them. So different from the iron rules in force at
Buckingham Palace, where those who gather when
the guard is being changed are made to stand at a
respectful distance from the gilded railings !

As, in the early months of her marriage. Queen
Marie Christine, surrounded by her own compatriots,
had been found " too Austrian," so complaints were
rife that the consort of Alfonso XIII. was " too
English " ; in other words, she had failed to become
" espagnolisee." On the day (it was a Sunday)
following the return of the young Sovereigns from
their first visit to England, there was an immense
gathering at the Palace to witness the " capilla."
On this occasion the people are admitted to see the

io6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

members of the Royal Family pass in procession
through the corridors on their way to hear Mass.
The crowd of foreigners and natives, M. Henri
Charriault tells us, was particularly large on that
December Sunday, and all were anxious to see the
Queen. Her Majesty was unfortunately too fatigued
by her long voyage to appear. It was given out
that she had a sore throat; but this did not prevent
her from being seen by the people on the Palace
terrace in the evening- " The story was circulated
that she had pretended to be unwell in order to escape
from an exhibition which wearied her. Nothing
was, however, more probable than that the journey
had caused her to be indisposed. This is how matters
stand at Madrid."

The Empress's grand-nephew, the Due d'Albe,
whom she has occasionally visited at Loeches, where
his ancestors are buried, was born at Madrid in
October, 1878, and is the son of Carlos, ninth Duke
of Berwick and sixteenth Due d'Albe, who died
on board Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht at New York in
October, 1901. The late Due was the nephew of the
Empress Eugenie, his predecessor having married
her Majesty's only sister, Francisca de Montijo, in
1844, and died in 1881, twenty-one years after his
wife's death. The present Due d'Albe, whom some
of us saw at Farnborough in 191 5, is a descendant
of General Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, that lamb-
like Duke of Alba who was Stadtholder of the
Netherlands temp. Philip II.

The seventeenth Due d'Albe, tenth Duke of Berwick,
and Due de Leiria, has a residence at Madrid (the
Leiria Palace) and a country seat at Loeches, eighteen
miles from the capital, and at both places he has

IN HER OWN COUNTRY 107

entertained his Imperial grand-aunt. In 1906 his
sister, Dona Sol Stuart Fitzjames, married the
Duque de Santora, brother-in-law of Lady William
Nevill (daughter of the Marquesa de Santurce,
better known in England as Mme de Murrieta, and
daughter-in-law of the late Marquis of Abergavenny).
The mother of the Duquesa de Santona will be
remembered as a one-time familiar figure in the
Leicestershire hunting fields; the Duquesa herself
is credited with a love of sport, and her brother
" Alba " has been often seen in the polo grounds of
Hurlingham and Ranelagh.

Among the hostesses of the Empress was the
Duquesa Fernan Nunez, who has given, at the
Cervellon Palace, dinner-parties in honour of her
Imperial friend. The guests have comprised the
hostess's children and relatives, the Due d'Albe,
the Due de Montellano,the Marquess and the Marquesa
La Mina, the Conde de Montijo, Prince and Princess
Clement Metternich, and other friends.

It would not occupy much space to record the
appearances made by the Empress at dinner-tables in
England since the autumn of 1870. Few now living
can, as did Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower, remember
her a guest at London houses during her over forty-five
years' residence at Chislehurst and Farnborough
Hill. At Windsor Castle she was entertained at
long intervals by Queen Victoria, and when the
Empress was residing in Scotland the two ladies
frequently met. But the Empress has rarely mingled
in general society in England, and when she has
been staying in Paris only a very few intimate friends
— the Mouchys and the Murats, and some others —
have seen her at their dinner-tables. It was an

io8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

event, but it passed unnoticed, when, in December,
1907, she lunched for the last time at Buckingham
Palace with King Edward and Queen Alexandra.
In the autumn of 19 10 she lunched with King George
and the Queen at Marlborough House. The Empress
has often received members of our Royal House
at Farnborough Hill — notably Princess Christian and
Princess Henry of Battenberg — but I fail to remember
if King Edward and his consort ever dined there.

To all but those who have seen the Escurial with
their own eyes — not merely read about it in matter-of-
fact guide-books — the bare statement that the Empress
Eugenie has journeyed thither and laid wreaths
on the tombs of the sovereigns and infantas whose
place of sepulture it is would be meaningless. The
Escurial is both a palace and a monastery, constructed
by Philip II. to commemorate a great victory which
his troops won at St Quentin on the loth of August,
1557, the festival of St Lawrence. " I will build
a hovel for myself, a palace for God," said the King,
who chose a site at the foot of the mountains. Here
lie the remains of all the Spanish sovereigns, beginning
with Charles V., the kings on one side, the queens
on the other, in separate niches. Philip V. was
the first of the Bourbons who would not consent to
be placed among his predecessors of the House of
Austria.

As visitors leave the sepulchre the custodian —
one of many such — strikes a marble plaque in the wall
and says significantly, " El pudrido." It is there
that the dead sovereigns' bodies decompose and
putrefy. They are placed on a grating, under a
tap of ever-running water, and not deposited in their
marble urns in the Pantheon until they are entirely

IN HER OWN COUNTRY 109

decomposed, and only skeletons remain. Some years
ago all that remained of Alfonso XII, was removed
to the Pantheon; the body of the present King's
grandmother, Isabella II. (if so it may be termed),
reposes where it was originally placed, under the jet
of water. Until the advent of the Bourbons the
Royal bodies were not treated in this manner, but
were embalmed. In 1870 the coffin of Charles V.
was opened, and fevealed the Emperor's body in
a state of remarkable preservation. " Of all the
others," asks M. Charriault, "what remains?
Horror seizes us when we think of the unmentionable
condition of the greatest of the great in this world."

Rousing ourselves from this nightmare, we get a
sensation of repose upon entering the Pantheon
of the youthful members of the Royal House in
their white marble tombs. This crypt, under the
sacristy, was repaired by Isabella II. and the
Montpensier family. * Here are the bodies of the
young Queen Mercedes, first consort of Alfonso XII.,
and of her two sisters. Princesses of the House
of Orleans, cut off in the flower of their youth, one
of whom, the Infante Christine, had been affianced
to the present King's father. Both are represented
reclining upon their tomb. Grouped in a kind of
pyramid of coffins, and still more coffins, are those, all
white, of children, apart from each other, and supported
by sculptured angels, also white. They are the
little princes of the Royal House who entered into
their last sleep at a tender age.

Very familiar to the Empress are the portraits
of Charles V. and Philip II. The first shows a man

* The Comtesse de Paris, mother of the Due d 'Orleans and
Queen Amelie, is a Montpensier.

no EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

pale, energetic, with powerful jaw — a man of action
and strong will; the other, the son, is fair, cold-
looking, of a Flemish type, with an enigmatical
expression and a disdainful mouth.

Quitting the monastery visitors find themselves in
an immense park, with long shady alleys. Through
the leafage are vistas of the Guadarama range. At the
far end of the park rises the Casita del Principe, a
bijou palace, built for that Prince of Asturia who
became Charles IV. It is a museum of pictures,
porcelain, silk hangings and ivory ornaments. But
nothing can efface the gloomy impression derived
from the lugubrious necropolis. There are three
large empty tombs, void of inscription at present.
" This one," says the guide, nonchalantly, " is for
the Queen-Mother, Maria Christine ; this, for Alfonso
XIII.; this, for Queen Victoria Eugenie. They
are all ready ! "

CHAPTER XI

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS

On January 9, 1873, Napoleon HI., Emperor of the
French, died at Camden Place, Chislehurst, where
he had resided since the middle of March, 1871, after
being in captivity at the Castle of Wilhelmshohe
as a result of his surrender to the King of Prussia on
the 2nd of September, 1870, the day after the
battle of Sedan. That tragedy and the boy-Prince's
" baptism of fire " at Saarbriicken on the 2nd of
August I have recorded.

Father Goddard gave me a place close to the coffin
at the funeral in the little Church of St Mary, and on
the following day I was one of two Englishmen (my
friend, Captain Baynes, of the Metropolitan Police,
was the other) who were privileged to be present
at the Empress's reception of those who had come
from France to pay the " last marks of respect " —
marshals, generals, statesmen, officials and a con-
course of personal friends of all ranks, from the
highest to the humblest. Six years and a half later
I stood by the bier of the Prince Imperial, and in
1888 I saw the remains of the Emperor and his son
taken from Chislehurst and placed in the crypt of
St Michael's at Farnborough. The Emperor, the
Empress and the Prince — all three I had seen in
III

112 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Paris before the " Terrible Year." The English
scenes I recorded in the " Morning Post."

On May 5, 19 15, the Empress Eugenie was
eighty-nine. She has now passed half of her life
in England, varied by her voyages and long visits
to her French home at Cap Martin. It was not, as
I have said, until more than twenty years after Sedan
that the Government of the Republic granted her
a permanent domicile in France. Needless to say
that she has scrupulously fulfilled the obligation
imposed upon her of non-participation in the " mani-
festations " which have been, and until 19 14 were,
made in favour of a restoration of the Imperial line,
now, and for many years, solely represented by
Prince Napoleon, whose father was a first cousin
of Napoleon III. The Bonapartist Pretender is
a discreet man; talented, but not ebullient. It is
no secret that he will be the Empress's principal
heir. Of her fortune nothing whatever is known.
Even Monsignor Goddard, as he told me shortly
before his death, had no inkling of it. Amusing
canards crop up at intervals — e.g. the announcement
of the defunct " Tribune " that the Empress had
left all her " immense wealth " — stated to amount
to ;^ 6,000,000 ( !) — to the " Jesuits." What is quite
likely is that the Pretender will one day have an
English home at Farnborough Hill. That is only
natural.

The Empress, as I have indicated, has long ceased
to be an " exile " in any sense of the word. She is
happy in her Hampshire home, with friends and
relatives coming periodically from France and Spain
to cheer her; — sadly happy in the contemplation
of precious souvenirs of the husband and the son

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 113

whom she has lost. All the remembrances of the
past which surrounded her at " Camden " until 1880
are to be found at Farnborough Hill.

Let us now hear M. Lucien Alphonse Daudet.*

In her cabinet de travail at Farnborough Hill the
statue of the Prince Imperial, by Carpeaux, dominates
everything else. Elsewhere may be seen Cannon's
posthumous portrait of the " little Prince "; Protais
has fixed the horror of the intrepid young hero's
last moments by the Blood River; and near the
fireplace, in a sort of library, at the foot of a large
photograph of " Napoleon Quatre," there is always
a wreath of roses or chrysanthemums, according to
the season. The mother's thoughts are never absent
from her son ; he smiles upon her wherever she may
be. In the great gallery which leads to so many
rooms — the salon d'honneur, the salon des princesses,
the salon des dames and the salon de Greuze — are
visible some of Winterhalter's triumphs : the
Empress, seated, in red velvet, holding the infant
Prince, in his white robe, brightened by the Grand
Ordre Imperial : the Empress again, curiously coiffee,
the profile hardly distinguishable, yet, on dit, her
Majesty's favourite portrait of herself. Here also
may be seen and admired the same painter's portraits
of those two beautiful women, the Duchesse d'Albe
(the Empress's sister) and the Duchesse de Mouchy,

* Summarised, by the author's permission, from M. Daudet's
remarkable work, "L'Imperatrice Eugenie." Paris: Arthur
Fayard.

114 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

nee Princesse Murat, whom we must still venture
to place quite in the forefront of the Empress's
greatest friends, in which category was the regretted
Madame de Arcos. There are other portraits of
the Prince by Winterhalter and D'Yvon; a masterly
fragment, by Lefevre, showing the passing of the
child from infancy to adolescence; and all the
members of the " Great " Emperor's family live,
at Farnborough Hill, on the canvases of Gerard,
Ri^sener and Lefevre. At the entrance the
" official " bust of Napoleon I. faces that of
Napoleon HI.

If we would fathom as nearly as possible the
nuances of her complex nature, we must not regard
the Empress as the heroine of beauty of the Second
Empire, with golden ringlets, blue eyes and her
proverbial charm; we must revert to her instinct, so
slightly feminine, perpetually battling with her
womanly character, her womanly esprit, her womanly
heart, dominating them or being dominated by them
according to circumstances, but always influencing
and generally conquering them.

When the first intoxication of happiness had passed
from the life of this young woman, eager for the open
air and space, loving hunting, horses, gallops across
country, all that makes the cheeks glow and hardens
the body; accustomed, after her sister's marriage
to the Due d'Albe, to spend days of family intimacy
at the palace of Leiria, endless days of gossip about
everything and nothing, those Spanish " tertulias "
which are the sweet reward of affection ; — after all this,
imagine what the brusque change meant to her when
she came to live in the old chateau of the French kings,
uninhabited since the flight of Louis Philippe, that

Tmc Kmi'RKss Ki(;kmk

After the portrait hy U'iitterluiHer

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 115

chateau with its countless corridors, secret staircases,
immense salons and state rooms; — imagine, above
all, the permanent cooping-up, the lack of liberty,
the moral solitude, aggravated by the presence of some
" Dame," some ennuyeuse lady-in-waiting. If, at
that period, the Empress had been unable to conjure
up the soul of her childhood and of her youth; if
she had not resigned herself to a life unrelieved by
any outward distractions, she would doubtless have
rebelled against the existence created for her by her
new grandeurs.

How deadly dull in their monotony are those Royal
journeys which must be made throughout the year !
For others every day in our travels brings us a new
sensation; for sovereigns every journey is like the
other. Their public, their official, life only is subject
to variations; their private life has scarcely any
family intimacy, even in modern Courts. (Queen
Victoria's children had not the right to enter her
room without being announced.) " Happy as a
King ! " one of them said one day in my hearing,
in a weary, despairing voice : " A King makes me
think of some starving man, seated at a Gargantuan
banquet, who, at the moment he is about to satisfy the
pangs of hunger, is told that one of the plats — he
knows not which — is poisoned."

With rare exceptions, the Empress, after her daily
drive, returned to the Tuileries before nightfall.
Alone, without any "dame," or even a " reader," in
one of her rooms in which she had gathered together
her most cherished souvenirs she made her tea, while
a despotic monkey awaited its usual cup of milk.

Sometimes, gazing from the hotel window at the
town stretched along the river, her memory takes

ii6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

her back to this same Paris, where the Emperor, her
son and she herself were outraged; she sees the wild
dances and the perspiring figures, and hears the
drunken songs one warm September morning, and
recalls those who the day before were her subjects
now become in a few hours her shouting enemies,
her insulters, ready to kill her. Then, without a
Word, she lowers the blind. She departs, without
sterile regrets, but perhaps with a dolorous thought,
" They have never known."

The Empress can gaze upon these things and these
places without apparent regret, because she has been
able to dissociate them from her personality. She
looks upon them again as vestiges of an anterior
existence, as in another planet, not as traces, for ever
effaced, of her actual life.

n

The detachment from everything which belonged
to her made the Empress part with Arenenberg many
years ago. Not wishing that, later. Queen Hortense's
home should become a sanatorium or some pension
k prix fixes, the Empress selected some pieces of
furniture which recalled the quiet hours she had
passed in the chateau, ordered the remainder to be
converted into a museum, and presented the family
residence to the canton of Thurgovia, stipulating
for the establishment of a school of arts and trades.
Such furniture and other objects retained by her
which she thought would interest the French she
sent as gifts to the Chateau of La Malmaison, whose
distinguished custodian, M. Jean Aj albert, gratefully
received them.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 117

Although, for herself, the Empress has renounced
everything, she is intransigeante and full of decision
immediately there is a question of the principle
she represents. She has consented to be no longer
" Empress," but as the widow of the Emperor she
is a " Sovereign." When she offered to give her
estate of the Faro to the town of Marseilles, in
order to transform it into a hospital, the Municipality
proposed to designate the gift as one made by the
" Widow Bonaparte." Upon learning of this inten-
tion the Empress instructed her representative
to inform the Municipality that she would present
them with the Faro on the sole condition that
they recorded the gift as from " S. M. I'lmperatrice
Eugenie, veuve de S. M. Napoleon HI., Empereur
des Fran^ais." This the Municipality agreed
to do.

Generous herself, she will not accept the generosity
of others. She knows how to pity better than any
other woman. She heals wounds, she soothes
troubles ; but she keeps her own wounds and troubles
to herself. To complain of them would be a
horror to her. She pities others, but to be herself
the object of pity is wounding to her. Her soul
is the veiled Clarissa behind the iron bars. From day
to day she becomes the superioress of an unknown
Order, whose rule she fixes, following it in all
its severity herself. From one renunciation after
another she has discovered perfect resignation.
Such resignation one must have who enters while
living into the neant without noise, without
ostentation, without any of those tragedies which
still satisfy pride, when one has been everything
and no longer wishes to be anything. This resigna-

ii8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

tion shows itself even in petty details which, to
observant eyes, suffice to explain the inexplicable.
Excepting those things which came to her in the
years of her power very few of her personal objects
are marked with her monogram or engraved with
her crown. Looking at the door of her automobile
or at one of her travelling bags one would think that
she wishes to be forgotten by herself even more
than by others. This renunciation is due to self-
control, and she often declares that not to possess
it would be a proof of madness. This astonishing
doubling of her personality, which permits her to
see with apparent indifference the adornments of
her past amazes many people : there are nobilities
of the soul difficult to imagine. " How," it is
sometimes asked, " can the Empress bear to look,
from a window of her hotel, upon Paris and the
garden in which not a vestige of her burned palace
exists ? Where does she get the strength to enable her
to stroll among the geraniums and the dahlias
which cover the stones of St Cloud, and to re-visit
Compiegne, where what was her bedroom is now
a banal museum, shown to the public by a guide ? "

The Empress can return to these things and these
places without apparent pain because she has been
able to dissociate them from her personality past
and present. She regards them as vestiges of an
anterior life, in another planet, not like the traces,
effaced for ever, of her actual life.

She seldom gesticulates. When she is speaking,
and especially when she is questioning a person,
she often crosses her arms. Should she be particularly
interested when listening she will lean slightly
forward and place her joined hands behind her

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 119

back. Her face reveals the interest she takes, or
does not take, in what she is being told. She
seems to anticipate what is coming next. If she
is being bored by banalities her indifference displays
itself rather amusingly : she plays with her six gold
rings, examines them attentively, takes them off, then
puts them on again; ejaculating at intervals a vague
distrait, distant " Ah ! " And her voice, rather
broken, rises in tones breves et chantantes comme
celles d'un harmonica.

The Empress has a horror, a terror rather, of
what she calls " les scenes." She has witnessed
the flow of so many tears of devotion, and has
so often raised from their genuflexions those who
have prostrated themselves at her feet only to strike
her more surely, that she knows their real value.
Her ears are always ringing with the oath of a
Trochu, " on the honour of a Breton, a Catholic
and a soldier," swearing to serve her until death.
A few minutes sufficed for him to perjure himself.
And there were others, less vile perhaps, but scarcely
braver. Tears often have the effect upon her of
a comedy, an easy means of touching and saddening
her. That she has confidence in individuals is
certain, but she knows better than anyone to what
point human nature can be weak and cowardly.
She does not say so openly because she does not wish
to deprive those surrounding her of their courage
and happiness.

The Empress's one and only enemy is cowardice.
Her tone becomes grave, almost violent, when she
speaks of it and of those who obey its dictates.
" Le lache ! Les laches ! " It is not when she
is personally concerned that the Empress suffers

I20 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

and revolts : she would have too much to do. She
has suffered all the cowardices, all the injustices,
from the great ones recorded in history down to
the little ones which are ignored, those [dating from
forty-five years ago.

She has been often treated as if she no longer
belonged to this world. It has been said that the
Empress hates cowards and cowardice. That,
however, is not exact. It can be safely said that
the time has come when she hates nothing and no one.
She has pardoned; in that she has done well, even
if in according her pardon her instinct was stronger
than her will. But she has still the plus beau
role, for her first enemies, the real ones, those who
were most furious against her and hers, are all
Head, and she has survived them. The duration
of her life is a kind of triumph. Despite her
virile soul, however, she is a woman, and sometimes
her nerves dominate her nature. Despite her
renunciation and her mask of indifference, and almost
of serenity, she has been seen to weep when reading
something written against her. It is not anger which
has caused these tears; calumnies mean very little
to her; she weeps because of her powerlessness.
How can she expect that certain lies that some
have not hesitated to tell about her can be easily denied
by a mere word ? How could she prove the truth,
when she has sworn to remain silent for ever, that she
has not written any memoirs, that she will never
write any, that she will never utter a word, never put
on paper a word capable of confounding or of
compromising her accusers? She would not over-
whelm the dead, and her dignity prevents her from
raising polemics around her name. Eternity con-

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 121

tains a sufficient future to judge her and to avenge
her sooner or later.

m

Sometimes her habitual smile changes into a little
tragic laugh, expressing all she has seen, the unhappi-
ness caused her by Destiny and that which men
have tried to bring about. Despite the dazzle and
warmth of the South and her cruises in the Thistle
in quest of the deepest sea, the Empress's real
existence is in England amidst the green fields,
for she recognises in it the only country in which
throneless sovereigns can live with dignity. Pro-
foundly feminine is that objectless nervousness which
on some days takes possession of her, agitates her,
makes her feverish and impels her to take an unusually
long auto drive, during which she exhausts herself as
much as possible, seeking in bodily fatigue repose
for her perturbed soul. She talks, becomes animated,
even laughs. Suddenly, without transition, without
any apparent reason, wherever she may happen
to be, in a carriage or in the train, she begins
a story of some moment when she has been unhappiest.
Her complaint is hastily suppressed; a little
gesture chases away the vision which she has seen.
The Scottish mists have made her susceptible to
the most inexplicable supernatural fancies, in which
she is so deeply interested. Those who do not
know her regard the Empress, being Spanish, as
a fanatic. Others represent her as being surrounded
by " chaplains " (fantastical reminiscences of old
comic operas) and living in the midst of the practices
of a religion at once narrow and superstitious.

122 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

But those who can speak of her with knowledge assert
that no one has broader religious views than the
Empress. She does not impose her ideal upon
anyone, but, as in all other matters, leaves all to
do as they like and believe what they like. Modera-
tion is one of the aspects of her soul. She never
asks if you have read Baruch. One proof of this
will suffice. Two or three years ago she authorised
one of her intimate friends to collaborate in a news-
paper not at all suspected of ultramontane opinions :
such is her great respect for the liberty of all.
Pious she certainly is, but she is not a " devote," nor
does she ever talk about her religion.

It is her incessant craving for activity rather
than a vague nostalgic love for unknown countries
that led her every year to embark on her yacht or
on a steamer. She is never under an illusion of
happiness except when she feels herself free under
the sky and a prisoner at sea, the roughness of which
never has any effect upon her. There is no part
of the Mediterranean with which her travelling humour
has not made her acquainted : the coasts of Italy,
Greece, Africa an'd Asia Minor — she knows them
all; she was always wanting to go farther and still
farther, so insatiable was her demand for space and
especially for movement. The two countries of
which she has the most haunting memories, and
about which she talks oftenest, are Egypt (to which
she returned between seven and eight years ago,
for the first time since 1869, when she inaugurated the
opening of the Suez Canal — only eight months
before the great war) and the Indies, of which
she has seen only the fringe, and hopes to visit them
some day !

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 123

When she is not on her travels she cannot live
unoccupied. She would not be a Sovereign if she
were not much given to building. She amuses
herself by constructing here and there, by trans-
forming what she considers incomplete in one or
other of her homes. If she did not assiduously watch
the building works which she orders to be carried out
they would not interest her. Nothing is left to
chance. She occupies herself with everything, even
the slightest details, and attaches as much importance
to the harmony of a building as to the shape of a
door, the exact place for a piece of furniture, the
colour of a " carpet. When a new idea occurs to
her it must be executed immediately. She explains
and discusses everything, is eager to see the work
begun, asks the advice of this one and that one,
remains standing for hours together, is untiring, holds
out against fatigue longer than anyone, and will
not leave the place until she is satisfied with what is
being done.

Sometimes the idea occurs to her to open up a new
view in the park, and she orders trees to be felled and
others to be stripped of their branches. In the
morning she strolls into the woods to note the change
of scene, either approving with a smile what has
been done, or indicating with her cane an alteration.
If the weather keeps her indoors she arranges her
papers, classifying them methodically, or looks over
the well-stocked library with the intention of getting
the books catalogued. Here she allows someone
to help her, but works continually herself, for
exercise, no matter of what kind, is indispensable.

Farnborough Hill now has its Napoleonic museum,
one of the Empress's latest achievements. She

124 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

watched over its formation with meticulous care,
the late M. Pietri aiding in the work. M. Pietri
saw everything, but said little. The museum stands
behind the trees, and is covered with ivy. It is
lighted from the top. An aromatic odour floats
in the warm air of this large salle, which is not only
a museum of sovereigns, but a museum of souvenirs.
Here are collected all the precious objects which
have come to the Empress through the Bonaparte
family. In the middle of a panel are seen the
legendary uniform of the grenadiers of the Guard,
the grey overcoat and the little hat, a black mantle
and the high boots. Close by are two masks with
closed eyes : one of the father who died at St
Helena, the other of the son (Napoleon II.) who
died at Schonbrunn. One mask is emaciated; that
of the King of Rome recalls the lineaments of
King Alfonso XIII. The objects here grouped
have not suffered at the hand of Time; all are in
perfect condition. The visitor sees the pearl sword,
the neo- Greek table services, the large wash-hand
basin which Napoleon I. took with him through
his campaigns; the purple collar sprinkled with
bees (resembling somewhat the black mantle of the
Saint- Esprit), and the white robe with the long
wheat ears in tarnished gilt worn by the Empress
Josephine when she sat to Lefevre for her portrait;
Josephine's court mantles in sapphire violet, her gauze
robe and the lace made for her.

Having completed this section of the museum the
Empress, no longer head of the family, but still
widowed wife and mother, arranged with pious care
all that which for France is already historic, but
which for herself represents the grandeurs and the

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 125

sorrows of her life. She has had the self-possession
to treat as majestic relics all the objects which are
dearer to her than those belonging to herself, for
they were those of the Emperor and the Prince
Imperial. In their glass cases are the uniforms of
Napoleon III., his general's hat, his caps (these
recalling Yvon's portrait of the Emperor), his state
saddle with its chased holsters and eagles. In
the centre of the salle, almost hidden by the grey
cloths which preserve them, are the gala and demi-
gala carriages, the white satin of which is faded
and the varnish peeling off, the sumptuous hammer-
cloths and the heraldic bearings. Ranged apart
from all these are Pieri's pistol and the dagger
of the Opera Comique conspiracy.

In the museum chapel are saddening and tragic
ex-votos. First among these is to be noted the cradle
— not the " official " one, orfevre by Froment-
Maurice, given by the city of Paris when the Prince
Imperial was born, and presented in later years
by the Empress to the Carnavalet Museum. No,
this is a baby's simple cradle. There are the infant's
blue and white shoes and his robes, among them
the tartan of a little Scotsman ; and we see the boy's
first real dress, the dark green habit de chasse and
the gold-laced hat, the " lampion." Nothing is
sadder than the sous-lieutenant's uniform which
the Prince wore when he left for the war at the end
of July, 1870. By the side of it is a black book,
with these words written on the first page in ink now
discoloured : " Chaque fois que tu le liras ce sera une
pensee pour ta mere."

Here, too, are the English uniforms worn by the
Prince at Woolwich and later, until he left for

126 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Zululand. Among these various uniforms is the
conscription number drawn in Paris on behalf of
the Prince when he came of age and was registered
by the military authorities as a " citizen " liable to
serve with the colours ! There are also his two
French military dolmans, quite new and of course
never worn.

In a large ebony armoire is a portrait of the Prince.
We will draw a veil over what is behind its closed
doors.

In all circumstances the Empress's vitality shows
itself. Every night she retires at the same hour,
no matter where she is. She follows her programme
for resisting old age. Even when she has a cold, or
feels languid, she insists upon going out, even in
cold or foggy weather, despite the advice, even the
prayers, of those around her.* Sometimes, after a
sleepless night, she has gone out and walked for
a couple of hours, and she has been seen in an open
carriage when rain was falling. She trusts in the
open air as the best preservative of her health.
It is useless to attempt to dissuade her from committing
these imprudences. Yet that body which she some-
times treats so severely clings to life, loves life,
loves the warmth of a summer day and the gleam of
sunshine which falls upon the waves.

* In January, 1913, however, as detailed later, when she had
a bad cold, her doctor insisted upon her remaining in the
house for several days, and she was thus prevented from
attending the annual service for the Emperor on the 9th.
And in 191 4 she left for Paris before January 9. — E.L.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 127

IV

Every post brings to Farnborough Hill and to
Villa Cyrnos an avalanche of appeals for assistance,
begging letters. It is the sole work of one person
to examine this correspondence before submitting
it to the Empress, who herself verifies the accuracy
of the statements. These letters come from all
parts of the world. Some are written by naifs who
have taken seriously the absurd and untruthful
statements which they have read in the newspapers
concerning some imaginary scheme or other said
to be contemplated by the Empress. Among the
appeals there is occasionally one requesting the " Em-
press of the French " to procure the applicant a bureau
de tabac ! There are, it seems, after forty-five years,
people who believe the Imperial lady can grant
them a Governmental favour, as if she were still
powerful. But what shall be said of the " shameful
rich " who appeal to the Empress?

Like all generous people, the Empress knows
the value of money. She loathes useless squander-
ings, money spent without anyone being the better
for it. While she conceals her liberal almsgiving,
she often secretly meditates over the satisfaction
or pleasure which she has given to one person
or another.

In her home, from morning till night, she shows
in a hundred ways her consideration for others.
If a person accompanies her on her walks the Empress
will not allow him or her to carry her cloak or her
sunshade. Over-zealous people irritate her. Some-
times she has hurriedly left the tea-table when
she smilingly remembered that in the morning one

128 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

of the guests had remarked that it was very trying
to remain in the house for a whole hour without
smoking. She objects to people speaking in her
presence of the " domestics," and prefers the phrase
the " serviteurs." In less famous houses such con-
sideration for our " inferiors " is not invariably
shown. The Imperial servants at Farnborough Hill
and at Villa Cyrnos have an existence of their
own. The Empress will not allow them to be regarded
as machines, which are stopped directly their work is
finished.

If someone speaks ill-naturedly of an absent
person the Empress will often pretend not to have
heard what was said, and her silence, which turns
the conversation into another channel, prevents
any further captious remarks. She displays great
tact in preventing jealousy among her entourage.
Thus there are never found in her circle those hatreds,
rivalries, mediocre conflicts and lamentable intrigues
which are sometimes observable alike in great and
small courts.

It is quite exceptional for her to be angry with
anyone. She generalises, or proceeds by allusions,
not mentioning names. Her gratitude is less con-
cealed. " Dates " are her aversion. She flies from
anniversaries and does not like them recalled. You
will earn her thanks by forgetting them all — even
the day of her fete. But needless to say she
remembers the 9th of January and the ist of June —
the death-days of her husband and her son.

The Empress heartily despises locks of hair,
whether intact or encased in jewellery; teeth mounted
in rings; old gloves, faded and mouldering in a
box; ashes of the dead heaped together at the

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 129

bottom of a dusty urn, idolatrie macabre, which
weakens our memory of the dead by venerating
their remains. Those who know her best credit
the Empress with the most beautiful of all human
endowments, nobility of heart.

One morning, as she was arranging her papers
and cutting out extracts from them, she came across
an old newspaper article so infamous, so odious,
that her hand trembled and the point of her scissors
made one of her fingers bleed. I remember that
drop of blood.

Every description of literature interests the Em-
press, who reads most books that she considers
important. She prefers novels to poetry, and likes
best those of Anatole France and Pierre Loti.
She has been heard to say that the first-mentioned
writes " le plus beau fran^ais." Of late years she
has given most attention to memoirs and historical
works. For the latter she always had a craving,
believing that from them she could best learn her
regal duties. In her library are the works of Albert
Vandal, Henri Houssaye, Frederic Masson, Comte
d'Haussonville, Gabriel Hanotaux and Pierre Nolhac,
to mention only a select few.

Scattered about her cabinet de travail are several
small tables, on which may be seen books on
philosophy, science and medicine. Schopenhauer is
not one of her favourites. All scientific works,
especially those on medicine, arouse her curiosity.
She regularly follows the progress of therapeutics
in the medical reviews, and discusses them with
those doctors whom from time to time she meets.
She wants to know the why and wherefore of all these
matters.

130 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

In general literature she does not shirk the perusal
of books which are not particularly laudatory of her,
or of those whose mediocrity would make less patient
readers shun them. If she can find in any volume
something, however trivial, of which she was previously
ignorant, she is satisfied. She not only reads books,
but studies them.

The supernatural, which sometimes claims her
attention to a certain extent, never really occupies her
mind. In history, as in actual life, she looks only
for certainties and light. Hypotheses and mysteries,
so far from taking her imagination captive, jdo not
even amuse her. All that has been written about
the Man in the Iron Mask, the poisoning of
" Madame," sister-in-law of Louis XIV., and the
death of the Empress Josephine, all the riddles
propounded by a Sphinx, ignorant of an CEdipus,
irritate her. Even " the Louis XVII. question,"
into which, despite her protests, attempts were made
to draw her, and the pretended escape of the Dauphin
— " secrets " too well preserved for a century —
occupy her mind only momentarily and have the
effect of making her rise superior to the absurdity
of such suppositions.

In the domain of history, in which she finds proofs
that many revolutions were similar to preceding
ones, there is a figure which always haunts her —
Marie Antoinette. Books upon that Queen, especially
those of M. Le Notre, invariably and permanently
move the Empress. Many have discerned in some
of the portraits of the Queen a resemblance to the
Empress.

Her lively imagination makes her fancy that
she herself has witnessed the scenes which she has

ThK KMI'KESS lilUlKMK IN THE CKC^LNDS OK

iiKR viLi.A AT Cap Martin

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 131

either read in books or which have been related
to her. This imaginative faculty is the most pessi-
mistic part of her mind, and no efforts of hers can
master it. She has an extraordinary memory, which
never fails her, for events and dates. What a host
of memories she can evoke in an hour ! How many
figures she can summon before her ! She sees
Rachel on the stage threatening Ristori; the
Empress of Austria walking in the moonlight along one
of the paths at Cap Martin and saying : " Je
voudrais mourir d'un tout petit coup au cceur par
ou s'envolerait mon ame." Unlike most women
of her age, the Empress does not shrink from
recalling the past.

K

Her eloquence is surprising. She can move her
hearers to tears one moment and make them laugh the
next. Her voice changes from a murmur to a loud
outburst with a rapidity rather startling to those
who do not know her well. Sometimes she thinks
aloud and then any auditor suflSces, no matter whom.
It is in her conversation, in her facility for spreading
herself over a topic, that her southern origin is
seen. Although pretending to dislike being deafened
by words, on the ground that she cannot on the
spur of the moment find an appropriate reply to what
someone has said, she is really as willing to listen as
to speak.

Her " esprit " — in the highest and most amusing
sense of the word — is made up of a combination of
rapid comprehension and a remarkable faculty of
observation, which, did her dignity permit, would

132 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

enable her to display her great power of imitation.
Thus she does not appear to belong to a past age.
Thanks to her natural quickness of perception she
can be drawn into a gaiety which gives her voice a
youthful sound while it lights up her features.
Those who have sometimes found trifling mis-
spellings of words in her letters seem to have
forgotten that in her youthful days orthography was
not the strong point at the primary school. We may
wish that her critics were endowed with her personal
style, her concise phrases, her legible handwriting,
which, although she entered upon her ninetieth year
on the 5th of May, 19 15, is almost as firm as ever.

It was with no banal royal condescension, no
desire to seek a topic for conversation, that she ques-
tioned poor Cody concerning aerial navigation, that
she seeks from some savant or other an explanation
of, let us say, wireless telegraphy, or from an
engineer information about an electrical battery;
her only object is to get an accurate knowledge of
these mysteries. Similarly she will question people
respecting a person whom she does not know or
an interesting sight which everybody is talking about
and which she will never see. Thus, despite her
age and her retired life, the Empress is au courant
of everything, and is better informed than most
people of the progress of science and of the war.

She keeps her disillusions and her anger to herself,
so that it is difficult for those ignorant of the nuances
of her physiognomy to know whether she is pleased
or displeased, whether she approves or disapproves
of what she hears or sees. Her disapproval is
expressed only by silence and utter indifference.
If someone has offended her she will not utter a word.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPRESS 133

The unfortunate person is suppressed by a look;
she seems not to see the offender, who gathers
the impression that he or she has become invisible,
or no longer exists ! But her anger is soon over :
it vanishes at the utterance of a word or two at the
right moment.

A longer period of disfavour results when several
little annoyances are repeated and have wounded
the Empress. But this is quite exceptional and
when it happens it is not her fault. Deceptive and
fantastic natures, agreeable but dangerous, stupefy
her. Despite her moral solitude and her restricted
entourage she is very sociable. Everybody plays
a part in her thoughts. With all her strength she
combats misanthropy. She will not allow anyone
to lead the life of a savage. She holds rather
that one must take the opinion of the world into
account. She likes to be surrounded by people
and to be in the movement. Life being more ardent
in the young than in the old she has a preference for
the former, proof of which is to be found in the
simple aspect of those who gather round her at
Farnborough Hill and, before the war, at Cap
Martin.

Many " Majesties " must be imagined with a
crown on their head and a sceptre in hand in order
to realise their prestige. The Empress can easily
do without these emblems. Her empire is with her
wherever she may be. Like those favoured ecclesias-
tics who have their "personal Oratory" and can
celebrate service wherever they please, the Empress
transforms into a court the perfumed alleys of Villa
Cyrnos, the sinuous green paths of the park at
Farnborough Hill, the bridge of a yacht, even the

134 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

salon of an hotel, not so much by a complicated
protocol as by the pathetic 'dignity which radiates
from her. After forty-five years she remains a
" Majesty," because the majesty of her person
places such a distance between her and others that
no one forgets it for a moment. The only time
during the day that she performs a real act of
sovereignty is when she says good-night to those
around her. With one inclination of the head she
acknowledges the profound salutation of all, and with
this simple movement, rapid and marvellously effective,
she gives to each person with a different nuance
a ceremonious smile or a more familiar glance,
precious as a baise-main. By the time people have
looked up the Empress has vanished. In the distance
they see her going up the stairs. An imperceptible
trace of iris floats in the air. The lights are put out.

LuciEN Alphonse Daudet.

CHAPTER XII

A FRENCH LADY'S " APPRECIATION "

I SHOULD like to print here Madame Henriette
L'Huillier's extremely interesting essay (in large part
areviewofmy"The Empress Eugenie: 1870 — 1910"),
which appeared in the " Mount Angel Magazine,"
published in Oregon by the Benedictine Fathers :

While looking over some books on history at the
Portland Public Library, U.S.A. (historical research
has always been a hobby of mine), I happened to dis-
cover a remarkable work on the Empress Eugenie, by
Edward Legge. Nothing could arouse my interest
to a higher degree, as the Empress is intimately
associated with some of my childhood's reminiscences.

On a clear cold day in January, 1853, I saw her
triumphal progress from the Tuileries to the ancient
Notre Dame Cathedral, where the great bells an-
nounced her wedding to Napoleon III. in thunderous
accents. Again, three years later, I listened to the dull
roar of Mont Valerien's cannons, celebrating the
birth of the Prince Imperial, the much expected
heir of the dynasty.

Who could help admiring her glorious beauty,
her regal yet graceful and genial bearing as she
passed through the streets of Paris, leaving friendli-
ness and love in her wake ! Once she visited a
poor district in the city, to act as godmother to
135

136 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

an historical bell. This bell had been conquered at
the famous beleaguered city of Sebastopol, where
countless deeds of heroism had been achieved by the
valiant French troops.

How proud was the worthy Pere Blondeau to have
been successful in securing that memorial of victory
for his humble church ! How gratified was he to
see his parish honoured by the exalted presence
of his noble visitors ! Several dames d'honneur
(court ladies) of the Empress were personal acquaint-
ances of mine. All were enthusiastic admirers of
their brilliant Sovereign.

In 1867, when so many rulers of the world, as the
Sultan of Turkey, the Tsar of Russia, the King
of Prussia, with the Count Bismarck, came to visit
the brilliant Paris Exhibition; when, in honour of
such lordly guests, countless festivals were held,
each one of greater magnificence, where the Empress
Eugenie shone like a matchless star in a superb
diadem — who could have augured the disasters of
that " Ann^e terrible," 1870?

Over forty-five years have come and gone. The
beautiful wife of Napoleon III., the happy mother
of the " Petit Prince," the proud possessor of a
mighty crown, has lost husband, son, empire — lives
alone in a dream of memories. Her words are a sad
but salutary reminder of the frailty of earthly goods :
" I am left alone, the sole remnant of a shipwreck;
which proves how fragile and vain are the grandeurs
of this world. I cannot even die; and God, in his
infinite mercy, will give me a hundred years of life."
England, so rigorous and merciless towards Napoleon
I., was sympathetic and propitious to the Nephew and
his family.

A FRENCH " APPRECIATION " 137

As soon as the news of the catastrophe of Sedan
reached Paris, a tremendous excitement swayed that
city. The Empress-Regent was advised to leave
France at once, to avoid possible danger from the
rabble's infuriated acts. Her heart bleeding for the
sorrows of her adopted country, grievously alarmed
about the fate of her husband and son, she consented
to cross the Channel, in order that her two beloved
ones might join her in England, where a turn of the
tide could be awaited. A day came when they found
themselves thus once more reunited, but with little
hope of ever being restored to their throne again.
Upon their arrival in England, Queen Victoria
extended a gracious and hearty welcome to them,
and, once more, they were safe and sound. The
Emperor, being passionately fond of his son, devoted
himself exclusively to the education of the fifteen-
year-old prince.

Camden Place, Chislehurst, was a rather gloomy
contrast to the gay and bright Tuileries, but even
there the Imperial family could have tasted the
joys of happiness had not Napoleon's health been
visibly on the decline. Less than two years after
his return from his captivity at Wilhelmshohe, the
unfortunate Emperor was laid to rest.

The body of the great Napoleon's nephew was
placed in a sumptuous sarcophagus, presented by
Queen Victoria, and taken to St Mary's Church, where
the Rev. Isaac Goddard (later Monsignor Goddard)
received it with great pomp.

What words can picture the dreadful anguish of the
two survivors ! Never since was the august widow
seen without the sombre veil of mourning.

Six years later, in June, 1879, the unfortunate

138 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Prince Imperial died fighting for England in
South Africa, thus nobly paying his debt for the
hospitality his family had found in the British
kingdom.

Riddled by the murderous assegais of Zulu
warriors, his mangled body was found telling a tale
of desperate odds. Far from his native land, but
twenty-three years of age, the descendant of a great
dynasty perished in the wilderness. Poor mother !
Her last hope withered, her only comfort ravished.
. . . Nothing but utter solitude and two graves, side
by side.

In 1880 the Empress wished to purchase some
land adjoining this same church, for the purpose
of erecting thereon a mausoleum in memory of her
illustrious dead. The property belonged to a
wealthy zealous Protestant merchant. He refused
point blank to sell any part of it for the purpose of
enlarging St Mary's Church, or for the use of any
other Catholic institution. This finally induced the
Empress to leave Chislehurst. The estate of Farn-
borough happening to be in the market at that time,
she bought the same and moved there on September 30,
1880. It embraces about three hundred acres.
The mansion is a striking example of Early English
architecture. A sixty-eight-acre park, shaded by
many ancient trees, surrounds the impressive manor.
As a whole, it is a typical vista of " Old England."

A certain room of the house, called " Salle de Per,"
contains countless Napoleonic relics, constituting a
unique family museum. A statue of the Prince
Imperial, with his pet dog, adorns the conservatory.
At the foot lie various grasses, gathered by the
Empress in South Africa, when she made her sad

A FRENCH " APPRECIATION " 139

pilgrimage to Zululand — the mute testimony of a
love and sorrow beyond words !

The Empress is a great reader, eager to know
and understand everything. On her desk one can see
a book of J. K. Huysmans close to an up-to-date
medical review. She pleases herself, says M. L.
Daudet, and excels in regarding the past through
the light of the present. Joris Karl Huysmans was
a personal friend of mine. After his conversion he
was received as a Benedictine Oblate and buried
in the habit of the holy brotherhood at his death in
Paris, May, 1909. According to the French custom,
I assisted at the funeral in the Church of Notre Dame
des Champs and walked behind the hearse to the
Montparnasse cemetery.

In 1888 the remains of the Emperor Napoleon III.
and his son were removed from St Mary's Church
at Chislehurst to St Michael's Church, erected by
the Empress on the top of an eminence. To this
church was added a Priory that became later an Abbey
and has, since 1895, been attended by a Benedictine
community now composed of some forty members,
French and English, including " religieux de choeur
et freres laic."

The Rme. Pere Abbe, Dom F. Cabrol, elected
Lord Abbot of St Michael on July 20, 1903, was born
at Marseilles on December 11, 1855. Before 1903
he was Prior of what was then the Priory of Farn-
borough. Dom Cabrol is the author of several
volumes of great value to students of ecclesiological
and archaeological literature. Since the Benedictines
have been at Farnborough they have completed,
under Dom Cabrol's direction, a very important and
valuable work, entitled : " Dictionnaire d'Archeologie

HO EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Chretienne de Liturgie," characterised by the best
traditions of the Benedictine school.

At Farnborough Abbey the day's activities begin
at four A.M. The seven canonical hours in the
Catholic Breviary are recited during the day.
Between the services the members of the community
occupy themselves with intellectual work in the
silence of their cells, specially devoting themselves
to the study of archaeology, the Christian Liturgy and
ecclesiastical history. When circumstances require it,
the Benedictine monks, wherever they may be, under-
take preaching and other pastoral work.

By deed of gift, the Empress transferred the
Church and Abbey of St Michael — the imperial
mausoleum and its appurtenances — to the Benedictine
Monks in perpetuity. Now, the noble Andalouse,
the once so dazzling and envied French Sovereign,
the exiled and sorrowful widow of Napoleon III.,
the mother of the Prince Imperial, lives only in the
past :

" I have live'd — I have been. I do not want to be
anything more, not even a memory. I am the past —
one of those distant horizons, confused and lost,
which the traveller, looking back, gazes at from the
summit of a mountain, and which he forgets in
the expectation of viewing the new scenes already
outlined before him. I live, but I am no more : a
shadow, a phantom, a grief which walks. . . . Between
my past and my present not only fifty years inter-
vene, but ten centuries ! I am a poor woman, who
has lived long and suffered much. I am like one
who, walking backwards, gazes towards the horizon
which he has already passed. I have renounced
the future. I live in my youth and in my past. And

A FRENCH " APPRECIATION " 141

all the rest is shadow, deep shadow. I have no
more to expect. Even my sad winter is finishing."

After those solemn words of the once radiant
Empress, we can but bow our heads in mute respect
before this " grand adversity," and express our
sincere gratitude to Mr Edward Legge for his
authentic book on one of the most touching and
striking personalities of French history, the Empress
Eugenie.

Henriette L'Huillier.

CHAPTER XIII

ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS

The Empress Eugenie has seen the most redoubt-
able adversary of the Second Empire pass away,
five years her junior. One can scarcely imagine
that Henri Rochefort's appearance was unknown
to the Empress; still, I have heard that she had
never seen him until a few years before his death.

The Empress is of such a forgiving-and-forgetting
nature that she had doubtless pardoned the renowned
journalist for all his rudenesses to herself and the
dynasty. In a long conversation which I once had
with M. Rochefort in Paris, I found him delight-
fully frank and genial, brimful of humour. He
received me in his shirt-sleeves, and told me (as I
had seen for myself) that he wrote a " leader " every
day for his paper, just as in the old times. Not long
before his death, on July i, 19 13, he made an
extraordinary volte-face, casting in his lot with the
partisans of the Due d*Orleans, and even appearing
on the platform with the " White Carnations," or
" Camelots," who at one time caused the Royalist
Pretender so much embarrassment. But we must
remember that he came of an old Legitimist family,
and that he was by right the Marquis de Rochefort-
Lu^ay.

When we talk about the causes which led to the
disintegration of the Second Empire we must take

142

ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 143

into account the heavy blows dealt it by Rochefort's
little scarlet-covered pamphlet, the " Lanterne,'*
which did more harm to the regime than the most
violent attacks by equally able but less virulent pens.
Rochefort's methods as a pamphleteer were all the
more effectual because they were besprinkled with
jocose dicta. Frequently they were scabreux.

These are extracts translated by me for this
work from the more decorous numbers of the
" Lanterne " : —

(1868.) When, ten years ago, the Queen of England
came to Paris to pay a solemn visit to the actual lodgers at
the Tuileries, * the paid newspapers declared that Semiramis
was a mere blanchisseuse de fin as compared to this great
Queen. The journalist who allowed himself to criticise even
the colour of her dress would have been sentenced to be
shot several times running. ... If Queen Victoria visits the
Empress Eugenie she is immense. If the Queen declines
to visit the Empress she has taken leave of her senses.
[So the subventioned journals said, according to Rochefort. ]

A Spanish journalist has been sentenced to a year's imprison-
ment for writing fulsomely about thin women. In this was
seen an allusion to the embonpoint of the Queen of Spain,
who considered the reference to be indirectly aimed at her.
The Spanish journalist has been, however, better treated than
I was, for he got only a year's imprisonment, while I had
thirteen months' gaol for having offended the Empress by
letting it be supposed that some European Sovereigns perhaps
wore false hair.

(September lo, 1868.) Napoleon III. is decidedly the Offen-
bach of Emperors, not as chef d'orchestre, but as jettatore
[a person with an " evil eye "].

It suffices for him to visit the bedside of a person who is
ill to ensure the death of the sufferer that night. The Due de
Morny died immediately after the Emperor had called to
see him. Mocquard [the Emperor's secretary] no sooner

* Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie were so designated.

144 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

saw the hero of the Coup d'Etat enter the room in which he was
lying very ill than he died, without making any revelations.
The Spanish Government being in a bad way, Queen Isabella
contrived to get an interview with her powerful neighbour
[Napoleon III.], and immediately witnessed the overturn of
her throne before even she had had time to embrace this
providential man.

A woman recently arrived in Paris escorted on one side by
her husband and on the other by her amant. Well ! do
you know who is the mother who, far from turning her head
from this spectacle, entertained all three at her chateau at
Pau? The Empress of the French. Such are the tableaux
(vivants) that we are offered by the heads (less and less
crowned) of France and Spain. [The persons referred to
were Queen Isabella and Marfori, the Royal "favourite."]

The Empress, who seems to have assumed the Regency even
during the lifetime of this poor Emperor^ has expressed a
wish to see the streets of our principal towns named after
men who have left noble examples for others to follow.
I am of the same opinion as Madame la R6gente. At the
same time I am surprised that we have neither a Rue Victor
Hugo, a Rue Garibaldi, a Boulevard Baudin [an insurrectionist,
shot by Louis Napoleon's troops when defending a barricade],
nor a Square Gambetta, while we have a Rue Morny [the
Emperor's half-brother], who has left such a brilliant example
for us to follow ; and a Boulevard du Prince Imperial, who,
although twelve years and seven months old, has not shown
us any samples of his handwriting.

It will be seen by these few extracts from the
" Lanterne " that Henri Rochefort, knowing his
countrymen so well, obtained his effects by means of
that ridicule which, as Voltaire says, " always comes
off victorious " (" Le ridicule vient a bout de tout "),
while Beaumarchais holds that " Le ridicule tue en
France." How successful Rochefort was in his con-
tinuous " chaffing " of the Emperor and Empress
was admitted by that brilliant writer, the late JVI. Jules
Claretie, who, in one of his charming weekly

ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 145

letters in the " Temps " (" La Vie a Paris"), said
emphatically : " Rochefort overthrew the Empire."
The " Lanterne," price forty centimes, first appeared
in the latter part of May, 1868; No. 3 was published
on June 15. In October of that year the " Diable
a Quatre " (fifty centimes) was launched in a red
cover similar to that of the " Lanterne." De Ville-
messant, founder of the " Figaro," was one of the
editors, and made it known that Rochefort was in no
way associated with it ; in fact he was repudiated.

In 1869 Rochefort and another noted member
of the Corps Legislatif, Raspail, brought in a Bill
providing for a new organisation of the Constitution.
The Minister of the Interior having described it
as " a silly measure," Rochefort said : " If I am
ridiculous I shall never equal in that way the gentle-
man who walked on the sands of Boulogne with
an eagle on his shoulder and a bit of bacon in his
hat." This little gibe, so characteristically Roche-
fortian, highly tickled " the gentleman " in question
when he read it in the privacy of his sanctum at the
Tuileries. For all that, however, Rochefort was
prosecuted in June, 1869, for complicity in the illegal
introduction of the " Lanterne " into France (it
had been published at Brussels), and was sentenced
to three years' imprisonment, the payment of a
fine of 10,000 francs (;^40o), and forfeiture of his
rights as a citizen for three years.

Released from prison on the fall of the Empire
and chosen as a member of the Government of
National Defence, Rochefort in 1871 took an active
part in the Commune, and was one of many who
were deported to the penal settlement of New
Caledonia. In 1874 Rochefort and five of his friends

146 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

escaped through the good offices of an Englishman,
Captain David Law, who was paid ;^400 for con-
veying the six deportes to Australia. Captain
Law's story of the event was this : " The ship had
been cleared at the Custom House, and the pilot took
us outside the port, ready to start at daybreak.
I made some excuse to the pilot for not being able
to leave at the fixed time. The Communists had
not come aboard yet, and I had anchored, so as to
pick them up in the night. That evening I gave
orders that none of the crew were to remain on deck,
so that all were sound asleep when the fugitives
arrived. One of the Communists, named Bastien,
had charge of the boat which was to bring them from
the shore. I understood that Bastien was the owner
of the boat; and on Friday, at two in the morning,
the six Communists came aboard — namely, Henri
Rochefort, Paschal Grousset, Ollivier Pain, Jourde,
Balliere and Bastien. Immediately they had climbed
on deck the little boat was stove in and sunk.
I led the new-comers to the stern cabin, and by the
dim light at once recognised Henri Rochefort,
whose photograph I happened to have in my cabin.
I then placed them all in the store-room, where
they remained until we were far out at sea.
M. Balliere did not give me any money at Noumea,
for the very good reason that he had none; and
it was only on our arrival at Sydney that they
received funds from France by telegraph. They
assured me that it was Gambetta who helped them."
One result of their escape was that the captain of
the port, M. Gouet, lost his situation, and subsequently
fell into the direst misery. M. Magnin, one of
the members of the Government of National Defence

ROCHEFORT AND THE EMPRESS 147

of 1870, died in November, 19 10, leaving Rochefort
the sole survivor of that government.

Paris (and London when he was here for a con-
siderable period in the eighties) could show no more
striking figure than that of the amazing fighting
journalist, author, pamphleteer and art expert. He
was over six feet in height, neither actually stout
nor thin, but finely proportioned, and when I met
him as upright as a lath. He was Mephistophelian
in appearance. His heavy military moustache and
imperial (the goatee of the Americans) and his
soldierly bearing suggested a Napoleonic Cent-Garde
— as fine a regiment as our Life Guards. I had
seen these splendid fellows at the Tuileries when,
as a boy, I first went to Paris, with a " tenner " in
my pocket on which I lived for a fortnight en prince,
or so I thought at the time, the time "When all the
world is young, lad, and every goose a swan."
Three or four years later I saw them on the battle-
field. Rochefort was bon diable. He did all the
talking and enjoyed it. We stayed an hour or so,
and then he said suddenly : " Well, I'm delighted
to have seen you, my dear Millage, and your young
friend. If he writes anything about me be sure
I see it. He ought to live among us for a year or two
— it would be the making of him."

When next I saw him he was in exile in London,
and living Regent's Park way. There was a
French artist named Pilotel, who made a large income
by (drawing fashion pictures for the " Lady's Pictorial."
An old friend, Henry Pottinger Stephens (the
" Pot " Stephens of the " Sporting Times " and
later of the "Daily Telegraph"), made me acquainted
with the artist and I got to know him very well.

148 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

I believe Pilotel had been a Communard in 1871.
Between him and Rochefort there was the bitterest
enmity. " Rochefort, that canaille ! " he would say,
in his English-French. " He is a rank coward —
everybody knows that. I will follow him all over
Europe and denounce him. Canaille, Canaille,
Canaille ! I spit upon him — like this. " One day
the two met outside the Cafe Royal. There was
a scrimmage and both were walked off to Vine
Street police station. I think they were in custody
only for a very short time, and that they did not go
before the " beak " at Marlborough Street. Pilotel
had " diggings " near Jermyn Street and Stephens
told me that he had adorned the walls of his bed-
sitting-room with as choice a group of young women
" in the altogether " as any old West End satyr
could have wished to see. I never inspected the
Pilotel exhibition. An eminent man, Diderot, once
said : " I like to see nudities well enough ; but
I do not like anyone to show them to me." I think
most men share that opinion. I have no " views "
on this subject, nor on that of feminine dress in 19 16.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE'S FAMILY TREE

The little Spanish town of Montijo, in the province
of Badajoz, was raised to the dignity of a comte in
1697 by King Carlos 11. for the benefit of Jean de
Porto-Carrero (a member of a Genoa family), who
married the sister of the Comte de Teba, of the
old family of the Guzmans. One of the three sons
of that gentleman was the father of the Empress
Eugenie. He was a Count of Teba and a Count of
Montijo and also a Marquis of Ardales. Further
genealogical details appear in other works,
blunders and all, and are of the slightest interest
except to those who care to amuse themselves and
puzzle their readers. Amiable attempts have been
made to surround the parentage of the Empress
with suspicion; to sully her fair fame; and some
French journals concerned in the promulgation of
these libels were successfully prosecuted. Since
those prosecutions the august lady has remained
indifferent to what has been published on the subject.

It was in the house No. 12 Rue de Gracia, Granada,
that the Empress Eugenie was reputed to be
born, and there is still to be seen on it an inscription
in Spanish to that effect. It runs :

En este casa nacio la illustre

Seftora Dofta Eugenie de Guzman

y Portocarrero,

Actual Emperatriz de los Franceses.

149

I50 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

El Ayuntamiento de Granada

Al Colocar esta Lapida se honra con

Al recuerdo de so noble compatricia

Ano de 1867.

The official certificate of birth of the Empress
Eugenie recites that she was born at Granada on
May 5, 1826, and baptized in the Chapel Royal of that
town in the names of Marie Eugenie Ignace Augustine,
the legitimate daughter of the " excellentissimes
seigneurs D. Cipriano Guzman Palafox y Portocarrero
et Dame da Maria Manuel Kirkpatrick y Grivegnee,
Comte de Teba, Marquis d'Ardales, et Grand
d'Espagne." The mother is stated in this document
to have been the " daughter of M. Guillaume
Kirkpatrlck-Wilson, native of Dumfrite (Dumfries),
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and of
Dona Francisca Grivegnee y Gallegos, native of
Malaga." The copy of the original document was
made at Granada on December 21, 1889.

" The Empress regrets that she cannot become
a patroness of the Glasgow Dumfriesshire Society.
For a long time past she has declined to accept the
numerous invitations of this kind which she has
received, asking her to allow her name to appear
on public lists of [benevolent] associations, and
she regrets that she cannot in this case make an
exception to her invariable rule. To show the Interest
which she takes in the Glasgow Dumfriesshire
Society, however, she encloses a cheque for ;^5."

Such, In substance, is the letter addressed by
M. Pietrl, In October, 1908, to Professor Edgar, of
St Andrews University, president of the Glasgow
Dumfriesshire Society, who had requested the
Empress to allow her name to be placed upon the

THE EMPRESS'S FAMILY TREE 151

list of patrons of the association. M. Pietri added
that " very old family ties " caused the Empress
to take an interest in the society ; hence the donation,
in the form of a cheque signed "Comtesse de Pierre-
fonds." Her Majesty's name had not then often
figured on subscription lists or amongst the patrons of
our innumerable philanthropic institutions; so that
M. Pietri's communication came as an interesting
novelty and was honoured by universal mention
in the Press. Further, it served to remind the public
of the Empress's connection with Dumfriesshire
through the Kirkpatricks of Closeburn.

Mr Tom Wilson, in the " Dumfries Courier and
Herald," noted " a most interesting fulfilment of
a Thomas-the-Rhymer prophecy that, when the moat
of Closeburn Castle should be filled up and the
dungeons used for household purposes, a descendant
of the Kirkpatricks would sit on an Imperial throne —
conditions which were effected by Sir Charles Gran-
ville Stuart-Menteth, somewhere before 1847,
converting the old peel tower into a dairy; which
was followed, in 1853, by this daughter of the
Kirkpatricks becoming the consort of Napoleon III."

The correspondence between Professor Edgar and
M. Pietri formed an agreeable subject of con-
versation and comment in Scotland, and particularly
in Dumfriesshire, and led to the publication in the
journal above-mentioned of what may be regarded
as the only accurate version of the Empress's Scottish
ancestry. I am indebted to Professor Edgar for
the subjoined copy of the statement referred to : —

Once in the long ago the Empress Eugenie's ancestors
were a power in Dumfriesshire. Tradition says the Kirk-
patricks held lands in Nithsdale as far back as a.d, 800,

152 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

and traced their descent from the giant King Finn, the
son of Cool, through his son Ossian, the poet. Yvone de
Kirkpatrick (1135), Knight of Closeburn, married the Lady
Euphemia Bruce, who was descended from the Royal Kenneth
M'Alpine (a.d. 843) through the granddaughter of King
Edmund Ironside. The friendship between the families of
Bruce and Kirkpatrick seems to have lasted long, for King
Robert Bruce, in 1306, spoke of Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, the
slayer of the Red Comyn, as his old friend, " vetus amicus."
Another Kirkpatrick captured Caerlaverock Castle from King
Edward of England fifty years after. In 1454, young
Alexander Kirkpatrick took James, the ninth Earl of Douglas,
prisoner at the battle of Burnswark, but he nobly refused
to give him up until he was assured of the old man's pardon.
Then his king gave him the lands of Kirkmichael as his
guerdon. This Alexander was second son of another Sir
Roger Kirkpatrick of Closeburn by his wife, Mary, the
daughter of Lord Somerville, and granddaughter of Alexander,
Lord Darnley, ancestor of James VI. of Scotland and I. of
England.

Kirkmichael remained with this branch of the family for
nearly two centuries, and to this day may be seen grand
old trees, probably planted by Wm. Kirkpatrick, the last
laird of Kirkmichael, for he sold portions of his property
to Sir John Charteris of Amisfield, and lived at Knock till
his death. He is buried in the kirkyard of Garrel, close to
the ruins of the old church. On the lintel of the doorway
is carved the date of 161 7. Mr Campbell Gracie cleared
away the moss on the tombstone, and the inscription read : —
" Here lies the corps of William Kirkpatrick, who departed
this life 9th June, 1686. His eldest son, George Kirkpatrick
of Knock, who departed this life 1738, aged 67 years."
To this day the inscription and the coat of arms can easily
be traced. Next this grave is the stone erected to the
memory of the Empress Eugenie's great-great-great-grand-
father— Robert Kirkpatrick of Glenkiln. Legend says he
was beheaded in Edinburgh for his loyal adherence to the
Stuarts, but nothing of this is related on his stone. It only
records his many good qualities : — " Robert Kirkpatrick
of Glenkiln, died 12 Oct., 1746, aged 68 years. The
superior qualities . . . the perfected . . . aided by honest

THE EMPRESS'S FAMILY TREE 153

. . . duties . . . his attention in his life ... his amiable dis-
position endeared him to ... ' Mrs Kirkpatrick ' (she was
a Miss Gillespie of Craigsheills), died 2'j June, 1771, aged

. " This Robert was the Laird of Kirkmichael's second

son. Robert's third son, William, of Conheath, and of Over
and Nether Glenkiln and Lambfoot, Kirkmichael, married
Mary Wilson, the heiress of Kelton, Kirkcudbright, and had
by her nineteen children. His sixth son, William, emigrated to
Spain, where he married Dona Francesca de Grivegnee, the
daughter of the Baron de Grivegnee, whose other daughter
married the grandfather of the celebrated Ferdinand de Lesseps.

William Kirkpatrick seems to have travelled a good deal
in his time, for he visited his kinsfolk in County Dublin,
the descendants of George Kirkpatrick of Knock. They
still preserve his letters written from Malaga, where he was
American Consul. He was in business as a wine merchant,
and suffered severely from the French invasion of Spain.
He had one son and four daughters : the son and one daughter
died in infancy. His three surviving daughters were all
very beautiful — the eldest, Dona Maria Manuela, married the
wealthy Count de Monti jo, a grandee of Spain of the first
rank ; Dona Carlota Catalona married her cousin, Thomas
James, son of John Kirkpatrick of Conheath ; Dona Henriqueta
married Don Domingo Carbarrus y Quelty, Count de
Carbarrus.

When the Count de Montijo, who also was Duke de
Tameranda, was engaged to the lovely Maria Manuela Kirk-
patrick— as he was one of the most illustrious nobles of the
land — it was necessary for him to ask his Sovereign's consent,
which could not be given till the lady's ancestry was proved
equal to the Count's. Mr Kirkpatrick at once wrote to his
relative, the late Chas. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Hoddam, who
soon sent his pedigree showing the quartering of his family.
So illustrious did the Kirkpatrick tree appear that the King
at once exclaimed, " Let the good man marry the daughter
of Fingal. " The issue of this marriage was — first, Dona
Maria Francesca de Sales, who married the Duke de Berwick
and Alba, and died in i860; the second was the beautiful and
amiable Dona Maria Eugenie, who married Napoleon HL,
Emperor of the French.

154 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

In December, 1907, Mr T. Fisher Unwin still
further enlightened us by this interesting communica-
tion to a London paper : —

Your notes on the Kirkpatrick family recall to my mind my
old friend, Mr Kirkpatrick, coffee and tea dealer, Queen Street,
Cheapside. It must be nearly forty years ago when I
used to take home a weekly supply of fresh-roasted coffee
from his shop. It was an old-fashioned place, small windows
with china bowls of coffee and tea, about the last of the old
type of coffee and tea merchants. Mr Kirkpatrick himself
was typical of the old-time gentleman tradesman, with a stick-
up collar, stock and dress-coat. He. always used to refer to
the Empress as his cousin Eugenie. Such is my memory,
but others may be able to give fuller details. The shop was
very near the spot which is now Jones & Evans's bookshop,
only, of course, the street has been set back since that date.

Some of the Empress's Scottish connections reside
in Paris, as witness this item from the " Figaro "
(January 30, 1909) : " The-bridge chez Mme Kirk-
patrick de Closeburn. Remarque dans I'elegante
assistance — Princesse de Faucigny-Lucinge, Comtesse
de Tredern, Mme Wellesley, Duchesse de Bellune,
etc."

The Empress's sojourn in Ireland in July, 1909,
is fully narrated in my previous work, "The Empress
Eugenie: 1870 — 1910." As, however, the Imperial
lady's genealogy formed a fruitful theme for dis-
cussion during the visit, a brief reference to the
question may be made here. " The Empress's
visit," remarked the " Irish Times," " has a special
interest from the fact that in coming to Ireland
she is visiting the home of her ancestors, her
Majesty being a descendant of an Irish gentleman
who settled in Spain."

THE EMPRESS'S FAMILY TREE 155

Mr Alf. S. Moore, writing in another Dublin
periodical, " The Lady of the House," headed a
well-illustrated article, " An Empress of France in
the Home of her Ancestors. How a Belfast Mer-
chant's Granddaughter became the last Empress
of France." " It is necessary," said Mr Moore, " to
go back considerably over a century to trace the
Empress's forbears." At that period " the shops
in Belfast were modest, and few of them less pre-
tentious than the small warehouse in Bridge Street
behind the little many-framed window over which
creaked the hanging sign of ' William Kirkpatrick,
Grocer.' "

Mr Kirkpatrick's " restless spirit ill-fitted him
to be a grocer in an Irish country town " ; the sea-
captains who visited his shop painted an alluring
picture of the Republic across the Atlantic, " a
land flowing with milk and honey," and so dazzling
was the prospect that he emigrated. In the United
States he " soon found himself climbing the ladder;
and as * drummer,' or buyer, for several Belfast
and Dublin merchants, he watched his purse fatten."
In course of time he was appointed United States'
Consul at Malaga, married and had one son and
four daughters; the boy and two of his sisters died,
leaving Mr and Mrs Kirkpatrick with two daughters,
one of whom became the Comtesse de Montijo, mother
of the Empress Eugenie and the late Duchesse
d'Albe.

This is a variant of the accepted genealogy of
the Imperial lady. It was, however, reserved for
Mr Moore to tell us that the Empress's grandfather
had resided at Belfast, although the Scottish version
of the family history had informed us that William

156 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Kirkpatrick " seems to have travelled a good deal
in his time," and to have " visited his kinsfolk in
county Dublin."

Assuming Mr Moore to be correct in his facts,
" an " ancestor of the Empress — her paternal grand-
father— did reside, for an unstated time, in Ireland,
although he was born in Scotland. The assertion
of the " Irish Times " that William Kirkpatrick
was an " Irish gentleman " is not, therefore, strictly
speaking, accurate ; but probably it will be agreeable
to the Empress and her friends to find the chivalrous
and warm-hearted natives of the Green Isle —

First flower of the earth, first gem of the sea —

expressing so ardent a desire to prove that she is
of Irish descent. No one will need to be reminded
of the sympathetic link which has so long existed
between the Irish and the French. During the war
of 1870 correspondents of Irish journals who were
attached, as I was, to the German forces were not
infrequently twitted with the friendly feeling dis-
played by Ireland for France.

CHAPTER XV

THE EMPRESS'S TEARS

For the second time since her arrival in the land of
her exile, in September, 1870, the Empress Eugenie
has been seen in an English Protestant place of
worship, and on both occasions it was a mourning
service at which she assisted. In Lord Sydney, the
most notable Lord Chamberlain of the Victorian reign,
she had had a valued friend, who had been one of
the distinguished personages gathered around the
coffin of the Prince Imperial in the little Catholic
Church at Chislehurst in the summer of 1879. The
funeral service for Lord Sydney was solemnised
in the Protestant Church of Chislehurst ; and not a few
of the congregation — Mr Gladstone, Lord Granville
and other Liberal statesmen — were surprised when the
Prince who is enshrined in our memory as Edward VII.
was seen leading in the widow of Napoleon III.

That was the Imperial lady's first appearance
in an English Protestant church. For the second
time (November 5, 19 14) she listened to, and took an
eager part in, the beautiful Anglican service for
the dead at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, in
memory of Prince Maurice of Battenberg, one of the
gallant sons of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter.
With Princess Beatrice (whose character has been
portrayed by her illustrious mother in a glowing
tribute, penned on the occasion of her confirmation)
the Empress has been on the most affectionate terms
157

158 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

for forty-four years; still, the surprise of the day at
the in memoriam service in the Palace Chapel in
1 9 14 was the presence of the aged godmother of the
Queen of Spain, the only sister of the young hero
whose loss the nation laments.

Eugenie de Montijo, for eighteen years Empress of
the French, was the one historic figure in that gathering
of two Queens, a King, an Heir-Apparent, Princes
and Princesses of our own Royal House, a Prince and
two Princesses of the French Orleans Royal Family,
Ambassadors and Ministers of Legation, the few
surviving members of that " Old Guard " who spent
their best years in the service of King Edward and
Queen Alexandra, two Field-Marshals (Lords Kit-
chener and Grenfell), a Russian Grand Duke, and the
Prime Minister.

A Bonapartist Empress, Princesses of the family
of King Louis Philippe, our own Sovereign Lord, and
our Sovereign Ladies kneeling side by side in the
Chapel Royal on " Inkerman " Day — here was a
spectacle for the historians of this reign, so teeming
with events and episodes for which the printed page
has no parallel.

Among this congregation of the elite were to be seen
four who knew better than all others the extremely
cordial relations which, from 1870 onwards, have
formed an indissoluble link between certain members
of our Royal Family and the Empress. These are
Queen Alexandra, Lord Knollys, Miss Charlotte
Knollys and Sir Dighton Probyn. The initiative
was taken by Queen Victoria, who, very shortly after
the arrival of the dethroned lady on our shores early
in the September of the " Terrible Year," took
Princess Beatrice with her to Chislehurst to offer the

THE EMPRESS'S TEARS 159

hand of friendship to the fair exile, whose hospitality
had been extended to our Sovereign and her two
eldest children at a period when the Napoleonic star
was at its brightest.

In January, 1873, the Queen and Princess Beatrice,
watched, from a gallery in the grounds of Camden
Place, the funeral cortege of the Emperor. When,
six and a half years later, the country was shocked
by the tragedy in Zululand, the Queen and her
daughter hastened to condole with the stricken
Empress. Later they were not infrequently at Farn-
borough Hill. Often since the Queen's death the
mother of Prince Maurice has consoled the Empress
at Cap Martin, and Princess Christian has cheered
the veuve tragique at her picturesque Hampshire
home.

When the untimely death of Edward VH. steeped
the Empire in gloom no letters were more sympathetic,
and few more masterly, than those written by the
Empress to the members of our Royal Family,
notably to Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of
Battenberg, and Princess Christian. It was the
grateful remembrance of all these Royal friend-
ships that impelled the Empress, in her eighty-ninth
year, to range herself by the side of her cherished
friend, Princess Henry, in the hour of her grief. As
they greeted each other, on arriving and departing,
the Empress's eyes were bedewed with tears.

As the " Requiem ^ternam " and Mendelssohn's
" Marche Funebre " filled the little fane with divine
melody and " Lie still, beloved," brought tears into
many eyes, some of the soldiers present may have had
in their thoughts the tender words of the " enemy "
song : " I had a comrade — you could not find a

i6o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

better one. The drum called to battle. He marched
next to me, at the same pace. A bullet comes flying.
Is it for me or for you? It brings him down. He
is lying at my feet as if he were a piece of myself."

You do not know a man thoroughly until you have
stood by his side when bullets sing and shells fly.
Nights in the trenches and the march into action at
sunrise reveal the souls of men to each other as they
are never otherwise revealed. Those who shared
with Maurice of Battenberg the perils and the glories,
the happiness and the miseries of life at " the front "
will retain memories of his pluck, his lovable nature,
and his good comradeship. For all he had a cheery,
kindly word, and all had a kindly word for him.

While tenderest sympathy went out to the bereaved
and widowed mother, affectionate thoughts were of
another Prince, who, in 19 lo, passed out of a crowded
life of soldiering abroad and well-doing at home :
Queen Mary's brother, Francis, whose last hours were
solaced by the presence of a loving sister and her
King-Consort, who closed the eyes of one who had
fought for our cause in Egypt and in South Africa
and had nobly earned the Victorian medal and the
D.S.O.

CHAPTER XVI

THE EMPRESS'S " INDISCRETIONS "

The Empress had not been in England two months
ere she surprised the world by publishing two docu-
ments which can be classed only as " indiscretions."
Who prompted her to perpetrate these absurdities
I cannot say, but Mr Algernon Borthwick, * the
editor of the " Morning Post," knew, and, as the
friend of the Emperor Napoleon, and his Majesty's
constant supporter in the London Press, he was
within his right in criticising these effusions.

Both communiques were sent from Chislehurst
to the " Daily News." The second in point of fact,
but the more remarkable of the two, was originally
written in French. The editor explained that it
was " an authentic statement of facts, and of the
views of the illustrious lady mainly concerned " ; and
that his " sole object in publishing the communica-
tion" was " to afford an opportunity for the rectification
of false statements which had been very generally
diffused." From the " Daily News " (October,
1870):

"Since her arrival in England the Empress Eugenie
has not only remained a stranger to every intrigue, but
has repelled, with energy and dignity, everything
which looked like a Bonapartist conspiracy. It is

* The late Lord Glenesk (died October, 1908).
L 161

162 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

not to be inferred that she has lost all hope of a
restoration, nor is her present silence to be construed
to the prejudice of the future; but, with a political
sagacity which misfortune has rendered more clear-
sighted than ever, she has perceived that the moment
for dynastic speculations is not yet arrived, and
that too great haste would infallibly prove fatal
to her hopes. At this moment her anxieties are
of another kind. With the same fidelity as if she
were still in France, and in full possession of the power
which the disaster of Sedan destroyed, her thoughts
were occupied solely with the national defence.
Upon that point her ideas are in complete accord
with those of the Government of Tours — the refusal
of all cession of territory.

" The evidence of this may be found in her answer to
the first emissary sent to her by M. de Bismarck
on the 15th of last month (September), when she had
been only a few days in England, and when the
events that had brought about her exile were still so
recent that she might perhaps have been excused
if she had seized on the first opportunity of exercising
her authority as Regent. Prussia, at that time, was
ready to make peace. The victories of Weissenberg,
of Forbach and of Sedan were enough for her
glory. Public opinion in Germany had not then
been embittered by the continuance of a war which
the surrender of the Emperor promised at first to
terminate, and the Chancellor of the North German
Federation did not then feel himself obliged to
conclude a peace on the basis of Strasburg — the
key of the house, as he calls that French city —
with a portion of the department of the Bas-Rhin,
including but 250,000 inhabitants, and with a war

THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 163

in'demnity of 2,000,000,000 of francs.* The Empress
rejecting, long before the Provisional Government,
the idea of territorial cession, refused this proposition ;
which has remained so completely unknown that views
are to-day imputed to her which would be wholly
inconsistent with her past acts, and as hostile to
her interests as to those of France. No doubt
conversations take place at Chislehurst between the
Empress and her household. The chances of restora-
tion and the means to be employed when the hour
shall strike may well be discussed, but such views
are private and have remained private, nor has
any indiscretion — a thing in itself improbable — given
to anybody the right to state them in a positive
form, much less to give them an official character.

"To form a juster estimate of the various narratives
that have been published, it needs only to keep
in mind the intrigue in which General Bourbaki
became an involuntary tool, or that famous manifesto
imputed to the prisoner of Wilhelmshohe. It is
known to-day how entirely ignorant was the Empress
of those two matters, and what a surprise to her
was the arrival of the confidant of Marshal Bazaine.
It ought to be equally well known that her desire
to take part in none of the intrigues of which it was
sought to make Chislehurst the centre has been
formally expressed. The Empress lives in the most
absolute retirement, surrounded by a few persons
whose devotion is known, coming but seldom to
London, dividing her hopes between France and her
son. The arrival of General Boyer was as unexpected
as that of General Bourbaki. It was only natural

* ;^8o, 000,000. The money indemnity alone ultimately
exacted was five milliards of francs, or ;^20o,ooo,ooo.

i64 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

that the envoy sent by Marshal Bazaine to the
Prussian headquarters should have thought it a
duty, when his mission was accomplished, to pay
his respects to the Empress at Chislehurst, and to
apprise her of what was passing at Metz. Everything
beyond this is pure imagination. There was no
question of a military revolution in the interview
of last Saturday at Chislehurst, but solely of the
possibility of continued resistance. To suppose that
the discussion between the Empress and General
Boyer had any other end is to hold light the military
honour of the defender of Metz, as well as to confess
ignorance of the relations existing since the Mexican
war between Marshal Bazaine and the Empress,
with whom he has never been a favourite.

" From such an interview, it is a long step to that
project of the Empress's journey, and to that part
she was to be made to play in the negotiations
for peace. No doubt the Empress eagerly desires to
see an end of hostilities ; but whatever those reckless
partisans whose dangerous services she rejects may
assert, or allow to be supposed, and whatever may be
the diplomatic intrigues of which M. de Bismarck
desires to make her an instrument, it is certain that she
does not dream of sacrificing an inch of French
territory or any part of the honour of the country to
her dynastic interest.

" When Alsace and Lorraine shall be no longer
in question, the Empress will doubtless use every
effort to put herself in agreement with the country,
with a view to obtaining an honourable peace, but
till then she will abstain, with the same dignity
and resolution as heretofore.

" In view of a recent communication, it is proper to

THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 165

add that family intrigues succeed no better with
the Empress than those which are hatched from
beyond the Rhine. What is known of the two inter-
views between the Empress and her cousin, Prince
Napoleon, serves to show her firmness and her just
appreciation of men, as well as of circumstances.
It is well known indeed that the Emperor's cousin
has never been in any great odour of sanctity at the
Tuileries, and that the Empress personally has
taken little pains to conceal her prepossessions
against one whom she has always considered the
Emperor's enemy. The political temperament of
Prince Napoleon, and his philosophical and moral
opinions, were, it is true, but little in accordance with
those of the Empress, and the sad events of which
France has been the victim did not in any way tend
to reconcile views or feelings, between which there
had been no possible point of contact. Be that as it
may, and not to push an inquiry into psychological
peculiarities, it is certain that the second and last visit
of Prince Napoleon at Chislehurst ended in an
explosion. The Prince may protest as much as he
likes ; that will not alter the facts.

" During this last visit Prince Napoleon, with his
usual impulsiveness, allowed himself to express
somewhat harshly his opinions touching the different
Ministries of the last month of the Empire, and he
went so far as to call one of them a Ministry of
idiots (cretins). Now, the sentiment of gratitude
is very strong with the Empress, and she made a
reply to her illustrious cousin, of which the following
sentences convey the substance, if not the precise
words : ' I know not, Monseigneur,' said the
Empress, ' what you mean by a Ministry of idiots;

i66 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

but what I do know is that, down to the last moment,
the Emperor was served by devoted and faithful
friends. For the last eighteen months you have
opposed the Empire; and those about you have
never ceased to undermine it, and to-day, when the
Emperor is fallen, you pursue him still. Had you
been at Paris on the 4th of September you might
have been able to give us good advice, but you were
absent, as you have so often happened to be at the
moment of danger, of course to your great regret,
as I do not doubt.' Upon this. Prince Napoleon
tarried no longer. He took up his hat and left the
room."

On the day after the appearance of this Chislehurst
" Manifesto," as it was termed, Mr Borthwick
reproduced it in the " Morning Post," accompanied
by a trenchant leading article, portions of which are
appended : —

" Francis I. wrote, ' Tout est perdu fors I'honneur.'
The Empire will hardly save even that remnant if
its representatives insist on giving to the world such
material for scandal as is afforded by the statement
which we publish in another column. We have ever
held the Empress Eugenie in the highest respect,
and now more than ever is it incumbent on English-
men to testify their regard for the dynasty which
has been faithful to the English alliance, and which,
in its exile, claims from us every expression of
sympathy and hospitality. But about her Imperial
Majesty there must be some very injudicious advisers.
Whatever course that illustrious lady may choose
to pursue, it cannot be right to publish to the world

THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 167

the secrets and the family quarrels of Chislehurst.
We have no wish to learn that Prince Napoleon
called the Ollivier Cabinet a Ministry of Cretins,
or that the Empress in reply taunted the Prince in
the strongest words which a woman could use to a
man, and that he took up his hat and left the room.
Such painful scenes should not be forced on public
attention, and those who advised their Mistress to
disclose the squabbles of a divided House are
guilty, not only of bad taste, but of positive treason.
The explosion at Chislehurst should have been
treated like the great work of Slawkenbergius. The
philosophical and moral opinions of Prince Napoleon,
his psychological peculiarities, and their little accord-
ance with those of the Empress, are subjects which
had best be left alone, and not stirred before the
public face."

The Empress, Mr Borthwick pointed out, had
rejected, at Chislehurst, Bismarck's offers, and " the
Germans were positively forced forward by the
foolish incapacity of the persons they treated with."
" It is deplorable to think that those about the Empress
should have only seen a ' Bonapartist conspiracy'
in the offer of easy terms. What flatterers can have
told her Majesty that ' her political sagacity is
more clear-sighted than ever, that the moment for
dynastic speculations is not yet arrived, and that too
great haste would infallibly prove fatal to her
hopes ' ? How trifling is the fate of a dynasty when
compared with the ruin of an Empire ! "

One can see the Prisoner at Wilhelmshohe reading
the article, and thanking his stars that at least one
friend remained candid enough to warn his impetuous

i68 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

consort of the blunders she was making at the
instigation of the " self-seeking toadies who sur-
rounded her, each more ruse than the other." * But
this washing of the Imperial linen in public, these
refusals of the Regent to listen to the " easy terms "
proffered by the Chancellor of the North German
Confederation, were more than blunders — they were,
in the editor of the " Morning Post's " words,
'^ positively high treason." The results of the
" policy " originated in the Blue Salon at Camden
Place were seen a couple of months later, in the
terms of peace not offered, but demanded and exacted
— the cession of the two provinces and a cash
indemnity of ;^ 200,000,000, with sundry other humilia-
ting conditions. Moltke thought it " not enough,"
and would have added another milliard, another
;!/^ 40,000,000, to the indemnity, but for Bismarck's
objections and the intercession of the British Govern-
ment. Bismarck was, as the Eton boy wrote of
Dr Benson, " a beast," but he was " a just beast " —
always, of course, in the interests of the Fatherland.

The " Manifesto " which aroused the ire of
Mr Borthwick was not the first document of its kind
which emanated from Chislehurst while the Empress
was still invested with the powers (such as they then
were) of the Regency. Two days before the appear-
ance of the effusion printed at the beginning of this
chapter a species of avant-coureur had been published,
also in the " Daily News " (just then at the height
of its enviable reputation), and reproduced by the
" Morning Post " and the " Times " :—

" Notwithstanding what is announced, and even
* " Morning Post," October 29, 1870,

THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 169

affirmed, in certain English journals pretending to
have the best information, the Empress Eugenie has
taken no part in any one of the combinations referred
to having for their object either peace or an armistice.
The salon at Chislehurst has not become, in any sense,
an official salon. It is still that of an exile; and
if its doors are open to those who knock for admittance
it is not to afford them a field for discussing peace
or war. General Boyer, the envoy of Marshal
Bazaine, may have approached the Empress with a
view to propositions of peace or war to be submitted
to Prussia, but he was received with no more favour
than were the emissaries of M. de Bismarck on
a former occasion. When a former envoy of the
Chancellor of the North German Confederation came
to propose peace, declaring that King William was
disposed to content himself with 2 5o,cxx) French
inhabitants, Strasburg included, the Empress replied
with great energy that, so long as an enemy was in
France, and so long as there was any question of the
smallest cession of territory, she would hold aloof
from every negotiation. The events of the last month
have made no change in her resolution, and so far
as the efforts of General Boyer have been directed to
this point they have completely failed.

" Nor could the mission of General Boyer have
had for its object to consult the Empress as to the
propriety of surrendering Metz at this moment.
That is only one way of connecting the real object
of his journey. Marshal Bazaine, confident in the real
strength of his position as a general who has suffered no
defeat, and at the head of the only French army which
still exists, thinks himself entitled to exercise not
a little influence on the question whether peace shall

I70 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

be made or hostilities continue. He would gladly
make himself indispensable; would gladly be the
dictator, with whom the enemy would have to treat,
taking the lead both of the Government which sits at
Tours and of that which is shut up in Paris. He
would rejoice that France should owe peace or victory
to him, and to him only. This is a respectable
ambition, exaggerated as it may perhaps be; but it
must not be inferred that Marshal Bazaine would
rather conclude a peace favourable to the Napoleonic
dynasty than in accordance with the true interests
of his country.

" There is, then, no particle of truth in the stories
told about the interview at Chislehurst; and it can
scarcely be necessary to add that the approaching
journey of the Empress to King William's head-
quarters belongs, like all the rest, to that domain of
invention in which the subtle genius of Prussia,
coming to the aid of her present difficulties, has con-
trived, during the last few weeks, to lead us astray.

" Prince Napoleon, taking sides with those who
would perhaps have wished to induce the Empress
to commit an indiscretion, has had his trouble for
his pains, while his violent recriminations against
the past policy of the Empire had no other result
than to compel him to listen to some harsh truths from
his Imperial cousin [the Empress] and to cause
him to quit Chislehurst somewhat suddenly — where
indeed his reception had been of the coldest."

With the severe censure of the " Morning Post "
ringing in her ears and, we may be certain, a copy
of the Bonapartist organ in her pocket, the Empress
started on a flying visit to her husband, travelling

THE EMPRESS'S "INDISCRETIONS" 171

as " Comtesse Clary," and escorted by the Count
himself. Mr Borthwick's denunciation of the Mani-
festo appeared on the 29th of October; on the
following day the Empress reached Wilhelmshohe,
and probably had to listen to a lecture from her
consort on the folly of alienating their champion
in the London Press at a moment when his support
was doubly precious.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW THE GERMANS TREATED THEIR
EMPEROR-PRISONER

The 3rd of September, 1870, fell on a Saturday.
On the I St the battle of Sedan had been fought; the
next day the arrangements for the surrender of the
French forces were completed, and the Emperor
had delivered himself into the King of Prussia's
hands, a prisoner. On the 3rd the Empress's consort
began, unknown to her at the moment (she was still
at the Tuileries, which she vacated on the 4th), his
journey to Wilhelmshohe, where he remained seven
months and then joined his wife and son at Camden
Place, Chislehurst, where he died on the 9th of
January, 1873. On the day of the Emperor's
departure from Sedan to his " prison " the German
forces left the battlefield for Paris, which they
surrounded on the 19th of September. I accom-
panied a battery of the Crown Prince of Saxony's
army, and remained with it " before Paris " until
November. I have fully described this march to the
French capital in my work on the Kaiser.*'

There is only one authoritative account of the
Emperor's life during his captivity, " Napoleon III.
auf Wilhelmshohe," written by his niece, Tony von
Held, from the " papers " of General of Infantry
Count C. von Monts, in whose custody the Emperor

*"The Public and Private Life of the Kaiser Wilhelm II."
London : Eveleigh Nash. 191 5.

172

THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 173

was placed by King (afterwards Emperor) William I.,
the present Kaiser's grandfather. General Monts
was born in 1801, and was sixty-nine when, in 1870,
he became Governor of Cassel. In 1866 he com-
manded the 6th Army Corps in the war with Austria.
He took no part in any of the battles in 1870; after
the war he became commander of the nth Army
Corps, retired the same year (187 1), and died at
Dresden in 1886, aged nearly ninety.

Some two years ago a French translation of the
German work appeared, * and from it I have gathered
the materials for this chapter. (The name of M. Paul-
Bruck Gilbert, mentioned in the footnote, is familiar
to me, as he is the translator of my volume, " The
Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910," which is to be
issued by MM. Pierre Lafitte et Cie., the publishers of
General Monts' work.)

On September 4, 1870, t the chief magistrate
of Cassel received from the King's headquarters at
Varennes a telegram signed by General von Treskow
(aide de camp) stating that the French army had
capitulated and that the chateau of Wilhelmshohe,
three miles from Cassel, had been chosen as the
residence of the Emperor Napoleon, who would
arrive immediately in charge of General von Boyen.
In concert with the general, the chief magistrate
was to be " very attentive to all the Emperor's
legitimate wishes. The public attitude towards the

*" La Captivit6 de Napoleon III. en Allemagne." Souvenirs
traduits de TAUemand par Paul-Bruck Gilbert et Paul L6vy.
Preface par Jules Claretie, de rAcaddmie Franfaise. Paris :
Pierre Lafitte et Cie.

t Date of the proclamation of the Republic and the hasty
departure of the Empress from the Tuileries.

174 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Emperor must be decorous. The public are to be
kept out of the railways and from the immediate
proximity of the chateau."

The chateau is surmounted by a cupola, and has a
portico of six columns. It had been in past times a
Benedictine monastery, and then became the summer
residence of the Electors of Hesse. With its
great lake, old trees and park it is a charming home.
From a hill overlooking the chateau there is a
magnificent view of the " mountains " and forests
of Thuringia. In 1807 Jerome Napoleon (grand-
father of the Princes Victor and Louis Napoleon)
was made King of Westphalia by his brother, the
Great Emperor, and resided at the chateau, which
contains numerous Napoleonic souvenirs, including
a portrait of Queen Hortense, mother of Napoleon III.,
who was somewhat surprised, when he first strolled
through the apartments, at finding it there.

The majority of the population, and of the middle
classes, of Hesse regretted that so beautiful a place
should have been assigned to " the instigator of
this bloody war. The hotelkeepers at Cassel, and
especially those at Wilhelmshohe, highly approved
of the Emperor's internment so near Cassel, and they
benefited largely therefrom " (Monts).

The Emperor reached Cassel in the evening of
September 5, and was met at the railway station by
the principal authorities. General Monts and others.
It was raining in torrents when the train arrived.
As the Emperor and the officers accompanying him
alighted a company of infantry presented arms, and
General Boyen, with whom was Prince Lynar (formerly
secretary of the German Embassy at Paris), intro-
duced Monts to the Emperor, who passed slowly

THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 175

along the line of troops and sainted them. All
the members of the party were at once driven to the
chateau, where an officer and forty men were, and
remained, on duty, while eight men were posted
round the house.

The members of the Emperor's suite did not arrive
until after midnight. They were escorted to the
chateau by hussars. The Imperial party comprised
the Emperor; General Castelnau, first aide de camp;
General Prince de la Moskowa, second A.D.C.;
Brigadier-General Comte Reille, A.D.C.; Brigadier
General Comte Pajol; Brigadier-General de Vaubert;
Prince Achille Murat, officier d'ordonnance ; Com-
mandant Hepp, of the General Staff; Comte Lauriston,
officier d'ordonnance; Comte Davillier, premier
ecuyer; Rainbeaux, deuxieme ecuyer; Senator Dr
Conneau, premier medecin; Dr Corvisart, deuxieme
medecin; M. Franceschini Pietri, private secretary;
and the Prussian Lieutenant Prince Lynar.

Forty domestics and eight-five horses had been
announced; but there arrived more than a hundred
" subalterns " — lacqueys, domestics, grooms and
ordonnances. Monts thinks that many of these
attached themselves to the Imperial captive's suite
without permission, in the hope of sharing the
privileges accorded to the Emperor.

On the following day Monts received from Cler-
mont a telegram saying that the King expected him
to send telegraphic news of all that had occurred ; and
on the same day General Boyen telegraphed inform-
ing Monts that the King had confided the Emperor
to his charge. Simultaneously the Emperor said
he would like to see Monts at 2 p.m. Boyen now
told Monts that the King, on the Sedan battle-

176 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

field, had given the first instructions as regarded the
captive Emperor. *

The interview which Monts, accompanied by Boyen,
now had with the captive took place, says the former,
in a very small room, having only one window, at
which Napoleon was standing. The Emperor invited
the two generals to sit down.

" Napoleon looked very different from what I had
imagined, different also from the hundreds of portraits
I had seen of him. His hair .is not brown, but
sandy (cendre, blond fonce); scarcely any grey hairs
were visible. His eyes have not the semi-lustre of
the Corsicans; they are blue and their expression
is soft, almost tender. The moustache is neither
turned up nor waxed. He has nothing about him
which might recall the 'vieux grognards' of the First
Empire. He has a tired look; a healthy complexion,
that of a man of a certain age, well preserved.
The nose, strongly curved, might be termed Napo-
leonic, but not his chin, which is not fleshy and
round, like that of the Uncle and of Prince
Napoleon, t His features express kindliness and
good will, and his voice does not belie that impression.
His whole attitude is characterised by a certain
lassitude, which only disappears when he is talking
about things which particularly interest him, such as
the Empress's and the Prince Imperial's health. He
then looked almost captivating.

" The Emperor is short — 5 ft. 2 or 3 in. according

* This must have been not on the day of, but the day after,
the battle, when the Emperor had personally surrendered to the
King.

t Father of the Princes Victor and Louis of to-day.

THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 177

to our measures. His walk is slow, dragging; he
takes little steps. Nearly always his head droops
on the right side. Although knowing German per-
fectly he speaks French almost exclusively. He
thinks he does not speak German with sufficient
fluency. When he does speak it the born linguist is
revealed. He seldom makes the mistake of trans-
lating literally. English and Italian are familiar to
him. He corresponds in both languages and reads
the English papers — the ' Times ' for preference.

" Our conversation was of vague generalities.
The Emperor presented me to his generals and other
members of the suite. ... A post and telegraph
office was provided at the chateau for the use of the
prisoners, who were allowed to send even cipher
messages. ... It was with General Castelnau, who
acquainted me with the Emperor's wishes, that I had
most interviews. Cooks from the Palace at Berlin
prepared the meals of the Emperor and his suite;
those for the domestics were supplied by the hotel-
keeper Schombart. The prisoners were given great
liberty and permitted to visit, unaccompanied, Cassel,
Wilhelmstal (a chateau between those two places),
and the environs of Wilhelmshohe, either on foot, on
horseback, or in carriages ; but they were not allowed
to sleep out. They might wear civilian dress. From
the outset I had decided not to reside in the chateau,
and on September 8 the King sent me a telegram
to that effect. . . . Queen [afterwards Empress]
Augusta took the greatest interest in the prisoners
and sent them games of every kind. A billiard-
table was specially provided for them, and of this they
made good use. They read very few of the French
books in the fine library. The Emperor received

M

178 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

a number of papers from Brussels, including 'L'lnde-
pendance Beige ' ; there were also the ' Allgemeine
Zeitung ' and a local paper. The Emperor always
showed himself very grateful to our King for his
kindness. The prisoners were given back their arms,
and appeared at meals in petite tenue, with sword.
Permission was given to all, Napoleon included,
to attend the theatre at Cassel, but only Prince
Murat availed himself of the privilege. I did not
favour applications to take part in the chasses. The
master of hounds had told me that the (German)
members of the hunt would leave the field if any of
the prisoners made their appearance. I took the
greatest care to prevent scenes of this kind."

One Sunday (October 30, 1870), General Monts
was told by General Castelnau that the Empress
Eugenie had unexpectedly arrived at the chateau.
Monts had just received from the King a telegram
and sought out the Emperor, who immediately received
him not, as usual, in his own little room, but in a
large adjoining apartment. The General was speaking
to his Majesty when the Empress entered hastily.
She had come " straight through " from Chislehurst,
travelling day and night, and was naturally tired.

" Nevertheless," says the General, " when I had
been presented to her she entered into conversation
vivaciously. She was then forty-five. Overwhelmed
by misfortune, fatigued by her long journey and
visibly affected by the meeting with her husband
and by the news of the fall of Metz [on the 27th],
she had lost her admirable beauty. The char-
acteristics of her youth had not vanished, but all
their freshness had disappeared. Her hair, still

THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 179

blond, had lost its former lustre. She was about
the same height as her consort [5 ft. 2 or 3 in.] —
therefore not short for a woman. Her graceful figure
and her attitude made her appear still beautiful. *
All her manner convinced me that she had always
known how to impose her views of her husband's
policy. She spoke little to me, more to the Emperor,
and displayed throughout great assurance in her
observations. I derived the absolute impression that
she was accustomed, not only to make herself listened
to, but to have the last word. She affected a
certain superiority over the Emperor, a sort of
tutorship; and if it is true that she had been at the
head of the war party in Paris I fully understand that
her opinion was the decisive one.

" It has been narrated that, whenever in conversation
the question of war with Prussia was discussed,
the Empress said : ' It is my war ! ^ \ It has been
also reported that, long before the war of 1870, the
Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, being seated at
table next to the Empress, referred to the growing
rapprochement between Northern and Southern Ger-
many; that the Empress immediately said that France
would never give her consent thereto; and that the
Grand Duke replied : ' Then we shall do without it.' "

* In " The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910 " there is a very
brief account of her Majesty's visit to the Emperor, but not
by General Monts. It is, moreover, confined to the actual
meeting of their Majesties on the Empress's arrival, to which
General Monts makes no reference. The two accounts are,
therefore, entirely dissimilar.

t Vide "The 'Case' for the Empress," in the volume,
" The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910," in which it is
emphatically and authoritatively denied that her Majesty ever
uttered those words.

i8o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

In the opinion of Monts, this visit of the Imperial
lady to Wilhelmshohe had political motives. It
had been hoped (he adds) that, after the capitulation
of Metz, the King of Prussia would give the French
armies back to the Emperor so that he might restore
order and the Imperial power. The Empress said to
Monts : " You see, if the King of Prussia had
restored the French army to us we should have been
able to make an honourable peace and restore order
in France." Monts thinks it quite likely that the
Empress desired to discuss with the Emperor what
should be done now that Metz had fallen and that
the marshals, forty generals and the army were
interned in Germany.

" Attacks," says Monts, " have been often made
on the character of the Empress Eugenie, who had
been brought up by a frivolous mother. In fact,
her foolishness, her lightness, her vanity and her
coquetry, which incited her to extravagances, were
a bad example for the Court. For the rest (and
this happens to all who play a part in public life),
it may be presumed that her critics have not always
taken sujfhciently into account facts and circumstances,
and that in their criticisms were exaggerations and
even lies. On this point the opinion of a wealthy
Spaniard, a resident for many years in Germany,
is much more valuable than the gossip of badly
informed newspapers. His family and business
affairs often took this compatriot of the Empress
into his native country, and he relates that noble
families, of high repute, speak only with esteem
of the conduct of the former Mademoiselle de
Montijo.

THE EMPEROR-PRISONER i8i

" The unfortunate Sovereign, during her visit to
Cassel, was so heavily struck and tried by Fate that
no one could imagine her to have been a frivolous and
superficial person. The events of the last weeks
had undoubtedly given more gravity to her character.
In any case, the Empress did not make upon
me, during this brief meeting, the unfavourable
impression which I had anticipated. To-day still,
when I think of her, I see her as a woman possessing
a maturity of mind, acquired late, perhaps; sure
of herself, sagacious, combining agreeable manners
with the intelligence of the woman who has made the
interests of the public her own. My feelings con-
cerning the poor woman were those of deep compassion,
increased by the thought that she must be conscious
of having been the cause of the punishment.

" In reply to the question which I had asked
our King relative to the stay of the Empress with the
Emperor, I received from Versailles [the Royal
headquarters] the following telegram : ' The decision
respecting the sojourn of the Empress at Wil-
helmshohe must be left entirely to the two Majesties,
and you must maintain an absolutely passive attitude. —
William.'

" The august lady remained at Wilhelmshohe until
the evening of the ist of November. No one was
informed of her intentions, but, judging by her
scanty baggage, she had made up her mind to remain
for a very short time. I was surprised at seeing
Pietri, the uncle of the Emperor's secretary, return
to Cassel at the news of the Empress's coming, and
that, as nobody was aware, the Duchess of Hamilton
hastily returned to Wilhelmshohe on the ist of
November in the morning. Naturally I did not mix

i82 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

myself up with the negotiations which certainly went on
in the Emperor's entourage. It is more than probable
that they referred to the situation at the moment. *

" That the Empress was leaving was unknown
until the last moment. In the afternoon, at five
o'clock, a hired carriage came to a door at the back
of the chateau, and the Empress, accompanied by her
little suite, entered it, and was driven off towards the
railway station. The Empress alighted at some little
distance from the station, and Commandant Hepp,
who spoke German [he was an Alsatian], assisted
her to take the tickets and to speak a few words to
the guard of the train, which went towards Hanover.
She went straight to England."

The only marshals who visited the Emperor at
Wilhelmshohe were Bazaine, Canrobert and Leboeuf.
MacMahon refused to come. " General Castelnau
and Marshal Canrobert (I spoke to no others on the
subject) energetically denied that Bazaine had ever
committed a dishonourable act. Bazaine's attitude
at the chateau was calm and dignified. The Marshal,
his wife and their children passed the winter in a
small villa at Cassel. The Emperor always spoke
of the Marshal in high terms." Among others who
presently arrived at the chateau were General Prince
Joachim Murat and several of his officers — all
prisoners. General Henry and Comte Clary f were

* No better proof than this could be adduced of the perfect
freedom accorded to the Emperor during his "captivity."
How would he have fared under the present Hunnish Kaiser?

t Clary was much occupied for months in doing- the Emperor's
behests, not very successfully. The Comtesse Clary, his wife,
survived him for many years, dying in Paris only in December,
1 91 5, at over ninety.

THE EMPEROR-PRISONER 183

also seen at Wilhelmshohe. I have a clear recollection
of both. Clary and his wife were prominent among
the Imperial entourage at Chislehurst, and had many
friends in London.

On the 19th of March, 1871, the Emperor and his
suite left Cassel for England, escorted to the Belgian
frontier by General Monts. There was a great
crowd at the Cassel station, but there were no
" manifestations," the departure taking place, says
Monts, " in absolute silence."

The three hundred and thirty pages of General
Monts' book are a most valuable addition to the
literature of the Second Empire. They show how
generously Napoleon III. was treated throughout his
seven months' internment by the Emperor William I.
and his consort, and mark the divergence between
the characters of that monarch and his grandson.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE " LITTLE MAN "

In 1850 Prince Clovis of Hohenlohe was introduced,
in Paris, to the then Prince-President of the Republic.
Standing near a door, at the Elysee, he saw " a little
man, looking like an officer of Bavarian chevau-
legers, wearing the grand cordon of the Legion
d'Honneur." The " little man " (he was about
5 ft. 2 in., or 5 ft. 3 in. at the outside) said : " I
passed my youth in Bavaria, at Augsburg, and shall
retain of it always un tres bon souvenir."

The diplomatist saw, on the same occasion, Louis
Napoleon's cousin, Princesse Mathilde, " une grosse
et belle dame, convert de diamants." *

In his preface to the French edition of General
Count von Monts' narrative of the Emperor Napoleon's
life at Wilhelmshohe,t the late M. Jules Claretie,
director of the Theatre Frangais and brilliant chroni-
queur, has some characteristic comments on the
Emperor, of whom he had been an opponent : —

" Of all the moral portraits of Napoleon III., per-
haps the nearest to the truth is that traced by George

* " M^moires du Prince Clovis de Hohenlohe " (Tome 8).
Paris : Louis Conard, 1909.

t " La Captivit6 de Napoleon III. en Allemagne. " Souvenirs
traduits de I'Allemand par Paul-Bruck Gilbert et Paul L6vy.
Preface par Jules Claretie, de I'Acad^mie Fran9aise. Paris :
Pierre Lafitte et Cie, iqii,

184

THE " LITTLE MAN " 185

Sand : ' He was, in the fullest sense of the word, a
crowned literary man.'

" General Count von Monts' book is a contribution
to the study of the Emperor's character, which was
rather enigmatical, resigned, but without bitterness.
A celebrated diplomatist said of the Emperor : ' He
is a great mediocrity misunderstood.' The phrase is
cruel. As Sovereign, he only lacked final success for
that judgment to be blotted out.

" I was disgusted at seeing, at a Berlin theatre, in an
adaptation of an old French f eerie. Napoleon HL,
caricatured by a low comic actor, dancing a cancan,
his breast adorned with the grand cordon of the
Legion d'Honneur.

" Emile de Girardin said of him, symbolising by the
phrase all his policy : ' The Emperor smokes too
much.'

" Forty Years After ! * From Wissembourg to
Wilhelmshohe ! From Metz to Sedan ! From Sedan
to Chislehurst ! From Chateaudun to Champigny !
From Champigny to Buzenval ! What Calvaries !
And manners, ideas, claims, forms of art — men looking
up at the skies while social realities attract them
to the earth ! — all is modified in forty years. It
seems another France. But it is France — France
immortal, the France of to-day and the France
of to-morrow, to which it is good, it is wholesome, to
recall this past of yesterday."

The Monis Ministry fell in June, 191 1, on a question
of preparedness for war, and I refer to it only because
it gave certain Deputies an irresistible opportunity
of taking a fling at Napoleon III. In the Senate, the

* The title of a volume by the late M. Claretie.

i86 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

newly appointed War Minister, General Goiran, had
precipitated that forced resignation of the Ministry
by declaring that the French army was without a
generalissimo ; and four days later, in the Chamber of
Deputies, M. Andre Hesse retorted by asserting
that it had been thought that Generals Jamont,
Bruyere, Hagron and Lacroix had been training them-
selves for the chief command of the army in war-time.

If the generalissimo no longer existed, or if the word
had no longer the same significance, what remained if
war should break out? M. Berteaux, when War
Minister, had expressly assured the House that there
was a generalissimo. What did it all mean? Had
they forgotten the sad lessons of 1870? "

It will be remembered that Napoleon III. was
the generalissimo in 1870 until he handed over the
supreme command to Marshal Bazaine. General
Pedoya shared the opinion of General Goiran, " but
this," said Claretie, " did not mean that the single
command should be suppressed. In the war with
Germany, the enemy had, as generalissimo, not King
William, but Von Moltke, chief of the general staff.
When a sovereign was not equal to his task, it was a
great misfortune for his country, as was proved in the
case of Napoloen III. In 1870 he was a source of
weakness to the army, as, although he was at its head,
he did not dare to give an order."

General Pedoya's words in 191 1 were, in the main,
only too true, for, after the first defeats, the Emperor
was overruled by those surrounding the Empress,
and treated as a negligible quantity; in M. Emile
Ollivier's memorable words, he was deposed " par les
siens " (" by his own "). The orders from Paris
resulted, either directly or indirectly, in the crowning

THE " LITTLE MAN " 187

disaster at Sedan, for which the Emperor personally
was in no way to blame, although he had to bear most
of the obloquy. The debate in the Chamber of
Deputies on the 23rd of June, 191 1, showed that the
Emperor was not forgiven for faults which he never
committed. General Pedoya might have studied
M. Ollivier's fifteenth volume with advantage. He
had obviously something to learn.

CHAPTER XIX

FABLED WEALTH OF THE NAPOLEONS

The case of the Comtesse de Bechevet v. the son and
the executors of the late Mr Pierpont Morgan, *■
which came before the Lord Chief Justice and a special
jury in June 191 5, and was settled by mutual arrange-
ment, revived memories of Napoleon HL The name
De Bechevet was heard of in the Court of Chancery
on November 2, 1907, the cause list for that day in
Mr Justice Parker's court containing the entry : " In re
Trelawny. Bechevet v. Strode." It was then stated
that Count Martin de Bechevet, son of Mrs Trelawny
and the tenant for life, had died, and the Court was
asked to deal with the funds of the settlement.
The Mrs Trelawny in question was, prior to her
marriage, Miss Howard, and with Miss Howard Prince
Louis Napoleon (afterwards the Emperor Napoleon
HL) was smitten. That story is too long to be narrated
here, but it may be said that the lady was very generous
to the Prince with her money when he was residing
in London, and that after the Revolution of 1848
she went to Paris and lived not very far from him.
Had he married Miss Howard, as she had fondly
anticipated he would have done, she would have
become in due course Empress of the French. But

* The Countess had sold some works of art to the late Mr
Pierpont Morgan and now claimed a certain sum alleged to be
due to her.
188

FABLED WEALTH OF NAPOLEONS 189

that was not to be; and she married Mr Clarence
Trelawny after she had been created Comtesse de
Beauregard. She died some five years before the
great war of 1870.

The centenary of the battle of Waterloo in 19 15
and the death at the age of one hundred and
four of an Englishwoman who, when only three
years old, had seen Napoleon I. when the Belle-
rophon anchored in Plymouth Sound, again reminded
us of the " Petit Caporal " and of Victor Hugo's
apostrophe beginning with " Encor Napoleon,
encor sa grande visage ! " Few but those who have
closely studied the innumerable Napoleonic histories
and legends can be aware that, according to at least
one French chronicler, the great military genius who
died on " the lonely rock " as a result of his cancerous
malady had amassed enormous wealth, which, it was
asserted, came under two headings — (i) what may be
termed his " public " fortune and (2) his " private "
fortune.

It is recorded that, when he left Paris in the fatal
month of June, 181 5, he deposited in stocks at Laffitte's
Bank about ;^ 240,000. His will was proved in
England, the French Government (Louis XVHL
being then King) not allowing this procedure to take
place in France. Among the delegates were MM. de
Montholon, Bertrand and Marchand, familiar names;
but M. Laffitte gave reasons for not handing any of
the money to those persons or to any others interested
in the will. Laffitte contended that Napoleon Bona-
parte, having by a Royal Decree of March 6, 1815,
been deprived of all his rights, had no power to dis-
pose of his fortune. His will, therefore, was null and
void. But another point was raised : the will was

I90 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

signed by the testator's Christian name only, " Napo-
leon," the surname, " Bonaparte," being omitted.
The securities which had been lodged at Laffitte's
Bank were finally deposited in the Caisse des Depots
et Consignations (Deposit Bank).

In 1837 Marie Louise abandoned her claim upon the
estate; but the Emperor's will was not settled until
seventeen years later by a Decree dated Biarritz,
August 5, 1854, signed by Napoleon III. " The
budget of 1854," declared this document, " is charged
with an extraordinary credit of 8,000,000 francs
(^320,000), with a view to carrying out the testament-
ary directions of our August Predecessor, the Emperor
Napoleon I." Of this sum £ 160,000 went in legacies
to various persons. Napoleon I. left to his son, the
Due de Reichstadt, his Austerlitz sword, gold dressing-
case, decorations and other souvenirs,, but the Court
of Vienna laid its grip upon all of them. After the
young Duke's death, however, the Vienna Court
divided them among Napoleon's brothers and sisters.
Bertrand secured the Austerlitz sword and gave it to
King Louis Philippe; later it was placed in the
Tuileries.

Mention must now be made, but very briefly, of that
" private " fortune of Napoleon I. which Dupin has
told us about. That Emperor was himself an econo-
miser of the truth ; yet he is credited with the dictum :
" History is a lie which has been agreed upon."
At no time more than now has it been advisable to
bear this saturnine saying in mind. Dupin has re-
corded that in 181 8 — three years after the battle of
Waterloo — the sum of 1 18,000,000 francs (^4, 7 2 0,000),
representing Napoleon's personal estate, was " paid
into the Treasury by order of the King." It is added

FABLED WEALTH OF NAPOLEONS 191

that originally the " estate " was 200,000,000 francs
(^8,000,000), but in some way not explained it had been
reduced to the more modest figure above mentioned.
Dupin's statement, it will be observed, is very explicit :
the ;^ 4,720,000 was actually " paid into the Trea-
sury." Other authorities declare that the " private
fortune " was non-existent — that the Emperor only
imagined he possessed it, and that, upon investigation,
no assets representing any part of this personal hoard
were discoverable. There seems to have been no
mistake, however, about the sum (^240,000)
deposited at M. Laffitte's bank or that mentioned
in the Imperial Decree (;^ 320,000) of 1854.

As with the Uncle, so with the Nephew who died
so unexpectedly at Chislehurst in the first month of
1873, less than two years after his release from his
palatial " prison " at Wilhelmshohe, where he had
spent seven by no means unhappy months. No further
back than 1907 absurd statements as to the wealth of
Napoleon II L appeared in the English papers, copied
from a Paris journal. It was affirmed that in 1866,
four years before the great debacle, the Emperor's
balance at " Barings " was ;^ 933,000. Now, on
October 25, 1870, Messrs Baring Brothers wrote to
the " Times," saying : " At no time have we made any
investments for account of the Emperor, and we do
not hold any stocks or objects of value for his
account." *

The late Mr Archibald Forbes, in his " Life of
Napoleon III.," gave an entirely inaccurate calcula-
tion of the Emperor's " wealth," which was figured at
^882,000 in 1866 (the year quoted by the Paris paper

* Vide " The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910 " for full details
of this episode.

192 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

in 1907). This information, quite illusory, was based
upon " papers found in the Tuileries after the fall of
the Empire," including " a document which was a
bank statement from the house of Baring Brothers,
of London, with whom Napoleon III. had an account."
The Empress's " enormous wealth " has been made
the subject of much ignorant comment, from time to
time, since the beginning of her widowhood, upwards
of forty-three years ago. Those are very few in
number who have even the faintest conception of the
Imperial lady's means. Even the late Monsignor
Goddard, for many years the Empress's almoner, was
totally ignorant on this point.

CHAPTER XX

LORD GRANVILLE AND THE EMPRESS-
LADY COWLEY VISITS THE CAPTIVE
EMPEROR

Lord Granville received the seals of the Foreign
Office in July, 1870, when Mr (afterwards Lord)
Hammond assured him that there was not a cloud
upon the European horizon. Yet on the 19th of the
month the French declaration of war was in the hands
of the Prussian Government; and on the 2nd of
August hostilities began at Saarbriicken and were
witnessed by me. Thirteen years before the war
Lord Granville, accompanied by his wife, had dined
with the Emperor and Empress, at the Tuileries, and
in Lord Fitzmaurice's brilliantly written " Life " *
will be found a highly entertaining account of the
event. Lord Granville, writing from Paris on April
8, 1857, says:

We dined with the Emperor yesterday evening. I sat next
to the Empress, who is easy to get on with. She inquired
of me what sort of person the Empress of Russia was. I
said that I believed that she was clever and well informed,
but that I had never heard her ask anything but whether one
had danced much at the last ball. " Mais, voyez-vous," said
Eugenie, "it is not easy always to find questions to ask."

I had a long talk with the Emperor in the evening. He
was civil and pleasant, looked very low, and is evidently much

* " The Life of Granville George Leveson-Gower, second
Earl Granville, K.G. : 1815—1891." By Lord Edmond
Fitzmaurice. Two vols. Longmans, Green & Co. 1905.
N 193

194 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

preoccupied by the action of the secret societies and the plots
for assassination. He has a vague wish to resettle Europe,
and thinks it might be done by a cordial understanding
between Russia, England and France. . . . He was evidently,
although he denies it, rather taken in by Dizzy, I recom-
mended him to ask " Tamarang " [Lord Malmesbury's nick-
name], who is coming here, what he thought of Dizzy, and
by his answers to judge of what might be expected in the
way of harmony and consistency from a Tory Government.
He declares that his wish is to see Lord Palmerston's Govern-
ment consolidated. . . .

The evening ended by a lecture on table-turning, etc., in
which the Emperor and Empress believe. A certain Mr Hume *
produces hands, raises heavy tables four feet from the ground
with a finger, knocks on the Emperor's hand from a distance.
The Emperor is rather pleased at the table coming more to
him than to others ; but seeing Lady G. and me look incredu-
lous, he broke off, saying: "They think us mad, and Lord
Granville will report that the alliance is on a most unstable
footing." Yours, G.

On September 17, 1870, Lord Granville wrote
of the Empress Eugenie to Sir Henry Ponsonby :
" Her misfortune is great, although it is much owing
to herself : Mexico, Rome, war with Prussia." Lord
Fitzmaurice thus comments on this sentence : " In
these few words Lord Granville summed up the
mixed feelings which in the Empress pitied mis-
fortune and admired undaunted courage, but could
not entirely forget political responsibility."

The Empress was now at Chislehurst. " The
situation thus created was one of extreme delicacy,"
says Lord Fitzmaurice, who, as Under Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, 1882 — 1885 ^^^

*The late Daniel Dunglass Home (pr. " Hume "), the
spiritualist, who in the sixties had many friends in London, the
present Earl of Dunraven and the late Earl of Crawford among
others. I knew Home very well. — Author.

LORD GRANVILLE 195

1905 — 1908, is on his own ground when dealing with
these and similar knotty points. " The respect due
to fallen greatness, especially on the part of those
who had enjoyed the hospitality of the Empire in the
time of prosperity, beckoned one way. The absolute
necessity that the Foreign Minister should carefully
abstain from appearing too much en rapport with
the little Court of the exiled Monarch pointed in an
opposite direction, for Count Bismarck was still feeling
his way in regard to a projected restoration of the
Imperial Family under German protection. The
idea was bitterly resented by public opinion in
England, and every indication of it was jealously
scrutinised on both sides of the Channel."

During the captivity of Napoleon III. at Wil-
helmshohe (September, 1870 — March, 1871) he was
visited by Lady Cowley, an event thus described
by her husband in this letter to Lord Granville :

20 Albemarle Street, W.,
September 21, 1870.
My dear Granville, —

You will probably have seen in the papers that Lady
Cowley has been to see the Emperor, and you may like to
know what passed on the occasion. Of course there is no
truth in the report that she went with a message from the
Empress ; the truth being that, finding herself at Frankfort,
she did not like to go on without going to see him.

He was delighted to see her, but quite overcome at first.
He gave her an account of all his proceedings — how he had
been deceived both in regard to the preparations for war, and
more especially with regard to public opinion. He said that
on leaving St Cloud for the army he had believed that he had
never been more popular, that the ovation prepared for his
departure was such that it would have taken him hours to go
through Paris had he attempted it. He described the total
demoralisation of the troops on meeting with their first check;

196 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

how he was pressed to give up the command, and his desire to
have retired upon Paris with the army of Chalons, when he
thought he might have saved the dynasty, but he was over-
ruled by the Regency.

When he came to describe the battle of Sedan his feelings
gave way completely. The scenes he went through were,
he said, quite harrowing. He speaks in the most grateful
terms of the King of Prussia, whom he describes as much
more ^mu than himself at their famous interview. Every-
thing was done to spare his feelings. It is not true that he
was purposely taken through the Prussian troops. He wished
to avoid seeing his own troops prisoners. His admiration
of the Prussian system, etc., .is boundless. He drove through
miles of them on his way from Sedan, and he describes them
to have looked as if upon parade. Lady Cowley says that
he looks ill, and he suffers from the cold of Wilhelmshohe.
He can hold no communication with anyone except by per-
mission, and all letters pass through the Prussian authorities
there. The suite told Lady Cowley that he cannot stir beyond
the grounds, as he is at once exposed to insult, and it seems
that his journey through Germany was most disagreeable,
as he was hooted and jeered at wherever he stopped. Lady
Cowley thinks that he has not abandoned all hope of being
reinstated. The suite are less sanguine, but hope that the
dynasty may be preserved. ... I should add that the few
French soldiers whom Lady Cowley met on the road are loud
in their execrations of their late master. Sincerely yours,

Cowley.

Another surviving personage to whom we are
happily introduced in this entrancing " Life " of
the eminent statesman who served his country so long
and so well is the widowed Duchesse de Mouchy,
who, as I have noted in another chapter, is the oldest
living friend of the Empress. During the autumn of
that fateful year she was residing in London and,
of course, paid frequent visits to the Empress at
Chislehurst. Lord Granville, we now learn, wrote
to her as follows : —

LORD GRANVILLE 197

Walmer Castle,

October 22, 1870.
My dear Madame de Mouchy, —

Gladstone expressed yesterday his regrets to me that
partly from his absence from London, and partly from the
slight personal acquaintance he has the honour of having
with the Empress of the French, he had not had any opportunity
of paying any mark of respect to her Imperial Majesty.

I told him that I had taken the opportunity of a dispatch
concerning the Emperor to write to her Majesty, and had
received a most gracious answer, and that I believed the
Empress wa^ quite aware through you that personally I was
completely at her Majesty's orders.

That I had told the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Arthur
that, although her Majesty declined all general visits, I was
sure that it would not be disagreeable to her to receive
members of the Royal Family.

That I had not asked for an audience because it was
possible that, if granted to an official person, it might at this
particular moment be misconstrued both as regards the Empress
and the Minister.

Pray tell me your opinion of my conversation. Yours
sincerely, Granville.

These valuable and deeply interesting documents
had never seen the light until they appeared in Lord
Fitzmaurice's masterly " Life " of Lord Granville,
nor will they be found in any other subsequently
published work, and I hasten to express my gratitude
to the noble lord and to his publishers, Messrs
Longmans, Green & Co., for so generously allowing
me to reproduce them here.

Mr Gladstone's meetings with Napoleon IIL and
the Empress are referred to by Lord Morley, in his
*' Life " of the famous Liberal statesman. * In

*"The Life of William Ewart Gladstone." By John
Morley. Three vols. London : Macmillan & Co. Limited.
New York : The Macmillan Company. 1903.

198 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

1866 Mr Gladstone was elected a member of the
French Institute, and in the following year he
attended the funeral of the well-known M. Victor
Cousin, of whom it had been said (writes Lord Morley)
" that three days in the week he was absurd, three
days mediocre and one day sublime."

On the 27th of January, 1867, Mr Gladstone dined
with the Emperor and the Empress, and on the next
day with M. Rouher. Mr Gladstone wrote : " Dined
at the Tuileries, and was surprised at the extreme
attention and courtesy of both their Majesties, with
whom I had much interesting conversation."

Lord Morley writes: "15th July, 1870. — At a
quarter past four (says a colleague, Mr Grant Duff)
a Cabinet box was handed down the Treasury bench
to Mr Gladstone. He opened it, and looking along
to us said, with an accent I shall never forget, ' War
declared against Prussia.' "

An interview which Mr Gladstone had with the
Empress Eugenie in England some four months
after the Emperor's death is thus noted by Lord
Morley: "On May 19, 1873, Mr Gladstone wrote
to the Queen : ' Mr Gladstone had an interview
yesterday at Chislehurst with the Empress. He
thought her Majesty much thinner and more worn
than last year, but she showed no want of energy in
conversation. Her Majesty showed much interest and
a little anxiety about the coming examination of the
Prince, her son, at Woolwich.' "

When, in 1880, Parliament was asked to sanction
a vote of money for a memorial of the Prince Imperial
in Westminster Abbey a Radical member * brought
forward a motion against it. Lord Morley says :

* Mr Briggs.

LORD GRANVILLE 199

" Both Mr Gladstone and Sir Stafford Northcote
resisted him, yet by a considerable majority the
Radical carried his point. The feeling was so strong
among the Ministerialists that, notwithstanding Mr
Gladstone's earnest exhortation, they voted almost
to a man against him, and he only carried into the
lobby ten official votes on the Treasury bench."

CHAPTER XXI

OUR TRIBUTE TO THE "LITTLE PRINCE"

Those who knew him best have written the following
lines in memory of their friend :

June — ]idy, 1879.

As we pass through the great iron gate, along the
avenue, and so, crossing the gravelled space in front
of Camden Place, into the House, what a host of
memories arise! It is the year 1871. The Emperor
arrives from Wilhelmshohe — the Emperor, exiled,
crushed, his ambition beaten out of him : a sad,
silent, mysterious man. Years later. A January
night, with the rain driven into your face. The
great House as sadly-quiet as the grave. The inmates
walk noiselessly, as though fearful lest their lightest
step should waken him who is lying so still up in that
little bedroom, lighted by two huge tapers. You
hardly dare breathe as a servant turns the handle of
the door of that room and bids you enter. By the
bedside kneel two women praying. Your heart stands
still as you see what is on the bed — a cold, stiff figure,
with a crucifix on its breast. Hush ! do not break
the death-silence. Caesar lies there.

A cold spring day, and we are grouped on the lawn
— a goodly concourse. A slim boy speaks; his
words sway the throng, and when he waves a tricolour
in the chill air he is greeted with shouts of " Vive
I'Empereur! " "Vive Napoleon Quatre ! "

7,00

TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 201

The years pass, and the boy, now grown to man's
estate, fired with a desire to distinguish himself, sets
out for Africa. He has embarked upon a bold
emprise, and when he returns, flushed with the
glory of success, and falls upon his weeping mother's
breast, even his enemies will rejoice, and, borrowing
the Empress's phrase, will at least acclaim him
" un honnete homme." That will be a glad day for
the Empress-mother ! When the victorious troops
defile before the Queen at Windsor no face will glow
more brightly than Prince Louis Napoleon's — Royal
smiles will be lavished upon him, and all France will
read the chronicle with admiration.

The morning is that of Friday, the 20th of June;
the scene, Chislehurst.

The sun shines, the birds sing, the supple branches
bend in the wind, the gorse gleams golden bright.
All is calm and peaceful. The balm and the sweet-
ness of Life are upon everything.

In that great, grim house fronting the common, the
scene of the Ninth of January One Thousand Eight
Hundred and Seventy-Three is repeating itself, but
with a dull intensity. The beautiful Empress is a
pitiable sight, and the electric wires are throbbing with
the message, " The Prince Imperial is dead ! "

All is over. It is idle to weep and wring the
hands. The light is quenched for ever; the young
life has winged its way back to God, leaving the
whole world appalled and horror-stricken, one mighty
Empire widowed and desolate, and a mother's heart
broken and crushed for ever. The catastrophe is so
hideous, so overwhelming, so unnatural, that one
cannot realise it fully yet. The truth may come
upon us perhaps in its full horror when we see the

202 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

coffin which contains the mangled remains of the grand
Boy-Prince and Emperor who lost his life for
England. " When will his glory fade? " Never,
God willing, never ! Years hence, when we who now
write and you who now read shall have passed even
beyond the reach of memory, the story will be told
how a young lad, who was the Emperor of a great
people, but who was kept out of his inheritance by
a foul conspiracy set on foot for their own base
purposes by the most malignant and unprincipled
political adventurers; how, we say, this noble boy
generously offered to risk his life in return for the
paltry hospitality given him (as it is given to the
lowest refugee) by England; how he lost it; and
how his death ruined a great people and broke the
truest and most tender heart that ever beat in the
bosom of a Sovereign lady. Boys will hear this tale
told years hence, and endeavour to picture to them-
selves how the young hero looked, and the tone of
his voice, and his gestures, and habits, as we now try
to imagine how Nelson, Marlborough or Prince
Rupert may have really been in the flesh. It will not
be given them, as it has been given us, to recall the
sweet tones of that voice which is stilled to mortal
ears for ever, but which is now singing hymns in
the praise and glory of God as an angel ; it will not
be given them to know the merry laughter which we
shall hear never again; it will not be given them to
know the half-laughing, half-tender glance coming
from those eyes which are now closed in death, and
which were incapable of expressing aught save
innocent mirth, or sympathy and affection. The
children yet unborn who will read of the tragedy in
Zululand on the ist of June, 1879, will never be able

TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 203

to picture to themselves the dead young Prince
Martyr as he really was, the beau-ideal of what a
gentleman, an emperor, and a Christian should be,
the sweetest rose in youth's garden, the very type of
a hero and a martyr. It has been given us to know
him, and to speak to him, and to touch his hand and
hear his voice, and knowing as we do that he is now
an angel as surely as he was a hero, this fact
emboldens us to say a few words in memory of him
who was the Hope of France, the pride, prop and
only son of one of the noblest ladies the nineteenth
century has seen, and one who possessed that Divine
glory—

The splendour of a spirit without blame.

The story, like all great stories, and like all
sublime things, is a simple one. It seems but
yesterday that he was born, and that the cannon told
expectant France that there was promise and hope
of glory and peace, insomuch as God had vouchsafed
to give a son and heir to Napoleon III. It seems,
alas ! as if children who have been prayed for, and
ardently longed for, are, as it were, almost robbed
from Heaven, and that God, when He discovers the
theft, takes back the treasure to Himself again.
It was so with the son of the First Napoleon, and it
has been so with the son of the Third. What man
of forty does not remember how all France longed
for the Empress to have a son and heir to perpetuate
the dynasty; and who cannot recall the unanimous
exultation which greeted the glad tidings that the
Empress had been delivered of a male child on the
1 6th day of March, 1856? His childhood was the
ordinary childhood of princes; in his case there was,

304 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

perhaps, more splendour and glory than in most;
but what most assuredly marked him out as one
different from his kind was the frank, fearless, loving,
generous, tender, noble and sympathetic spirit which
he gave proof of even from the very beginning.

There is no place for anecdote before the open
tomb of this murdered boy; but we cannot refrain
from quoting the words of one who knew the Prince
Imperial well in his early childhood. " His tender-
ness of heart," so says this true witness, " was
so extraordinary as to be almost morbid. Most
children are carelessly cruel at times, especially boys.
The Prince Imperial was never so; he would not
have hurt a fly, and would readily have given his
jacket to protect a beggar from the cold." So the
time passed on, partly in splendid gaiety and partly
in no less splendid charity, and the Second Empire
sang its song of love and glory to the French people.
The Terrible Year came, war was declared, and
the young Prince accompanied his father to the
front. We will not dwell upon the horrors of that
campaign, or tell how the young Prince was so
affected, not by the sense of danger, for he never
knew what fear was, but by pity for the suffering he
saw around him, that his nerves received a shock from
which they never recovered; he would wake up
at night months after, screaming that he saw men
dying, and longing to get to them to save them.
" Ces pauvres soldats ! ces pauvres soldats ! " was
his cry. How many soldiers' eyes were dry, think
you, when they read that this gallant boy had met a
soldier's death ?

Then came exile, and then the greatest sorrow
his young life ever knew — the death of his father.

TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 205

This almost killed him, and if it had not been for the
strong mind of the Empress, the little Prince —
" le petit Prince," as he ever will be affectionately-
termed — would probably have lost his reason or his
life, perhaps both. Her Majesty, however (in this
case the tender love of a mother being strengthened
and sharpened by the wit and intelligence of one
of the most extraordinarily intellectual women of her
age), saved her darling from death and insanity,
and by degrees brought him back to life, and hope,
and courage. How he distinguished himself at
Woolwich is known to all. There was no favouritism
shown him ; he was treated like any other cadet, and
simply passed a brilliant examination as any other
clever lad might have done. The sneers in the French
revolutionary broad-sheets are powerless against the
calm proof and evidence given by the examination
papers and the answers appended. There ensued
a period of restless inactivity. The young eagle
could not bear the idea of not trying his pinions.
He was restless at Chislehurst, restless at Arenenberg,
restless at Florence. He was naturally pure-minded,
and abhorred coarse dissipation, so that many of
the temptations which usually beset youths of his
rank were powerless to allure or attract him.

When the Zulu War broke out, from the very first
his desire was to go out to the Cape and fight.
" The right place for an Emperor is the field of
battle ! " he exclaimed on one occasion to a friend
of ours. For a long time the influence of his mother
and friends kept him from risking his precious life;
but when tidings reached him of the reverses of the
British arms, and when the tales of heroism came to
his ears, he laughed prudence, the advice of friends,

2o6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

and the entreaties of his august mother to scorn, and
set out to win glory — with life, if possible ; if not,
with death. What took place in Africa from the time
of his arrival up to the time of his glorious death
we know but little of as yet, except that there, as at
Woolwich and everywhere else where he was brought
in familiar contact and intercourse with his fellow-
men, he was admired, and, what is more, beloved.
Then the end came. Although we know God must
be always good. He seems sometimes so cruel, does
He not? Why take the "little Prince" ? The
rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds; but
the poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb,
which he had brought and nourished up. Why
was her one little ewe lamb taken — her all, the one
hope of his country, who would have grown into
a lion and defended poor, desolate France.'^ One
does not dare imagine what may be taking place now
at Chislehurst. There are misery and anguish so great
that neither human tongue nor pen can tell of it.
Think of the thousand recollections that must come
back to her, when the few trivial recollections that
come back to us force us to wipe the eyes ! Think
of the great cruelty of past tenderness which is now
being revealed to this stricken mother in her loneliness
and widowhood !

How often
Have we done this for one another ! Now
We shall not do it any more.

But enough; we are treading on sacred ground.
Suffice it to say that " the poor " woman who had
nothing save one little ewe lamb has been bereft of
this one and only treasure, and that there is one who

TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 207

not many years ago was the first lady in civilised
Europe, Empress by beauty, grace, wit and rank,
who is now waiting for death at Camden Place,
Chislehurst. For him it is well he has met a soldier's
death, has fallen gloriously, aye, " covered with
glory," and has gone to join his father; do not pity
him, but pity her and pity France.

But again, there is more to be said. Ought he to
have died thus.^ Lord Chelmsford assures us, and
we must believe him, that he had no idea his
Imperial Highness had gone out on this reconnaissance.
Be it so; but is not this very confession most damn-
able? Ought he not to have known, and would
he not have known, had it been one of our Gracious
Majesty's sons? Think you the Duke of Connaught
or the Duke of Edinburgh would have been allowed
to risk his life in this way, following a mere boyish
caprice? And if he had, what think you the Queen
would have said when the news reached her that her
son's body had been found hacked and mutilated with
eighteen wounds? Let these words be well weighed
in Downing Street and at Windsor, as they surely will
be at Chislehurst. It is sad to disgrace an officer
and a nobleman, but it is also sad to kill a boy by
negligence and destroy the whole hope of a country.
Was not the Prince Imperial doubly, trebly sacred
to us? Was he not a foreign prince fighting for us
of his own accord, and above all was he not a mere
boy, the hope of his country ? We do not wish to be
unjust either to Lord-Chelm^fard-or to the comrades
of the dear Martyr Prince who ran away and left
him to die like a dog, merely " looking back " when
all was over; but we would ask what the British
public would have said if the life of one of the Queen's

2o8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

sons had been risked thus, and if we read that
his comrades had thought more of their own lives than
of his? All is over, however, and it is perhaps as
well, after all, that the only tribute laid on the tomb
of the Martyr Prince should be the tears of a whole
nation and the broken heart of his widowed and
desolate mother.

Since the commencement of the ill-fated war in
Zululand tragic events have crowded thickly on one
another; but the latest and saddest shock has roused
the pulse of nations in one generous throb of sympathy.
Every tender heart turns with unfeigned pity to the
thought of that lonely, mourning figure, who sits
fur-wrapped yet shivering under the icy touch of
despair, an uncrowned widowed lady bereft of all
that makes life worth the living. It is but a few
short weeks ago that the joyous lad, full of eager
hopes and bright anticipations, kissed his fond
mother's brow, whispering gay promises and comfort;
and already the clear, honest eyes are closed in death,
the limbs lie stark and cold, the voice is dumb
for ever. Seldom, indeed, do we behold a young
man more full of promise, of a purer life, a nobler
character, and it is the very uselessness of the sacrifice
that rushes with fresh vehemence into our thoughts.
Though an alien in fact. Prince Napoleon was a
thorough Englishman at heart; full of the martial
ardour which was the salient characteristic of his
family, he yearned to stand beside his comrades in
arms, and when the wish was granted him, in England's
service he fell.

It is not the fitting moment to ask whether British
soldiers clung to old traditions when they fled and
left behind them a comrade, heedless of the horrible

TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 209

doom that awaited him, nor whether it was not an
unpardonable breach of courtesy thus to needlessly
expose the valuable life entrusted to our care by a
devoted mother ; suffice it that the brave young fellow
died a soldier's death, and that his blameless life
and untimely end have filled all men with admiration
and regret. Born in the purple, hurled by one
vicissitude after another from glorious and giddy
heights of power into the position of a private
individual, the hopes of France yet centred in his
life, and on the pale, serious youth, lithe in figure
and intelligent of aspect, hung the possible existence
of an empire. From the quiet shades of retirement,
where the Empress lived a calm and dignified life,
reports spread abroad of the Prince's studious habits,
of his soldier-like, abstemious tastes, of his pre-
dilection for that branch of military science his
father had affected, of his simple occupations and his
fresh healthy mind. Keenly affectionate, and of
an emotional nature, the boy grew up with the ten-
derest respect for his father, the most chivalrous
devotion to his mother, and filled with the burning
desire to serve the best interests of France. His
companions at Woolwich never tired of speaking
well of him, of admiring his proficiency in their
mutual studies, or commenting on his quickness and
dexterity in games. Alas ! that so bright a promise
should have been clouded so early, and the sad cloud
which seemed to have lifted somewhat off his Royal
mother's life have settled down in gloomier and
more permanent shadow. The loss of a favourite
child is a blow hard to bear at all times, but the
shattering of all earthly prospects, the removal of
every object of desire and incentive to exertion, is.

2IO EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

indeed, a lot so terrible as fortunately to be far from
common.

The chequered history of the Bonapartes reads
almost like some wild romance, culminating, as it
does, after troublous scenes of war, ambition and
conquest, in the death, grand in its simple solitude,
of the last and youngest of the race in a foreign
country among savages, whither the indomitable
spirit of his ancestors had led him in search of
adventure and heroic exploit. For him we cannot
grieve ; he died the death he would have chosen — the
fitting crown of a pure and blameless life; the sur-
vivors rather it is who demand our heartfelt sympathy.
The Empress has borne her sorrows with true
Christian resignation, has been so beloved in the
adopted country of her exile, has proved herself
of so noble and unrepining a spirit, that all England
must share in her grief and pour forth abundant
tears. To comfort the inconsolable is impossible,
to rouse interest where there are no interests is a
herculean task; profound and respectful sympathy
is all that the most devoted can offer. Words are
powerless to remove her anguish; time alone can
blunt the edge of sorrow such as hers. There
are, at least, no stings of remorse or blame to
add to her misery; the memory of her young son
will stand out through all ages sweet and wholesome,
pregnant with great possibilities, untarnished by a
single speck of dishonesty or failure. Such lives,
short as they are, profitless as they may seem, are
not wasted — they point a moral and leave a name in
the pages of history for succeeding posterity to
mark and profit by. The period of youth is a time
of trial, temptation and too frequently of vice.

TRIBUTE TO THE LITTLE PRINCE 211

The Prince Imperial was spared all this; his spotless
soul has returned to its Maker guileless and faithful.
He had a noble task to perform, and he did it well.
" He was the only son of his mother, and she was
a widow."

CHAPTER XXII

" IDENTIFYING " THE PRINCE IMPERIAL

When the Prince Imperial decided to go to the Cape
in order to witness, not, as was popularly believed,
to take part in, the operations of our troops in the
Zululand campaign, H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge,
then Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, wrote the
subjoined letters to Sir Bartle Frere and to General
Lord Chelmsford : —

February 2e,th, 1879.
My dear Sir Bartle Frere, —

I am anxious to make you acquainted with the
Prince Imperial, who is about to proceed to Natal
by to-morrow's packet to see as much as he can of the
coming campaign in Zululand in the capacity of a spectator.
He was anxious to serve in our army, having been a cadet at
Woolwich, but the Government did not think that this could
be sanctioned. But no objection is made to his going out on
his own account, and I am permitted to introduce him to you
and to Lord Chelmsford, in the hope, and with my personal
request, that you will give him every help in your power to
enable him to see what he can. I have written to Chelmsford
to the same effect. He is a charming young man, full of
spirit and energy, speaking English admirably, and the more
you see of him the more you will like him. He has many
young friends in the Artillery, and so I doubt not, with your
and Chelmsford's kind assistance, he will get on well enough.
I remain, my dear Sir Bartle Frere, yours most sincerely,

George.

February 2^th, 1879.
My dear Chelmsford, —

This letter will be presented to you by the Prince
Imperial, who is going out on his own account to see as much

212

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 213

as he can of the coming campaign in Zululand. He is
extremely anxious to go out, and wanted to be employed in
our army, but the Government did not consider that this could
be sanctioned, but have sanctioned my writing to you and to
Sir Bartle Frere to say that if you can show him kindness
and render him "assistance to see as much as he can with the
columns in the field, I hope you will do so. He is a fine
young fellow, full of spirit and pluck, and, having many old
Cadet friends in the Royal Artillery, he will doubtless find no
difficulty in getting on, and if you can help him in any other
way, pray do so. My only anxiety on his account would be
that he is too plucky and go-head. I remain, my dear Chelms-
ford, yours most sincerely, George.

The Duke's letters were read by him in the House
of Lords. A letter from Queen Victoria to the Duke
was first published in the " Memoir of the Private
Life of George Duke of Cambridge," edited by the
Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, Dean of the Chapels
Royal, and issued by Longmans, Green & Co. in
December, 1906. * These frank memoirs of the
illustrious Duke supply many missing links in the
story of the Prince Imperial. Thus Canon Sheppard
writes (vol. ii., p. 68) :

Among those who were eager to take part in the campaign
which was to wash out the stain of Isandlana was the young
Prince Imperial. . . . There were many reasons why he
should desire to see active service in the field. Young, high-
spirited and intrepid to the point of recklessness, he chafed
at the inactivity which the circumstances of his exile entailed,
and was all on fire for the intoxicating excitement of actual
war. Perhaps, too, through the smoke of the battlefield he
saw some dim vision of gallant deeds performed and fair
fame won, which should make his name glorious in France,
and win back for his family the Crown so lately lost. What-

* The reverend editor gracefully acknowledges his indebted-
ness to Queen Mary for revising the proofs of his volumes.

214 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

ever his motives, the Prince Imperial lost no time in making
his wishes known to the Duke of Cambridge, who, in turn,
was able to assure him that the Government would set no
obstacle in the way of his going out as a volunteer attached
to the staff of Lord Chelmsford.

As it is this episode in his brief career which has
enshrined the memory of the Prince Imperial in all
hearts, I dwell upon it in some detail ; more especially
because the erroneous belief prevailed in England,
as well as in France, that the Empress Eugenie's
son went out as an officer holding a commission in the
British army. Many are still (191 6) of that opinion.

The Prince Imperial escaped the Prussian bullets
at Saarbriicken, to fall the victim of a Zulu ambush
while wearing British uniform. The Prince and
Lieutenant Carey, of the 98th (the Staffordshire)
Regiment, headed a small reconnoitring party; all
had " unsaddled " and were resting near the Ityotyozi
River, when they were " surprised " by the blacks,
and the Prince, failing to mount as quickly as his com-
panions, owing to the breaking of a stirrup-leather,
was pierced by assegais. All the others escaped;
in popular parlance, " leaving the Prince to his fate."
It was the last act of that tragedy of Bonapartism
which began with the declaration of war on the 19th
of July, 1870. The curtain fell on the ist of June,

1879-

The fact that the Prince had obtained official
sanction to join our forces as a " spectator " of the
operations caused no surprise in this country; his
friends here approved the young man's action, seeing
in it a laudable desire to escape from a stagnant
existence at home, and perhaps to give practical
shape to his assertion on the lawn at Chislehurst,

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 215

" I was born a gunner." Some of his own country-
men took other views, but they held their peace for
ten years.

It was not until 1890 that two books, purporting to
deal historically with the career of the Prince, made
their appearance in Paris. One, by far the most
exhaustive, and abounding in documents, is that by
Comte d'Herisson, entitled " Le Prince Imperial :
Napoleon IV." The other, by an anonymous author,
is " La Verite sur le Depart du Prince Imperial
pour le Zoulouland." No complaint can be made
of the second of these volumes on the score of
reticence, for the author undertakes to explain the
why and the wherefore of the Prince Imperial's action
in going to the Cape. This is his story in brief. *

On the 1 6th March, 1879, less than three months
before his death, the Prince attained the age of
twenty-three. In the eight and a half years which had
elapsed since his arrival in England he had com-
pleted his education at King's College and at the
Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and was
regarded as a highly promising officer. One morning,
a comrade, formerly like himself a Woolwich cadet,
presented himself at Camden Place, to say good-bye
to his friend. The visitor was going, with his
regiment, to Zululand. What wonder, then, that the
Prince took counsel with his friend as to how he
himself, " Napoleon the Fourth," could contrive
to accompany those lucky ones who were bound for

* The narratives of Comte d'Herisson and the author of
" La V^rit^ sur le Depart du Prince Imperial pour le Zoulou-
land " are at variance with the narrative by that intimate
friend of the young Prince which is given in the chapter " The
Empress and her Son."

2i6 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

the Cape ? On the following day the Prince went to
London, ostensibly to see his friend off, but actually
to request " the Duke " to allow him to " go out " also.

Observing his cheerful demeanour when he got back
to Chislehurst, the Empress asked, " What is the
matter with you, Louis? One would imagine you
had won the great prize in the lottery." The Prince
replied that he felt very happy, and would explain
everything the next day : " Not to-night, lest it
should spoil your sleep." This ambiguous answer to
her inquiry was somewhat disquieting to the Empress,
who, the last thing that night, begged her son to tell
her what had happened : " Otherwise, I shall think
you are going to Zululand." The Prince made
a clean breast of it, admitting that he had been to see
the Commander-in-Chief in order to obtain the
permission of the Government to accompany the
Expeditionary Force to the Cape. The Duke of
Cambridge had promised to send an answer the next
day.

On the following morning the Empress had a long
conversation with her son :

"You are now," she said, "a man; you are twenty-three;
and one day you may reign in France, You are, therefore,
absolutely free to act as your conscience directs. But I am
your mother, and I have a right to remind you that certain
duties are imposed upon you. I do not speak of myself. I
have only you left to love, and I worship you. I have but one
wish, my boy — to see you happy. But your life belongs to
your country, to your Party, which is devoted, numerous and
ardent in your cause ; and you are their hope. You are not
free. Above all, you must remember that you have to safe-
guard the interests of all who reckon upon you. Many of
them have made great sacrifices both for your father and for
you. Should anything happen to you, you would have placed

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 217

yourself in the position of a banker who had failed to meet
his engagements."

" I have thought much about it," said the Prince. " My
departure is not simply the freak of a boy who seeks adven-
tures. It is for the sake of my friends that I am going to
the Cape. In France I am scarcely known. They only
remember me as a child ; and I am always spoken of as 'le
petit Prince. ' Then even my best friends hold different opinions
about me. Some say I am led by M. Rouher ; others, that I
am guided by General Fleury ; while some assert that you
yourself direct me. In fact, I seem to have no personality
of my own. I cannot have any authority — I shall be considered
only as an instrument in the hands of others — until I have
done something. I am wasting my youth in the midst of
political squabbles, having no immediate interest. If I return
after having distingiiished myself, what strength I shall bring
to my friends, what authority I shall have ! By the time
my father had reached my age he had travelled a very great
deal. L'inaction est perfide. And then what will be my
position as regards those young Englishmen who have opened
their ranks to me when they see me again? Could I ever
retake my place among them if I allowed them to go out and
run the risk of getting killed without my being among them?
For the honour of us all, for the glory of our name, let me go
and win my spurs ! "

Three days later he was on his way to the Cape.

Such is the story as told by the anonymous author
of " La Verite sur le Depart du Prince Imperial
pour le Zoulouland."

The tragedy of Zululand in 1879 may be said to
have passed into history. It was revived in 1905
by the publication of the reminiscences of the late
Mr Thomas W. Evans. Mr Evans, according to
his own statement, published particularly in the
" British Medical Journal," as well as in the English
and foreign papers generally, immediately after the
Prince Imperial's funeral at Chislehurst in July, 1879,

2i8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

examined the body at Woolwich Arsenal, and
" identified " it as being that of the ill-fated Prince
by some gold-filling, his own work, in one of the teeth.
Why was it necessary to call in Mr Evans to "identify"
the body if it was readily recognisable by others?
It was stated by several persons, and so reported
by the English, French and all other newspapers,
that the Prince was wounded by assegais in eighteen
places, one assegai piercing the left eye. Comte
d'Herisson declares that the body was so shockingly
mutilated as to be unrecognisable, " riddled by
wounds," and bases this assertion upon the statements
made to him by English eye-witnesses, the Prince's
grooms. If this were so, it would explain the
apparently mysterious calling-in of Mr Evans to
" identify " the body of the Prince. If it were not
so, why was Mr Evans requested to examine it?

Comte d'Herisson is not the only French author of
repute who is firm on the point of the alleged dis-
figurement and mutilation of the young Prince's body.
M. Pierre de Lano, in his work, " L'Imperatrice
Eugenie," published in 1894, four years subsequent
to the appearance of Comte d'Herisson's book, says,
" When the cofhn-lid was raised there fell upon
those present a sort of stupor of despair, of doubt,
and also of hope. The Prince, indeed, lying in that
coffin, was unrecognisable, and all present were
unanimous in declaring that it was not he whom they
had loved. Was it, then, possible that a mistake
had been made? The hope that had existed soon
disappeared. Mr Evans put all doubt at an end by
affirming, after he had attentively examined the
mouth of the dead, that he recognised a tooth which
he himself had attended to some time after the

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 219

Prince's departure for Zululand." Both d'Herisson's
and De Lano's works were published serially before
their appearance in book form, and are still on sale,
unexpurgated ! Their accuracy was never then
questioned by Monsignor Goddard or anyone else.

One Thursday night in June, 1879, they were saying
in the House of Commons, and at the clubs, that
the Prince Imperial had been killed in Zululand.
Next morning the papers, in brief telegrams, con-
firmed the news which had leaked out the previous
night.

On Friday, June 20, 1879, the " Daily News "
published two telegrams, dated June i and 2,
from its special correspondent, " Headquarters' Camp,
Itelezi." The correspondent was the late Mr Archi-
bald Forbes, who began his message with the words,
" I have terrible news to give," and went on to say,
" Prince Napoleon's body was found in a donga, a
hundred and fifty yards from the kraal. It was
stripped naked, and lying on the back. There was
no bullet wound, but there were eighteen assegai
stabs — two piercing the body from the chest to the
back, two in his side, and one destroying the right
eye. The face wore a placid expression."

In the same journal on July 12, 1879, there was
an account of the opening of the coffin at Woolwich :

This scene, so terrible to the assistants, lasted for a con-
siderable time. On opening- the coffin it was found that the
operation of embalmings the corpse, always difficult when
several wounds have been inflicted, had been imperfectly per-
formed, and that, although decomposition had not proceeded
to any very great extent, the features of the ill-fated young
soldier had undergone such serious change as to make the
work of recognition almost as difficult as it was painful.
Some of the features had suffered terribly, but all doubt as to

220 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

the identity of the deceased Prince was set at rest by the
peculiarity of his dentition. M. Rouher declared himself
" satisfied " as to the identity of the body, and the same
opinion was expressed by many of those who viewed it,
including [the late] Monsignor Goddard. Uhlmann, the old
personal servant of the Prince, who carried the sword of his
dead master, fainted at the sight of the distorted features of
one he had loved so well and served so faithfully. .

The mortuary chapel, in which the remains were
deposited for an hour or so before being taken to
Chislehurst, was cleared of all but the Murat Princes,
the two Princes Bonaparte (Lucien and Charles),
the Due de Bassano, M. Rouher, the medical men
(Barons Larrey, Corvisart and Dr Conneau), Mon-
signor Goddard and Mr Evans, and then the coffin
was opened and the " identification " commenced.

The coffin [said Comte d'H^risson, writing in the " Gaulois "
before the arrival at Woolwich of the Admiralty yacht
Enchantress with the remains of the illustrious dead] will be
placed in a salle draped with black, where the legal constatations
will take place, and where the coffin will be opened. All
these formalities depend upon the tenour of the procfes-verbaux
accompanying the body ; their contents are not yet known
in England. . . . My first care, on arriving at Woolwich,
was to go on board the Enchantress, and see the chamber in
which was the coffin. Touching and heart-breaking spectacle !
Round the bier were Prince Joachim Murat, Louis de Turenne,
Count Davilliers and Admiral Duperr^, all standing with bowed
heads.

The clergy came to conduct the coffin to the chapelle ardente
in the armoury of the Arsenal, where the constatation de
I'identit^ will be made. ... I pass Uhlmann, the Prince's
servant. He is like one demented. In a voice broken by tears
and sobs he tells how he saw the Prince's body riddled with
horrible wounds. The left side was transpierced. The Prince
had parried the assegais with his left arm, which was
shockingly mutilated. At the Arsenal it is rumoured that the

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 221

Empress has refused to allow the constatation de I'identit^ to be
made. [This was not so.]

At 4.30 the Prince of Wales arrives, and remains half
an hour. In the chapelle ardente fifteen persons, at the most,
are grouped : they are the Princes of the family, M. Rouher,
G^n^ral Fleury, the Due de Mouchy, M. Pietri, Dr Corvisart
and the other l^gataires. The coffin is opened, despite the
rumoured opposition of the Empress. The constatation de
I'identitd takes place amidst profound anguish and behind a
white veil, which drapes the entrance to conceal as much as
possible this sad formality. . . . The Royal Dukes and the
Prince of Wales talk with Prince Murat and M. Rouher. I
leave with them for Chislehurst.

Mr Evans, the dentist, who had on several occasions attended
the Prince, has examined the teeth, in which he recognised
certain indications which had formerly claimed his attention.
Other persons have also recognised an old cicatrice in one of
the hands of the Prince, . . . The Empress [on the day after the
funeral] asked to see Uhlmann. The faithful servant came,
and remained with her nearly an hour, answering her questions,
and satisfying her maternal curiosity. This touching inter-
view caused the Empress so much feverish excitement that,
in order to bring the conversation to an end, Dr Corvisart
was obliged to plead Uhlmann's fatigue. The Empress wished
also to see the Prince's orderly, Lomas; she has had a long
talk with him. The Empress expressed a desire that both
Lomas and Uhlmann should remain in her service.

Comte d'Herisson complains that he was not
invited by Prince Murat to enter the chapelle ardente
(where the body was lying) until after the few
persons who were allowed to be present had left,
and when the plumber was soldering down the
coffin-lid :

Thus I only know the state of the body by what was told
me by certain persons who had seen it, and who left the
chapelle ardente absolument atterr^s (absolutely horrified).
I have said that, although the Prince was completely unrecog-
nisable, he was nevertheless identified by Mr Evans, who,

222 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

from his inspection of the teeth, was able to sign a solemn

declaration that the body was, indeed, that of the Prince

Imperial. The English medical Press enables us to establish
the truth upon this point.

The " Gaulois " of July i6, 1879, contained the
following : —

Our London correspondent informs us that the Empress has
been saddened by the statements which represent the body
of her son as having been horribly disfigured. The aromatic
herbs used for the embalming blackened the flesh, which
has given rise to a belief that there was a decomposition which
does not exist. The Empress said, " I hope nobody will be
disquieted about my son's reputation ou dans ses int^rets."

Comte d'Herisson thus comments upon the
Empress's reported observation :

The body, then, was not decomposed? How was Mr Evans
able to examine the Prince's jaw? And if he was able to
accomplish this tour de force, by what illusory phenomenon
was he able to recognise as his own the work of three other
dentists? It is, however, this recognition which permitted him
to solemnly affirm that it was the Prince's body !

The " Daily News " of Tuesday, July 15, 1879,
reported :

The document completing the formal identification of the
remains of the late Prince Louis Napoleon was legally signed
yesterday by the persons appointed for that purpose — viz.
Prince Murat, the Due de Bassano, Mr Evans and Dr Corvisart.
Dr Conneau testified to recognising a wound on the hip
which the Prince received from a fall when a child. The
injury left a lump of coagulated blood. Mr Evans (who, when
he saw the remains, held the features in such a manner that
Prince Murat and others were better able to recognise them)
testified to the identity of certain teeth which he had filled.
The coffin was sealed in the presence only of the executors
named in the will. Before this was done a quantity of

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 223

the Prince's hair was cut off for the Empress. Lomas, the
Prince's orderly, who was sent out to assist in finding the
body and bring it into the British camp, has given some
further details in respect of the matter. He says the body
was found lying in a semi-recumbent position on a slope,
the arms being pressed close to the chest. There are in all
eighteen wounds, five of which would have been fatal. There
was a wound in the foot, and another in one of the eyes, as
though an assegai had been thrown and struck him there, and
subsequently been wrenched out. It was these wounds which
caused the discoloration and swelling of one side of his
face, the flesh apparently having been roughly torn when
the assegai was withdrawn. There was also a slight wound
in the mouth, and a tooth knocked out, apparently by the
thrust of an assegai.

In the " Daily News " of July 14, 1879, the Paris
correspondent reported that the " Figaro " devoted
two pages to " revised and supplementary corre-
spondence from its late correspondent in Zululand,"
M. Deleage, who returned to Europe with the Prince's
body. Deleage and others went out to find the
three bodies :

The first body (that of a trooper) they found had the head
covered with a piece of flannel. Deleage comments on the
fact that the savages themselves were so shocked at the
mutilation of the dead man's face that they sacrificed a scrap
of flannel to conceal the horror. Two hundred yards farther
the body of the Prince was found. It was quite naked. The
stiffened arms were a little crossed upon the breast, and the
head slightly inclined to the right. There was no trace of
suffering on the face. The mouth was slightly open, the left
eye shut, the right eye had been crushed out by an assegai.
There were seventeen or eighteen wounds, all in the front,
and according to Zulu custom the stomach was cut open, but
there was a very slight incision, and the entrails did not
protrude. Dr Scott and Dr Robertson agreed that the Prince
was killed by the assegai that pierced his right eye and

224 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

penetrated the brain, and that all the subsequent wounds were
inflicted on a dead body.

In a previous dispatch to the " Figaro " M. Deleage
stated that he had " vainly tried to close the Prince's
remaining eye, which yet reflected gentleness and
goodness."

On July 5, 1879, Archibald Forbes telegraphed
from Landsman's Drift an account of the battle
of Ulundi, which was published in the '' Daily
News " of July 28. In this telegram Forbes
described some of the barbarities practised by the
Zulus upon our troops. " In the long grass Buller's
men found three comrades who had fallen in a
reconnaissance the previous day, mangled with
fiendish ingenuity, scalped, their noses and right hands
cut off, their hearts torn out, and other nameless
mutilations."

Dr Gannal, the eminent Paris embalmer, asked for
his opinion, wrote, under date March 12, 1890:

It is a question of the death of an officer abroad as the
result of wounds in the principal organs — the heart, lungs,
etc. — whose body was embalmed and then brought to Europe.
You ask me if it is possible that, merely by the opening of
the coffin some days after the embalming, the body could
become black and absolutely unrecognisable, as it was found
to be when, two months afterwards, the official recognition
took place. To that question I reply, no. ... If, however,
the embalming had not been performed with all due care it
would have been found that the body was brown, green in
places, swollen by gases, the tissues softened ; in one word
unrecognisable perhaps, but not black. . . . You also ask me
if it is possible to open the mouth of a dead person two months
after the embalming, in order to see if the molars had been
filled with gold. If the body has been well preserved
(embalmed), I answer, no; if it is in a state of decomposition,

IDENTIFYING THE PRINCE 225

yes, but it would be a dangerous operation, which few of my
colleagues would consent to perform unless they should be
medecins Idgistes, who make a sp6cialit6 of these painful
researches. ... I do not believe a dentist competent to con-
scientiously perform such an operation.

Comte d'Herisson asserts that J. Lomas and
J. Brown (both in the Prince Imperial's service as
grooms) told him that, on the discovery of the body,
they had " recognised " it as that of the Prince :

They were deceived. Neither Lomas nor Brown was the
first to *' recognise " the Prince, for the reason that when
the body was found it was hardly recognisable. . . . The
body, completely naked, bore seventeen assegai wounds, some
in the face and some in the chest. The assegai is a terrible
weapon, making frightful wounds. . . . Only imagination can
supply the details which are lacking of the Prince's death.
Once he and his companions in misfortune were killed they
were all treated alike. Thus the Prince, like the two others,
was despoiled of his clothes ; the Zulus, in accordance with
their custom, disembowelled him ; for, contrary to Lomas 's
statement, they had plenty of time to perform this barbarous
operation. . , . Lomas, like a faithful and devoted servant,
repeated what he had been told to say. Never could he have
seen in a head from which one eye had been wrenched, as
well as a part of the cheek, while one lip was smashed, and
there were several other wounds, a face " full of grace, and
almost smiling." If the face was in that condition, why was
no photograph taken? That was the best way to prove the
identity of the dead Prince. . . . The English had a well-
organised photographic service in the war with China in
i860. Twenty years later they must have had all facilities
for photographing the body of the Prince if it had been con-
sidered desirable. We know what the sentiments of Europe
will be when it is found that the coffin contains a body so
completely mutilated [as that of the Prince Imperial].

My friend Monsignor Goddard declared, after

226 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

seeing the body, that it was not in any way disfigured.
I saw the coffin finally closed before it was taken
from Woolwich to Chislehurst. It was considered
inadvisable to permit the Empress to take a last look
at the remains of her heroic son. Why ?

CHAPTER XXIII

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS

The late Field-Marshal Sir John Lintorn-Simmons
(who directed the Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich during the Prince Imperial's studentship)
was the only personage of note who came forward by
name in our Press to support the Empress when
she was vehemently attacked. In the " Nineteenth
Century " (September, 1892) Sir John published an
article much of which was devoted to a reply to
a criticism by Archibald Forbes of the scabrous work
entitled " An Englishman in Paris " which had
appeared in the previous number of the same review.
I quote an example of Sir John Simmons' strenuous
advocacy :

The Empress knew perfectly well, before the rupture with
Prussia had resulted in war, that the Empire had nothing to
gain by it, if successful ; but, if success were not to follow
the French Eagles, the result would be, in all human probability,
disastrous to the Empress, and bring about the ruin of the
Emperor, or herself, and the prospects of her much-beloved
son. How, then, is it probable that she did not share the
well-known desire of the Emperor to avoid war? It is certain
that a cause of the war must be sought for elsewhere than
by attributing it to the Empress, and it is probable that revela-
tions which may possibly emanate from the great ex-Chancellor
in Germany [Prince Bismarck] may, at some future date,
throw a light which will not only remove the charge from the
shoulders of the Empress, but place it on much broader and
stronger shoulders, that are more capable of sustaining it.
227

r

228 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

But Bismarck made no such " revelations."
Perhaps they are contained in the MSS. at the Bank
of England, where they are likely to remain until
the death of William II., the " Bloody " Kaiser of
1914-1916.

If Sir John Lintorn-Simmons threw himself into
the discussion with natural and, as all will agree, com-
mendable chivalry, he as certainly wrote with parti pris.
He would have been better able to demolish the
" Englishman in Paris " had he taken the trouble
to learn the views of those who wrote with full
knowledge and based their arguments upon historical
documents and facts. The Empress Eugenie's
friend who assisted her Majesty in the preparation
of her detailed and convincing reply to her
"calumniators"* overlooked the testimony of one who
probably would have strained a point to exhibit
the Empress in the most favourable light possible —
the late Mr Blanchard Jerrold. He wrote a "Life"
of the Emperor, in four volumes, and a glance at the
title-page shows how well he was equipped for the
task. His work is entitled " The Life of Napoleon
III., derived from State Records, from Unpublished
Family Correspondence, and from Personal Testi-
mony " ; and it was published in 1882 by Longmans,
Green & Co. There was a certain appropriateness
in the publication of the work by that firm, for did
not the Empress acquire her home at Farnborough
Hill from the late Mr Thomas Longman.?

The question of responsibility for the war is
treated by Mr Jerrold (vol. i., pp. 474-475) :

*Vide "The Empress Eugenie: 1870 — 1910." London:
Harper & Brothers. New York : Charles Scribners' Sons.
1910.

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 229

All the testimony agrees in presenting the Emperor as the
first to welcome hopes of peace and the last to consent to the
arbitrament of war. At the night-council at St Cloud the
war-party was in force. It was in the ascendant in the
Palace and among the tried friends of his dynasty. It had
the sympathy of the Empress, whose impulsive nature resented
vehemently the tricks and the open insults to which M. de
Bismarck, their ungenerous and unchivalrous guest, had
subjected her adopted country. It has been said that the
Empress urged on the war-party, and was indeed the chief
instigator of the war, because she believed it would secure
the return of the throne to her son. Her heroic conduct after
the fall of the dynasty, and when she was asked to save it
at the expense of the honour of France, should have shielded
her from this charge. She approved the war because she
believed that the honour of France demanded it, but none . . .
save for the moment, believed that her share in the respon-
sibilities which weigh upon those who governed France in
July, 1870, may be traced to other than patriotic motives.
The French war-party wrought an evil of terrible magnitude.
All who were of it must bear a share of the blame. -•

" The war-party," says Blanchard Jerrold, " had
the sympathy of the Empress," and she " must
bear a share of the blame," like all the rest. With
the citation of this frank assertion of an impartial
historian, who yet wrote, so to speak, " to order,"
I pass on, remarking that in view of Mr Jerrold's
honestly expressed logical opinions, based on a
presumably accurate knowledge of the facts,
the inflated assertions and nonsensical assumptions
of the late Mr Thomas W. Evans (the Imperial
dentist) to the contrary can only be regarded as vain
talk.

In truth, the " war-party " * carried everything
* Mr Jerrold seems to have been unaware that the "war- ^
party ' ' really comprised all France ; so, at least, recent
eminent authorities, including M. Ollivier, assert, supported by
documentary evidence.

230 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

before it, even ignoring the sound advice tendered to
France by the Government of Queen Victoria, the
Sovereign to whose friendship and protection the
Empress Eugenie and Napoleon III. owed so much.
Mr Jerrold writes (vol. iv., pp. 469-470) :

When the Council met on the morning of July 13th a
letter from Lord Lyons (British Ambassador) was placed in
the Emperor's hands, in which he (the Ambassador) expressed
urgently the hope of the British Government that France would
be satisfied with the withdrawal of Prince Leopold (from
his candidature for the Spanish throne). This communication
inclined the Ministers to peace, but the war-party would not
yield.

The allegations, briefly formulated, were :

1. That the Empress had favoured the Declaration of War
by France.

2. That, when the Emperor expressed the strongest possible
desire to return to Paris with his son, after the defeats of the
French troops in the battles of the first week of August, the
Empress protested against his return, unless he could come
back to the capital as a conqueror ; and

3. That she kept the Prince Imperial so short of money that,
in a fit of sheer desp^eration, he went to Africa to find, as it
unfortunately happened, a martyr's death at the hands of the
Zulus.

«

The gravest charge was that the Empress strongly
objected to the Emperor and the Prince Imperial
returning to Paris when Napoleon III. found every-
thing going against him. Had she permitted her
consort and their son to go back from the front,
where the Emperor was worse than useless, and
the poor little Prince (aged fourteen !) in the way,
the Prussians would not have " captured " the
Emperor at Sedan. The Empress may fairly reply

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 231

that the Paris populace would have killed him, but
it is not altogether unreasonable to suppose that
Napoleon III. would have had at least as good a
chance of escape as his consort, who left Paris
without molestation. As I showed in my first part
of this trilogy, she has rebutted all the accusations,
and her answer, as put forward by me, was accepted
by the Press generally as convincing, although her
views conflicted with those of the Emperor.

M. Emile OUivier sided with the Emperor, but his
opinions underwent a certain amount of modification
of late years. We have been told by M. James de
Chambrier (" Entre I'Apogee et la Declin " *) that
it was proposed, at one of the meetings of the
Academic, to award the Gobert prize to M. Pierre
de la Gorce, whose history of the Second Empire is
highly valued in England as well as in France. The
proposal was opposed by Ollivier on the ground
that M. de la Gorce, in the work referred to,
had asserted that the Empire was responsible for the
war. " It was not the Empire," said Ollivier, " but
Prussia, which wanted the war, which rendered it
inevitable, and forced France to declare it." Ollivier
denounced all that De la Gorce had said on the
subject in his work, some passages of which, added
Ollivier, are " suitable for incorporating in a manual
for German schools under the patronage of the
Kaiser." The majority of the members of the
Academic present evidently shared Ollivier's views,
and awarded the Gobert prize, not to De la Gorce,
but to General Bonnal, a deservedly popular writer
on military subjects in 19 16.

* Paris: A. Fontemoign. 1908.

232 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

M. de la Gorce writes, in his " Histoire du Second
Empire " (vol. i., p. 294) :

A very honourable reserve, caused by pity for misfortune, and
also by fidelity to an august Empress, has veiled and softened
most of the public evidence which might accuse her. But
all the manuscript correspondence, all the private papers, give
this clear impression — that, on the French side, the Empress
was the principal artificer of the war.

The Due de Gramont, Minister of Foreign
Aifairs in 1870, in " La France et la Prusse avant la
Guerre," speaking of the transfer of power to the
Empress, says :

This measure was as fatal to the Emperor as to the Empress,
for it is incontestable that it would have been better for
both, and especially for the country, if the powers of the
Regency had not been delegated (to the Empress) until the day
when the Emperor should have quitted French territory. *

What M. de Gramont evidently means is that the
Decree of July 26, 1870, conferring upon the Empress
the functions of Regent immediately the Emperor
should have left the capital, had the result of
creating in France that double Government of which
Napoleon III. spoke. There is evidence, not that
the Empress precipitated the war, but that the
Emperor did not wish it.

In his "Notes pour servir a I'Histoire de la Guerre
de 1870 " t M. Alfred Darimon, who was one
of the famous " Five " of the Opposition, asserts
that as far back as the Crimean War, in which the

* When the Emperor "quitted French territory" it was
as a prisoner.

t Paris : Librairie Paul OUendorf.

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 233

French played so prominent a part (luckily for us),
the Empress cherished the hope of one day exercising
the duties of Regent. The Emperor was bent upon
proceeding to the scene of operations in the East,
and assuming the command of his army; but his
ideas were opposed by his Ministers. The only
person who supported the Emperor in his intentions
was the Empress, who expressed her views upon
the subject very forcibly to Queen Victoria. The
Queen, however, successfully argued to the contrary,
and her advice prevailed. ,

Darimon affirms that the Empress was the cause
of all the embarrassments which resulted from the
war with Italy. She was Regent once more in 1865,
when the Emperor went to Algiers for his health.
Thereafter, there was a numerous and powerful
" Empress's party " at the Tuileries.

In " The Historians' History of the World,"
published by the " Times " in 1907, is this passage
(vol. XV., p. 518):

. . . Napoleon wavered. For a cause like this (the Hohen-
zoUern candidature) to begin war with the united power of
the North German Confederation, perhaps even with all
Germany, appeared to him a dangerous proceeding. For a
long time he could come to no decision, but listened while
all and sundry gave him their views, and brooded over them
in his wonted fashion. In a short time peace was all but
decided upon. But in the night of the 14th to 15th July, in
which the decisive sitting of the Ministerial Council was held
at St Cloud, the Ministers Gramont and Leboeuf, both anxious
for war, and the Empress Eugenie, instigated and instructed
by the Jesuits, urged on the Emperor no longer to take these
perpetual rebuffs and humiliations from Prussia, but, for the
safety of his throne, which rested on the respect of the French
people, to declare war, and, in alliance with the great Catholic
nations, fall on heretic Germany. The Emperor finally yielded,

234 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

manifestly with a heavy heart, and the Empress cried triumph-
antly, " This is my war ! * With God's help we will overthrow
Protestant Prussia."

The sentence " in alliance with the great Catholic
nations " does not seem particularly apt. Austria
and Italy had undertaken to support France, con-
ditionally; these were the only possible " alliances,"
and the fact that Napoleon III., or rather his
advisers, would not consent to suspend military
operations until 1871 (the period suggested by
Austria) decided those Powers to hold aloof.

The view that the Emperor was strongly opposed
to the declaration of war is also taken by the author
of " An Englishman in Paris," whom many have
erroneously supposed to have been the late Sir
Richard Wallace ! The author of that work (actually
a Mr Vandam) asks :

Was Napoleon III. steeped in such crass ignorance as not
to have had an inkling of all this? Certainly not ! But he
was weary, body and soul, and, but for his wife and son, he
would, perhaps willingly, have abdicated. He had been
suffering for years from one of the most excruciating diseases,
and a fortnight before the declaration of war the symptoms
had become so alarming that a great consultation was held
between MM. Ndlaton, Ricord, Fauvel, G. See and Corvisart.
The result was the unanimous conclusion of those eminent
medical men that an immediate operation was absolutely
necessary. Curiously enough, however, the report embodying
this decision was only signed by one, and not communicated
to the Empress at all. It may be taken for granted that,
had she known of her husband's condition, she would not
have agitated in favour of the war, as she undoubtedly did.

* The Empress, I repeat, emphatically denies that she ever
used these words. Vide " The Empress Eugenie :
1870 — 1 9 10." Harpers.

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 235

Is it not significant of the anxiety of our neighbours
and allies to solve the question, " Who was respon-
sible for the war? " that writers of greater or
lesser eminence were still, and in 19 16 are, contri-
buting illuminating essays on this disputed point
to the leading French periodicals? In two closely
reasoned articles, highly documentes, in " Le Corre-
spondent " (October, 1908), M. Henri Welschinger,
of the Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques,
brought to light a variety of interesting political
and diplomatic facts. Although he did not per-
petrate any *' injuries " upon the Empress — far from
it — he asserted that it was undeniable that she
exercised a preponderating influence in regard to
the declaration of war. For at least a year she had
been much perturbed respecting the stability of the
reign :

The elections of 1869, which had strengthened the Republican
party and undeceived many official candidates ; the incessant
agitation in the capital ; the violent attacks of the opposition
press ; the success of Rochefort's pamphlet * ; the Emperor's
uncertain health; the little confidence which she had in a
liberal policy ... all these grave matters led the Empress
to believe that, without an extraordinary coup of luck, the
days of the Empire were numbered. She eagerly seized the
opportunity which the candidature of a German Prince seemed to
present. She evidenced an unlimited confidence in the French
forces, and considered them superior to those of Prussia.
She thought that the French, who had not forgiven the
Prussians for their brilliant success in 1866, would be happy
to revenge themselves for Sadowa, and to put an end to the
ambitious designs contemplated by the victors. She was
certain that a victory would consolidate the Imperial throne
and permit her son, whose precocious intelligence and generous
character she appreciated, to succeed Napoleon III. without

* " La Lanterne."

236 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

any difficulty. She eagerly received also the presumptuous
assurances of the Bonapartist Press, which was directed by
J6r6me David, Granier de Cassagnac, Clement Duvernois and
Dugue de la Fauconnerie.

The Empress had no doubt but that the whole country would
consider the design of placing a Hohenzollern upon the throne
of Spain as an insult and a defiance. She thought that, if the
Imperial Government succeeded in humiliating and defeating
Prussia, it would give immense satisfaction to all, and would
so increase its influence at home and abroad as to enable it
to dominate the situation. The mad enthusiasm with which
the Due de Gramont's declaration on the 5th of July had been
received, deceived her as to the real trend of public opinion.
Lord Granville, who had done all in his power to prevent
a catastrophe, had, through Lord Lyons (British Ambassador),
informed the Imperial Government that it would incur an
immense responsibility if it widened the causes of the quarrel
by refusing to accept the renunciation of Prince Leopold of
Hohenzollern 's claims, a renunciation verbally approved by
the King of Prussia.

Lord Granville added that the French Minister of Foreign
Affairs had no right to say that the British Government
appeared to admit the legitimate character of the French
complaints. In Lord Granville's opinion the Cabinet of the
Tuileries was wrong in taking the responsibility of a purely
formal quarrel, since, as a matter of fact, it had obtained
satisfaction. This clear impression Lord Lyons had made
known, on the morning of the 13th of July, at St Cloud, by
a dispatch which one of the Secretaries of the British Embassy
had placed in the hands of the Emperor, at a sitting of the
Council, and in presence of the Empress. But J6r6me David,
Cldment Duvernois and their party, were then more powerful
than Lord Lyons and Lord Granville, although they spoke
in the name of Queen Victoria. The Due de Gramont's fresh
demand, made at the pressing desire of the Empress, by which
the King of Prussia was invited to prevent, by writing, Prince
Leopold from revoking his decision at any time, surprised
and profoundly grieved our allies {i.e. the English). . . . The
Emperor was not as much disposed for war as the Empress.
More than once he had told his First Minister, Emile Ollivier,
that he had decided to do nothing.

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 237

On the very evening (July 14) when the Council at St Cloud
decided upon declaring- war, the Emperor, as Marshal
MacMahon narrated, still sought every kind of pretext to
avoid war. A sudden attack of his malady, la pier re, com-
pelled him to leave the Council, and he fainted. The doctors,
in the interest of the Emperor, and also of the Empire, ought
to have warned their patient of his danger; and who knows if
the Empress, confronted by such a revelation, would not have
hesitated to embark upon an adventure the most to be dreaded
and the most uncertain? When Napoleon had recovered
from the syncope into which he had fallen, and returned to
the Council, the Ministers — or some of them, at least — who
had appeared anything but decided to provoke immediate
hostilities, had been brought, under pressure of the eloquent
objurgations of the Empress, to take the most terrible of parts.
. . . The Emperor was obliged to give in. This time " the
iron dice " were well thrown.

The wild enthusiasm with which the Declaration of
War was greeted soon subsided. Even the bellicose
courtiers at St Cloud betrayed alarm — those courtiers
who had shouted for war and stigmatised as traitors
the more sober-minded people — lamentably few in
number, alas ! — who had counselled peace. Mon-
signor Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, whom the
Communards shot, went to St Cloud to witness
the swearing-in of several bishops; he noticed that
the Empress was a prey to the most sinister pre-
sentiments. The affair of Saarbriicken, in which
the Prince Imperial had shown so much pluck,
momentarily reassured her. " He will be lucky in
war, like the Bonapartes," she said. " Who," asks
M. Welschinger, " would have believed at that
moment that the reverses which were close at hand
would cause the Imperial throne to crumble and
send the Empress into exile — that the prelate who
consoled her would be shot by scoundrels, and that

238 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

the young Prince, the object of so much solicitude,
would one day fall under the assegais of savages
at the Cape? "

That the question of war between the two nations
was bruited in Germany long before it was revived
with such appalling consequences to France by the
HohenzoUern incident is demonstrated by Prince
Clovis von Hohenlohe in his " Memoirs/' The
Prince writes, under date, Munich, August 13, 1866
(p. 249, vol. i., French edition, 1908) : " European
politics depend to-day upon the decision of the
King of Prussia. Bismarck is disposed to cede
to the desires of Napoleon and to give him Saar-
briicken, Luxemburg, and a part of the Bavarian
Palatinate; but to this the King is opposed. Unless
the King assents to this there will be war between
France and Prussia. We {i.e. Bavaria) shall march
then against Prussia with France and Austria.''

It had been, of course, the belief — at all events
the hope — of Napoleon III. that, should he go to
war with Prussia, he would have the support of the
South German states. This belief, or hope, was,
however, based upon the contemplated alliance with
Austria. Rather more than two years later (April 28,
1868) Prince Clovis wrote from Berlin : " As to
war with France, it is as impossible to predict
anything with certainty as to prophesy what the
weather will be like in July ; for France will consider
twice before crossing swords with Germany. The
French plan of campaign is as follows : — To throw
50,000 men into the South of Germany in order
to secure neutrality. The Southern States will then
have a mauvais quart d'heure, for Prussia will
immediately mass 200,000 men at Coblenz, and a

THE EMPRESS'S CRITICS 239

few days afterwards she will have 500,000 men and
direct them upon Paris ; but these operations require
time. If we are in a position to resist France, nothing
could be better." What De Chambrier says :

" The accusations brought against the Empress
ci propos of that terrible war which resulted in the
end of everything for her — accusations which have
long weighed upon one whose name will always
mingle with the glories and the misfortunes of
France — have already been weakened by the evidence
even of those adversaries whose diplomatic and
military victories caused the fall of the Second
Empire. Among that evidence are the belated
admissions of Bismarck respecting that Ems telegram
which made the war of 1870 inevitable. Then
came the ' Propos de Table ' of Busch, the Chan-
cellor's confidant; the recent Memoirs of Count
Bernstorff, and the still more recent Memoirs of
Prince von Hohenlohe. Those show the effort, the
ruse of the soldiers and diplomatists who snatched
from the King of Prussia his consent to the war with
France. That war was their work, as had been the
Danish and Austrian wars of 1864 and 1866."

In this sweeping manner are the " accusations "
against the Empress disposed of by M. James de
Chambrier. Whether we agree (as many will) with
his opinions, or whether we question their absolute
accuracy (which certainly I am not prepared to do),
they deserve to be treated with respect, for this
writer boasts a longer and more intimate acquaintance
with the events of the Second Empire than that
possessed by many French authors who are better
known in this country.

240 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Not to quote other authorities, we have Lord
Malmesbury's assertion that at the Council held
at St Cloud on the 14th of July, 1870, the Empress
said war was " an unavoidable necessity if the
honour of France was not to become an empty
word.'* But, whatever opinion may have been formed
respecting the Empress's direct or indirect share
in the production of the cataclysm of 1870, we may
all hope that history will show the illustrious Exile
at Farnborough Hill in, as her consort happily
phrased it, " her true colours." The Empress has
been heard in her own defence (in my first volume).
None can honestly assert that she has not therein
effectively answered her " accusers."

CHAPTER XXIV

LOUIS NAPOLEON IN LONDON

Madame Doche had create'd in Paris the part of
Marguerite Gautier in " La Dame aux Camelias,"
with Charles Fechter as Armand Duval. Full of
her triumphs, the Sarah Bernhardt of the forties
came to London, and, as she was beautiful as well
as talented, she soon attracted the attention of
the " dandies " of the period. Two of her admirers
were (of course) Prince Louis Napoleon and the
Lord Pembroke who was the brother of Sidney
Herbert. Lord Pembroke was rich and extravagant;
Prince Louis Napoleon was, by comparison, a pauper.
His income was about ;^28oo a year, most of
which went in gambling at " Crockford's," the
notorious " hell " in St James's Street, and to keeping
alive the adventurers and conspirators who rightly
believed in the ultimate success of the heir to the
Imperial throne.

Doche quite took Louis Napoleon by assault, and
her beauty, wit, and charm at once subjugated this
Caesar in embryo, who one day sent word to her that
" he could not marry her, because his name was
not his own, but belonged to a dynasty and a cause,
while his means were limited." He assured her,
however, that, "if she would look kindly on him,'*
he would promise never to marry, would share
with her all that he then possessed, and in the event
Q 241

242 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

of his ever becoming Emperor of the French (which,
at the time, was highly improbable) would provide
for her.

Doche was an amusing, but a very silly woman.
She replied to the Prince that, although she was
highly flattered by his offer, he must give her time
for reflection, for she had just received from Lord
Pembroke a most splendid and generous pro-
position, which, as " she had her bread to earn "
(her own words) and her future to provide for, she
could hardly afford to reject without due con-
sideration. Louis Napoleon was very angry at the
woman's stupidity, and endeavoured, but in vain,
to pick a quarrel with Lord Pembroke, who simply
laughed at him, and then won £700 from him
at cards. Thus did poor, silly Doche (who used
to tell the story with tears in her beautiful eyes)
lose one of the most marvellous chances that ever
offered itself to a disciple of Phryne. But she lost
Lord Pembroke, too, by her stupidity, and it was this
last mistake of hers which created the Montgomery
family. Knowing the noble lord's reckless dis-
position, impatience of denial, and splendid, but
mad, generosity, she thought it would be clever
to play fast and loose with him in the hope that, at
length exasperated, he might perchance even surpass
himself in Quixotic folly and lay at her feet half of
Eldorado.

But Pembroke was not used to being trifled with,
though he was quite ready to pay handsomely for his
caprices, and doubtless coincided with Tom Moore
when he sings, under the transparent nom de plume
of " Thomas Little " :

LOUIS NAPOLEON IN LONDON 243

Doris, you little rosy rake,

That heart of yours I long to rifle ;

Come, give it me, and do not make
So much ado about a trifle !

So one morning he thus explained the situation to
a friend : " I have invited Doche to have supper
with me at Richmond to-night. I have asked her
over and over again; she has always promised to
come, and never kept her word. I am tired of it.
I have named eleven o'clock. If she is punctual, my
servant will have ^10,000 to give her, but every
five minutes after half past eleven he will deduct

;^IOOO."

She never came at all. The following morning his
lordship sent for the manager of one of the leading
jewellers of Bond Street, and instructed him to
go at once to the residence (if he could find out where
it was) of a certain ballet dancer named Schaeffer,
who, though ugly and stupid, had caused some
sensation in a ballet at the opera, and offer her, in
his (Pembroke's) name, jewels to the amount of
;^2 5,cxxD. The poor fellow had considerable
difficulty in discovering the ballerina's address; but
he eventually found the lady in a fourth-floor bedroom
in Leicester Square engaged in washing her silk
stockings.

The delight of Mile Schaeffer can be easily
imagined; nor is it difficult to picture the dismay of
Doche when she discovered all that she had lost by
her perverseness. It was, however, too late to mend
matters, and, although she wrote letter after letter
to the Lord of Wilton, her epistles were all returned
to her unanswered. This intrigue with Schaeffer,
which Lord Pembroke began in a moment of pique

244 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

and wounded pride, ripened into a lasting attachment,
and he not only gave her immense sums during his
lifetime, but provided for her children, and left
her all he could in his will. The offspring assumed
the name of Montgomery, the second title of the
earldom, and thus it is that we have the noble family
of De Montgomery in France to-day.

" I tell this little tale," concludes the narrator,
" lest it should be imagined that the De Mont-
gomerys, who are Protestants, are in any way
connected with the gentleman who had the misfortune
to kill Henry H. in the famous tilting match."

In 1843 — Prince Louis Napoleon being then a
prisoner at Ham — Queen Victoria and the Prince
Consort visited the King and Queen of the French
at the Chateau d'Eu, Treport. Here our Queen
and Prince Albert saw Madame Doche and other
members of the vaudeville company (Arnal and
Felix among them) in " Le Chateau de ma Niece "
and " L'Humoriste," and it is on record that Queen
Victoria was "much amused" by the sprightly Doche
and her comrades.

CHAPTER XXV

POETS' TRIBUTES

Napoleon's Death, 1879

My interest in the Prince Imperial led me, in 1879,
to offer prizes (in the "Whitehall Review") for the
best poems on his death. Three of these are now
appended. I add to them some verses on Napoleon
III. by my friend, the well-known poet, Mr J. W.
Gilbart- Smith.

France

England, whom waitest thou ?
shadows are on thy brow,
and all the night is wet with tears,
and storms are ringing in thine ears ;

whom waitest thou ? whom waitest thou ?
there by thy sea-cliff's ghostly line,
with sad eyes bent across the brine,

is it a son of thine

comes with the dawn divine

on lips that make no sign ?

comes o'er the misty sea

in funeral pageantry ?

England

It is thy son, France, thine, and mine,
thy son, my soldier, even mine ;
mine ; for he wore the sword for me,
mine ; for he died in fight for me ;
245

246 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

thine ; but he cometh not to thee,
thy heart is closed : thou wilt not see !
Wilt thou not weep ? It is thy son !
dead — dead ! Napoleon !
Was it for this thy myriad-throated throng ?

thy guns' loud thunder, and thy torches' glance ?
Was it for this thou criedst all night long

" Vive I'Empereur ! Long live the Child of
France ! "
Was it for this he rode beside his sire

ere the storm burst and swept away the throne ?
Was it for this the baptism of fire

marked on his boyish brow " Napoleon " ?
Was it for this he watched through exiled years

his widowed mother, he — her only son ?
Was it for this she clung to him in tears,

What would be left to her when he was gone ?
Weep, France, it is thy son,
dead ! dead ! Napoleon !

Was it for this the sword he drew

flashed long ago at Waterloo ?

Was it for this to fall and die

not in some glorious victory,

not charging blithely in the van

with many a war-stained veteran,

not leading proudly, France, for thee

the flower of all thy chivalry ;

but butchered by a savage band,

— a nameless skirmish in a worthless land ?

Dead! ...
Aye ! but as a man he died
spotless, undaunted, in his fearless pride ;
fronting the foe he stood,

fell — as a soldier should !

POETS' TRIBUTES 247

France

O England ! sister, keep my child !

My heart is rent, my brain is wild,

a thousand fighting voices cry,

Peace ! Peace ! they call, but War is nigh.

Love is but Hate, and Hopes are Fears,

and blood is mingled with my tears.

Keep him awhile : for thee he fell,

who loved thee so, who loved him well ;

one day, who knows how soon it be,

sweet sister, I shall come to thee

When all these troublous times are done,
and thou wilt give them back to me,

the exiled father and the soldier son;
to lay them where He lieth low,
my greatest soldier, and thy deadliest foe.
Here shall they slumber in one grave,
'neath the gold dome, among my brave ;
and England's tears with mine shall keep
the place still hallowed where they sleep.

F. E. Weatherly (Oxford).

By Ityotyozi

He last ; and we on his track, with the rush and the

roar of the wind ;
I was two paces in front, Sinto and Magok behind.

" Dastard ! " we cried ; but he turned him and faced

us erect, unafraid :
Only a boy, with the eye of a chief and the cheek of a

maid.

248 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Flickered a lance ; it was mine — and I fell, and these

tidings they bring —
" He has a mother will mourn him ; and he is the son

of a king."

I had been foremost, with Sinto and Magok for

second and third —
On came our twenty as one, sweeping down on the

prey like a bird.

Handling it not over swiftly, for rieving of spoil ere

we trek.
Good, but the guerdon they gave him is hanging

untouched on his neck.

Sinto and Magok boast high that their assegais met in

his breast ;
Craven I am not, nor traitor, yet take I less joy than

the rest.

Would that But none may demand it, the dart

that has once taken wing.
No ! carry him back to his mother. He was not

unmeet for a king.

The Empress

" Quomodo sedat solitaria ! "

I

She sat alone : and heard the nation's cry :

*' A child is born to us.
And the glory of Napoleon shall not die,

Whose reign is glorious ;
For his shall be the sceptre, and his the power,

And his the empire be.

POETS' TRIBUTES 249

And thou that art his mother ! in this thine hour
What shall we bring to thee ? "

And they brought her tribute, anH they gave her thanks

That she had borne a son,
To send the famous name down battle-ranks —

His name, Napoleon.
And with grateful heart she took the gifts they gave,

And gave them back again.
For her hands were strong for mercy, swift to save,

And quench the fires of pain.

" Empress of joys ! " they said :

" Till Life and Hope be dead.
For thy sake and the sake of memories,

In all her change or chance

Thine is the arm of France,
Thine are our lives, whose hopes are thine and his ! "

She sat, an exiled widow, desolate.

Alone, but not alone.
Though the days were over when she shone in state

From her Imperial Throne :
For the child was with her, on whose sanguine face

The light of Hope was bright.
And she girded up her strength to run his race,

Her arms to fight his fight.
She abode, a stranger in an alien land,

A land that held her dear;
For not widowhood nor exile stayed her hand

From bounties year by year;
But her eyes were Beauty, an9 her heart was Love,

Yea, love divine indeed.

250 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

For she gave her only son to the death, to prove
Our help in time of need.

" Empress of griefs ! " we said :

" This crown is on thine head,
That, where others have done well, thou hast done best :

As once in France, so now

In England, first art thou :
When God took much, thou hast not spared the rest."

Ill

She sat alone : and heard the nation's cry :

" Lo ! now the child is dead.
But his memory shall not fade, nor the halo die

That shineth round his head ;
For his shall be the glory, and his the power,

And his the kingdom be ;
And he shall reign, not for a little hour,

But everlastingly."
Though they brought not tribute, yet they gave her
tears

(A tribute costlier found),
Who was more their mother than in happier years,

An exile and discrowned.
And they gazed aghast upon that silent son,

Whose voice is heard on high.
But on her durst no man gaze, till the work was done

Of her royallest agony.

" Empress of hearts ! " they said :

" Though Life and Hope be dead.
Lift up thy crown of sorrows, watch and pray !

Yea, though thine all be gone.

Be patient, suifer on !
God shall restore tenfold on this great day."

W. M. Hardinge.

POETS' TRIBUTES 251

To THE Memory of Napoleon III.
The Brilnig Pass

Time was, a child, I looked upon thy face
In a green valley, 'neath an Alpine height;
Did timorously proffer garlands bright —

Gold daffoHils, and violets of thy race, —

Which on thy breast found honoured resting place :
I saw thee, Sire ! till the descending night
Hid thee for years from me, with Her — thy
Light,—

Borne swiftly downward to the mountain's base :

A happy picture, well remembered yet, —
Youth treasures long what aged eyes forget
And carves the shrine which memory loves to keep ! —
A picture rimmed with gold that reapers reap,
Coloured with narcissi an'd mignonette,
An'd snows where day went flushing up the steep.

The Tuileries

And now this portraiture : — the pride, — tKe fame
Of Europe met to do thee reverence :
Night, losing all her look of pale suspense

In the full gleam of lights that went and came :

Sovereigns around thee : suzerains whose name
Bejewelled e'en thy gemmed magnificence :
Statesmen, and warriors famous In defence ; —

A court convoked to chorus thine acclaim !

And thou, with face predestined for reverse,
Features prophetic with impending woe,
Moved 'mid the throng, — a shadow in the glow I
Kind was thy fortune, even in its curse —
Within the better it forestalled the worse,
And brought thee naught thy prescience did not know.

252 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Chislehurst

Alas, this final vista of the past ! —

A face serene — yet scarce more calm than life i
Subdued, in solace of completed strife ;

Dusk, in the droop of canopies o'ercast,

Sleeps in long rest from battle and from blast :

Around, rich bloom, yet quivering with the knife,
And dewy still, with tears of son and wife ;

And laurels, such as come with death at last.

And none that seek thy presence are denied ;

And some that look their last upon thee weep ;
But I, that see how death has beautified

And smoothed the lines and filled the furrows

deep.
Chime to mine heart : — " God gives the weary
sleep.
And summons death to watch the calm bedside ! "

J. W. Gilbart-Smith.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE EMPRESS AND SARAH BERNHARDT

Many years ago, in Paris, I became acquainted with
Mme Sarah Bernhardt through the good offices of
our mutual friend the late M. de Blowitz, the
renowned Paris Correspondent of the " Times,"
who, in 1875, by the magic of his pen, had
prevented Germany from repeating her 1870 attack
upon France. In the actress's home. No. 15 Rue St
Georges, we talked (I should say Mme Bernhardt
talked) " of many things," of the beautiful " Madame
Langtry," and of the illustrious lady who, in con-
junction with her consort, had " commanded " the
then Mile Sarah (she spells it " Sara ") to appear at
the Tuileries. In 1907 the " divine " one's
" Memoires " were issued by Fasquelle (Paris),
entitled " Ma Vie," * and from it I translated portions
of her spirited account of her performance in 1869,
at the Imperial Palace (from which the Empress fled,
a year later), of the late Frangois Coppee's beautiful
poem, " Le Passant," in which I first saw the
actress at the late Lady Brassey's, in Park Lane :
Mr and Mrs Gladstone and Lord Granville, and
many other " Best of World " personages, were
present.

Mme Bernhardt tells us that her performance at

* Later an admirable English version of the book was
published by Mr William Heinemann.

253

254 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

the Tuilerles in 1869 was given in honour of
Sophie, Queen of Holland, who had been for many
years on intimate terms with the French Sovereigns,
and remained the devoted friend of the Empress
Eugenie after the overthrow of the dynasty, an
event which, I remember, the Queen of the Nether-
lands had foreseen as likely to happen. Queen
Sophie's son, the Prince of Orange (" Citron," as
he was familiarly styled), whom the Emperor intro-
duced to the Prince of Wales (King Edward), was
present; and the young actress and her companions
were overwhelmed with congratulations. Before
the night of the performance Mile Bernhardt,
accompanied by Mme Guerard, was summoned to
the Tuileries to be presented to the Imperial couple.
Comte de Laferriere escorted them in a Court
carriage. The vehicle was " held up " momentarily
at the corner of the Rue Royale, and General
Fleury, who happened to be passing, came up and
greeted them. Learning from the Count that they
were going to the Tuileries, the General exclaimed,
" Bonne chance ! " A man in the street heard the
remark, and shouted, " ' Bonne chance,' perhaps;
but not for long. They are a good-for-nothing lot ! "
Arrived at the Palace, Mile Bernhardt and Mme
Guerard (who were presently joined by that other
brilliant actress. Mile Agar) waited in a small
" yellow " salon, while Comte de Laferriere went
in quest of the Emperor. Sarah began to practise
her three ceremonious curtsies before Mme Guerard.
" Mon petit' dame, tell me if this is correct," said the
actress, who again curtsied, murmuring, with lowered
eyes, " Sire — Sire." A stifled laugh was heard,
and Sarah angrily turned, only to see her companion

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SARAH BERNHARDT 255

bowing to the ground. It was the Emperor, who,
much amused at the little rehearsal of the curtsies,
clapped his hands and laughed " discreetly." " I
blushed, and was confused. How long had he been
there ? I had ' plunged ' I don't know how many
times, saying to Guerard, ' That's too low ! That's
all right, isn't it?' Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu !
Had he heard all that? And, despite my confusion,
I was curtsying when the Emperor, smiling, said,
* It's useless. It will never be prettier than now.
Reserve your curtsies for the Empress, who is
waiting for you.' "

" The Emperor walked by my side, speaking
of a thousand things, to which I could only reply
absently. I found him more agreeable to look at
than his portraits. He had such fine eyes, half-
closed, which regarded you from under their very
long lashes. His smile was sad, and somewhat sly.
His face was pale, and his voice low and
fascinating. . . . The Empress was seated in a
large arm-chair. A grey dress imprisoned her; she
seemed to be moulded in the stuff. I thought her
pretty — prettier than the portraits made her. I made
my three curtsies amidst the Emperor's smiles.

" When Agar arrived, and had been presented
to their Majesties, the Empress led the way into
the large salon in which the performance was to be
given. . . . The Prince Imperial, then about thirteen,
arrived presently, and helped me to arrange the
flowers on the platform. He roared with laughter
when Agar mounted the steps to try the effect.
He was delicieux, the young Prince, with his
magnificent eyes, with heavy eyelids like his mother,
and long eyelashes like his father. The Prince

256 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

was spirituel, like the Emperor — that Emperor who
had been nicknamed ' Louis I'imbecile,' and who
certainly had the acutest, most subtle, and at the
same time the most generous mind. We arranged
everything for the best; and it was decided that we
should come to the Palace two days later to give a
rehearsal before their Majesties. With what grace
the Prince Imperial asked if he might attend the
rehearsal ! — a request which was granted.

" The Empress said ' au revoir ' in the most
charming manner, and ordered her two ladies-in-
waiting to see that we had biscuits and sherry, and
to show us over the Tuileries if we wished.
Personally, I did not care about it, but ' mon petit'
dame ' and Agar seemed so delighted with the
Empress's offer that I fell in with it. And I have
always regretted that I did so, for nothing could
have been uglier than the private apartments, except
the Emperor's study and the stairs. I was terribly
bored, but somewhat consoled by some of the
pictures, really fine works, and I stood a long time
looking at Winterhalter's portrait of the Empress
Eugenie. * She looked well like that; and this
portrait explained and justified her unexpected good
fortune. There were no incidents at the rehearsal.
The young Prince tried his hardest to express his
gratitude to us, for, as he could not be present
at the actual performance in the evening, we had
made it a ' dress ' rehearsal. He sketched my
costume, and said he would have one made like it,
and would wear it at the masked ball which was about
to be given in his honour."

* This portrait and one of Mme Bernhardt of the period are
given in the present volume.

SARAH BERNHARDT 257

Twelve years later we in London saw Mme Bern-
hardt in a salon, and, strange to say, when we were
horror-struck by the slaying of the dear " little
Prince." News of the tragedy in Zululand reached
the House of Commons an hour or two before
midnight on the 19th of June, 1879, and was com-
municated without a moment's delay to the Queen,
the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge.
The sad tidings spread from club to club, the
Heir-Apparent making it known at the " Marl-
borough." Precisely how and when the Prince of
Wales learned of what had happened to the Imperial
youth we learned, for the first time, from M. Jacques
Normand thirty-two years later. M. Normand wrote
(1911):

" In June, 1879, I was in London during the
performances given by the Comedie Frangaise.
I had previously written a comedietta, in one act,
called ' La Goutte d'Eau,' for representation in
London salons by Sarah Bernhardt, Frederic Febvre
and Jules Truffier. One night my piece was given
at the house of a grande dame whom I must call
Lady X., * for her name has escaped me. Among
the audience were the then Prince and Princess of
Wales. The piece was nearly over when I saw a
servant give a telegram to the Prince, who opened
and read it immediately. I could see by his
expression that this telegram had greatly shocked
him. He, however, preserved his composure, and
held the dispatch in his right hand, without saying
a word to anyone. At the end of the piece the Prince
rose, said a few words to the Princess and the
personages who were in attendance on their Royal

* The Countess of Wilton. — Author.

258 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Highnesses, spoke to Lady X., and retired a few
moments afterwards. The Prince's abrupt departure
caused general surprise, and the salon was soon
empty. Frederic Febvre * — still in his Russian
General's uniform — came up to me and said excitedly :
' Do you know what has happened.'^ ' ' No.' ' The
Prince of Wales has received a telegram informing
him that the Prince Imperial has been killed in
Zululand.' The next moment we told Sarah Bern-
hardt and Truffier, and doubtless we four were
the first French people to hear of the tragic end of
the poor ' Petit Prince,' whom, in my youth, I had
seen more than once in the Tuileries gardens or
near the lake."

When I saw Mme Bernhardt in London, in
" Les Cathedrales," in January, 191 6, she appeared
to be almost " the same Sarah " as in the old days,
despite the cruel suffering she had gone through
in the previous year. No one could have received
the inexpressibly sad news of the amputation more
sympathetically than the Empress Eugenie, who
well remembers that night at the Tuileries forty-
seven years ago. The great actress is twenty
years the junior of the Empress, and in January,
19 1 4, was awarded the coveted Cross of the Legion
of Honour. She is a patriot to the core, and
since 1870 she has resolutely refused to appear
before the Kaiser at a " command " performance.
But, during one of her tours a few years ago,
she visited Berlin, and among her audience was —
her Imperial enemy ! The Huns did not " see much
in her " ; but that was to be expected.

* M. Febvre, as noted elsewhere, survives in 1916. He
is the oldest living soci^taire of the Th^^tre Fran^ais. King
Edward highly esteemed him.

CHAPTER XXVII

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL
Old Friends of the Empress

A FEW only of those who were best known to the
Empress can be noted in this obituary record, which
is brought up to March, 191 6.

The Due de Bassano, whom I first met at Chisle-
hurst on the day of the Emperor's death, was a
venerable figure even at that date. The one-time
Grand Chamberlain of the Imperial Court remained
devotedly attached to the Empress, at Farnborough
Hill as well as at Chislehurst, until 1898, when
his long career closed. His successor was his only
son, whom many will remember as the Marquis de
Bassano, the husband of a charming Canadian
lady, and father of three daughters — one the Comtesse
de Viel-Castel, and another Lady Edward Blount.
He was the third bearer of the ducal title, and with
his death, in May, 1906, the dukedom became
extinct. The third Duke had been an intimate friend
of the Prince Imperial, and with Sir Evelyn Wood
accompanied the Empress on her journey to Zululand
in 1880. The obsequies of the last Due de Bassano
were solemnised at the Paris church of St Pierre de
Chaillot, and a Mass was celebrated at the same
time, for ladies, in the Chapelle des Catechismes,
in the Avenue Marceau.

A few months later — in August, 1906 — there died
359

26o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

the fifth Due de Broglie, whose father was for a short
time French Ambassador at our Court. The fifth
Due fought in the war of 1870, and was secretary
of Embassy to his father at Albert Gate.

In the summer of 1906 Prince Eugene Murat
was killed when motoring in Bavaria. He was
the son of Prince Louis Napoleon Murat (who
married Princesse Eudoxia Michaelovna, nee Somow),
and wedded, in 1899, the sister of the Due
d'Elchingen (Prince de la Moskowa). Prince Eugene,
who was only thirty-one, left three young children.

One more of the few remaining members of the
House of Bonaparte passed away, in 1907, in the-
person of Princess Christine Bonaparte, at the age of
sixty-five. Her parentage may be briefly noted. In
the year 1803 there was born Prince Charles Bona-
parte, a Roman prince and noble; in 1822, when only
nineteen, he married Zenaide, nee Princesse Bona-
parte, who died in 1854, and three years later her
husband died. Their only son was Prince Napoleon
Charles Bonaparte, born in 1839, died in 1890. This
Prince married, in 1859, Christine, Princess Ruspoli,
who was born in 1842. She died on the 5th of
February, 1907, at Rome after an illness of several
months' duration. Prince Napoleon Charles and
Princess Christine Bonaparte had two daughters.
The elder, Princess Mario Zenaide, was born at Rome
in 1870, and married, in 1891, Enrico Gotti, a
lieutenant of infantry in the Italian army. The
second daughter, Princess Eugenia, was born at
Grotto Ferrata in 1872, and married at Rome, in
1898, Napoleon Ney Elchingen, Prince de la Mos-
kowa. The Prince and Princess de la Moskowa were
separated in 1903 by a judgment of the Civil Tribunal

w <

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 261

of the Seine. The two daughters of the lamented
Princess Christine (Mme Enrico Gotti and Princess
de la Moskowa) were with their mother at her death.
Prince Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, the husband
of Princess Christine, was the grandson of Prince
Lucien Bonaparte on his father's side and of King
Joseph on his mother's side, and, after serving in the
French army, retired to Rome. Princess Christine's
brother, Prince Ruspoli, predeceased her. The
Princess's beauty, charitable deeds, and esprit
had made her a general favourite. She had not seen
France for many years, but retained the happiest
memories of her husband's country.

Early in 1908 the Empress mourned the loss of
one who had been an equerry of Napoleon III.,
Prince Stanislas Poniatowski, who had survived
the overthrow of the dynasty for nearly forty years,
and whose wife (still living) was one of the ladies
distinguished at the Tuileries by her beauty and
esprit. A son of Prince Joseph Poniatowski, and
born at Florence, Prince Stanislas was the great-
grand-nephew of Stanislas Augustus, King of
Poland, and of that Prince Andre Poniatowski who
was the father of the celebrated marshal. Prince
Stanislas went to Paris in the early years of the
Second Empire, and in 1856 married the daughter of
the Comte Le Hon, Belgian Minister in France.

In June, 1867, Prince Stanislas, as an Imperial
equerry, was dressing to attend the review at Long-
champ, at which the Emperar was present, having by
his side the King of Prussia and the Emperor
Alexander II., grandfather of the present Tsar.
M. Raimbeaux entered Prince Stanislas's room in
a great hurry, and begged the Prince to allow him to

262 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

act as equerry for the day, as he was most anxious
to be present at the review. " You," said M. Raim-
beaux, " have been at these functions so often,
while I have never attended one of them." The
Prince did not relish the idea at all, but eventually
he gave way, and allowed Raimbeaux to take his
place. What happened was this. The two Emperors
were chatting in their carriage, when the Pole
Berezowski rushed forward and attempted the
Tsar's life. Raimbeaux, in the nick of time,
manoeuvred his horse between the would-be assassin
and the Sovereigns, and so saved the Tsar. The
bullet struck Raimbeaux's horse, and both the rider
and his mount were covered with blood. Raimbeaux
was the hero of the day, and great was the chagrin of
Prince Stanislas. It would have been indeed curious
had he, a Pole by origin, prevented a Polish
revolutionist from assassinating the Tsar.

Prince Stanislas remained steadfast to his Imperial
convictions, and when hard times set in he pluckily
went on the Bourse, where he displayed a great
capacity for business. At the clubs he was most
popular, for he was full of esprit and good humour.
The members of the " Jockey " affectionately
dubbed him " the King." As a pigeon-shot he
was, in his day, almost unrivalled, and almost to the
last he was to be seen at the Bois de Boulogne Club.

The Empress had her favourites as well as her
aversions. Admiral Jurien de la Graviere came
in the first category. This distinguished sailor, who
died in 1892, stood by the side of her Majesty
when she left the Tuileries for ever. He it was
whom on the 4th of September the Empress con-
sulted touching her best means of escape. He

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 263

strongly urged her to descend the Seine in a small
gunboat, the Puebla, which at the moment was
moored in the river, close to the Palace. " Impos-
sible, my dear Admiral," replied the Empress;
" why, at the first lock we came to we should be
recognised, and they would pluck me as they
would a violet " — not an inappropriate comparison.

Charles Bocher, who died in April, 1908, was
the oldest of the subscribers to the Opera; his
musical recollections extended over fifty years.
He had seen service in Algeria and in the Crimea,
and was one of the Emperor's aides de camp. More
than that — he very nearly became the brother-in-law
of his Imperial Majesty; for the future Emperor,
when still under the tutelage of Philippe Le Bas,
was epris of Mile Bocher, and told her mother
of his love for the young lady. Mme Bocher,
however, did not take the Prince seriously, and
he rode away from Bale disconsolate — for a time.
The Bochers had been the guests (with Mme
Recamier, Mile Delphine Gay, afterwards Mme Emile
de Girardin; Prince Czartorisky, the Prince de la
Moskowa, and others) of Queen Hortense at
Arenenberg, and it was under the roof of Louis
Napoleon's mother that the two young people
had met. At the date of M. Bocher's death he was
the Empress's senior by three weeks.

Colonel Stoffel, who died in April, 1907, at the age
of eighty-eight, was one of three persons who knew
with absolute certainty long before the war of
1 870- 1 87 1 broke out that it was bound to come
sooner or later. General Ducrot and the late
Melanie Comtesse de Pourtales shared his know-
ledge.

264 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

One of the many old and attached friends whose
loss the Emperor, during his brief exile, had to
deplore was M. Conti, who had been the Sovereign's
chef de cabinet. He was a Corsican Deputy,
but illness compelled him to retire, and he was
succeeded in the National Assembly by M. Rouher,
whom Gambetta described, in 1872, as " that lawyer
of the Empire at bay." The Bonapartists made
a demonstration at Conti's funeral, and cries of
" Vive TEmpereur ! " were heard in front of the
Church of St Augustin, an edifice largely due to
the liberality of Napoleon HI. Three bouquets,
sent from Chislehurst, were laid on Conti's tomb.
M. Conti's married daughter, who had been one
of the Empress's " ladies " at the Tuileries, died in
1909 of an embolism — the malady which, according
to the doctors, terminated the existence of the
Emperor.

In the roll of the departed the name of Mme Cornu
must find a place, for she was the Emperor's foster-
sister, and was seen once at least at Chislehurst
during the lifetime of Napoleon. Hortense Cornu,
nee Lacroix, was the daughter of one of Queen
Hortense's ladies-in-waiting, and was the junior
by a year of her foster-brother. The two children
were brought up together until she was fourteen,
and until two months of the Emperor's death they
corresponded regularly, with the exception of a
period of twelve years, when they ceased to write to
each other. This rupture of their friendship was
the result of the Coup d'lfetat of the 2nd of December.
Hortense, a sincere Republican, was at the time
residing at Vincennes, and heard the fusillades
which terrorised Paris. Shortly afterwards Napoleon

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 265

called upon her, but from the top of the stairs she
shouted out, sufficiently loudly for him to hear, that
" she would not receive an assassin." In 1856
she somewhat relented, and wrote congratulating
him upon the birth of his son; she still, however,
refused to see him, although she resumed letter-
writing, assisted him in his " Life of Caesar," and
acted as intermediary between him and a band of
young litterateurs, including Ernest Renan and
Leon Renier.

In 1863, after twelve years' separation, there
was a reconciliation, following upon a touching letter
written to Mme Cornu by the Emperor, who asked
her to visit the Tuileries and embrace the Prince
Imperial, then seven years old.

Mme Cornu thereafter visited the Empress two
or three times a week, but she never forgot what had
caused the rupture of her friendship with the
Emperor.

The late Mr Nassau Senior had several inter-
views with Mme Cornu between 1854 and 1863,
and had much to say about her in his " Conversa-
tions." " From to time to time," she told him, " the
destruction of our liberties, the massacres of 1851,
the transportations of 1852, the reprisals by Orsini,
rise before me, anH I have a horror of being
embraced by a man [Napoleon III.] covered with
the blood of so many of my friends." One day
she showed Senior all the letters written to her by the
Emperor, or rather all those which, in her own
words, " she had thought worthy of preservation."
Many years later she had some of the letters copied
and sent them to Mr Blanchard Jerrold, who,
however, used only about a dozen of them in his

266 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

biography of Napoleon III. M. Salomon Reinach
wrote a biographical sketch of her. Renan had
intended to publish the whole of the letters, but
he never did so, and ultimately they fell into the
hands of M. Seymour de Ricci. There are two
hundred and ninety-seven in all. For several years
the French Government prohibited their publication;
but in November, 1908, M. de Ricci announced, in
" La Revue," that, as the Government had with-
drawn its interdict, he would issue them. In the letters
(says M. de Ricci) " all the events in the career of
Napoleon III. pass before us, thanks to these
awful scrawls, hesitating and difficult to read."
The writing recalls the " feverish hieroglyphics "
of Napoleon I. and that " mild obstinacy " and
somewhat impersonal personality which, according
to the historians of the Second Empire, were among
the characteristics of Napoleon III. " We find
in these letters all the qualities and all the defects
of the man who led France from the days of 1848 to
those of Sedan."

The Empress's attached domestic, " Pepa "
(Mme Pollet), one of her countrywomen, was seen
at Chislehurst for a brief space. The air did
not agree with her, and she soon returned to France,
there to die. " Pepa " had married an officer,
who fell in the war of 1870; and she had occupied
the post of treasurer to the Empress for many years.

The American dentist, Mr Evans, who perhaps
saved the Empress's life by escorting her to Deau-
ville, died in Paris in November, 1897. ^^ the
following year the celebrated Comte Walewski
passed away. He was a natural son of Napoleon I.,
and took the name of his mother, a Polish countess.

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 267

He stood high in the favour of Napoleon III.,
filled many responsible posts, had been President
of the Congress of Paris, Ambassador to England,
and was " one of the dandies " of the Second
Empire.

General Tiirr died at Budapest in 1908. He
was at one time a confidant of Napoleon III., and,
by his marriage with Princess Adelaide Wyse-
Bonaparte, called cousins with the Emperor.

The same year brought with it the deaths of
Lord Glenesk, of the " Morning Post," whose intimate
friendship with the Emperor and Empress is so
well known; and, in November, of Comte Davilliers
Regnaud de Saint Jean d'Angely, an equerry of
Napoleon III. and one of the most striking figures
of the Imperial reign. He accompanied the Emperor
in the Italian campaign of 1866 and in the war
of 1870, and remained at Chislehurst until his
Imperial master's death.

A month or so before the Empress's eighty-third
birthday (May 5, 1909), her Majesty heard with
unfeigned regret of the death of the Right Reverend
Monsignor Goddard, who, as the priest of St Mary's,
Chislehurst, was in daily attendance at Camden
Place from September, 1870, until the Empress's
departure for Farnborough Hill.

A few weeks previously there passed away, in
Paris, a lady whose friendship with the Empress
extended over half a century — Mme Gavini de
Campile, nee Comtesse de Raymond, whose husband
was one of the most prominent prefets of the Second
Empire. When the Gavinis occupied the prefecture
at Nice their entertainments were the talk of
the whole region. Mme Gavini's salons resembled

268 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

a court, and in them were to be seen at various
times Napoleon III. and the Empress, the Emperor
Alexander II. (grandfather of the present Tsar),
the Bavarian Kings Ludwig and Maximilian, the
late King Oscar of Sweden and other august
personages.

Monsignor Goddard's death (March 28, 1909)
was preceded by that of the Due de Mouchy, who had
married Princesse Anna Murat at Paris in December,
1865. Antoine Juste Leon de Noailles, sixth Due de
Mouchy, was also Marquis d'Arpajon, a Grand
d'Espagne of the First Class, and had the further
distinction of Hereditary Grand Cross of the Order of
Malta, of which King Edward was the head and
the German Emperor a member. The late Due
was born in April, and her Highness the Duchesse in
February, 1841. Their only son. Prince and Due
de Poix, died in 1900 — their only daughter,
Mile Sabine de Noailles, many years previously.
The founder of the family was Philippe Comte de
Noailles, Duque de Mouchy, who was born in
17 15, the Spanish ducal title being confirmed in
France, first in 18 14 by Napoleon I. and secondly
in 1867 by Napoleon III. The late Due, a
Monarchist, was won over to the Second Empire
before his marriage by the attractive personality
of the Emperor and the irresistible fascination of
the Empress Eugenie. It was said that the young
Due was by no means anxious to wed a princess
of the House of Murat, on the ground that his
Royalist friends would regard the union as somewhat
of a mesalliance. The Emperor, however, who
seems to have set his heart on the marriage, ridiculed
the objection, and the alliance proved to be of the

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 269

happiest, marred only by the grievous loss of the two
children. All that money could give them the young
couple had, for the Due was enormously rich, and we
know how greatly all the Murats benefited by the
generosity of Napoleon III. After the death of
the Prince Imperial it was the general belief that the
Duchesse de Mouchy and the D'Albe family (as
represented by the present Due, the intimate friend
of King Alfonso) would inherit much of the Empress
Eugenie's wealth. Monsignor Goddard did not
share that view, nor do I. Certainly the widowed
Duchesse de Mouchy is in no need of another
golden shower.

General the Marquis de Galliffet died in Paris
on July 8, 1909, aged seventy-nine. He came of an
old Dauphiny family, and was the son of the Marquis
de Galliffet, Due de Martigues. The General's
acquaintance with King Edward dated from the
early sixties. To Queen Alexandra he had been
known nearly as long. The Empress Eugenie
mourned a friend who had been a staunch Bonapartist
for fully half a century.

Promoted to the rank of General a day or two
before the crushing defeat of the French forces on
September i, 1870, De Galliffet's name is writ
large in the annals of the disastrous Franco-
Prussian campaign. " Make one more attempt to
get through, pour I'amour de nos armes ! " shouted
Ducrot at Sedan. " As many as you like, General ! "
replied De Galliffet, heading his cavalry for what
proved to be a final charge " into the jaws of death."

M. Xavier Feuillant, aged seventy-one, died in
June, 1 9 14. He was the brother of the Marquis de
Contades and of the Marquise de Miramon; one

270 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

of the faithful of Chislehurst; a Boulangist, a
cavalry officer, and a wearer of the Medaille
Militaire (instituted by Napoleon III.).

The Empress has survived the Marquis de Massa,
the Due de Rivoli, Mme Fortoul (a Minister's wife
who behaved so rudely to the then Mile de Montijo
at an Imperial gathering immediately after her
engagement to the Emperor), the Due de Conegliano
(for years head of the Imperial Household),
Mme Bartholoni (one of the beauties of the Second
Empire), General de Charette, the Baroness
Alphonse de Rothschild, M. Emile Ollivicr (whose
career is detailed in another chapter), and the
Comtesse Edmond de Pourtales (1914).

In November, 19 14, the Empress was distressed at
hearing of the death of that devoted servant of the
Second Empire, and later of the Republic, Vice-
Admiral Charles Duperre, whose end came suddenly
at his chateau of Peychaud, in the Gironde.
Born in 1832 he entered the Imperial Naval School
at the age of fifteen, and was a captain at thirty-
eight. He was an officier d'ordonnance of the
Emperor when the war of 1870 broke out. He
wore the Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur.

Mme Firmin Raimbeaux, who died in December,
1914, was the daughter of the famous M. Mocquard,
the Emperor's ecuyer, chief of his Majesty's cabinet,
and his personal friend. Her salon was for many
years a very noted one. A wealthy woman, she
gave much of her fortune to the poor and humble,
and succeeded the Emperor's celebrated cousin,
Princesse Mathilde, as president of the Society
for Incurables.

M. Ernest Pinard, who died in 1909, was Minister
of the Interior under the Second Empire. Rochefort

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 271

attacked him in the most virulent, yet amusing
manner.

General de Viel d'Espeuilles, who died in 191 3,
had been closely associated with the Emperor and
Empress, took part in Italian and Mexican campaigns,
commanded a regiment in the war of 1870, and
was in the battles of Wissemburg, Reichshofen
and Sedan. In 1856 he was the Prince Imperial's
officier d'ordonnance after the boy had left St Cyr with
the rank of lieutenant.

In the same year M. Edouard Lockroy died.
The Empress remembered him as a Minister and
as Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies —
a Republican prominent in the last years of the
Empire, and consequently in disfavour with the
Sovereigns. He was related, by marriage, to Victor
Hugo.

The Comte de la Chapelle died at an advanced
age, in Essex, on September 30, 19 14. His career is
detailed in my second volume, " The Comedy and
Tragedy of the Second Empire," from facts supplied
by my friend, the present Count, who has made
a reputation as a practitioner (in London) of inter-
national law. His father was an intimate friend
and assistant of the Emperor at Chislehurst, by
whom, and by the Prince Imperial, he was held,
with reason, in high esteem. It is fitting that he
should find a record here, apart from the fact that he
was one of my most valued Bonapartist friends
and aiders.

On January 8, 19 15, at the Paris church of
St Pierre de Chaillot, the obsequies of Mme de
Waubert de Genlis were attended by the Duchesse
de Conegliano (whose husband was head of the

272 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Imperial Household until the fall of the Second
Empire), the Vicomtesse Adrien Fleury, Comte
Fleury, and many other Bonapartists. She was
the widow of the general who had been an aide-de-
camp of the Emperor. Her sons, Commandant
and Captain de Waubert, conducted the funeral.

M. Emile Ollivier died at St Gervais-les-Bains,
Savoy, on August 30, 19 13, aged eighty-eight.
A chapter is devoted to him, his life-work, and his
association with the Emperor and the Empress.
Her Majesty and the eminent statesman did not always
view affairs in the same light.

In February, 1913, M. Antoine Fardet, who had
been the Emperor's principal equerry, committed
self-destruction at his residence, Pantin, aged seventy-
eight.

The Empress's Christmas, 191 5, was darkened
by the death, in Paris, on December 23, of the
Comtesse Clary, in her eighty-ninth year, the same
age as the Imperial lady. The obsequies took
place four days later, at the Church of St Philippe
du Roule. By desire of the deceased lady no
invitations were sent out; nor were there any flowers
or wreaths — also by her wish. Her husband was
one of those who, immediately after the battle of
Sedan, brought the Prince Imperial to England
via Ostend. He was the boy's " gentleman," and
it was his melancholy duty, on the 9th of January,
1873, to go over to Woolwich and tell him that
his father was dead. The lady who died in 19 15
and her husband were among the most prominent
members of the little Court at Chislehurst. The
Count was director-in-chief of the household; the
Countess was one of the Empress's " ladies " ;

SOME VOICES THAT ARE STILL 273

and they enjoyed the full confidence of the Imperial
pair. Comte Clary had long predeceased his wife.
Their son, the present bearer of the title, accom-
panied the Empress to Ceylon in 1908, and in the
previous year was at Farnborough Hill during the
visit of the King and Queen of Spain.

Very many of our French allies besides the
Generalissimo and the Empress regretted the death
in 191 5 of Comte Jean Lannes de Montebello, who
was Marshal Canrobert's standard-bearer at Metz
and worthily wore the coveted Military Medal.
His father, a general, was also a notable soldier — an
aide-de-camp of Napoleon III., commandant of
the corps of occupation in Rome in 1870, and
twice Ambassador at Constantinople. Not a few
English people were more or less familiar with
the Montebellos' salon, a centre of elegance illumined
by the Countess's beauty and esprit, and will
remember that the Count began life as a diplomatist
and deserted the " carriere " for the army.

On September 30, 1915, Captain Ismail de Lesseps,
3rd Chasseurs de TAfrique, was killed by a
German bullet while commanding the 2nd Squadron
in an attack on the enemy. He was the third
of the seven sons of the celebrated originator of the
Suez Canal, Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, a distant
relative of the Empress. Six of those sons now
(19 16) survive, and five of them were at the front at
the time of their gallant brother's death. Also
on active service are three relatives of the deceased
captain, including the Marquis de Miramon (son-in-
law of the " grand Frangais," Ferdinand), who was
not liable to be called up, but enlisted. The canal
was inaugurated in November, 1869, by the Empress

274 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Eugenie, by whose side were the Emperor of
Austria, the present Emperor William's father,
and a number of other distinguished personages.
Nine months later came the war of 1870 and the fall
of the Second Empire.

CHAPTER XXVIII

BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR

PRINCE NAPOLEON, HIS PROPAGANDIST COM-
MITTEE, AND THE "LITTLE CATECHISM"

A YEAR or so before the world war I was favoured
with copies of the literature issued by Prince
Napoleon's Comite Central de Propagande Plebisci-
taire (Appel au Peuple). These highly interesting
documents were courteously sent to me by M. Rudelle,
a former Deputy, general secretary of the Committee,
with full permission to utilise them in any of my
writings. I had also a communication from M. Rene
Querenet, the well-known barrister (Docteur en
Droit), an able practitioner in the Court of Appeal,
who, officially representing Prince Napoleon, had
presided at a congress of the society called the
Jeunesses Plebiscitaires de France. At the time
in question the adherents of Prince Napoleon were
demonstrating in Paris and the provinces without
interference by the police. At a great gathering
at Toulon the local plebiscitaires marched through
the streets, headed by a band and by men carrying
flags on which the Imperial eagle was displayed.
At Nimes M. Querenet developed the " plebiscitary
programme " based upon the Prince's " declarations "
made in London to a representative of the Paris
" Figaro," in which they appeared at great length.
The Prince explained that what he and his

2/5

276 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

supporters " wanted was a Government of concord
and of action. If ever France called upon him to
lead her he would govern with men of character and
experience, including many Republicans who had
served their country in many capacities during the
previous thirty years. The name of Napoleon,"
he said, " was a programme in itself, but he appealed
to no dynastic rights."

" The regime inaugurated by Napoleon I. and
adopted by Napoleon III. is that which is represented
to-day by their dynastic heir," wrote a prominent
Bonapartist, M. Jules Delafosse, Deputy for Calvados,
in February, 1910, adding: " It is not impossible
that the Heir of the Napoleons will attain to power
by those political roads which political and social
anarchy fatally opens to the predestined man. It
was by the Consulate or the Presidency that the
elect of his race were conducted to the throne."
In a letter to me (October 6th, 191 1) M. Rene
Querenet says : " My address at Nimes was a
reproduction of and a commentary upon the social
programme of Prince Napoleon. This programme
the Bonapartist Party will develop during the winter
in the large towns — Lille, Bordeaux, Tours, etc. — as
we have already developed it at Nimes."

To describe the former machinery of the Party
in detail in this time of war would be inappropriate,
but a reference to one of the publications of the
Central Committee of the Plebiscitary Propaganda
issued before August, 19 14, cannot fail to be
interesting from the historical point of view. I
refer to the " Petit Catechisme du Plebiscitaire
Integral," the work of M. Pierre de Cinglais. In
this pamphlet the Bonapartist doctrine is expounded

BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 277

with a simplicity which makes it readily comprehended
by all. In reply to a leading question the catechumen
explains :

" As an electoral committee, at election time, brings
forward the candidate it considers the most eligible,
so we Bonapartists present to the whole nation a
Bonaparte because we consider him the most worthy."

" But what is your answer to those who complain
that you thereby make yourselves partisans of the
hereditary principle? "

" As G. Cuneo d'Ornano, Deputy for Cognac,
has said : ' The Heir of the Napoleons is a
candidate, not a Pretender' Should he not be elected
he would bow to the verdict of the nation. We
choose him because, being a descendant of the
Bonapartes, he would apply the Bonapartist ideas,
which we believe are the best; but we leave the
people to elect him or not."

" Why do you believe Bonapartist ideas are the
best? "

" Because the Bonapartes have always shown
themselves to be the faithful servants of Democracy.
The proofs of this are as follows : (i) By applying
the principles of the French Revolution the Bona-
partes owed their possession of power to the people
only (Plebiscites of the Year VHL, of the Year IX.,
of the Hundred Years, of the loth December, 1848,
20th December, 1851, and the 21st November, 1852);
(2) The Generals of Napoleon I. were nearly all of
obscure origin; (3) Napoleon III. gave workmen
the right to strike, the right to hold meetings,
the councils of prud'hommes, endeavoured to abolish
pauperism in France, etc., etc."

" But what proof is there that the descendant

278 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

of the Bonapartes, being once in power, would put
their ideas in practice ? "

" He cannot fail to carry on the tradition; he
owes it to himself to respect his ancestors' ideas;
and should he fail to do so the people would crush
him as readily as they raised him to power."

" So that you leave everything to the People? "

" Absolutely everything. In a Democracy the
People are the sole masters, and the Napoleons
(they have said so themselves) are but their servants."

" And supposing the People wish to retain the
Parliamentary Republic and the Constitution of
1875 — what then? "

" We should bow to the sovereign will of the
People, and withdraw the candidature of Prince
Napoleon."

" Supposing he desired to be King} "

" We could only make the same answer."

" What is your reply to those who tell you that they
see in the Plebiscite the road to a Dictatorship ? "

" Our answer is that the People, who are sufficiently
powerful to elect their Chief, are also strong enough
to overthrow him, should he exceed his rights, and are
intelligent enough to choose a good Chief, and not a
tyrant."

" Are all Bonapartists in favour of the Plebiscite ? "

" If they are not, they ought to be. Prince
Napoleon has a hundred times himself advised
his partisans to demand solely the Plebiscite. Those,
therefore, who are not in favour of it fail in their duty
and are schismatic Bonapartists."

" But is not universal suffrage, as it actually exists,
the equivalent of the Plebiscite? "

" No ; - firstly, because it is not applicable to the

BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 279

Presidential and Senatorial elections; and, secondly,
because it gives scope for the exercise of illegitimate
influence in communities, leading to the purchase
of consciences. Lamartine said : ' You can poison
a glass of water, but not a river. An Assembly-
is corruptible, but the People are incorruptible,
like the ocean.' It is easy to buy some thousands of
votes, but impossible to buy millions."

" What do you understand precisely by the word
'People'.?"

" The collective population of French citizens —
rich and poor, masters and workmen, princes of
science and the illiterate, without distinction."

" Is the Plebiscitary doctrine a purely Bonapartist
doctrine? "

" No; it was bequeathed to the Bonapartists by
the National Convention, which, on the 21st of
September, 1792, proclaimed the principle of the
direct Sovereignty of the People."

" In what terms was that principle enunciated ? "

" In these : ' There cannot be a Constitution until
it is accepted by the People.' "

" Name, besides the Napoleons, some other famous
Plebiscitaires."

" Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Chapelier, Malouet,
Washington, Condorcet, Herault de Sechelles,
Danton, Ledru-Rollin, Lamartine, Henri Rochefort,
Gambetta, etc., etc."

" What is your answer to those who upbraid
Napoleon III. for making war in 1870? "

" That Bismarck, in his ' Memoirs,' proves that
the war was desired by himself ; that it was rendered
inevitable after his falsification of the Ems telegram;
and, further, that it was wanted by the French

28o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

people, who, in the streets of Paris, shouted, ' A
Berlin ! A Berlin ! ' "

" And what is your reply to those who reproach
Napoleon III. for the capitulation of Sedan? "

" We say that, defeated by the treason and the
incapacity of the Generals thrust upon him by
the Parliamentary system, with his army lacking
everything, and with thousands of men who would
have been inevitably sacrificed, Napoleon III., whose
kindheartedness was proverbial, preferred the saving
of their lives to his crown, thereby revealing perhaps
the finest trait in his character, for it proved his
pity for his troops and his self-abnegation."

" What is your answer to those who repeat the
words, attributed to the Empress Eugenie, ' This
is my war ' } "

" That it is a calumny, and also inept, like most
so-called 'historical words '; that not a single witness,
worthy of credence, heard her use the words; and
that, besides, such a phrase seems most unlikely
to have been uttered by a woman who so often, at the
peril of her life, in times of epidemics, visited
those suffering at the hospitals."

" The Napoleons, then, were all perfect? "

" No one is perfect in this world, but they were
faithful democrats, and always did the utmost
possible for the good of the people, in which respect
their government approached perfection."

" Can you, in a few words, and by citing some
facts, institute a comparison between the Empire
and the Third Republic? "

" Yes. Under the Empire — Austerlitz, Wagram,
Eylau, Friedland, etc., etc. Under the Republic
— Fashoda ! Under the Empire — Suez. Under the

BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 281

Republic — Panama ! Under the Empire — the Con-
cordat, religious peace and national reconciliation.
Under the Republic — fraudulent denunciation of
a contract dating back more than one hundred years,
proscriptions, spoliations, organised robbery ! Under
the Empire — prosperity for everyone. Under the
Republic — misery for all ! "

M. Rene Querenet undertook to explain the
relations which should be maintained between
Bonapartism and capital and labour (" Ce que devra
etre un Gouvernement Napoleonien dans ses rapports
avec le capital et la travail "). Those who have
had the advantage of hearing this eminent advocate
in the Court of Appeal will the most readily admit
his qualification to instruct his countrymen on this
all-important point. I summarise his statements.
The situation (he argued in 191 1) was the same
after as it was before the great paralysing strike
of 19 10. Nothing had been done to avert the
real danger which increasingly exasperated the
working classes. There was anarchy even in
the councils of the Government. How, then,
could people be surprised at its spread among
the masses ouvrieres? One explained the other.
There was the danger which threatens the country.
What was the remedy? Prince Napoleon had for
many years closely studied social questions. He
understood them thoroughly, and he knew that it
was with these questions that a new Ruler and a new
Rule would have to deal before all others. What
could, what ought a Government to be which would
have at its head a Bonaparte? The great problem
was the economic problem. Purely political
questions were minor matters in comparison with that.

282 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

What said the First Consul? "Tout pour le peuple et par
le peuple." To all alike — to the landed proprietors, to the
directors of great associations with huge capitals, to all who
take responsibility for the sums necessary for competition
in the world's markets, to all who, aided by capital, strive
to make France richer and greater — to all we say, " A
Napoleonic Government will give you protection." Its
doctrine makes such a duty imperative. In the Austrian
campaign the Great Emperor wrote on a report drawn up by
Portal^s concerning the expropriation of private property for
public use, in consideration of a just indemnity : " Napoleon,
with all his victories and all his armies, ought not to have
the power of entering the field of the humblest peasant in
France." Marvellous words, stamped with the mark of
genius — words which comprise all our past and all our future.

A Napoleonic government could not act in
opposition to those sovereign words of the Emperor,
penned at Schonbrunn : " It has been in the past, it
will be in the future, the guardian of the property
which is necessary for the existence and the prosperity
of the country."

"^'For a century the French bourgeoisie, in its egotism a la
Guizot, in its spirit of routine, had dominated what remained
of the nobility and the clergy since they were annihilated
in 1789 by the Tiers-fetat, and had ignored the working
masses, their needs, and their desires. One man, and one
man only, since 1789, gave heed to the wants of the people —
Napoleon III., Emperor of Labour, Emperor of the Toilers,
as Napoleon I. was Emperor of the Soldiers. It was
Napoleon III. who established the Caisse Nationale, which
provided old-age pensions ; who gave the country the law
developing self-help societies and making them obligatory in
every commune ; who gave French workmen the right of
coalition — the natural right of a man to work or not to work,
which in current phraseology is improperly called the right
to strike ; and who established for all workers, in town and
country alike, accident insurance societies, which also assisted
the infirm. " Encore et toujours Napoleon III."

BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 283

All the work of the Third Republic (argued
M. Querenet) had its germ in the social legislation of
the Second Empire. What were the conquests of
the Republic since 1870, in forty years of power
which, from the political standpoint, was tyrannical?
The Republic passed the law of 1898 concerning
accidents to workers. It also passed measures
restricting the liberty of the individual, laws limit-
ing the hours of labour. Such was the sum of
the Republic's social work (as M. Querenet asserted
in 191 1).

M. Rudelle, in a letter to me, said : " I send
you a copy of Prince Napoleon's ' Declarations.'
This manifesto summarises the Prince's previous
* declarations,' and may be considered as the most
exact formula of the principles of the Plebiscitary
Party."

The Prince wrote, inter alia : " Those would be
mistaken who thought I was animated by a spirit
of blind and systematic opposition " (to the existing
Republic). " I am not a creator of disorders. I
will not associate myself with manoeuvres which
would increase the troubles of the country, com-
promise its interests, and risk paralysing the action of
the Government of my country. I place above
everything my care for the happiness and tranquillity
of France. I need not say that very many politicians
believe that Parliamentarism has arrived at the last
phase of its evolution. The Chambers cannot
even (in June, 191 1) vote the Budget. It is the
reign of incoherence. The disorder which is engen-
dered ends in all kinds of manifestations of anarchy —
post office and railway strikes, jacquerie in the
Marne and in the Aube, and a repetition of scan'dals

284 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

in all branches of the Administration. We are
dying of absent authority and false democracy.
The Plebiscitaires do not seek to secure the triumph
of a Party. They appeal to all Frenchmen who
recognise the sovereignty of the People and the
necessity of a national and strong authority, by
whatever name it may be called, and an escape from
Parliamentary intrigues and caprices. The number
of such people is, believe me, immense. They
want to formulate their desires. The Plebiscitary
movement will teach them their strength and lead
them to victory. To summarise my policy in a
word, it is the policy of the Consulate."

An extraordinary sign of the development of
twentieth-century Bonapartism was apparent in Paris
in 191 1. A Parliamentary election was impending
in the seventeenth arrondissement, and the surprised
electors were confronted, on the eve of the polling,
by seeing on the walls a placard containing a
recent " manifesto " of Prince Napoleon, headed
with a request to the electors to read the Prince's
" declarations " before depositing their votes in the
urns. The electors were also invited to insist upon
the candidates promising to vote for measures
permitting the exiled Prince to return to France,
and for revising the constitutional laws " in order
that universal suffrage may give the Republic a
Chief and a Government which would govern.
Only Prince Napoleon," it was added, " can
re-establish in our democracy that order and authority
which are the essential guarantees of liberty." By
the Prince's instructions, this method of propaganda
was to be adopted only at the general elections
throughout the country. M. Rudelle had begun

BONAPARTISM BEFORE THE WAR 285

the organisation of " regional " and departmental
committees, and appointed correspondents in all the
arrondissements. Subsequently the various Political
Committees of the Bonapartist Party were fused,
and the new organisation was given the title of
" Plebiscitary Political Committee," and placed
under the direct personal presidency of Prince
Napoleon.

For the first time the Government of the
Third Republic was confronted in 1911-1912 by a
" serious " Bonapartist opposition — peaceful, it is
true, or it would not have been countenanced by
the Heir of the Napoleons, but resolute, well
organised, and presumably not lacking the wherewithal
to carry on its operations. Significant for its boldness
was the prominent position given by the propagandists
to the Emperor Napoleon HI. and his work. This
was certainly courageous, and many might possibly
have seen in it an indication that the bitter feeling
with which the Empress Eugenie's ill-fated consort
was regarded for so many years after the " down-
fall " was gradually disappearing, although it might
be inaccurate to say it had entirely vanished.
But France has learnt much from M. Emile
OUivier's great work, " L' Empire Liberal," and was
in a position to judge fairly and squarely the
merits and demerits of that Second Empire
which I have described. Like other sovereigns,
Napoleon HL had the defects of his qualities.
It is incontestable that France prospered under
his rule of more than eighteen years.

To fete the anniversary of Prince Louis Napoleon's
election as President of the Republic the Plebiscitary
Committees of the Seine gave a banquet at the

286 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Salon des Families, presided over by the Marquis de
Dion in the absence of Prince Murat owing to
illness. The Pretender wrote from Brussels : " In
commemorating once more the great popular move-
ment of the loth of December, 1848, the Plebiscitary
Committees of the Seine show their unalterable
attachment to the souvenirs and the principles which
are dear to me. It is more than ever necessary
to preserve strict discipline in the ranks of the
Plebiscitary Party. Work to make the voice of
France heard."

And Prince Murat wrote : " More and more the
Napoleonic spirit is spreading in France. When
all France, with some exceptions, is Bonapartist
in doctrine the coming of Bonaparte cannot be
long delayed."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE EMPRESS A SUCCESSFUL
DEFENDANT (1913)

M. Pierre Thierry resides, or did reside, in the little
town of Luynes, which is dominated by the ruins
of the old chateau of the Due de Luynes; and
early in 1907 he began a lawsuit, claiming from the
Empress Eugenie, " domiciled at Villa Cyrnos,
Cap Martin," the sum of 4,800,000 francs. How
did M. Pierre Thierry come to be, as he alleged, a
creditor of the Empress for so large a sum as
;^ 192,000? M. Thierry's story may be summarised.
It is, of course, ex parte.

In 1855, Napoleon III., finding himself short of
cash, borrowed 3,000,000 francs (;^ 120,000) at four
per cent, of M. Martin Thierry, a wealthy shipowner
of Nantes, who disappeared in 1862, and died in
1865. The loan was repayable, with interest, on
July I, 1870. On that date Pierre Thierry, grand-
nephew of Martin Thierry, and claiming to be
his grand-uncle's heir-presumptive, demanded pay-
ment of the Emperor. Napoleon III., it was alleged
by M. Pierre Thierry, recognised the validity of
his claim as heir-presumptive of his grand-uncle,
and, being unable to pay, gave a new bill, promising
to liquidate the debt in fifteen years from July i,
1870.

The Emperor's alleged promissory note was as
follows : —
287

288 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Napoleon, by the Grace of God and the National will,
Emperor of the French, to all present and to come, greeting !

The year 1870, the 4th of July, in presence and at the request
of our General Aide-de-Camp Reille and our Commandant
Clary, sous-chef of the staff, who have presented to us MM.
Dr Caulet, Mayor of Luynes (Indre-et-Loire), and Thierry
(Pierre), farmer, born at Luynes (Indre-et-Loire), heir-presump-
tive of the late M. Thierry (Martin), born at Luynes, shipowner,
deceased abroad, according to the declaration officially made
to us by the Mayor of Luynes this day.

For these reasons, and in view of the circumstances, ack-
nowledging that M. Pierre Thierry is owed the sum of 4,800,000
francs, at four francs per cent, per annum, interest included, at
this date, on a sum of 3,000,000 francs at four francs per cent,
per annum, which had been handed to us as a loan, in the year
1855, by the late M. Martin Thierry, and payable on July ist,
1870.

Consequently, and in view of the declarations of the Mayor
of Luynes, acknowledging as good and valuable the said
declarations ;

We promise
to repay this sum from our personal fortune the ist of July,
1885, into the hands of M. Pierre Thierry, here present, and
accepting the present agreement in the presence of the persons
accompanying him. In faith of which we declare the- present
contract imprescriptible and insaissable [not to be distrained].

Tel (sic) est notre volont^.

Given at Paris, under our reign, the day and year specified.

It may well be wondered why M. Pierre Thierry
did not present the promissory note in 1885. His
reply was that it was lost. " Fearing the Prussians,"
M. Thierry said he concealed the note so carefully
that he could not find it. He only discovered it
about 1905, and then he could not commence an
action for the recovery of the loan as he had not
sufficient funds.

It was asked if M. Thierry was certain that he had
an audience of the Emperor on July ist, 1870,

A SUCCESSFUL DEFENDANT 289

and received the paper from the Emperor's hands,
and how it happened that no trace of this alleged
debt was found in the secret papers seized at the
Tuileries after September 4, 1870, or in the papers
preserved by the Empress Eugenie. In 1855
the Emperor was at the height of his power. The
Treaty of Paris (1856) had marked the end of
the Crimean war; and when the Emperor was
asked why he did not demand the payment of a
war indemnity by Russia, Napoleon III., who
had good reasons for conciliating the enemy of
1 854- 1 85 5, answered, " France is rich enough to
pay for its glory ! "

The Emperor was married, and it was the year
of the first Universal Exhibition, for the purposes of
which the Palais de ITndustrie, in the Champs
Elysees, had been built. France was indeed rich, and
the Emperor all-powerful. He certainly borrowed
money, and also made advances to the State from
his civil list, which was of the respectable figure
of ;^ 1,600,000 per annum. He improved out of his
privy purse part of the Sologne, and fertilised the
Landes and properties at Ox and Labenne. But he
paid off his loans in France as he had liquidated those
which he made in England when he was first an
exile here. He also repaid what he borrowed
on account of the coup d'etat which placed him on
the throne, giving monthly drafts of from 20,000 to
50,000 francs upon his civil list. Still, the story
of the first promissory note which he gave to
Martin Thierry, about which nothing was known,
was surprising, and even more astonishing was that of
the renewed bill alleged to have been given to
Pierre Thierry.

290 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

A Paris lawyer expressed this opinion : " Every
document acknowledging a debt is evidence in a
court of law. In principle it must be registered;
but the Thierry document, coming from the Sovereign,
was not subject to registration. It must, therefore,
be ascertained if the signature is genuine; if the
document is authentic; but even if it should be
proved to be authentic it would now be null and void
owing to the lapse of thirty years since the trans-
action, if the person concerned, as appears probable,
has not performed any ' acte interruptif de la
prescription ' [i.e. if the alleged debt has not been
'kept alive']."

Not unnaturally, exception was taken to the form
of the document said to have been given by the
Emperor. The Emperor never wrote, in documents
emanating from him personally, " ' our ' general,"
but " ' the ' general " ; nor would he have written
" ' our ' Commandant Clary," more especially as
the Comte Clary in question (later of Chislehurst)
was a simple captain on July i, 1870, and was only
promoted to be commandant a fortnight afterwards,
because, after applying to serve in the campaign,
he, after the declaration of war, consented, at the
request of the Empress, to remain with the Prince
Imperial. Again, the rank of " sous-chef " of the
general staff did not exist in 1870. At that date
there was neither chef nor sous-chef of the general
staff. Marshal Vaillant had been " Major-General
of the Army " during the war with Italy, and
Marshal Leboeuf had discharged the same functions
at the outbreak of the war in 1870; but there
was no " chef d'etat-major general " until after the
war, when the army was reorganised. One cannot.

A SUCCESSFUL DEFENDANT 291

therefore, imagine a simple captain " sous-chef
d'etat major."

In the opinion of some French lawyers, proceedings
should have been taken by the claimant, not against
the Empress, but against the State. The plaintiffs
" statement of claim " was ridiculed ; it was described
as a document " which might have been drawn
up by some village scribe."

There was, indeed, it was affirmed, a Napoleon who
played a part in this farcical business, but it was not
Napoleon III. Napoleon I., several years before the
" coup d'etat of Brumaire," seized, in 1797, at Venice,
during his Italian campaign, the property of one
Jean Thiery (with one " r "), a French navigator,
engaged in commerce, who is said to have died
on the banks of the Arno in September, 1676 ! Now,
would not the present claimant, Pierre Thierry (with
two " r's "), of Luynes, be also one of the heirs of
that Jean Thiery, whose fortune is stated to have
amounted to 59,549,000 francs (;^2,38i,96o)? The
heirs of that Jean Thiery, whose numbers have
gone on increasing since 1676, at various times
brought sensational actions against the State in order
to recover the fortune which they coveted.

The question may well be asked. Why did the
young General of the Directory, afterwards Napoleon I.,
confiscate the navigator's millions.'* The explana-
tion is given in the reports of a debate in the
National Assembly in 1791. " For the sake of
humanity " — so runs one of the reports of those
proceedings — " the National Assembly ought to come
to the succour of those individuals " (so the heirs of
Jean Thiery were described), " 2000 in number,
who, although they were recognised by the Courts as

292 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

the legitimate heirs of Jean Thiery, were unable
to obtain from the Republic of Venice the succession
which they claimed without the protection of the
Government. From a political point of view it
concerns France to see that those sums of money
should be returned to France."

Several years later Bonaparte promised that they
should be returned. The Tribunal of the Seine
delivered five judgments (in 1822, 1826, 1827, 1831
and 1833) acknowledging that the rights of the
heirs were legal. Despite these decisions, however,
the Courts were unable to order the restitution of
the succession to Jean Thiery's numerous heirs.
The Minister of Finance confirmed this view in
1890, stating that Bonaparte's action in taking
possession, by order of the Directory, of the Thiery
millions and the documents concerning them was an
act of Government subject to the control and judgment
of Parliament only.

A commission appointed by the Chamber of
Deputies met on the 29th of May, 1890, and
reported to Parliament that the Thiery inheritance
existed, and that the claims of the heirs were perfectly
legitimate; " the facts," said the commission, " are
incontestable." I quote textually from the report
of the commission :

That Bonaparte, who, in 1797, became master of Italy by
force of arms, seized, in the name of the French State, and
by virtue of the orders which were regularly given to him by
the Directory, the Thiery property.

That all the attempts made by the heirs since that epoch
have been without result; and that, finally, the State remains
the detainer of the monies, which have never been returned
[to the rightful owners].

A SUCCESSFUL DEFENDANT 293

On the 1 8th of March, 1891, the question came
before the Chamber of Deputies. M. Letellier, the
" reporter," or, as we say, the chairman, of the
commission, declared that " if the State, in the
exercise of its sovereign power, had believed, in
the exceptional and urgent circumstances, that it
could use funds of which it was only the depositary
and administrator, it ha'd no right to take possession
of the monies and use them as against the wishes of
legitimate owners."

On the i6th of November, 1892, M. Thomon, then
the " reporter " of the commission, informed Parlia-
ment of the conclusions arrived at by that body.
Parliament could not be considered either as a legal
tribunal or as a court of appeal. It had neither the
qualifications nor the competency to decide as to the
validity of the petitions formulated by the heirs
concerning the filiation of the descendants of Jean
Thiery, or upon the value of the different appeals
brought since 1676.

The effect of all this may be summed up in
a sentence. The law courts declared their incom-
petency to detide the questions at issue, and referred
them to Parliament ; Parliament replied that the matter
did not come within its scope, and remitted the case
back to the tribunals !

M. Thierry said in 1907 : " I have taken, but
vainly, numerous steps with Government after
Government. My claims are just and legitimate.
The heaping up of the millions has scared everybody.
Lately, M. Rouvier, when he was in power, declined
to let anybody speak to him on the subject. Had
I wished to do so, I could have entered into
possession, with my co-heirs, of this fortune. A

294 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

German banker offered to undertake an energetic
campaign for the purpose. I refused this offer,
however, from a feeling of patriotism which you
will understand."

While the whole story is of singular interest, it is
to be observed that the claim made upon the Empress
Eugenie as the surviving representative of her
husband was based upon a loan alleged to have
been made to the Emperor in 1855 and renewed
in 1870 for a second period of fifteen years. At the
date of the alleged loan (1855) of, as it was stated
to have been, ;^ 120,000 the Emperor's civil list
was ;^ 1,000,000 per annum; later it was increased.

The " Thi^ry " case terminated, after two hundred
and thirty-eight years, on December 10, 191 3,
when the Paris Court rejected a claim by a widow,
Mme Cotton, a direct descendant of Jean Thiery,
who sought to recover from the Republic ;!^ 800,000
in respect of losses sustained by previous heirs and
herself. The Court now held that Bonaparte, in
seizing the property in 1797, acted in his public
capacity as representative of the State, and therefore
no action could lie against the French Government
for what it had done.

As a consequence of this judgment in 19 13 no
action could lie against the Empress Eugenie,
who had been annoyed for nearly seven years by the
vexatious proceedings instituted by M. Pierre
" Thierry," to say nothing of the expense incurred by
her in defending the case.

CHAPTER XXX

LAMPOONING THE EMPRESS

Lou6 par ceux-ci, bMm6 par ceux-li, me moquant des sots,
bravant les m^chants, je me h^te de rire de tout, de peur
d'etre oblige d'en pleurer. — Beaumarchais.

United States journals which have reached me
from time to time since the appearance of my
two previous volumes show the interest taken by
the Americans in the Empress. Reading some of
the letters sent across the Atlantic by Paris Corre-
spondents, I freely admit that English biographers,
or would-be biographers, of the illustrious lady are
painfully dull, distressingly sober, by comparison
with the alert, quick-witted Americans, whose
irresponsibility and occasional disdain for his-
torical accuracy we can only envy without daring
to imitate.

What could be more attractive to the newspaper
reader than three columns of small type (dated
Paris, May 15, 1910) prefaced by the headings: —

AGED EUGENIE FINALLY FORGIVES AND IS
PREPARING FOR HER END

Ex-Empress of Beauty, Power, and Fashion burns
her Proofs and stops her Lawsuits in Christian Abnega-
tion— Last of a Great Romantic Figure who has been
frequently and terribly calumniated
295

296 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

The writer of this dazzling " story " (that, I am told,
is the technical name for these " personal " articles,
and it seems a sufficiently appropriate title) is
gifted with a style at once direct and penetrating.
He is sparing of his words, but lavish of his
" thrills," which permeate every paragraph.

The most fortunate and beautiful of girls, the most brilliant
and powerful of women, forgives the world her vast
unhappiness.

Eugenie, great romantic figure, one-time Empress of the
French and arbiter of fashion, is aged, tottering, preparing
to die.

She has been the most slandered woman in the world. Even
now the French papers cannot leave her alone.

There will be no Memoirs. The cable recently flashed
M. Pietri's formal communication over the world. Any
alleged writing of hers will be spurious. What the communica-
tion did not state, however, is that Eugenie burned her
Memoirs, only this year (1910), in a great act of Christian
renunciation.

The most slandered woman in the world pardons everybody.

Women worshipped her dazzling success — a Cinderella.
One day she was a poor Spaniard, visiting Paris with her
widowed mother, in a cheap flat of the Place Vend6me.
The next day she was a beloved and loving Empress, with
the entire police vainly trying to silence her detractors. They
exiled young men for boasting that they had danced with
her at Biarritz, They imprisoned women for saying that she
had been engaged to Ossuna, and had a shameful secret in
her birth.

Eugenie's enemies, to complete her illegitimacy, destroyed
the pages of the parish registers at Arevalo. Then, to
perfect their work, they circulated word that Napoleon III.
had caused the destruction of the record page to conceal her
fatherless state.

LAMPOONING THE EMPRESS 297

When M6rim6e offered his testimony, years after, they
called him Eugenie's lover. . . . Mdrim^e had taken them
(the mother and daughter) to the Prince President's reception,
where Eugenie first met Napoleon.

With these facts (sic) the Bonaparte family tried to break
the match. They sneered at the Montijo titles, brought out
the grandfather, Kirkpatrick, bankrupt Malaga raisin merchant,
and took up Eugenie's roving life.

" Have you heard of M^rimde? " laughed De Persigny.

" M^rim^e is a great writer," said Napoleon.

" He writes Eugenie's letters to you. Mother, daughter
and newspaper man concoct the beautiful letters that you
cherish. Really, it was not worth making the coup d'etat to
arrive at that."

Thus it was always known why Eug6nie hated the Bonaparte
family. She could forgive political counsels against her,
but not the powerful ones who never ceased to steal her
reputation.

The Empress could not notice a man without his being
called her lover. . . . Prince Henri de Reuss, conducting the
Emperor and Empress through his apartments, tried to hurry
them through his bedroom, but Eugenie would not hurry,
gaily inquisitive. It was enough. Next day all Paris knew
that Eugenie had been caught in Reuss's bedroom.

She lived in a house of glass. Thousands of eyes spied
on her, and thousands of letters of those times have been
published. From them and a hundred memoirs it is certain
that Eugenie was a faithful wife. She flirted to the limit,
but without real peril. . . . The number of befooled men will
never be counted.

As soon as she had a son, they found new subjects for
slander. Avarice was her vice, they said. Eugenie was
squeezing the gold out of France by stock-rigging, not being
content to systematically fob the Civil List.

In Beaumarchais' words, " I hastened to laugh.

298 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

lest I should be obliged to cry," when I read what is
printed above merely as a curiosity, an example
of the many despicable slanders on the Empress
which have found their way into the papers in many
countries between 1871 and 19 16.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE PRINCE WHO LIVED AT
BAYSWATER

Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte was a fairly-
frequent visitor at Chislehurst and at Farnborough
Hill from the year of the arrival of the Imperial
Family in England until his death, in Italy, in
November, 1891. He was the son of Lucien
Bonaparte, first Prince of Canino, a brother of
Napoleon L, and, even at seventy-four, was a
replica of his uncle, the Great Emperor. Lucien,
like his cousin Jerome (father of the Princes Victor
and Louis), was a little taller than his renowned
uncle. Looking at him as he faced you in the
library at his Bayswater residence, you might almost
have imagined that it was the " Little Corporal "
who stood before you; his frock coat was tightly
buttoned, his hands were clasped behind his back.
The Prince Imperial, often as he appeared in the
West End, and less frequently in the city, passed
unnoticed unless he chanced to be in Pall Mall
or St James's Street; but everybody turned to
look at Prince Lucien as he strolled in the Broad
Walk, or roamed through the West End in quest of
books, or waited on the platform at Charing Cross
or Waterloo for the train which was to take him to
Chislehurst or Farnborough Hill.

Many will remember him, in a big arm-chair,
in that great room at Norfolk Terrace, ever willing to
299

300 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

talk about literature. Books everywhere, in their
cases reaching to the ceiling — seven or eight rooms full
of them : a miniature British Museum library.
Books in all languages — the majority works on
scientific subjects; for Louis Lucien Bonaparte was
savant to his finger-tips. Concerning his own
Herculean literary productions he was very reticent;
but, by persistent questioning, he could be induced to
satisfy a visitor's curiosity.

" You did not know I was born in England — at
Thorngrove, Worcestershire, on January 4th, 1 8 1 3 ; so
you see I am an old man now. When I was born my
father, Lucien Bonaparte, was in captivity. After
Waterloo my family lived in Italy, and there I wrote
my first books. When I returned to France the
Corsicans elected me as their representative in the
Assembly. Not long afterwards I became a member
of the Assemblee Legislative by the votes of 120,000
electors of the Seine. In 1852 I was nominated
Senator, and simultaneously received the titles of
Prince and Highness. With that exception I have
never taken the remotest interest in politics, for which
I have an intense repugnance; and I have devoted
nearly the whole of my life to scientific research. My
favourite study has always been chemistry. But I
have devoted many years to the completion of a dic-
tionary of all the European languages, intended for
the use of linguistic students. I have some thousands
of volumes here, as you may see. I am a great lover
of books, and spend every shilling I can spare upon
them. Many hundreds have not been bound, because
I could not afford it.

" Yes — a great many of these works are from my
pen. Here is a Bible which I have translated, for the

THE PRINCE AT BAYSWATER 301

first time, into Basque du Labourd. Here is the Book
of Genesis, translated into the langue du Guipuscoa,
of which I was one of the translators. Here is the
Book of Leviticus, treated similarly. The Psalms are
here translated into Dutch; Psalm cl. into Spanish;
the Epistle of St Matthew into Neapolitan, Venetian,
Milanese, Piedmontese, Corsican, Italian, Low Scotch,
the Devonshire dialect and many other languages.
There is the Apocalypse in all kinds of Southern
languages, and there are the Apocryphal Books com-
plete in Gaelic Scotch. In these cases there are
numerous works, mostly Biblical, in every language —
Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish,
and Danish. This work, published in London in
1863, took me a long time to complete ; it is a Morpho-
logical classification of the European languages,
adapted by me for my Comparative Vocabulary. I
suppose I have issued of this kind of publication
about two hundred and twenty-one works up to
now (1887). I worked very hard years ago; but
that is all over now. I used to work fifteen hours a
day without feeling the strain; but now I have
to content myself with two or three hours a day, for
that is all I can stand.

No — I do not think I shall ever return to France.
I love England, and am thoroughly happy here. I
almost look upon myself as one of you now — I have
lived here so long. Before you go let me show you a
painting of my father. It is considered an admirable
likeness. This bust is one of my mother. Those
pictures over there have all interesting histories."

This great scholar, whom many will doubtless con-
sider the most distinguished member of the House of
Bonaparte, died within four years after the conversation

302 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

here recorded. His remains were brought to England
from Italy and interred at St Mary's Roman Catholic
Cemetery, Kensal Green, in the presence of several
hundred people. At the Requiem Mass previously
celebrated at the Church of St Mary and All Angels,
Bayswater, Queen Victoria was represented by Lord
Romilly; and, besides Mr Clovis Bonaparte (the son)
and his wife, there were present at the funeral
Monsignor Goddard, Count Ferraro, the Rev.
Father David, O.S.F. (Prince Louis Lucien's
confessor), and Dr Owen (one of Queen Victoria's
physicians). By the Prince's wish, the remains were
deposited in a sarcophagus constructed after his own
designs. The body was conveyed to the grave in an
oak coffin, with removable sides and lid. When the
coffin had been deposited in its place the sides
and the lid were removed, and it was then seen
that the Prince reposed on a mattress covered with
violet satin edged with gold fringe. He was in
Court garb, with his Oxford gown, and all his
orders. There were " no flowers, by request."

The mourners read :

Here in this sarcophagus lies Louis Lucien Bonaparte,
Senator of France, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour,
and Doctor of the University of Oxford ; son of Lucien
Bonaparte, the most distinguished brother of Napoleon the
First, and First Prince of Canino. He was in early life a
student of chemistry, and in his old age devoted to comparative
philology. Born at Thorngrove, near Worcester, January
4th, 181 3 [a space for the date of the death w^as left vacant].
** Miserere mea Deus secundum magnum miserecordiam
tuam ; Christe Redemptor mundi ; Deus, salvam me fac ;
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro Nobis."

The wife of Prince Louis Lucien was the daughter
of a Florentine sculptor. After living with her

THE PRINCE AT BAYSWATER 303

husband nearly twenty years a separation was
arranged, but the Princess, although agreeing to
live apart, would not consent to have the marriage
annulled, as she was proud of the name of Bonaparte.
The Princess lived principally on an allowance
from the Empress Eugenie, supplemented by what
she got at one time by showing the historical
house at Ajaccio (the maison Bonaparte) in which she
resided, and in which Napoleon I. was born. A
Princess of the House of Bonaparte acting as
caretaker of a famous residence and " turning an
honest penny " by showing it to inquisitive excur-
sionists ! It was even so. Princess (Clemence)
Bonaparte died on November 14, 19 15, at St Joseph's
Home, Mare Street, Hackney, London. She left
all her property (valued at ;^994, 4s. 6d.), " whether
in possession or reversion," to Mrs Laura Elizabeth
Brooke, 6 Alexander House, St Mary's Terrace,
Paddington. The Princess had resided for many
years at 2 Powis Square, Bayswater.

Prince Lucien had a staunch friend in the late Sir
Henry Drummond Wolff, G.C.B.,G.C.M.G., for some
years our Ambassador to Spain, who, in his enter-
taining reminiscences, * gives a highly-interesting
appreciation of the Prince. Pointing out that
Prince Lucien was not only a great philologist,
but an eminent chemist, having a special penchant
for the study of poisons, with the view of utilising
them for the benefit of humanity. Sir Henry says :

Prince Louis Lucien was hig"h in the confidence of the
Emperor Napoleon IIL, and I believe was one of the guardians

*" Rambling- Recollections." Two vols. Macmillan & Co.
Limited. igo8.

304 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

appointed to the Prince Imperial. He was much depressed
by the death of the latter, and, though he had always led a
very secluded life, was still more of a recluse afterwards.
The downfall of the Empire seriously injured his financial
position, though I believe he inherited some money from his
nephew, Mr Stuart, the son of Lord Dudley Stuart, who
had married his sister. Mr Gladstone, who had a great
respect for him on account of his literary qualities, conferred
on him an English pension, being enabled to say with
truth that he was a British subject, as he was born at
Thorngrove, in Worcestershire.

In feature, the Prince presented a striking resemblance to
the Emperor Napoleon I. . . . When about sixteen, he had
written a poem against the Papacy, which, later in life,
however, he upheld and reverenced. He was a perfect
encyclopaedia of learning, ancient and modern. He had two
semi-detached houses in Westbourne Grove, now called
Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater. In one of them he lived ; but
he devoted the other to science, forming a magnificent
philological library, and converting the cellars into a chemical
laboratory. In his library might be read the inscription :
" O beata solitudo ! O sola beatitudo ! "

Some of Sir Henry Wolff's relatives had known
Prince Louis Lucien in Florence, where the Prince-
savant passed the early years of his manhood. At
their London house they received their friends of all
nationalities every evening, and here the first
cousin of Napoleon HL once, in 1856, met, among
other revolutionaries, Orsini, who had recently
escaped from his prison at Mantua. This unexpected
rencontre greatly annoyed the Prince, who, later —
after Orsini's attempted assassination of the Emperor
and Empress — " broke " with the would-be assassin.

When the war of 1870 broke out, writes Sir Henry,
*' the Prince came to me at the Athenaeum Club,
of which we were both members, and, curiously
enough, took me in his carriage with the Bonaparte

THE PRINCE AT BAYSWATER 305

liveries to the door of the Prussian Embassy, where
I endeavoured to obtain some authentic news. . . .
At the fall of the Empire the Prince naturally lost
his allowance [from the Emperor], as well as his
pay as Senator, and, having made some bad invest-
ments, he was at one time reduced to considerable
pecuniary straits." I believe he received a Civil
allowance in recognition of his scientific attainments.
He had intended to leave his valuable library and his
collection of chemicals and metals to the British
Museum, but technical difficulties stood in the way of
his desire.

CHAPTER XXXII

BAZAINE, LEBCEUF, CANROBERT AND
NAPOLEON III.

There was discovered, in 1906, under a humble
roof at Limoges, an old soldier named Liautrou
who was Marshal Bazaine's orderly when Metz
capitulated in October, 1870. Napoleon II L gave
the Marshal the command of the army of Metz one
wretched evening, when he was dining at Bazaine's
quarters in the early days of the war. And this is
Liautrou's story :

I was serving at table. I can see the Emperor
now — his pale face, his expressionless eyes, his
haggard look, mais toujours son air de brave homme.
The Emperor was all goodness : he wept when
he offered Bazaine the sole command. Oui, monsieur,
il pleurait. Pauvre souverain ! We arrived at
St Privat. That morning Bazaine appeared on
the battlefield, but he did not remain long. About
six o'clock in the evening I took him his dinner
in one of those little wicker baskets used in the army.
I had a great deal of trouble to find the Marshal;
the bullets whistled round me, and with my basket I
was a sorry figure. I should have preferred having
a " flingot " in my hand, and taking my part in the
concert.

Well, at last, near Fort St Quentin 1 met Marshal
Leboeuf. " Pardon," I said, " Monsieur le Mare-

306

BAZAINE, LEBGEUF, CANROBERT 307

chal, but can you tell me where I shall find Monsieur
le Marechal Bazaine? "

" Ah, it's you, Liautrou? Well, go that way."
He put me on the right track, and at last I found my
chief in a small town — Flappeville. He was
installed in a very nice house, from which the panic-
stricken people had fled. The Marshal lived there
very quietly ; there he was in his arm-chair, indifferent
to the appeals of Canrobert, who sent him message
after message.

Canrobert — there is a man whom one can talk about.
Canrobert was full of aches and pains; he had
to be helped on his charger. Once in the saddle,
though, he remained in 4. While Canrobert was
fighting like a lion at St Privat, Bazaine, after dinner^
strolled towards the fort of St Quentin, " to see,''
he said, " what was going on." His two nephews,
Adolphe and Achille Bazaine, lieutenants in the
cavalry, had been in the fighting. Adolphe was
wounded — a scratch in one leg. They used to say,
entre nous, that he did it himself; but perhaps that
was only gossip. Well, his uncle decorated him !
Yes, gave him the cross — for that ! The wound
must have been very slight, for it did not interfere
with his duties. Things went from bad to worse.
Nobody knew what to do. We marched from defeat
to defeat.

(The old soldier, much affected, turned his straw hat
between his fingers. His bright eyes were dry, but
his grave voice seemed wet with tears.)

We shut ourselves up in Metz. It was a dreadful
time. Hitherto we had been beaten, but we had
aefended ourselves. It was doing nothing that
wore us out. Then came famine. All that force

3o8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

shut up in Metz, helpless ! The soldiers had nothing
to do but boil their pots — when there was anything
to cook ! Bazaine left his house less and less.
At last one day a brigadier (a corporal) brought into
Metz news of the defeat at Sedan.

I know nothing about history. I have never
opened a book in my life, for the very good reason
that I can't read. On the other hand, I have
always kept my eyes open, and I can tell you that it
was indeed a corporal of artillery who was the first
to inform Bazaine of the fall of the Empire and the
proclamation of the Republic. The Marshal gave
the corporal the military medal and made him
sergeant. I recollect distinctly, and can repeat to
you now, word for word, one thing which the Marshal
said on that occasion. I must, however, tell you
that everybody was beginning to talk about Bazaine;
they thought he had behaved very strangely, and
they began to murmur tout bas — bien bas. We
were on the watch, and I heard the Marshal say,
" Je ne servirai jamais la Republique ! " Yes, I
heard him say that ! After Sedan he never budged.
He waited. What? . . . You can never tell. He
was always shut up in his house.

He never visited the troops. Never did he set foot
within the hospitals, which were swarming with
the sick. Never did he mount his horse; and he
was getting fat ! The troops chafed. Bazaine was
obliged to give way to Canrobert to some extent,
so there were two sorties on a small scale. The
word " treason " began to be heard. The other
chiefs appeared to be modelling themselves upon
Bazaine. They were all asking themselves, " Where
are we going? "

BAZAINE, LEBCEUF, CANROBERT 309

There were two decent men with Bazaine —
Canrobert and Jarras. The latter used to upset
Bazaine; he was always arguing.

Leboeuf? A sluggard — quite useless. He was
never seen at the councils. There was also the
chief of the artillery — Soleille. He was another
faineant, an incapable. His likeness to Napoleon
ni. was extraordinary. We used to say he must
be the Emperor's son.

Conferences were often held. Canrobert and
Jarras always attended them. They treated Bazaine
to hard words sometimes. On his staff was a
brilliant officer, Captain Comte de Gudin — a capable
man ; and how brave ! He had been in the
Cuirassiers — they were all killed at Reichshofen.
Soleille told Bazaine exactly what he thought of
him. I do not know if Soleille had got hold of any
of the Marshal's secrets, but Bazaine seemed to
be afraid of him. Jarras, as I told you, was always
arguing, but seldom lost his temper. One day,
however, . there was a stormy scene, and Jarras
told Bazaine he was a do-nothing. Yes, Jarras used
that very word, " faineant," to the Marshal, his
chief.

How do I know?

I must tell you that the councils of war were helH
in a room over the kitchen. The dining-room was
overhead, the dishes being sent up by a lift. We used
to listen at the lift. I recollect that Canrobert
was always for making an attempt to break through
the Prussian lines. One day he said abruptly to
Bazaine, " Our horses are without straw, without
hay; they will starve; yet outside Metz there is
plenty of both hay and straw." Bazaine shrugge'd

3IO EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

his shoulders : " You go out, then, as you are
so brave ! " "I am not master," growled Canrobert.
Once, however, Bazaine did permit a sortie to be
made by three regiments of voltigeurs and a zouave
regiment. Bazaine had always near him a phot-
ographer, wearing private clothes and taking his
meals at the Marshal's table. I remember, too,
the interpreter — a charming fellow, a native of Metz.
When the siege began he was a simple soldier, but
the Marshal made him sous-lieutenant.

CHAPTER XXXIII

PARENTAGE OF NAPOLEON III.

Was Napoleon III. the legitimate son of King Louis
of Holland? Doctor Corvisart, the doctor of
Napoleon I., and the medical attendant of nearly all
the Imperial Family, averred, according to Baron
d'Ambes, * that " Louis Bonaparte was not the
father of any of Queen Hortense's children." The
father of one of them was, we know, the Comte de
Flahault, and Napoleon III. acknowledged De
Morny to be his illegitimate brother. D'Ambes
contends, in great detail, but half-heartedly, that
Napoleon I. was not only the uncle, but the father,
of Napoleon III. The King of Holland himself
is credited with the written statement that " not
a drop of Bonapartist blood ran in the veins of
Louis Napoleon. . . . But, as he will never come
to a throne, and as I do not wish to make a
scandal ... it does not matter." Of Napoleon
Charles, the eldest son of Queen Hortense (the
Great Emperor's stepdaughter, daughter of the
discarded Empress Josephine), D'Ambes says :
•' He has all the appearance of being the child
of Napoleon I. Of the second son, I can say
nothing. As to the third (Napoleon III.), I

*'*M6moires in^dits sur Napoleon III." Par le Baron
d'Ambes. Recueillis et annot^s par Charles Simond et
M. C. Poinsot. Paris : Soci^t6 des publications litt6raires
illustr^es. (An English edition has appeared.)

312 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

hesitate to speak. As to another of Hortense's
children, admittedly illegitimate, Francois Louis de
Castel-Vecchio, born at Rome in 1826, he was
certainly not the son of the ex-King of Holland."

Despite his " hesitancy " and self-contradictions,
D'Ambes, in his voluminous and unique " Memorial
de Chislehurst," adduces much evidence of a certain
class — a great deal of it supposititious — in support
of his theory that the Uncle was the father of the
Nephew, a theory now first advanced in modern
times, although Corvisart and D'Ambes assert that it
was much gossiped about at the birth of Napoleon
HI. (1808) and for many years afterwards. Corvi-
sart died in 1821, when Baron d'Ambes was
eight. The latter's information, it seems, came
to him from the son of a medical man who was a
colleague of Corvisart at the £cole de Medecine
(Paris) and discussed the question with Corvisart. *

When M. Frederic Masson, of the Academic
Francaise, speaks, we listen respectfully. He
has spoken on the question of the paternity of
Napoleon HI., and demolished the Corvisart-
D'Ambes theory. M. Masson says : " Not a
particle of this stupid calumny is true. Everything
denies and contradicts it; it cannot stand the
slightest examination. But it cannot be denied that
it emanated from King Louis himself. From
thence this absurd story spread, and for sixty years

* Father of the Doctor Baron Corvisart who was a principal
medical attendant of Napoleon III. until his Majesty's death
at Chislehurst, on the 9th of January, 1873. The other
medico at Chislehurst was Dr Conneau, who shared Prince
Louis Napoleon's imprisonment in the fortress of Ham
(1840- 1 846).

PARENTAGE OF NAPOLEON III. 313

people have played at the game of finding fathers for
Charles Louis Napoleon. Men of genius and men
of esprit have joined in it. ... I affirm that Charles
Louis Napoleon (Napoleon IIL), born on the
20th of April, 1808, was, beyond contradiction,
except by a lunatic, the son of Louis, King of
Holland, and Hortense de Beauharnais, his wife.
And it is important to note that this puny infant
was a seven months' child, that no one believed
he could live, or that, by virtue of the name he bore,
he who, on the loth of December, 1848, was
elected President of the Republic by 5,500,000
votes, and who, on the 20th of December, 1851,
was acclaimed President for ten years, would be, on
the ist December, 1852, chosen as Emperor of
the French by 7,500,000 votes — that is to say, by
the unanimity of the country which was at last freed
from the chains with which Europe had fettered
it in 1815." *

If any living person is entitled to speak ex cathedra,
it is M. Masson. Probably no one will be disposed
to try a fall with him on this or any other point of
that Napoleonic history which he has probed to
the lowest depths.

Baron d'Ambes finds much to excuse in the
general conduct of Hortense, who was the daughter
of the Marquis Francois de Beauharnais, the first
husband of Josephine. Her mother set her daughter
a bad example. " She loved Tallien, who had
saved her life in 1794, when she was a prisoner and
narrowly escaped the scaffold which was mounted
by her husband, De Beauharnais. Josephine loved
Barras, Lieutenant Charles, and who besides? I
* "Revue Hebdomadaire," January 29, 1910.

314 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

had almost forgotten General Bonaparte, who placed
an Emperor's crown on her head. I really believe
she loved him beyond measure, but it is too certain
that she deceived him. ' Telle mere ardente, telle
brulante fille.* It was known in Paris that, during
her husband's absence, Josephine ' distracted her-
self ' to such an extent that, as the Duchesse
d'Abrantes told me, her compromised reputation
drove from her and her daughter people who
respected themselves, I know that the Gohier
family would not allow their son to marry Hortense —
a marriage desired by Josephine. We know the
terrible scene which occurred on the return of General
Bonaparte, who had heard of his wife's conduct,
and only pardoned the unfaithful wife at the
supplications of Hortense and her brother Eugene."

Josephine was anxious to get her daughter off
her hands — so D'Ambes tells us. After the failure
with young Gohier she endeavoured to secure
another youth, one Rewbell, whom Hortense dis-
liked. Then, at the instigation of Bourrienne, an
attempt was maHe to capture Jerome Bonaparte * ;
Lucien, however, bade his brother beware of Hor-
tense's violet eyes and blonde tresses, and again
Josephine was foiled :

What opportunities for the girl to lose her heart at La
Malmaison ! When Bonaparte, become First Consul, left
the Rue de la Victoire for the Petit Luxembourg-, and the
Petit Luxembourg- for the Tuileries, he installed his -wife
and stepdaughter in the entresol of the Palace and bade them
organise f^tes, receptions and balls both in Paris and at
La Malmaison. On Thursdays there was a gala dinner ;
and often there was a theatrical performance.

I can still hear Junot's wife telling me of the elegances of
the Consular Court, the flowered white cr^pe robes, the

* Made King of Westphalia by his brother, Napoleon L

PARENTAGE OF NAPOLEON III. 315

garlanded heads, and the merriment which rang through the
rooms as the First Consul passed through them, feeling
already Emperor, but awaiting the moment when he would
place on his head the heavy crown of glory. How pretty
Hortense was ! An exquisite blonde, with amethyst eyes,
supple waist, and harmonious gestures. Her feet were rather
too small, her teeth rather too large ; but what perfect hands
and ivory nails, beautifully kept ; yet, to satisfy this ardent
beauty, they could think of nothing better than to throw
her into the arms of an impuissant invalid and grumbler !
It was to court misfortune.

Naturally Hortense was courted. Whom did she love?
First she loved Duroc, a smart officer of thirty, who was
presented to her by Bourrienne, Napoleon's secretary.
Bourrienne searched for eligible husbands. First, as we
have seen, he thought of J^r6me Bonaparte, then of Lucien ;
for Hortense 's mother ardently desired a Bonaparte for Jier
son-in-law, and finally succeeded in getting one. Duroc did
not throw himself at the girl's feet any more than Gohier and
Rewbell had done.

It was about this time that Bonaparte himself made his
first amorous advances to Hortense. Two days after his
marriage to Josephine he had left for Italy. It was on his
return, in January, 1798, after the Congress at Rastadt,
that he felt himself en rapport with the girl. He
hesitated for a long time, or rather allowed to ripen slowly
a passion which he divined would become an inconvenience,
but which probably dominated him towards i8oi.

Hortense, far from falling headlong in love with her step-
father, began by detesting him. She was vexed at her
mother's remarriage. Then their life in common, the Consul's
amiability, and especially that magnetism which so few
women could resist, wore down her shyness, softened her,
and conquered her by degrees. Bonaparte was her senior
by fourteen years. Later there was an infinity of talk about
these amours. *

* Later, as we know, Mme de Remusat brought an odious
charge against Napoleon I. The late Victorien Sardou
agreed with her; and "La Revue," of April 15, igog,
published an article giving Sardou's "confidences" to Dr
Cabanas on this subject.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE EMPRESS, HER SON AND THE
FAMILY

Je suis lasse des lis, je suis lasse des roses,
De leur haute splendeur, de leurs fraicheurs ^closes,
De toute la beaut^ des grands lis et des roses.
Votre odeur s'exasp^re dans 1 'ombre et dans le soir,
Violettes, 6 fleurs douces au d^espoir,
Violettes du soir.

The principal events in which the Imperial lady
figured between the outbreak of the war with Germany
in 1870 and 191 1 having been detailed in my two
previous volumes, I have now to record, in summary
form, the few incidents of her life in the years
1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, ending with March, 1916.

19 1 2. — On the 9th of January the Empress was
present at St Michael's Abbey Church at the
annual memorial service for the Emperor Napoleon
III., only the late M. Pietri accompanying her.
After the Mass she descended to the crypt (the
Imperial Mausoleum), where, after the Absolution
had been given, she closely examined the little
alterations which had been made by her direction.
She carried her stick, but did not use it. On the
following day the Empress left for the Continent,
en route for Cap Martin, passing through Brussels,
where she was met at the station by Prince and
Princess Napoleon, with whom next day she passed
some hours at their house in the Avenue Louise.
From Brussels she went to Paris, and so to Cap

316

THE FAMILY 317

Martin. On Christmas Day Mass was celebrated in
her oratory at Farnborough Hill. It is only on this
great festival that she wears the Spanish mantilla.

191 3. — The Empress was suffering from a heavy
cold and a troublesome cough at the end of 19 12, and
her doctor would not allow her to attend the memorial
service at the church on the 9th of January this year.
She soon recovered and the last week of February
found her, as usual, at Cap Martin, where she
was visited by the Duchesse de Mouchy. On the
29th of November she was present at the Jesuits'
Church, Farm Street, at the service for her old
friend, Mme de Arcos, as described in another chapter.
This year the Empress was not at Cowes for the
" week." In the winter she entertained at Farn-
borough Hill Prince and Princess Napoleon. In
the spring she had passed some time at Venice.
On the 5th of November she attended, at the Chapel
Royal, St James's, a funeral service for Prince Maurice
of Battenberg, as noted in the chapter " The
Empress's Tears." This year the Empress was
present at all the anniversary services at St Michael's.
In January a fine of five pounds was imposed by the
Farnham bench upon the driver of her car for "driving
to the public danger " in September, 19 12, and
knocking down a cyclist between Farnham and Alder-
shot. In the same month (January) she caused a
notice to be published conveying her " appreciation
of the many kind inquiries regarding her health,
and desiring it to be understood that she was then
much better, her cold not being nearly so trouble-
some."

1 9 14. — The Empress arrived at Cap Martin in the
third week of February, and in March entertained

3i8 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

at Villa Cyrnos Princess Henry of Battenberg for a
fortnight. This year, during a rather long stay in
Paris, she visited Fontainebleau, the Musee Carna-
valet and the Tuileries Gardens. The Empress's
birthday (May 5) is also the anniversary of the
death of Napoleon I., and on that day, as usual, there
was a commemorative service for that Emperor at
St Michael's, attended only by the servants at Farn-
borough Hill, her Majesty being then at Cap Martin.
In the summer she visited the King and Queen
of Spain and other friends at Madrid. On the
2 1 St of August the Empress was present, at St
Michael's, at a votive Mass " for the time of war "
(August 25), at a Requiem Mass for Pope Pius X.
and at the customary service on All Souls' Day
(November 2).

The Empress took what may prove to be her last
holiday in the spring and summer. In May she
motored from Cap Martin to Vintimille and proceeded
by train to Milan and from thence to Venice. She
returned from Italy to Paris and left for England
on the 1 8th of July. Her yacht, Thistle, which was
erroneously reported to have been disposed of, has been
recently fitted with a wireless installation. Like the
Dowager Empress of Russia and her sister. Queen
Alexandra, the Empress Eugenie has not escaped
German Press vilification. In December it was
reported from Madrid that the Spanish edition of the
" Hamburger Nachrichten " had been seized for
publishing a scurrilous article upon her Majesty,
much of whose early life was spent in the Spanish
capital. In the autumn a wing of her house was
converted into a sanatorium for wounded officers.
It has a perfectly equipped operating theatre. Every

THE FAMILY 319

day the Empress, unless prevented by indisposition,
has walked through the eight rooms and chatted
with the patients. Her Majesty previously gave
;^200 to the British Red Cross Society, and from
the first has closely followed the course of the war
on large-scale maps. The King and Queen, Princess
Mary and the Prince of Wales (who were then at
Aldershot) visited the Empress one Sunday afternoon
and took tea.

191 5. — For the first time since, in 1880, the Empress
made Farnborough Hill her English home, she
remained there the whole of this year — in fact, she
had not left it since her return from the Continent
in July, 19 1 4. She attended all the services at
St Michael's except the Mass for M. Pietri on
December 17. Among her visitors were her nieces,
the Marquise de Tammamis and the Duchesse de
Medina Coeli, and a few others. This year, by
exception, the Empress was in England on the
I St of June, the date of her son's death in 1879, and
was present at the anniversary Mass at St Michael's
on that day. She was accompanied by Prince and
Princess Napoleon, M. Pietri, Mme d'Attainville,
Mile Gaubert, Miss Vesey and the members of
her household.

Since Prince and Princess Napoleon have been
the Empress's guests (19 14- 19 16) they have attended
the Sunday morning service at the oratory, the
former occupying the seat on her Majesty's right.
Ordinarily the congregation numbers from ten to
twelve. Many are the moving scenes which have
been enacted in the beautiful Abbey Church of
St Michael, which, with the surrounding lands, was
the gift of the august widow of the Emperor Napoleon

320 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

III. to the community of Benedictine monks who
succeeded the members of the Order of Premontre in
what had been only a priory. But for simple pathos
no previous ecclesiastical tableau there approached
the spectacle witnessed by a privileged few on the
3rd of September, 191 5, when, at the request of
the Empress, the first Mass was celebrated in the
crypt " for all soldiers killed in the war."

Some few of those who knelt round the venerable
lady remembered that September 3 is a " date '*
in the history of France, and did not forget, when
offering their intercessions for the souls of " all
soldiers killed in the war," that on this day in 1870
the captive Emperor reached Bouillon, on his way to
his palatial " prison " at Wilhelmshohe, escorted by
a Prussian general.

Those who had not seen the Empress of late were
agreeably surprised at seeing her look so well. At
least one — probably only one — could carry his
thoughts back to that autumn day in 1870 when
she arrived at Chislehurst after her flight from the
Tuileries. The Empress followed the Mass with
her wonted close attention, kneeling and rising with
no perceptible effort, and, when she left, bestowing
her sad smile and bow seemingly to each one before
whom she passed. She has been seen at St Michael's
oftener of late years than at previous periods. Since
she instituted the monthly Mass above noted (in
September, 19 15), she has regularly attended the
service, usually accompanied by Prince and Princess
Napoleon and others staying with her.

I have reluctantly omitted the account given
by M. Emile OUivier, in his final volume of his
great work, " L'Empire Liberal," of the Empress

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OFFICERS STAYINC IN THK SANATORIIM KSTAKI.ISMEI) BV UKR ImI'KRIAI.

Majesty at hkr residence, Faunboroicih lliii

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 32I

Eugenie's flight from the Tuileries on the 4th of
September, 1870, three days after the battle of Sedan
and the surrender of the Emperor and the French
army to the victorious Germans. Mr Evans, the
American dentist, and one of his friends escorted the
Empress and Mme Lebreton, sister of General
Bourbaki, from Paris to Trouville, and Sir John
Montagu Burgoyne, in a letter to Lord Granville, then
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, describes
how he conveyed the fugitives across the Channel.

In December, 19 12, Barre's statue of Napoleon III.
was sold at auction in Berlin by the famous firm
of Heilbronn. With this bust of Napoleon III. the
whole world may be considered familiar, since it
supplied the model for the coinage of the Second
Empire. Its vicissitudes began in 1870, in the
Franco-Prussian War, before which it was situated
in a niche outside the Hotel de Ville at Metz. When
the fortress fell into the hands of the Germans
the bust was removed and put in a barn. Its
subsequent history is of the vaguest. The last phase
was reached when it made thirty pounds under the
hammer in Berlin.

The Empress naturally follows the events at the
theatre of war with the closest attention. One day in
September, 19 14, her visitors included Lord Ports-
mouth, who was Under-Secretary for War in " C.B.'s "
Ministry and has interests in Hampshire, the Empress's
county since 1880. The noble lord found her intently
studying the maps, and remained to dine with the
Empress, who, when they had seated themselves at
table, said apologetically to her guest : " I can offer
you only a diner de guerre, you know, as my cooks
have left to join the army in France ! "

322 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

In October, 19 15, a " live " shell was discovered in
a hedge bounding the Empress's estate, but it would
have required something more than this curious
" find " to ruffle her equanimity; she has been long
past surprises of every kind. " Soldier talk " comes
naturally to her and forms one of her greatest enjoy-
ments. For many years her dinner guests have
included generals and other officers stationed at
Aldershot.

In his " Memories," published by Messrs Hutchin-
son & Co. in 19 1 5, Lord Redesdale relates this very
curious episode :

" One afternoon, in 1872, I was all alone in the
Marlborough Club, when Sleeman, the then steward,
came into the room surcharged with importance, and
told me that the Emperor of the French, who was a
member, was down below and asked permission
to bring in the Due de Bassano, who was his Lord
Chamberlain. It was his first visit and I ran down to
receive him, took him upstairs and established him in
an arm-chair with the evening paper. After a while
he called me up and began questioning me as to my
profession and the various posts at which I had been.
We had a long talk, for he had to kill time waiting
for his train.

" Louis Napoleon, whose faculty of silence is a
matter of history, was, when he chose, a very agree-
able talker and his conversation was pointed by
a certain dry, sardonic humour accentuated by his
rather saturnine appearance. He was looking miser-
ably ill, his face ashen grey and his lack-lustre eyes
significant of the pain by which for years he had been
tortured. His figure was bowed and aged — obviously

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 323

a man waging an unequal war with disease. He
talked a good deal about the missionary question
in China and Corea, upon which he was thoroughly
well posted, and he also spoke with a great deal of
feeling about the murder of his men of the Dupleix
in 1868. After half an hour's talk with him I under-
stood the charm which he exercised over men and
women when he chose to do so. I also understood
that when Kinglake fired all the arrows of bitterness
at him there could be but one cause — a woman."

Lord Redesdale has this note on the tragedy which
robbed the Empress of her beloved son :

" In June, 1879, London was stirred by the news of
the death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu war.
That afternoon Sir Coutts and Lady Lindsay had
invited a few people to see the pictures at the
Grosvenor Gallery. As I was going away I met
Lord Beaconsfield on the stairs. He stopped me.
' This is terrible news,' he said. ' Yes,' I answered,
' and I am afraid that the French will accuse our
people of having deserted him and left him to his
fate.' ' I am not so sure that they will be wrong,' he
said, and then, after a pause, he added : ' Well !
my conscience is clear. I did all that I could to stop
his going. But what can you do when you have to
do with two obstinate women ! ' With that he went
up the stairs, leaving me under the impression that he
wished what he had said to be repeated.

" The Empress over-persuaded the Queen, and the
Prince went out. It was a wild-cat scheme, for he
was sent out with no status in the army, and therefore
with no object, but the Empress thought that being

324 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

a Bonapartist fighting would give him and the dynasty
prestige with his people, and so an important life
which could not but have weighed in the history of
Europe was sacrificed. He was a gallant lad, with
good abilities and a great favourite with his contem-
poraries at our military college, of whom my brother-in
law was one and a great friend of his. I only met
him once, but was much struck by his charm of
manner."

The Emperor and Empress were often visited at
Chislehurst by the celebrated actor, M. Frederic
Febvre, who, at the time these lines are being penned
(March, 191 6), is still ex-vice-doyen of the Comedie
Frangaise. He was honoured with the friendship
of King Edward, who gave him a walking-stick,
which the actor proudly displayed when he came
to London. M. Febvre used to tell this story. While
the Emperor was still at the Tuileries M. Got, the
celebrated actor, obtained a private audience of his
Majesty, with the object of begging him to pardon a
young man who had been sentenced to transportation
for publishing a political pamphlet of exceptional
violence. " How old is your protege.^ " asked the
Emperor. " Twenty, Sire." " Has he a mother.'^ "
" Yes, Sire; she is overwhelmed with grief; the son
was her sole support." " Has he any talent.^ "
" Yes, Sire — an abundance of talent." " What a
pity it is," said the Emperor, " that he did not exer-
cise it to write a fine play, or a fine book ! A
pamphlet attacking me will be valueless at my death,
but a fine literary work lasts for ever. I am certain
that M. Hugo's admirable plays will last longer than
the 'Chatiments.'" M. Got had drawn up, on behalf

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 325

of the culprit's mother, a petition, which he handed
to his Majesty, who, after carefully perusing it, said :
" Wait a moment, sir, and I will give you a letter to
take to the Ministry of Marine. You must ask to
see the Minister himself. You will naturally be
told that the Minister cannot see you, but, perhaps,
if you say that I sent you, he will receive you." The
actor, having warmly thanked his Majesty, was
retiring, when the Emperor, in the most kindly
manner, exclaimed, " But don't let him do it again !
Got duly handed the Emperor's letter to the Minister,
who read it with the greatest surprise. Having
consulted the heads of several departments, he turned
to his visitor, with the remark, " It is done. Monsieur
Got. The Emperor's orders have been carried out."
The actor ventured to inquire what the letter had
contained. " What ! " answered the Minister, " did
not his Majesty tell you? " " Not a word." Got
then learnt, for the first time, that the Emperor had
given orders for the prisoner's immediate release, and
had added that, if the ship conveying the young
pamphleteer had already sailed, another vessel was to
be sent for the purpose of bringing him back safe and
sound. " Thus," says M. Febvre, in telling the story,
" everything was done in accordance with the Em-
peror's orders. I may add — and it is not unimportant
— that our ' doyen,' Got, was an Orleanist ! "

As our great King to whom she and the Emperor
were so attached was a man of moods so is the Empress
a woman of moods, and the phases of her complex
character, the shades of her remarkable personality,
would probably have remained concealed from the
outer world for ever had not the veil happily been
lifted by one of her own proteges, one, moreover, who

326 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

bears a name famous in French literature — the name
of Daudet. The son (Lucien Alphonse) of the
creator of the incomparable Alpinist Tartarin
is always a welcome guest at " The Hill " and at
Villa Cyrnos, and he has made it one of the objects
of his life to limn the traits of the Empress and to
analyse her emotions with an unsurpassed fidelity.
It is no lay figure that he has studied, but the actual,
living figure. The Empress — and on this point I can
speak with certainty — has the greatest dislike for
publicity; but to this rule she makes an occasional
exception, as in the instance here indicated, and even
gives her imprimatur to what is told of her. Similar
freedom was once accorded to the late M. Gaston
Calmette, who wrote the memorable " defence "
of her Majesty which appears in my first volume,
" The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 19 10." *

The pompous titles (wrote the late Jules Claretie)
that we see inscribed in the pages, already quite
yellow, of the last " Almanach Imperial," have
assumed an aspect of the deepest melancholy by
reason of their echoes among the pictures of desolation
and death. The " great dignitaries " of the Empire
— the Senators of that epoch, in their blue cloth coats
embroidered with gold palms and sprays of leafage,
gold thread and spangles; white cashmere breeches
with gold stripes ; cocked hats with white plumes and
swords with pearl hilts and embossed eagles — have
a singular effect at this distance of time. The
Deputies of that period — already so far off — in their
black-plumed hats, silver olive branches and waist-

* M. Calmette, editor of the Paris "Figaro," was
assassinated in the office of his paper on March 16, 191 4, by
Mme Caillaux.

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 327

coats with gold buttons, have not, despite gorgeous
costumes, retained much prestige in the eyes of the
young people of to-day.

Many saw Prince Napoleon for the first time at the
War Exhibition at Prince's Skating Rink, which
was formally opened in 19 15 by the Princess. The
centenary of Waterloo evoked a flood of Napoleonic
recollections, but no mention of the surviving members
of the family of the Great Emperor. They are
very few in number, and, needless to say, the Imperial
lady at Farnborough is not one of " the family "
except by marriage.

The principal survivors entitled to bear the name
of " Napoleon," or that of " Bonaparte," are Prince
Victor (head of the House), his brother. Prince Louis
and the Dowager-Duchess d'Aoste, only sister of the
two Princes, and widow of the Italian Prince Amadeo,
who ruled Spain as its King for a brief space previous
to the accession of Alfonso XII., father of the present
Sovereign.

Then there is Prince Roland Bonaparte (not
" Napoleon "), the eminent savant, and father of
Princess George of Greece, whose great inherited
wealth came from her grandfather on the maternal
side, M. Francois Blanc, of Monte Carlo fame.
Prince Roland is the Crcesus of the family. His
father-in-law left about ;^ 8,000,000, and is reputed to
have said that he regretted he could not have lived
a few more years and so increased his " pile."
Prince Roland is correctly styled " Bonaparte " for
this little-known reason. When the First Consul
abandoned the name " Bonaparte " in favour of
" Napoleon," he bestowed that latter name upon all
the members of his family, excepting his brother

328 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Lucien. Consequently, only the descendants of that
younger brother of the Emperor — that is, Prince
Roland and Mr Jerome Bonaparte (who was married
at New York a year or so ago) — retain the name
of Bonaparte.

This double nomenclature has not only puzzled the
world at large, but it has led to official blundering.
Thus, two years before his death in Zululand in 1879,
the banished Prince Imperial was inscribed on the
lists of Frenchmen liable for service in the army
under the inaccurate surname of " Bonaparte," while
the Princes Victor and Louis were rightly entered
" Napoleon." But in February 19 14 the French
Ministry of the Interior displayed its ignorance of the
distinction by officially entering in its records the
infant son of Prince Victor Napoleon as " Bonaparte."
This boy must not be forgotten, for, born on January
23, 19 14, in Brussels, he is the fourth on the list of
notable survivors of the great Napoleonic (or Bona-
partist) family. The father of Prince Victor and
Louis was the son of the great Emperor's brother,
the King of Westphalia, who is not accorded a
particularly high place in French history; and that
Sovereign's consort was the daughter of King
Frederick I. of Wiirttemberg. Neither Victor nor
Louis facially resembles the founder of the family,
but their father was markedly like Napoleon I.

• Prince Victor's last pronouncement was a letter,
dated April 12, 19 14, addressed to the well-known
General Thomassin, a former commander of an army
corps, in which the Pretender declared, as has now
been proved, that "only a return to the three years'
service could give the army the strength and cohesion
necessary to ensure the greatness of France,"

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 329

While Prince Victor is exiled from France, his
brother, Prince Louis, is free to visit his native
country whenever he pleases. In July, 191 5, as chief
of the Russian mission, Prince Louis was attached to
the staff of General Cadorna, having left Turin with
the Italian troops. He had served in the Italian
army before entering- the Russian military service
and commanding a division. He is the only French
Prince at the front; the offer of the Due d'Orleans
to join the French army having been naturally rejected.
Is he not the Royalist Pretender to the throne of
France? In 19 14-19 16 he was, like Prince Victor, a
refugee in England.

The Princes Victor and Louis Napoleon have only
one sister. Princess Laetitia, Dowager-Duchesse d'Aoste,
who was born in Paris, and in 1888 married, as his
second wife, that Due d'Aoste who, in the early
seventies, had reigned as King of Spain for about
three years. Princess Laetitia was born in Paris, but,
as she was only five years old when the Revolution
of the 4th of September closed against her the
gates of the Palais Royal, any memories she may
have retained of those troubled times must necessarily
be effaced or dim. She has inherited the stately
and classical beauty of her Austrian grandmother,
Queen Adelaide, while something in her whole person
recalls her father and the cast of the Bonapartes
before growing embonpoint had marred the regularity
of the late Prince Napoleon's face. Clever, intel-
ligent, fond of letters and arts, her father was
never able to acquire a lasting influence either on men
or events. Cold, reserved, patient, silent and
resigned, her mother, the late Princess Clotilde of
Savoy, had ever been surrounded by respect and

330 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

admiration — a fitting tribute to the spotless purity of
her whole life. Princess Laetitia was brought up
almost entirely by her mother, and was never separated
from her, either at the Palace of Moncalieri, in
Piedmont, or at Prangins, in Switzerland. I cannot
recall any visit, or visits, paid by her to the Empress
either at Chislehurst, Farnborough, or Cap Martin.
I have heard that she declined an offer of marriage
made to her in 1887 by her widower cousin, Prince
Roland Bonaparte, father of Princess George of
Greece.

The birth at Brussels of Prince and Princess
Napoleon's daughter (March, 19 12) opened the
floodgates of speculation. What effect, if any, it
was asked, would the birth of a princess have upon
the Pretender's future chances of success? " In
what way," said one of the Prince's friends, " can
the birth of a princess perturb the Bonapartists ?
The Napoleonic idea is not based upon dynastic
heredity. The Prince recalled the fact himself in
191 1, when he said: 'I don't claim a dynastic
right. I am a son of modern France. I remain
faithful to the traditions inculcated by the French
revolution; sovereignty of the nation, civic equality,
liberty of conscience and social progress.' "

Referring to the Republicans who go over to the
Bonapartists, the Prince's friend said : " These
Republicans do not wish to destroy the Republic.
They wish to give it another form. Their idea
is that Consular Republic of which the Due de
Broglie has said that it was the most glorious period
in the history of France. The birth of a son
might have alarmed them; that of a daughter, on
the contrary, releases them from all anxiety as to

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 331

ulterior developments. In other words, there is
no fear of the Prince following the example of
Napoleon III. and seeking to make himself Emperor
after having been elected Prince-President."

A Brussels friend of Prince Napoleon, who was
questioned concerning the alleged Bonapartist
propaganda in the French army, said :

There are agents provocateurs, and there are no conspirators.
This is the absolute will of the Prince, who is, above all,
a partisan of legality. The last circular of the Plebiscitary
Committee makes this very clear. The Prince, it says, putting
aside his personal interest, wishes the army to be above
party quarrels, and forbids his partisans to take any steps
which would have as a result the compromising of discipline
or the estrangement of French soldiers from their military
duties. Those who place themselves outside the law will
never be admitted among the Prince's followers. It is by
legal means only that the Prince wishes to be called upon
to regenerate France ; he detests coups de force ; he would,
you may be sure, make as good a President of the Republic
as many others.

M. Gauthier de Clagny, the well-known Bonapartist,
was interviewed on the subject :

" The Prince then aspires to the Presidency of the
Republic? " asked the interviewer.

"That is so," replied M. de Clagny.

^" But it could not be accomplished without a coup d'6tat
or a revolution? "

" That is a mistake. He could become President of the
Republic in a most normal manner and by means of absolute
legality. It would only be necessary to modify three
legislative acts, in particular the law of 1886 concerning
members of families which have already reigned in France."

" But supposing the Prince became President. Would he
not have too much authority and should we not have to fear
a return of personal power?"

332 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

" The situation is not the same as in 1799 and 1851. We
have had an uninterrupted spell of sixty years' democratic
government, and the people is no longer the same. The
Prince understands better than anybody the necessities of our
epoch and the difference of the conditions of government.
As regards the birth of a princess, the Prince declares to all
his partisans that birth cannot confer any right."

Prince and Princess Napoleon's son, and heir
to the Pretendership, was born at Brussels on
January 23, 19 14, and was christened by the Almoner
of the Belgian Court on May 23, receiving the
names Louis Jerome Victor Emmanuel Leopold
Marie. The godfather was General Prince Louis
(Prince Napoleon's brother) and the godmother the
Dowager Queen of Italy, who was represented by the
Duchesse d'Aoste.

The marriage of Prince Napoleon and Princesse
Clementine was solemnised at the Chateau of Mon-
calieri, then the residence of the Prince's late mother,
on November 14, 19 10. Among the bride's four
" witnesses " was Mile de Bassano, granddaughter
of the second Due de Bassano, Grand Chamberlain
to the Emperor Napoleon III., and daughter of
the third Duke, who died leaving no issue ; conse-
quently the ducal title is now extinct. Of the
second Due de Bassano, I have a grateful recollection,
for on the day after the Emperor's death at Chisle-
hurst he took me into the room where the Empress's
consort was lying after the body had been embalmed.
I received many other kindnesses from Mile de
Bassano's grandfather, and learnt from him much
which I recorded at the time in the " Morning
Post." The Bassanos descended from Maret,
whose devotion Napoleon I. rewarded by ennob-

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY sss

ling him in 1909. Maret owed his fortune
to journalism, " qui mene a tout, a la condition
d'en sortir," * and which led him to diplomacy.
The members of this noted family have been always
affectionately regarded by the Empress, whose
principal dame d'honneur was Mile de Bassano's
grandmother.

Prince Napoleon has maintained a discreet silence
since the outbreak of the war which led to his
departure (with his consort and their two children)
from Brussels for England. One of his last
political pronouncements dates from 19 13. On
December 14 in that year the Comites Plebiscitaires
de la Seine celebrated the anniversary of Prince
Louis Napoleon (afterwards Emperor) to the
Presidency of the Republic (December 10, 1848).
At a banquet, at which two thousand leading
Bonapartists were present, the chairman, Lieutenant-
Colonel Rousset, read a letter from Prince Napoleon
which concluded with these words : " Parliamentarism
leads the country to the worst destiny. The day
will come when the appeal to the people will be
regarded as the only solution capable of assuring
to France a strong and democratic Government.
Have confidence in the future, as I have. —
Napoleon."

Mr James Mortimer died at San Sebastian on
February 24, 191 1, and was honoured with long
obituary notices in the " Times " and the " Morning
Post." The " Times " memoir contained this pass-
age:

* This mot has been erroneously attributed to Thiers and
to Emile de Girardin, but Dr Max Nordau accords the credit
for it to a Frenchman whose name is unknown in this country.

334 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

The Emperor Napoleon III., happening to read some articles
by Mortimer in which his own schemes were very sympathetic-
ally treated, sent for the writer and expressed his gratitude.
From this time until his death the Emperor maintained very
friendly relations with Mr Mortimer. Twice during his
captivity at Wilhelmshohe Mr Mortimer went to the Emperor
on missions for the Empress Eugenie ; and he was the last
person to speak to him before the fatal operation in 1873.
In a biography published in the "English Magazine" last
year the story is told of how the Emperor and Empress came
to select Chislehurst as their English residence. Mr Mortimer
received a telegram from the Empress in September, 1870,
asking him to meet her at Hastings. On his way to Charing
Cross Station he met a friend, Mr N. W, Strode, who, on
hearing the news of the Empress's flight, suggested that she
should come as his guest to his house, Camden Place, Chisle-
hurst, which was eventually rented by the Emperor and
Empress. Before the war of 1870 the Emperor provided
Mr Mortimer with the means to establsh the " London Figaro,"
which made its first appearance on May 17, 1870, and was
owned and edited by him for fourteen years. Mr Mortimer
sold the paper in 1884. Some years later the copyright was
repurchased and presented to him by a friend, but he was
unable to keep it up, and after six months it came to an end.

In the " Morning Post " (February 27, 191 1) it was
stated that :

Mr Mortimer was born at Richmond, Virginia, in 1833,
and became the editor of a Philadelphia newspaper at the age
of twenty-two, an occupation, however, quickly exchanged
for that of Attach^ to the American Legation in Paris, where
he went in 1855, and, soon acquiring an intimate facility in
the French language, became a Parisian of the brilliant period
of the Second Empire. Diplomacy took him to Rome and
St Petersburg, and he gained the friendship of Napoleon III.,
who made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and of the
Empress Eugenie, whose departure for England after Sedan
Mortimer was instrumental in arranging. But long before
this he had left the Diplomatic Service, again turning to
journalism in i860 as the Paris correspondent of the New

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 335

York " Express " and other papers. The Franco-German War
was the occasion of his migration to London, where he scored
an immediate success with the " Figaro," a journal of a kind
quite new to the English public. It gained immense popularity,
and the lively manner in which its motto, " Now step I forth
to whip hypocrisy," was carried into effect is still well
remembered.

In a letter addressed by me to the " Times," I
remarked that it was curious that no mention of
Mr Mortimer's presence at Wilhelmshohe is made by
General Count von Monts in his detailed account of
events there during the Emperor Napoleon's residence
at Wilhelmshohe as a captive from early in September,
1870, until the third week of March, 1871. I
questioned the accuracy of the assertion that Mr
Mortimer was " the last person to speak to the
Emperor before the fatal operation in 1873," and
observed that the names of all the persons who were
at Chislehurst during the Emperor's illness were
known, and that Mr Mortimer's name did not appear
among them. That he should have been there at one
time or other while his Majesty was suffering was,
I added, highly probable. But I have never heard
that he was the last to speak to the Emperor. My
letter duly appeared in the " Times," but no reply to
it was published.

I think the statement in the " Morning Post's "
memoir that Mr Mortimer " was instrumental in
arranging the Empress's departure [from Paris]
for England after Sedan " wholly inaccurate. Mr
Evans, the American dentist, has narrated the facts in
his reminiscences.

When the daily "London Figaro" was started (May,
1870, two months before France declared war with

336 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Prussia), the working editor of the paper was my
friend, Mr John Plummer, who, in letters to me,
dated, " Northwood, Lane Cove River, Sydney "
(October, 191 1, and January, 191 2), said:

My impression is that Mortimer was subsidised by the French
Secret Service Fund, but he was very reserved, even to his
most intimate friends. I had to pen a letter to be shown by
him to the Emperor. Later on you shall have the whole story
of the " Figaro." Every account of the manner in which it
was started is incorrect, especially that furnished by Clement W.
Scott, who was a perfect stranger to Mortimer. I had a
couple of short interviews with the Emperor in Paris. Although
in my eighty-first year I am in good health.

In his second letter Mr Plummer wrote :

Your ' ' Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire ' ' throws
a new light on the character of the Emperor and his surround-
ings, and you have touched upon some rather dangerous
points with rare skill. Mortimer never told me that the
Emperor gave him financial assistance, but led me to infer it,
and the whole of my correspondence with him was penned on
the understanding that my letters would be submitted to
the Emperor. My impression is that M. Pietri is acquainted
with everything. There were also two or three wealthy French
ladies who had a finger in the pie, but the name of the
Empress was never mentioned. Mr Evans [the American
dentist referred to above] was a great friend of Mortimer's.
It was Sedan which killed the daily issue [of the " London
Figaro "]. Thenceforth it was a struggle for existence as a
weekly.

" How many people know that the Empress Eugenie
once owned a London newspaper? " asked a writer
in " London Opinion " in December, 19 12, and
continued as follows : —

When her old enemy, Henri Rochefort, escaped from the
penal colony of New Caledonia, she was in despair ; and when,

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY Z2>7

on his way to England, he announced his intention of reviving
his bitter journal, "La Lanterne," in London (of course
he dared not cross the borders of France) the Empress
was prostrated by the fear of his pitiless rancour. But among
the visitors to the Imperial exile at Farnborough was James
Mortimer, a well-known journalist of those times ; and he hit
upon the idea of shutting Rochefort out of London by forestalling
him. Mortimer, therefore, liberally financed by the Empress, got
out on 1 8th May, 1874, the first issue of a handsome twelve-
page paper, the " Lantern," with four pages of superb illus-
trations in colour, price sixpence. Here is a sample from it :
"It is reported that M. Rochefort is in England. It is
further affirmed that it is his intention to proceed to Belgium
or Switzerland to fight certain journalists who have not had
the courtesy to suppress the truth about him, though he never
told it of them. We presume, however, this rumour is false;
M. Rochefort must retain enough of the knowledge he
acquired when he was esteemed a gentleman to be aware
that a meeting between him and a journalist is now impossible.
M. Rochefort, we believe, is already suffering from an unhealed
wound. It is his mouth." Rochefort's French friends had
expended thousands of pounds in a plant for their own journal
in London ; but, thus forestalled, after some futile attempts
at relief and redress, Rochefort took himself off to Belgium :
and the Empress Eugenie ceased to be a London newspaper
owner.

In January, 19 13, Mr John Plummer wrote to me on
this subject as under : " The statement is new to
me ; certainly it was never mentioned by Clement W.
Scott, Aglen A. Dowty, John Hopkins and other
old confreres. The extract is somewhat in Mortimer's
style, but it is highly improbable that the Empress
had anything to do with it. She had nothing to fear
from any adverse action on the part of Rochefort,
and, from what I was told, held his threats and those
of his friends in contempt. The story of the expendi-
ture of ' thousands of pounds ' on a printing plant for
a Rochefort paper is simply ridiculous."

338 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

The presumed part taken by the Empress Eugenie
in the London " Lantern " was noticed in some
detail by Mr Clement Shorter in the " Sphere "
(Literary Letter) as recently as February 5, 19 16.
In the " Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce," an
American series of books, there are " Bits of
Autobiography," upon which Mr Shorter thus
comments :

" It would seem that James Mortimer, who after-
wards founded and edited the [weekly] ' Figaro,'
was in the habit of visiting the Empress Eugenie at
Chislehurst. He found the Empress worried at
the threat of M. Henri Rochefort that he would
start his paper, the ' Lanterne,' in London. Mortimer
suggested the foundation and registering of such
a paper here, and the ' Lantern ' duly appeared
in May, 1874. It was a twelve-page paper, with
four pages of superb illustrations in six colours.
It was sold at sixpence. Bierce tells us that he
wrote the whole paper, and gives extracts from
his articles. A second issue appeared in July, and
then the journal stopped. It had done its work.
Rochefort found that his title was impossible of
use in this country. This picture of an Empress as
newspaper proprietor has its romantic side."

Mr Shorter further tells us that Ambrose Bierce was
" once on ' Fun,' " a London weekly " comic "
paper which I well remember, although I cannot
recall the London " Lantern," while even John
Plummer's mind is a blank concerning it. I think
my readers will join with me in thanking Mr Shorter
for his piquant revelation of a very curious episode
in the Empress's English life.

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EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 339

I have mentioned John Plummet and his close
association with the London daily, not the later
weekly, " Figaro." John Stuart Mill knew him,
and, writing from Blackheath Park, Kent, on March
8, 1867, sent him a very cordial letter of intro-
duction to the late M. Gustave d'Eichthal, an
eminent French publicist. Mr Mills, writing in
perfect French, said Plummer had gone to Paris as
the representative of several associations of workmen,
in the hope of getting for them facilities for
inspecting the Exhibition which drew all the world to
the French capital in that " great year " of the
Second Empire. * " Mr Plummer," wrote J. S. Mill,
" is a remarkable man. He was long an artisan
in a small provincial town. He began writing
under the stimulus of indignation against certain
practices of the Trades Unions. He is now an
author and a journalist, and his writings on all
questions of interest to working-men are remarkable
for their good sense, enlightened philanthropy, and
even purity of style." John Plummer's career is
the more notable inasmuch as he suffered, and suffers,
from the disability of deafness. Of Mortimer
Mr Geo. R. Sims (" My Life ") tells us : " To
the last he had a habit of pulling out a gold watch
on the slightest provocation and letting you see
by the inscription that it had been presented to
him by the Empress of the French. Peace to his
memory ! " t

In the " Times " (April 20, 19 14) Mr Gardner
Engleheart, 28 Curzon Street, narrated this anecdote

* Fully described in my previous volumes.
+ " Evening News," February ii, 1916.

340 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

of the Emperor when, as Prince Louis Napoleon,
he was residing in London :

In your impression of the 14th inst. you published an
amusing- and interesting letter from the Right Hon. Sir
Spencer Ponsonby Fane * of his experiences on April 10, 1848,
the day of the so-called Chartist Riot. As my experience of
that day involves a curious episode in the life of a historic
personage, you may possibly consider it worth recording.
I was not, like my friend Sir Spencer, armed with a Tower
musket, nor did I fight behind a barricade of heavy volumes
of the "Times" newspaper impervious to fire and sword.
I spent the day in the open, and, armed with a policeman's
staff, was ordered to parade Pall Mall in company with three
others, only one of whom was ever known to fame — and
he was very much known : the late Emperor of the French,
then Prince Louis Napoleon. He was rather taciturn, but
very pleasant ; he had discarded his staff for a light gold-
headed cane, but was very efficient in the only deed of valour
we accomplished on that day, the capture of a drunken old
woman, whom he duly handed over to the authorities. I often
wondered whether our Imperial comrade ever in the course of
his eventful life recalled his early contribution to the cause
of order in aiding to protect London clubland in return for
the protection he was himself then receiving in this country.
There cannot be many now alive who, like Sir Spencer and
myself, served our country on that memorable day.

Napoleon IIL, both as Prince-President and as
Emperor, had in this country no more whole-hearted,
enthusiastic an admirer than Captain Gronow, whose
two volumes of " memories " t contain many pages
devoted to the Empress Eugenie's consort, but very

* Died, aged ninety-two, 1915.

t "The Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow.

Anecdotes of the Camp, Court, Clubs and Society :

1810 — 1860." Two vols., illustrated. London: John C.
Nimmo. 1889.

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 341

little about the Imperial lady. " It is not," says this
very sprightly chronicler, " because the Empress is
the wife of Napoleon III. that she sets the fashion
even to those who do not go to court and who turn
up their noses at her entourage." [These were the
Royalist ladies of " the Faubourg," and perhaps a
few others of anti-Imperialistic opinions.] " She
is considerably older, and certainly not handsomer,
than was the Duchesse de Nemours when she left
France to die in exile, but she has the chic that the
Orleans Princesses did not possess, and the quietest
dowager, before she ventures to adopt a coiffure, as
well as the gayest lady of the demi-monde, will cast
a look to see what the Empress wears. Strange
to say, the supreme good taste and elegance which
reign in her Majesty's toilettes were by no means
conspicuous in her younger days, for as Mile de
Montijo she was voted beautiful and charming, but
very ill dressed."

There are still among us in London two ladies —
there may possibly be more, but I doubt it — who can
recall the Empress in the great years before 1870 : one
is Mrs Vaughan; the other, Mrs Ronalds. The
first-named lady has enjoyed the intimate friendship
of the nonagenarian widow of Napoleon III. for at
least fifty years, as had her sister, the late Mme de
Arcos, to whom reference is made in another chapter.
Mrs Vaughan's daughter has been often the Em-
press's guest at Farnborough Hill, has accompanied
her Majesty on some of her tours, and was one of
the few English ladies present at M. Pietri's funeral.
Miss Vaughan, when at Farnborough, spends much
of her time in reading to her hostess, whose eyesight,
however, is still exceptionally good. Princess

342 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Napoleon and the Comtesse de Mora are also among
the Empress's favourite " readers " in 19 16.

M. Augustin Filon's volume, " Le Prince Imperial,"
is got up in luxurious style, and costs twenty francs.
I have heard that the Abbe Misset suggested, that it
should be produced in a much more sumptuous form,
but that the Empress objected on the ground of expense.
It was the Abbe who rendered the Empress invaluable
service by investigating what was known as " The
Romance of the Prince Imperial." This her Majesty,
in a letter addressed to the late Monsignor Goddard,
and now in my possession, denounced as " a lying
story," and the Abbe Misset proved it to be so.

Count Paul Vasili, in his work, " France from
Behind the Veil " (Cassell, 1914), sketches the
Empress on the day of her flight from the Tuileries
(Sunday, September 4, 1870):

When I first saw Eugenie, her whole appearance was fairy-
like ; in spite of her forty years, she eclipsed all other women.
Her slight, graceful figure was almost girlish in its suppleness,
and she is the only woman I have ever seen who, though in
middle life, did not prompt one to utter the usual remark when
lovely members of the fair sex have attained her age, " How
beautiful she must have been when she was young."

With the exception of the Empress Marie Feodorovna of
Russia, I have never seen anyone bow like Eugenie, with
that sweeping movement of her whole body and head, that
seemed to be addressed to each person present in particular,
and to all in general. On that particular evening she was a
splendid vision in evening dress. Her white shoulders shone
above the low bodice of her gown, and many jewels adorned
her beautiful person.

I was one of the persons who visited the Tuileries on the
evening of that memorable 4th of September which saw the
fall of Napoleon HI.'s dynasty. No one knew at that moment
what had happened to the Empress, nor where she had fled,

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 343

and rumours were going about in some quarters that she
had tried to join the Emperor, and in others that she had directed
her steps towards Metz with the intention of seeking a
refuge with the army of Bazaine, and establishing there the
seat of government.

When I visited the palace I found that no one there believed
that she had gone away for ever ; indeed — and this is a detail
that I believe has never been recorded elsewhere — I found
one of her maids preparing her bed as usual !

It was evident that the flight had been a hurried one. In
the private rooms letters never meant to be seen by a stranger's
eye were scattered about ; a gold locket with the portrait of
a lovely woman, the Duchesse d'Albe ; another one with that
of a baby in long robes, the first picture of the Prince Imperial ;
one small golden crucifix ; a note just begun, and addressed
no one knows now to whom, but of which the first words ran
thus : " Dans la terrible position oil je me trouve, je ne "

The writing stopped there ; evidently she who had started
it had been interrupted by the bearer of some evil message,
and there it lay forgotten, in the midst of the tragedy which
had put an end to so many things and to so many hopes.

Lady Bulwer Lytton had a deathless grudge against
Queen Victoria, and in her " Unpublished Letters
to A. E. Chalon, R.A.," issued by Mr Eveleigh Nash
in 19 1 4, she says : " A friend of mine writes me word
that Prince Albert looked quite delighted at sitting
beside that beautiful Empress (Eugenie) instead of
his own dumpy, idiotic-looking Frau. I wrote her
back word no doubt he was delighted at this change
for his Sovereign."

In a letter to the " Times," " T. H. W." wrote
(1914) : "In your interesting article on the Empress
Eugenie you remark that : ' From the windows of
an hotel in Paris she has looked out upon the site of
the Tuileries.' A few years ago I happened to
be standing at those very windows with the hotel

344 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

manager, and he described the Empress's visit some
time previously. Her lady-in-waiting, he said, had
remonstrated, saying that she wondered that her
Majesty could bear to look upon that dreadful scene.
' Do not be surprised,' replied the Empress, ' the
woman who lived there is dead. I am a different
person.' "

The Paris papers reported in July, 19 14, shortly
before the Empress's return to England on the i8th
of that month, when the first faint indications of the
coming European war became apparent, that the
Imperial lady, walking in the Tuileries Gardens with
a friend, plucked a Malmaison rose. One of the
caretakers, observing this enormity, hastened to the
side of the venerable lady, and, not recognising
her, said : " It is forbidden to pick flowers here,
madame. I shall have to report you. What is your
name? " " Eugenie " was her faltering reply.
" That's no name. I must have your surname."
Looking at the fair culprit fixedly, he apparently
remembered seeing her portrait in the papers, and said,
in a more amiable tone : " Well, never mind this
time, madame, but don't do it again."

One of the very few Englishmen who saw Napoleon
III. on his way from Sedan to Wilhelmshohe was
the late Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who records *
that at Spa railway station on the 2nd of September,
1870, the day after the defeat of the French at
Sedan, he read in the " Independance Beige " a
telegram from Bouillon stating that there had been a
great battle and that the French were victorious !
Bouillon, a small Belgian town, was for the moment,
owing to its proximity to Sedan, " almost the focus
Some Notes of the Past." London : Murray. 1893.

* «<

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 345

of European interest." Here Sir Henry met with
the long Imperial cortege en route to Verviers,
where the Emperor took train for Wilhelmshohe
on Sunday, September 4, the day on which his
consort fled from the Tuileries. As the Emperor
passed through Bouillon it was seen that he was
escorted to the frontier by a detachment of those
Prussian hussars who wear a black uniform and have
on their busbies a death's head and crossbones.

First in the procession came the Emperor's own
carriage, a travelling " berlin " ; then an open car-
riage followed by two or three other vehicles,
" something like prison vans," containing members
of the august captive's suite, and succeeded by
fourgons, marked " Maison Militaire de I'Empereur,"
and a number of horses ridden by Imperial liveried
servants in scarlet waistcoats and glazed hats.
The horses, magnificent animals, over sixteen hands,
were relays for the carriages. Following these were
packs, saddle horses and " chargers beyond price " :
in all nearly one hundred !

Arrived at Bouillon the Emperor entered his hotel
and presently showed himself at a window. " There
was an enormous crowd, well dressed and enthusiastic.
Superior French officers walked about, among
them Prince Achille Murat, in the dandy dress of
the chasseurs d'Afrique. I heard the crowd shout
' Vive I'Empereur! ' ' Dinner? ' ' Impossible!
The Emperor is about to sit down with twenty, and
afterwards there is a dinner for fifteen.' The
Emperor's menu is known to the crowd — an omelette
and boeuf pique." From Bouillon his Majesty wrote
to the Empress. Continuing his journey to Ricogne
Sir Henry, who was, I remember, very Bonapartist

346 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

in feeling, came upon a detachment of Belgian
artillery, by whom the Emperor was received.
" Napoleon stopped at a house in the village for
breakfast, and some of the servants came to the
cafe where I was breakfasting. They were more
communicative than any I had met."

" At 2 P.M. the Emperor, in his carriage, drawn by
four horses, came to the door of the Verviers railway
station. A general officer was with him, who we
were told was General Castelnau. The Emperor
seemed well. His features showed little emotion.
He leaned heavily on the arm of the servant who helped
him out of the carriage, but walked well. He wore
a red kepi embroidered in gold, and there were
decorations on his uniform. A dispatch was given
him, and, after speaking to some of the French
Legation and the Belgian authorities, he sat down
and wrote. He then walked on the platform of the
station, and on returning to the waiting-room
smoked a cigarette and read the ' Independance
Beige.' A special train came for him, and he went
off with his suite, with General Chazal (the Belgian
Commander-in-Chief), General von Bezen (a Prussian
officer), and Prince von Lynar (also a Prussian)."

On the loth of July, 19 14, the Empress visited
the Chateau of Fontainebleau, which she had not
seen for forty-four years. Accompanied by one of
her nieces, Comte Joseph Primoli, and Comte
Walewsky, her Majesty (said the " Echo de Paris ")
presented herself at the gate of what was formerly
one of the Imperial residences and gave her name
to the brigadier, who went to inform the curator
of the building of the august visit. M. d'Esparb^s,
who is not for nothing a delicate poet, realised to the

-w S

"^

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 347

full the tragic pathos of the circumstance. Silent
and bareheaded he ascended the great horseshoe
staircase with the Imperial figure in deep mourning
at his side. Not a word was said on either side till
the apartments of Louis XIII. were reached. Then
the Empress suddenly broke the memory-laden
silence. " Ah ! there is my box ! " she said,
touching lovingly an ivory coffer. " But the legend
of the Palace," said M. d'Esparbes gently, " has
it that this coffer belonged to Anne of Austria."
" True, true," replied the Empress; " but at my
marriage the Emperor presented it to me with a
gift of gloves and fans."

The Empress remarked that the splendid "Diana"
of Benvenuto was no longer in its place. " What
has become of it? " she asked, and M. d'Esparbes
replied, " Alas ! it is now in the Louvre." " I
think they might restore it to its earlier setting,"
said the Empress gently. Looking out through
an open window on the gardens in the full glories of
the summer, " How beautiful they are ! " she
exclaimed, as if to herself. At another window,
commanding the Etang des Carpes, she stopped,
and, after a moment's silence, said, " My gondola is
gone." The Empress lingered long in the Chinese
museum — her own work — tracing the history of
different curios. " The Emperor," she said, " used
to make me every year a present of Chinese curios.
My presents to him were suits of armour." Then
she left the chateau for the gardens, where she sat
down for a few minutes looking out over the Etang
des Carpes. " Not that I am tired," she said, " but
to have leisure to recollect." Here she was joined
by Mme Gillois, an old personal friend of the

348 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Empress, and one of the reigning beauties of the
Court of Fontainebleau. They talked for a few
minutes of old times. As Mme Gillois withdrew,
the Empress turned to M. d'Esparbes and said,
" Dear Madame Gillois ! She brings back the past.
She was then slim and graceful, with a waist that two
hands could span." A few children and women,
who had heard of the Imperial visit, gathered at the
palace gates. As the Empress passed she caressed
with her hand the forehead of a boy, and, for the
first time during this pilgrimage of memory, her eyes
filled. Then, alert, showing no signs of fatigue,
though for three hours she had walked among the
shadows of the past, she got into her car.

Mr Filson Young wrote in the " Pall Mall
Gazette" (July 14, 19 14):

Nothing- could be more ghostly and pathetic than the visit
of the aged Empress Eugenie to the palace of Fontainebleau
a few days ago.

The very spirits that haunt its chambers might have been
startled by the apparition of one who went there in the full
splendour of her youth and beauty as the bride of Napoleon III.,
and who thus crept back, an ancient, shrunken, exiled
woman, to take a solemn farewell of scenes from which every
actor but she has long departed to the shades. What a
world of melancholy there was in the little dialogue that
has been reported: "That is my casket." "Madame, it
is known as the casket of Anne of Austria." "That may
be, but it was given to me, filled with gloves and fans, by
the Emperor for my marriage." Lost youth, lost beauty,
lost glory, a lost empire cry to us in that little sentence.
One can only hope that if there be a compensation for an
old age that has outlived every contemporary thing it lies in
a power to bridge the gap of years, and still to hear and see
what to all other ears and eyes has fallen silent and invisible ;
and that the Empress may have heard not the voice of the
curator, but the music and murmurs of the ball-room, and

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 349

seen not the empty chambers of a museum, but the lights and
the flowers, and the living and fleeting beauty and pageantry,
that were Fontainebleau in the days when the casket was
filled with gloves and fans.

The London daily papers took exceptional notice
of the Imperial lady's excursion, and the " Daily
Telegraph " and the " Times " devoted leading
articles to it. In the "Telegraph" we read (July 14,
1914):

Of what is she thinking, this lone, bereaved, fate-driven
figure, as she enters the Chateau of Fontainebleau, ascends
the great horseshoe staircase, and visits room after room
consecrated in her mind by wonderful associations? She has
a keen and vivid memory, it is clear. She recognises
the ivory box which originally belonged to Anne of Austria,
and which was presented to her by the Emperor on her
marriage. She notices the absence of the "Diana" of
Benvenuto, now removed to the Louvre. She can tell the
curator how her husband used to give her every year Chinese
curios, and how her gifts to him consisted of suits of armour.
And looking out on the Carp Pond she can mark with a sigh
of regret that her gondola no longer floats on the water.
So might the wraith of Marie Antoinette revisit the glimpses
of the moon at Trianon and St Cloud, and note how many
of her treasures had disappeared ; or Henrietta Maria pass
like a ghost along Whitehall and observe the many changes
which have now transformed the cruel scene of King Charles's
martyrdom. Eugdnie de Montijo had her splendid hour, like
so many of the tragic heroines of history ; and if there is a
sense of tears in human things she will retain all men's pity
and sympathy in the august loneliness of her doom. All,
all are gone, the old familiar faces — the courtiers who did
obeisance to her, the friends who flattered her in the giddy
eminence of her power, the senators and statesmen who
listened with respect to her imperious counsels, the Emperor
himself who was guided — not wisely, but too well — by her
judgment. It is pleasant to recall in the latter days of her
misery a confident prediction which Napoleon uttered more

350 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

than half a century ag-o : " Endowed with all the qualities
of the soul, she will be the ornament of the Throne, and in
the time of danger she will become one of its most courageous
supports." Did not the prophecy come true? She was,
as all men will testify, the very heart and soul of the Second
Empire, and when the Imperial fortunes fell in black ruin
her enemies were forced to declare that she, almost alone,
faced the menacing tide of revolution with superb calmness
and courage. The Empress Eugenie had a magnificent career,
however we choose to regard it, and whatever criticism
we venture to pass on its meaning and value. She was
once the Egeria of an Emperor, who, in Bismarck's phrase,
indubitably occupied the Chair of Europe. Now she remains
Niobe, all tears — a woman, who, like Constance, might say :
"Here I and Sorrow sit. This is my throne; bid kings
come worship it." If she loves to solace her loneliness with
imperishable memories, either at Fontainebleau or on the
site of the ruined Tuileries, what man who has read the
wonderful story of her rise and fall will be so churlish as to
say her nay?

The " Times," of the same date, said felicitously :

It is now forty-three years since foreign invasion and
domestic revolt pulled her down from what had been the most
brilliant throne in Europe, amid what defections and what
treasons none knows but herself. In all that time, under
untold provocations, she has uttered no word of recrimination
or of reproof. She has published none, from the store of
documents she is known to possess, for the refutation of the
calumnies by which she and hers have been assailed, or for
the confusion of the traducers who rose by Imperial favour,
only to secure their position by turning against the Empire.
The Empress has suffered as few women have suffered. She
has buried her sufferings in her own heart with magnanimous
silence.

They are ever there, those memories of the past. To that
all who are privileged to know her bear witness. They
betray themselves at times suddenly, unwittingly, by a
gesture, by a look, by a chance word. But her firm will and
her deep sense of resignation have given her so sure a

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 351

command over them that she has no fear lest any material
associations should revive them too acutely. She does not
shrink from the recollection of the greatness and of the
happiness that are gone. She has attained a tranquillity which
nothing can shake, and she can look back upon the past
without anguish as without bitterness. At Fontainebleau she
was shown a casket which her husband gave her on her
marriage, filled with gloves and fans. At St Cloud she
once noticed how a young tree had thrust its way through
a slab of marble amongst the ruins. She drew near to look
at it, and she recognised in the marble the chimney-piece
of one of the salons where all that was brilliant and illustrious
in France had gathered about her a few years before. There
are noble hearts which would break under that strain, but
the heart is nobler yet that can endure it for the sake of the
sacred past. At Fontainebleau, in all its early summer glories,
her recollections may have been less cruel than elsewhere.
There, indeed, the King of Prussia was her guest three years
before he provoked the war which drove her into exile. But
there, where the legends and the traditions of so many kings
crowd thickly, and where the memory of the great Emperor
dominates them all, she passed some of the gayest and the
brightest hours of her rei^n. As she gazed on those once
familiar halls where grave statesmen and brilliant soldiers were
proud to do her homage, in the flower of her beauty and of
her greatness, they may well have " brought back with them
the memory of glad days, while many loved shades rose
around." That, too, is happiness — to the minds attuned to
it, as is hers.

The Paris correspondent of the " Evening
Standard " (July 30, 19 14), writing less than a
fortnight after the Empress's departure from France
for Farnborough, noted a propos of the Malmaison :

The curator of that charming little chateau and park that
are sacred to the memory of the Napoleonic dynasty has had
a serious shock. The Empress Eugenie is building there
in the pleasant garden a monument to her son, the Prince
Imperial, and the work was advancing rapidly, the roof

352 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

having been put in place a few days ago. Now the authorities
have discovered that thieves have carried most of it off
bodily. Being in lead, it weighed two thousand pounds.
It was not difficult to trace, however, and the thieves and
the purchaser of the stolen lead are all safely lodged in
Versailles prison. The mausoleum of the young Prince is at
the moment practically the only memorial at Malmaison of
the passing of the Third Napoleon. The chateau is more
especially becoming a centre for relics and souvenirs of Jose-
phine, whose tomb is in the neighbouring church of Rueil,
and whose last residence it was. The chateau is unpre-
tending, and far from vast : the park has been greatly reduced
from its original dimensions, but retains much of its charm,
with its smooth lawns, its tiny trickling stream and its few
but graceful trees. In the past month the motor car of the
aged Empress has been often at the Malmaison gate, where
she is superintending the decoration of the mausoleum.

An ingenious writer interested the readers of one
of the Paris papers by picturing the Prince Imperial
as he might have been had he lived until now.
In March, 1916, he would have been sixty. " His
hair has become grey. In the middle of his forehead
only a deep furrow would have betrayed the anguish
of a soul which has suffered. Since the Terrible
Year the Prince has reflected much and worked
much. On the death of his father he became the
worthy heir of the Napoleons. He has an ardent
taste for military history. He knows by heart all the
achievements of the great generals of ancient and
modern times. He is a fine rider and an excellent
shot. In Scotland he has shown his prowess with
the gun in the grouse battues. The English think
highly of him as a sportsman. He has travelled
a great deal, visited the Indies five times and has
twice made the tour of the world. During his travels
he has often met his companion in exile, the Due

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 353

d'Orleans. They spoke de bonne amitie, but chiefly
of sport. In London, where he resides, often going
to see his mother at Farnborough Hill, he is greatly
appreciated and beloved. The British soul, so
antagonistic to Napoleon the Great, is sympathetic
to one whom many still call the ' Little Prince.'
But the son of Napoleon III. is melancholy, and
compares his destiny to that of his cousin, the Due de
Reichstadt [son of Napoleon I.]. The analogies
between the two are indeed striking. Both left
France, when quite young, for a foreign country.
The Due de Reichstadt had at least the consolation
of dying young. To-night the Prince is particularly
sad. To kill time he spends the evening at Green-
wich with some friends; they dine in the open air,
and the Petit Prince, while smoking a cigar, looks up
at the stars, and regrets that he did not die in
Zululand. To rouse him from his melancholy his
friends urge him to forget the sad past and the
uncertainty of the present, and to think only of the
future. Never, they tell him, have his chances of
ascending the throne been so great. France is ready
to welcome Napoleon IV. The Petit Prince bends
his head. He still remembers Ossuld's sonnet, and is
tired of ' always hoping.' "

The late Sir Charles Dilke, whose avowed
republicanism in the late sixties and the early seventies
provoked the ridicule of all but a very few English-
men, wrote : " 1870 was a year which will never
be. forgotten by those of my time — the year which
saw the downfall of the most magnificent imposture
of any age, the Second Empire." At Lille, early in
1 87 1, when the Franco- Prussian war was still raging,
Dilke noted : " I heard Gambetta make his great

354 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

speech. It was the finest oratorical display to which
I ever listened, though I have heard Castelar [the
celebrated Spanish republican statesman], Bright,
Gladstone, Gathorne Hardy and Father Felix often
at their very best." Some three years later, as
we learnt only at the end of December, 19 15,
we find Gambetta writing, in a letter to M. Ranc,
an ardent anti-Bonapartist : " I discern in the Prince
of Wales the makings of a great statesman. With
all his young authority he opposes the enforcement
of measures which might be prejudicial to Russia."
These words were reproduced by all the London
papers on the day following their appearance in
the " Matin," and must have been read with surprise
by the Empress Eugenie, who perhaps remembered
that speech made in the Chamber by Gambetta
in which he spoke of " the clerical fanaticism which
animated the Spanish woman who had been made
the Empress of the French."

Long before M. Pietri's death the Empress's right-
hand man was the Comte de Mora, whose wife
was born a De Lesseps, a celebrated family with
which the Empress, through her mother, is connected.
The Count is not only a capable man of affairs,
but of considerable scientific knowledge, so that
the Empress confided to him the work of installing
the electric light, which is generated in the grounds
of the residence.

In this work, and in all that I have written about
Napoleon III., the Empress, and the Prince Imperial,
the object has been to group all facts and records of
events gathered since 1870. The passages on the
next three pages are from my diaries, aided by my
recollection of the events.

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 355

Chislehurst — Farnborough, January 9, 1888.

To-day I witnessed another act of the Imperial
tragedy — the removal of the bodies of Napoleon
III. and the Prince Imperial from Chislehurst to
Farnborough. The Emperor's coffin had been placed
in St Mary's Church in January, 1873 — the Prince's
on July 12, 1879. I was present at both funerals, and
described them in the " Morning Post."

At eight o'clock this morning Monsignor Goddard
said a low Mass for the repose of the soul of
the Emperor, for to-day was the anniversary of
his death fifteen years ago. Only two or three
persons attended the service — members of the con-
gregation. The little church was closed until nine
o'clock, when preparations began for the transference
of the remains to the artillery waggons (from
Woolwich) which were to convey them to the
railway station, and from thence in a special train to
the Imperial Mausoleum in the church at Farn-
borough erected by the Empress. The red granite
sarcophagus which Queen Victoria had presented
to the Empress had been taken to Farnborough,
and the remains of the Emperor, contained in three
coffins, placed alongside those of the Prince.
While the preparations for the removal of the
coffins were being made by Mr Garstin (of the firm
of W. Garstin & Sons, Welbeck Street, London),
M. Pietri arrived, accompanied by the Marquis de
Bassano, whose father, the venerable Duke, was
unable to be present.

Earlier in the day Monsignor Goddard, M. Pietri
and the Marquis had drawn up a proces verbal
setting forth the facts of the reception of the

356 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

bodies at St Mary's and their removal for trans-
ference to Farnborough. The Emperor's outer
coffin, of well-seasoned oak, had not suffered from
damp, as the inner ones had, but its velvet covering
had partially rotted and its brass " furniture " was
seen to be covered with verdigris. The breast-
plate was uncorroded, but the brass cross at its
foot had turned green. The Prince's coffin had
a covering of violet velvet, which was unspotted,
as were the breastplate and the fittings. A black
pall now covered the Emperor's coffin. M. Pietri
laid a wreath, sent by the Empress, on each coffin :
that for the Emperor was of rosebuds and violets —
that for the Prince was all white. At the last
moment a lady sent two bouquets of violets, one
for each coffin.

At 10.30 a battery of the Royal Horse Artillery
arrived from Woolwich — two guns and forty men,
under Lieutenant Wing. Preceding the coffins was
Monsignor Goddard, in white surplice and cotta,
reading the Burial Service. Each coffin was carried
by ten artillerymen, and each was covered by a
tricoloured flag, on which were placed the flowers
and (on the Prince's) the riband and order of the
Legion d'Honneur. The Marquis de Bassano and
M. Pietri followed, together with a few French
gentlemen, three sisters from the Holy Trinity,
Bromley, and artillerymen. The coffins were placed
on the gun carriages, and two photographers took
views from an adjacent field, much to the indignation
of the priest, but doubtless to the satisfaction of
the public generally, who by this time had gathered
in their thousands, despite the fog and the muddy
roads. Monsignor Goddard, the Marquis de

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 357

Bassano and M. Pietri drove to the station, access to
which was barred. The English and French
reporters (including M. Johnson, of the " Figaro,"
and M. Leon Jolivard, of the " Gaulois ") were
admitted, and journeyed to Farnborough by the
" special."

The coffins were placed in a baggage waggon,
which the undertakers had arranged and decorated.
Its walls were draped in black, spangled with silver
stars, and displayed the Imperial crown and mono-
gram. At one end was a large ivory crucifix, with
a background of black velvet, in which was
woven a Latin cross in white silk. The waggon
was canopied with black drapery. Candles in silver
sconces were lighted, and the waggon became a
chapelle ardente, with the Monsignor as its only
living occupant. In the Prince's coffin (the priest
told me) was the scapulaire found on him when
his' mangled body was discovered; this was now
in a cardboard box.

Arrived at Farnborough, the coffins were taken
to St Michael's in the presence of a crowd of
distinguished personages and placed in the Imperial
Mausoleum. Monsignor Goddard's guardianship of
the remains had ended.

I should have written more fully of this pathetic
spectacle had space permitted. I have been able,
however, to give the main facts in outline, and will
now proceed with my chronicle, which future his-
torians should find serviceable.

The Empress's pedigree is given in a very
complete form in another chapter. Her English
friends will now learn with agreeable surprise that
there is a tie of kinship between the Imperial

358 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

lady's family and that of one of the most gifted and
popular of English contemporary writers, " Dagonet,"
of that widely read journal the " Referee." In
" My Life : Sixty Years' Recollections of Bohemian
London," * Mr Geo. R. Sims says :

My great-grandfather, Robert Sims, was a sturdy, handsome
and well-to-do Berkshire yeoman. To the Berkshire town
into which he rode regularly on market days there came a
Spanish grandee, Count Jos^ de Montijo, who was of the
family which gave us the Empress Eugenie. He had left
Spain as a political refugee, and his daughter, the Countess
Elizabeth de Montijo, had come with him.

My great-grandfather fell in love with the beautiful
Spanish girl and married her. She was quite a young girl
when she became his wife, but she " lived happily ever
afterwards " and died a dear old English lady at the age of
eighty-five.

It was yet another surprise to find this curiously
interesting item concerning the Empress in the
" Daily Citizen " (March 17, 19 13), which received it
from its Panama correspondent :

In connection with the opening of the New Hotel Washing-
ton, on the beach of Colon — one of the outward signs
of the new prosperity which is rapidly coming to the Panama
Canal region — an appropriate site will be found at last for
the famous bronze statue of Christopher Columbus, in
the attitude of protecting an Indian maiden who is crouching
by his side. This statue has had a strange career, and
almost as many adventures and as much neglect as the
great navigator himself. It was cast at Turin for the
Empress Eugenie, while she was still in power at the Palace
of Versailles. By her it was presented to the Republic of
Colombia in 1868, to be erected at Colon, but the recipients
appreciated the gift so little that for two years it was left

*" Evening News," January 17, 1916.

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 359

unpacked on the wharf. An occasion of jollification came
along, and the statue was temporarily set up, only, however,
to be forgotten again for another nine years. Then it was
sent to Cristobal, whence it is now to be brought, forty-five
years behind time, to its original destination — Colon.

Aided by the late M. Pietri I exposed in the
" Observer," in 19 10, the forgery of the so-called
" Memoirs " of the Empress, and subsequently
gave a fuller account of the fraud in my first volume
on the Imperial Family. I recently found that
the matter had been referred to by the London
correspondent of the " New York American "
(February 6, 19 10), whose comments will doubtless
amuse as well as interest those of my new readers
who may perhaps never have heard of the literary
atrocity perpetrated in Paris six years ago. The
correspondent of Mr Hearst's well-known journal
headed his narrative with these piquant lines :
" Eugenie threatens to sue Publisher. — Ex-Empress
of France declares Someone has stolen Notes of
Autobiography," and continued :

The London High Courts are likely to be occupied in the
near future with a most interesting case. A short time ago
paragraphs began to appear in the literary papers announcing
that the eighty-year-old ex-Empress Eugenie had completed
an autobiography which would appear as soon as the question
of a publisher had been settled.

An autobiography from the ex- Empress should be one of
the most interesting volumes ever penned by woman, for
she was a young and fascinating woman when France was
at its gayest ; she saw the tragedy of the Third Revolution
from its inception to its end, and she knows more of France's
part in the disastrous war with Germany than any living
soul. There are some historians who do not hesitate to call
it " Eugenie's War,"

36o EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

A small army of publishers hastened to Farnborough, where
the ex-Queen lives in semi-regal state, in the endeavour to
obtain the publicity rights, only to be told that Eugenie had
written no memoirs beyond a few notes which do not extend
beyond the four sheets of note-paper.

In a few days the announcement of a forthcoming book
was repeated, and although the publisher is at present a
mystery, it is said authoritatively that the volume will appear
in the spring.

Now Eugenie in a passion of indignation declares that
someone has had felonious access to her notes, and that
as the book is unauthorised it must necessarily be full of
inaccuracies. She declares that as soon as the publisher comes
into the open she will apply for an injunction to restrain
publication, so there is the promise of interesting happenings
in the very near future.

I may explain that the Empress and M. Pietri did
not take any proceedings against the concocters of
the " Memoirs," being quite satisfied with the
Press exposure of the fraud. The intention of those
responsible for the printing of the " bogus " work
was to issue it only " if anything happened " to
the Imperial lady. Nothing has " happened " since
19 lo, and we may all hope that nothing will
" happen " to her for many years to come. I do
not for a moment think that the tens of thousands
of copies of the book which, as M. Pietri knew, were
printed, presumably in or about 1909, perhaps even
before, have been destroyed. I assume that they
remain " somewhere in France," probably in Paris.

The Hayward's Heath correspondent of the
" Evening News " recorded on January 9, 19 13
(the anniversary of the Emperor Napoleon's death at
Chislehurst in 1873) :

A link with the ill-fated Prince Imperial has been broken
by the death at Ditchling, Sussex, of ex-Farrier-Sergeant

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 361

Muddle. The old soldier, who enlisted in the i6th Lancers
in 1864, took part in the famous charge at the Battle of
Ulundi, and was one of those who helped to carry the
Prince's body into camp when it was found after a difficult
search. Muddle had a service record of twenty-eight years,
twenty-three of which he spent abroad. One of his feet had
been amputated as a result of an accident while he was in
the army, and he had recently lost the use of the other.

One of the most devoted friends of the Imperial
Family during the Chislehurst days was the late
Lord Sydney, best remembered as Lord Chamberlain
for many years in Queen Victoria's reign. He
took to Camden Place the sad news of the death of
the Prince Imperial, and later he was given by
the Empress, in memory of her beloved son, the
three-quarter portrait of Mme le Brun, painted
by the artist herself in 1782. At the sale in June,
191 5, of what was known as the " Sydney collection "
of art valuables, this picture was purchased for
;^6930 by Mr George A. Kessler, the New York
champagne merchant, one of the survivors of the
Lusitania, which, on May 7, 191 5, was destroyed,
as is now well known, with the Kaiser's full know-
ledge; yet, after diplomatic " negotiations " between
the Governments of the United States and Germany
lasting until February, 19 16, the former could not
induce the latter to admit that its monstrous crime was
an " illegal " one !

The late Mrs Crawford, whose sprightly " Notes
from Paris " had enlivened " Truth " from its
first number until the end of 191 5, frequently had
something original and piquant to say of the
Napoleonic regime and of the Empress. A

362 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

collection of her articles on these subjects would
fill a volume. The " Notes " of this gifted woman
were always characterised by a knowledge peculiar to
herself and gave her readers food for reflection.
As a chroniqueuse she was unrivalled. In " Truth "
of December 17, 1913, she wrote:

De Lesseps, following the example of his Imperial cousin-in-
law, issued his Suez Canal scrip direct to the public. The
Empress took the scheme up with ardour. Count Walewski,
at a critical period of the undertaking-, thought well to
yield to Palmerston's opposition. One forenoon, as he
awaited an audience of the Emperor, the Empress flung
into the room, and, looking him furiously in his eyes, cried
out : "I hear you want to humble us to Palmerston in the
affairs of the Suez Canal. I tell you what — if you leave
my cousin (Lesseps) in the lurch, by God I will stab you in
the heart." These words were repeated to me twenty years
later by De Lesseps himself. This masterful attitude of
the Empress throws light on the Court intrigues of July,
1870, which brought about the disastrous war with Germany.
Walewski was cowed. On seeing the Emperor he toned
down the remarks he had prepared. . . . The issue of Suez
shares brought all the wage-earning folk of Paris to the
company's offices.

The Manchester " Sunday Chronicle," like many
other leading provincial papers, furnishes its wide
circle of readers with much matter relating to the
Empress. This paragraph appeared on September
29, 1912 :

The very name of the Empress Eugenie always seems to
bring before the mind a story of romance and tragedy.
The older generation still remembers her in her youthful
beauty, when her extravagance of dress and her rather flighty
ways made her the talk of all the Courts ; and then came
blow after blow on this frail woman — the fall of the Empire,

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 363

exile, and last, and heaviest, the death of the Prince Imperial
in the Zulu War, She seems so much a figure out of a past
time that we wonder when we hear of her as still taking- part
in things mundane.

But that something remains of the spirit of the dainty
beauty of Empire days is seen in the story which is being
told in royalist circles in Paris. The Empress Eugdnie on
her last visit asked an old friend to bring to her salon some
of her most chic young friends dressed in their very latest
furbelows. When they paraded in front of her she expressed
herself as enchanted with the grace and elegance of the
fashions of to-day, and said that if the dressmakers of her
time had been able to produce such works of art what a
brilliant France she would have made of it. But suddenly
came another thought to the ex-Queen, and she asked what
might be the cost of these triumphs. When told the price,
she was horrified, and said she had never paid more than
twenty-four pounds for a frock, and that such extravagance
would have been impossible for her.

The story goes (wrote the Paris correspondent
of the Manchester " Sunday Chronicle " in 19 13)
that " a French insurance company, learning that
the Empress Eugenie was in bad health [which was
not the case], wrote to her suggesting that she
should sink her fortune in an annuity, which was
to increase in a certain ratio with each year of her
life. The Empress consented, and the insurance
company rejoiced at the bargain it had struck,
because the Empress was believed to be at death's
door. In 191 2 the annuity, which had started at
something under ;^ 13,000, had reached close on
;^ 75,000."

Whenever possible, whether in France or England,
the Empress attends the anniversary service for the
Prince Imperial which is celebrated on the ist of
June. In 19 14 her Majesty was travelling in Italy,

364 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

visiting, among other places, Venice and Baveno,
and later Madrid. The Paris service was not on
the I St, but on the 2nd of June, at, as usual,
the Church of Saint Augustin. Mass was said by
the Abbe Landes, and the absolution given by the
venerable Abbe Misset, formerly the young Prince's
almoner. Prince Murat represented the Bona-
partist Pretender, who, two or three months later, was
driven, with his wife and two children (the little
boy was then only four months old), from Brussels
by the invading Huns and took refuge with the
Empress at Farnborough, where they were still
staying at the time of writing (February, 19 16).
Besides Prince Murat there were present at Saint
Augustin's Prince Michel Murat and the Duchesse
de Mouchy (nee Princesse Anna Murat) and many
others; while ranged in the choir of the church
were delegations of the Plebiscitary Committees
of the Seine (Prince Napoleon's adherents), with
their flags — so tolerant is the Republic, our cherished
Ally. M. Franceschini Pietri (whose death is
recorded in another chapter) was also among the
worshippers on this occasion. At the end of the
service the organist, M. Gigout, played the beautiful
melody named by the composer after the Prince
Imperial.

In mid- January, 19 16, one or other of her
" readers " — Mme d'Attainville, the Comtesse Mora,
or (perhaps) Miss Vaughan — doubtless told the
Empress that there had been a very destructive
fire at Bergen, the second largest town in Norway.
Of Bergen her Majesty has amusing memories,
for that port was the scene of her reception, on
board her yacht Thistle, of the " Bloody " Kaiser.

2 Q

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 365

The date was Sunday, July 27, 1907. The event is
fully narrated, in the words of one of the Empress's
guests at the time, in my Kaiser-Book, * and I
am therefore precluded from repeating it here.
I may be allowed, however, to mention that one of
the Empress's party at the time was the only
surviving son of Prince and Princess Christian (the
latter being a devoted friend of her Imperial
Majesty for forty-five years) — the same Prince
Albert who, as a Prussian Hussar, has sworn fealty
to William the Infamous and has been exhorting
the Hunnish troops under his command to make
mincemeat of as many of our " contemptible little
army " as possible. With the Empress on this
occasion was, inter alia, the Princesse de la Moskowa
(nee Princesse Eugenie Bonaparte), to whom,
during the Kaiser's visit to the Thistle, this Prince
of the English Blood Royal (King George's cousin)
had the audacity to say : " I am not a German.
I was born at Windsor, and my mother is
English ! "

Once, in a moment of pique, the Empress,
accompanied by only one lady, came to England and
passed several weeks in the winter of i860, touring
through Scotland. Learning that she had unex-
pectedly arrived in London, Queen Victoria invited
her to Windsor Castle. The event is thus noted
by the Duke of Cambridge in his diary t :

*"The Public and Private Life of Kaiser William II."
London : Eveleigh Nash. 1915-

t " George, Duke of Cambridge. A Memoir of his Private

Life." Edited by Edgar Sheppard, C.V.O., D.D., Sub-Dean

of his Majesty's Chapels Royal. Two vols. Longmans,
Green & Co. 1906.

366 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Windsor, December 4, i860.
Attended the Queen at her reception of the Empress
Eugenie, who came for luncheon and on a visit, soon after
one o'clock. She looked changed since last I saw her, but
not ill, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but certainly
much depressed. It was rather a painful meeting, when one
remembers how gay and hopeful the last visit was. At two
we lunched as usual, and at three she returned by special
train to London. Albert [the Prince Consort] met her and
took her back to the station. The Queen with all of us
received her at the entrance. The Emperor's name was only
mentioned by her once. She had with her Madame de Monte-
bello and de Sauley, Monsieur de la Grange and Colonel
Fune.

Nine years before the outbreak of the World War
French and German veterans united in celebrating
the anniversaries of the blood-month, August,
1870. In that month in 1905 this extraordinary
scene, unparalleled in Franco-German history, was
witnessed in two or three places, one being in
the neighbourhood of Germanised Metz; and it
marked a rapprochement which came only after
the passing of nearly four decades. Among the
celebrants, these wearing the Military Medal, those
the Iron Cross, some had fought with the vanquished
Emperor Napoleon III. and others with the
victorious King. The addresses which were made
on both sides were characterised by the heartiest
good feeling and (as I believed at the time)
transparent sincerity, and an obvious wish to " bury
the hatchet." The pathetic moment came with the
interlacing of the French and German flags, and
handshaking all round. Among those who took
part in this great historical scene were some, of both
nationalities, whose memories went back to that

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 367

2nd of August when Frossard's guns on the heights
overlooking Saarbriicken suddenly opened fire on
a small Prussian force, the Emperor and the boy-
Prince looking on as the wearers of the spiked
helmets withdrew, in fairly good order, but beaten,
because vastly outnumbered. Others recalled Wis-
semburg (two days later), which the Crown Prince
Frederic attacked, when the Prussians captured
the Geissburg and, with the Bavarians, took the
town.

On that day the French lost the first of their
generals — Abel Douay, who was fatally shot. After
another two days' interval came Worth, a defeat
which spread dismay through France, for MacMahon's
army was pulverised and routed. It was a great
victory, but purchased, if the historians are correct,
with the loss of 489 German officers and 10,153
men. The records give the number of French
killed at 6000; prisoners, 200 officers and 9000
soldiers. Some of the survivors in these harmonious
celebrations must also have recalled Mars-la-Tour,
when 20,000 French and German dead and wounded
lay in a line extending over six miles ! Nor could
they have forgotten the bloody fighting at Spicheren
(Saarbriicken), also on the 6th, when Frossard, a
man of capacity, but a miscalculator, was routed,
and when a single Prussian division lost 1800 killed
and wounded in the storming of the steep heights of
Spicheren and Forbach. On the i6th, 17th and
1 8th came the holocaust around Gorze, when
the Prussians lost in killed and wounded nearly
50,000 and the French more. The fighting on
those three never-to-be-forgotten days I did not
witness, but I was at Remilly, in the region of Metz,

368 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

when the trains bearing the German wounded passed
through day and night. As the month of blood
drew to a close there came the battle of Beaumont,
where the Saxons, 60,000 of them, surprised De
Failly's army corps as they were cleaning their
rifles and cooking ! For the French, August ended
badly, with Beaumont; September began worse, with
Sedan.

This letter, written by the Empress to Abd-el-
Kader, first saw the light in 19 13, in M. Jean
Marsol's work, " Djehal," a psychological study
(histoire Turque) :

Chislehurst, January 17, 1871.
Emir,—

In the midst of the misfortunes which have struck
me, the AU-Powerful has accorded me consolation for so many
bitternesses.

If many have deserted me, there are some who retain
memories of me. The token of sympathy which I have
received from you has deeply touched me. God has struck
me by the hands of men. I bless Him, and ask Him to give
me the strength to submit to His will.

I thank you also on behalf of the Emperor and my son.
Our greatest happiness will be the glory of France and
the success of her arms. Believe me, etc.,

Eugenie.

The subjoined letter is exceptionally interesting
as for, I think, the first time, the Empress refers to
Prince Napoleon's adherents (Plebiscitaires), con-
cerning whom she had previously, and has since,
been silent, fearing lest she might unintentionally
let fall a word or two displeasing to the Government
of the Republic, with which she has remained on
the best terms since she received permission a

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 369

quarter of a century ago to have a permanent
residence in France. In 19 13 M. Charles Faure-
Biguet sent the Empress a copy of his work (written
in the interests of the present Bonapartist Pre-
tender's Party), " Paroles Plebiscitaires," with a
preface from the eloquent pen of M. Frederic
Masson, one of the most distinguished members
of the Academic Fran^aise. The late M Pietri
wrote to the author as follows : —

Farnborough Hill, Farnborough, Hants,
December 12, 1913.
Sir, —

I have received your letter, and, in accordance with
your wish, have communicated its contents to her Majesty
the Empress, and called her attention to the marked pages
in the book which you have sent.

Her Majesty has read with interest your " Paroles
Plebiscitaires " and directs me to thank you for having
brought to light so many things and souvenirs which are
dear to her and for putting them under the aegis of the
little Prince, whose memory you treasure so devotedly.

Accept, sir, the expression of my most distinguished
sentiments. Franceschini Pietri.

The piquant story of the bust of the Empress,
which forms the frontispiece to this volume, appearing
for the first time, so far as I know, in any English
or French book, may be briefly told. The Emperor
had promised the eminent sculptor, Carpeaux, in
the early sixties, that the Empress should give
him a sitting for a bust. Her Majesty did not
favour the idea — flatly declined, in fact, to pose.
The Emperor, however, invited the artist to spend a
week at Fontainebleau. The Empress remained
obdurate, and the Emperor politely reminded him

2 A

370 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

that the time had come for his departure. " You
will have to leave us to-morrow morning, my dear
Carpeaux," said his Majesty regretfully. " Not
until I have done what I came for," exclaimed
Carpeaux, who hinted that the Imperial lady had
insulted him by refusing to sit. Napoleon III.
said he would make one more attempt to bring his
consort to reason, and he did so. This time he
was successful : the Empress consented to pose
for two hours. Carpeaux was a quick worker, and
soon completed the clay model, which was then
baked and finished. He took it to the Empress,
anxious for her opinion. She glanced carelessly
at it, merely remarking : " It's certainly fretty \ "
Almost beside himself with rage, the great man
took the bust back to his studio and flung it on the
floor, with the result that it was cracked and
the corners were chipped off. Long afterwards
the bust was fished out of a dust-heap by one of the
artist's students, who kept it until the master's
death. In 19 13 all the remaining works of
Carpeaux were sold in Paris — one hundred and
sixteen pieces of sculpture, including the famous
bust of the Empress which now adorns this volume.

Comte de Maugny, in his " Cinquante ans de
Souvenirs," * relates this anecdote, which, he says,
is worth its weight in gold: " In 1872 one of
my friends, a diplomatist, who had filled a high
official position at the Court of Napoleon III.,
had an audience of King Victor Emmanuel at
Turin. The King was eager to hear the latest
news of the Emperor and Empress. ' Poor people,'
he said, ' I pity them with all my heart. I am
* Paris: Plon-Nouritt. 191 4.

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 371

the more grieved at their misfortunes because I
can never forget all that the Emperor did for me.'
Then, after a pause, and with a smile, he added :
' Besides, what has happened to them will happen
to all of us one day or other. For myself I laugh
at it, but it will not be amusing to the others.' "

The Queen of Bulgaria is a member of the family
of the writer of this letter, which I received from
Trebschen, in the province of Brandenburg :

Let me thank you very much indeed for sending me your
book about the Court of Napoleon III. It is a most pathetic
theme, certainly, and one of the most curious and instructive
in history. Every detail, therefore, adding" to the knowledge
of that time seems full of interest. I feel sure that your
other book on the same subject [the present volume] will have
an equal success as its predecessors. With renewed thanks,
I remain, sincerely yours, Marie Alexandrine, Princess
Heinrich VII. Reuss, j.L., Princess of Saxe- Weimar,
Duchess of Saxe.

In a letter to me from her French home, the
Baronne Ed. de George des Villates (who is English-
born) pays this glowing tribute to " the great and
noble virtues " of the Empress :

I have been deeply interested in the perusal of your work
concerning the Empress Eugenie and that sad German-Franco
war. I was at school in Paris when war was declared, and
remained in France the whole time it continued ; not in Paris,
it is true, but in Richelieu, where the lady charged with my
education had taken me with other young ladies, thinking
the war would be of short duration. When it was over, and
it was considered safe, we all returned to Paris ; but only a
week or so afterwards the terrible civil war broke out. This
time I got sent back to England, and it was with very deep
sorrow I left the dear French people, in whose grief I had
been destined to participate all that sad long time of the war.

Zr- EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

You will understand now how vividly the reading of your
book has renewed all the sorrows of that painful period.
Written, as it is, too, by a gentleman bearing my own maiden
name, has made it doubly interesting to me. You have cleared
up much that has been said against the sweet, beautiful
Empress Eugenie, and brought to light all her great and
noble virtues. Poor dear Empress ! I shall see her in that
land where we all hope to meet, and there she will perhaps
learn how closely I have followed her in all her sorrows, and
how deeply I have loved her. Soon after my schooldays I
married a Frenchman, and here I have been ever since in the
home my beloved husband brought me to.

Early in 1851 the " Inverness Courier " reported:
" A fine golden eagle, taken in Strathglas, is at
present at Inverness, with a view to its being sent to
Paris as a gift to the Emperor of France. A number
of rabbits have been sent as food for the eagle during
its journey."

" Punch's " comment on this may amuse the
Empress even in 19 16. " It is very charming to
know that Scotland has so gracefully renewed her
ancient alliance with the kingdom of France. Can
she not still further strengthen it.'^ Napoleon wants
a wife. As Scotland has sent him an eagle, can she
not provide him with a dove — a ringdove ? "

From "Punch," October 25, 1856: "Sporting
in France. — Hunting and shooting are now the sports
at Compiegne. The Empress has already distin-
guished herself as a shot. Having a year or two ago
brought down an Imperial eagle by shooting her
eyes at him, she has added to the achievement by
bagging nine pheasants. We think beauty should
leave such matters to the beast. We like to think of
Venus with her doves, but confess we should not care
so much for the goddess were she known to wring

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY z^-^

the necks of the birds and put them, feet upwards,
under a crust."

The same journal, September lo, 1868 : " The
' Independance Beige ' * the other day published
a statement that the Prince Imperial had lately said :
' When I am Emperor I shall not allow anyone to
be without religion.' An official denial of this was
published, concluding : ' These words were never
made use of by the Prince Imperial, who, at his
present age [twelve] would not think of interfering
with political matters.' " This was headed : " Second
Thoughts are Best."

In mid-October, 19 15, I received a letter from
my friend, M. Gerard Harry, the well-known author
and contributor to the " Temps " and other leading
French journals, that certain Paris papers had
published statements telegraphed from London
reporting the Empress to be in an alarming condition.
He wished me to " interview" Prince Napoleon
and to send all the facts relating to the Imperial
lady to him (M. Harry) in Paris. In view of the
serious news from London, French writers were
hastily preparing biographies of her Majesty, and
my assistance in this direction was sought by my
friend. I allayed M. Harry's apprehensions and
sent an authoritative denial of the canard to a
London paper. I remembered that the Brussels
papers had been similarly deluded in November, 19 13,
and that one of those journals had prepared a
special number which was intended to be issued
at a moment's notice directly the news of the
predicted calamity was received in the Belgian
capital.

* Now (191 5- 1 91 6) published in London.

374 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

In the previous January (19 13) the Empress was
suffering from a cold and cough, and so was
prevented from attending the annual service for
the Emperor on the gth of that month; she was
" represented " at St Michael's Abbey Church on
that occasion by Comte Mora and the late
M. Pietri. For some days she was confined to
the house and her doctor was in daily attendance.
Never was her marvellous vitality more evidenced
than during her enforced seclusion. She was in
the best spirits, and after hearing Mass in her
Oratory and noticing that the sun was shining and
that the birds were singing, she said : " I still cough
a little, but what a temptation to go out ! " Three
months later she kept her eighty-seventh birthday.

The servants (the Empress never uses the word
" domestics ") at Farnborough Hill are of various
nationalities. At the outbreak of the war three
of them — two footmen and the second cook — hastened
to join their comrades in the French army, and
up to March, 19 16, had not been replaced. The
first cook and her Majesty's two maids are French.
There are two footmen — one a Dane, the other
a Swiss. The silver articles in use are in charge of
a Belgian youth. The other " serviteurs " (this
is her Majesty's word) are all English. Besides
those enumerated, several persons are employed
by the Empress solely to look after the wounded and
invalided officers whom she has received in her
sanatorium. They are fortunate in being so
luxuriously housed and in having an Empress as
hostess.

In February, 19 16, news reached the Benedictines
at Farnborough of the fate of one of their number

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 375

who had joined the French army a year previously.
Frere Savignac was a choir postulant who had
received the habit at Farnborough on February 2,
19 1 5, and on the i8th of that month he was killed
in action, at the head of his men. His body was not
discovered until November. He was a lieutenant
in the 59th Infantry Regiment, and during his
fortnight's service had been wounded when entraining
his men and was accorded the War Cross, with
special mention in orders. On the anniversary of
his death (February 18, 19 16), there was a solemn
Requiem Mass and absolution at St Michael's Abbey.
The Empress Eugenie had hoped to assist at the
service, but the bad weather prevented her from
leaving the house, and she was represented by
Mme d'Attainville. All the circumstances of this
young man's death contributed to make this Requiem
Mass impressive and sadly picturesque. At each
corner of the catafalque was a French flag — the
colours of Lieutenant Savignac. Around were
grouped the French Consul at Southampton, M. Bar-
thelemy; the parish priests of Farnborough and
Woking, the Lady Superior of " Hillside " Convent
(now removed to Sycamore House owing to recent
Governmental requirements) and several of the nuns,
Mme d'Attainville, wounded or invalided soldiers,
local residents and the members of the Benedictine
community.

In March the Farnborough Benedictines were
agreeably surprised by the publication in the " Sunday
Herald " of portraits of several members of their
community, including the Rev. Pere Gougaud, who
in March, 19 16, was still a prisoner of the Huns.
This talented young Father was depicted in his

376 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

sergeant's uniform and also in the " habit " of
the Order. The Sunday sermons throughout Lent
(19 1 6) at the French church in Leicester Square
were preached to large congregations by another
member of the same community, the Rev. Pere
Bauzin.

At the time this work was printed (March, 19 16)
the Empress had not appointed a new secretary.
Possibly (but this is unofficial) Comte Mora will
replace the deeply-regretted M. Pietri.

The Empress, my younger readers may be
reminded, was born at Granada, Spain, on May 5,
1826, and was married at Notre Dame on January
30, 1853, two months after her consort had been
proclaimed Emperor (December 2, 1852). The
" civil " marriage took place at the Tuileries the
evening before the religious ceremony. There was
no coronation. The Emperor was born in Paris
on April 20, 1808, reigned eighteen years (1852-1870),
and died at Camden Place, Chislehurst, on January
9, 1873, aged sixty-four years and nine months.
The Prince Imperial, their only child, was born
at the Tuileries on March 16, 1856, three years
after his parents' marriage. He died in Zululand on
June I, 1879, aged twenty-three years and ten weeks.
The Empress arrived in England, landing at Ryde,
on September 8, 1870, and resided at Chislehurst
until the autumn of 1880, when she removed to
Farnborough Hill, near Aldershot. She will be
ninety on May 5, 1916. The Empress's genealogy
is detailed in another chapter, and is as accurate
as, with the aid of others, I have found it possible to
make it.

The Empress passes most of her time in a

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 7,^^

spacious sitting-room on the ground floor. She
sleeps on the second floor, above which is her
Oratory, with its roof of pitch pine. There is
space in this little chapel for about thirty persons,
but as a rule the worshippers do not exceed ten or
twelve. When she is in residence here, as she
has been since July, 19 14, the eve of the war,
low Mass is celebrated every Sunday morning at
ten o'clock by one of the Benedictine Peres from
St Michael's Abbey, who is attended by a " server "
(a Frere). There is no music at such a service
of the Catholic Church, nor is there any instrument
in the Oratory. The little bell which is rung by
the " server " at the supreme moment has engraved
upon it " Chapelle des Tuileries " — a relic brought
to England by her Majesty when she fled from
the Palace on Sunday, September 4, 1870, three
days after the battle of Sedan, the disaster which
led to the overthrow of the Imperial Dynasty.

At St Michael's Church there are two confessional
boxes — at the Oratory there is one, which is
portable. The Empress sits, or kneels at her
prie-Dieu, between Prince and Princess Napoleon.
Above the holy-water stoup is a card with the
printed inscription, in French : " Pray for the repose
of the soul of his late Majesty King Edward VII.,
the Peacemaker," with the date of his death (May
6, 19 10). On the wall, at the entrance, is a large
framed picture showing a Red Cross ambulance
about to receive the body of the Prince Imperial
and convey it to Pietermaritzburg for official
identification. The Stations of the Cross on the
walls are of plaster (those at St Michael's are of
painted copper). In a small sacristy are the priest's

378 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

vestments. The Empress confesses twice a year,
on Christmas Day and on the Festival of the
Assumption, August 15, which during the Empire
was the fete of the year.

The Empress attended Mass in her Oratory on
Christmas Day, 19 15, and on the 3rd of January,
1916, she motored to St Michael's to assist at
the monthly service which she instituted (in 19 14)
for all soldiers killed in the war. A week later
(Monday, January 10 — the 9th, the date of the
Emperor's death, falling on a Sunday) she was present
at St Michael's at the annual service for Napoleon
III. There were two Masses — a " High " one
in the church and a " Low " one in the crypt,
the Imperial Mausoleum. The Empress attended
the latter, at which the celebrant was the Rev.
Pere Bauzin. With her were Prince and Princess
Napoleon, Comte Mora, M. and Mme d'Attainville,
and a few others, including three of the officers
(two on crutches) who at the time were being tended
in the Empress's sanatorium at her residence. These
invalids were taken to and fro in her Majesty's
own car. The celebrant of Mass in the church
above was the Rev. Pere Eudine; the deacon, Pere
Stewart; the sub-deacon, Pere Cluzel; and the
master of ceremonies, Pere Gilbert. After the
High Mass all these, and all the monks, descended
to the crypt, where the absolution was given by
Pere Eudine. This scene in the crypt which wt;
witnessed was tinged with pathos : the Empress
kneeling at the Emperor's tomb of red granite, the
gift of Queen Victoria; Prince and Princess
Napoleon by her side; the Benedictines in their
habits, the sparse congregation in black, the crucifer

EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 379

with the large cross and the small crucifix at its
summit, the thurifers, the priest-celebrants and their
attendants. My gaze is fixed on the bowed figure
at Caesar's tomb, widowed these three and forty
years and verging on ninety. But memory takes
me back to that 9th of January at Camden Place,
when these words came from the lips of Franceschini
Pietri : " The Emperor is dead. There is nothing
more to say." And Pietri himself now sleeps under
the turf outside the crypt. I had seen the Sovereign
and his son borne into the little church at Chisle-
hurst; seen the Secretary laid to rest in the monks'
cemetery, where there are no tombstones, only
graves, long grass and laurels. In the crypt She
casts more than one glance at the Arcosolium, her own
chosen place of sepulture. With smiles and bows
she departs —

No longer caring to embalm

In dying songs a dead regret,

But like a statue solid-set
And moulded in colossal calm.

Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown

To something greater than before.

INDEX

Abd-el-Kader, 368
Adelaide, Queen of Austria, 329
Agar. Mile, 254, 255, 256
Ajalbert, Jean, 116
Albe, Due d', 19, 106, 114
Albe, Duchesse d', 19, 21
Alexander II., Emperor, 261, 268
Alexandra, Queen, 18, 20, 29, 108,

158, 159. 269
Alfonso XII. of Spain, 102, 109
Alfonso XIII., King, 19, 102, 104,

269, 273
Amadeus, King, 104
Amb^s, Baron d', 311, 312, 313, 314
Angely, Comte Davilliers Regnaud

de Saint Jean d', 267
Antoinette, Marie, 25, 130
Aoste, Dowager Duchess d', 327,

329. 330. 332
Arcos, Christine Vaughan de, 29,

33, 34, 41, 114
Arcos, Don Domingo de, 29
AttainvUle, Madame d', 375, 378
Aubert, Francis, 76
Augusta, Queen, 177
Austria, Emperor of, 27, 274
Avignon, Archbishop of, 75

BalliAre, M., 146

Barthelemy, M., 375

Bartolini, M., 67

Bassano, Due de, 40, 220, 222, 259,

322, 332
Bassano, Marquis de, 335
Bastien, M., 146
Bastille, the, 23
Battenberg, Prince Maurice, 157,

160
Battenberg, Princess Henry, 29,

31. 33. 108, 157, 158, 159, 318
Baynes, Captain, iii
Bazaine, Marshal, 25, 96, 97, 164,

169, 182, 186, 306, 307, 308, 309,

310

Bazaine-Hayter, General, 25
Beaconsfield, Lord, 323
Beauhamais, Marquis Fran9ois de,

313
Benedetti, Count, 80, 81, 83, 98
Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 253,

254, 255, 256, 257, 258
BernstorS, Count, 239
Berri, Due de, 56
Bierce, Ambrose, 338
Bismarck, 61, 80, 81, 83, 89, 90,

162, 164, 168, 169, 195, 227, 229,

238, 239, 279
Blanc, Fran9ois, 328
Blowitz, de, 253
Bocher, Charles, 263
Bonaparte, Cardinal, 63, 66

Clovis, 302

Jerome, 314

Prince Charles, 220, 260, 261

Prince Louis Lucien, 63, 220,

299. 302, 303

Prince Roland, 327, 330

Princess Christine, 260

Bonnal, 231

Borthwick, Algernon, 161

Bourbaki, General, 163

Boyen, General von, 173, 174, 175,

176
Boyer, General, 163, 164, 169
Brassey, Lady, 253
BrogUe, Due de, 260, 330
Brown, J. (Prince Imperial's

groom), 225
Burgoyne, Sir John, 17, 321

Cabrol, Dom F., 139
Cadorna, General, 329
Calmette, M. Gaston, 326
Cambac6r6s, Comte de, 63
Cambridge, Duke of, 49, 197, 212,

214, 216, 257, 365
Campile, Madame Gavini de,

267
Canrobert, Marshal, 182, 273, 307,

308, 309, 310

380

INDEX

381

Carey, Lientenant, 214
Carlyle, Thomas, 23
Carpeaux, M., 369
Cassagnac, Granier de, 82, 236
Castelnau, General, 175, 177, 178,

182, 346
Castle- Vecchio, Frangois Louise,

312
Chambord, Comte de, 22
Chambrier, James de, 231, 239
Chapelle, Comte de la, 271
Charette, General de, 270
Charles II., King, 109
Chelmsford, Lord, 207, 212, 214
Christian, Princess, 108, 159
Christine, Infante, 109
Claretie, Jules, 144, 184
Clagny, Gauthier de, 331
Clary, Comte, 273

Comtesse, 272

Clementine, Princess, 20
Clotilde, Princess of Savoy, 329
CoeU, Duchess de Medina, 319
ConegUano, Due de, 44, 270

Duchesse de, 27, 272

Connaught, Duke of, 27
Conneau, Dr, 222
Conti, M., 42, 264
Comu, Madame, 264, 265
Corvisart, Doctor, 221, 311, 312
Cousin, Victor, 198
Cowley, Lady, 195
Crawford, Mrs, 361

Darboy, Monsignor, 237

Darimon, Alfred, 232

Daudet .Lucien Alphonse, 1 13-134

David, J6r6me, 82, 236

Davilliers, Count, 175, 220

Delafosse, M. Jules, 276

Deleage, M., 59, 223, 224

Dilke, Sir Charles, 353

Dion, Marquis de, 286

Doche, Madame, 241, 242, 243, 244

Douay, General Abel, 367

Drumont, Edouard, 100

Ducrot, General, 263

Duff, Grant, 198

Duperre, Admiral, 220, 270

Duvernois, C16ment, 236

Edgar, Professor, 150, 151
Edinburgh, Duke of, 27

Edward VII., King, 19, 27, 28, 56,
108, 157-159, 221, 254, 257, 268,

324. 377
Emmanuel, King Victor, 370
Engleheart, Gardner, 339
Escurial, the, 108
Espab^, M. d', 346
Espeuilles, General de Viel d', 271
Evans, Thomas W., 217, 220, 221,

229, 321, 335, 336

Falli^res, Armand, 8

Fane, Rt. Hon. Sir Spencer

Ponsonby, 340
Fardet, Antoine, 272
Fauconnidre, Dugue de la, 236
Faure-Biguet, Charles, 369
Favre, Jules, 79, 84
Febvre, Frederic, 257, 258, 324
Fete Nationale, 22
FeuiUant, Xavier, 269
Filon, Augustin, 45, 58
Fitzjames, Dona Sol Stuart, 107
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, " Life

of Lord Granville," 193, 194, 197
Flahault, Comte de, 311
Fleury, Comte, 49, 272
Fleury, General, 217, 221, 254
Fleury, Vicomtesse Adrien, 272
Forbes, Archibald, 191, 219, 224,

227
Fortoul, Madame, 270
French, Lord, 97
Frere, Sir Bartle, 212
Frossard, Generail, 97, 98, 367

Gabrielli, Princess, 63

Galliffet, General the Marquis, 269

Gambetta, 79, 354

Gannal, Doctor, 224

Genlis, Madame de Waubert de, 272

George V., King, 18, 20, 28, 108,
319

Gillois, Madame, 347

Gladstone, 157, 197, 198, 253, 304

Glenesk, Lord, 161, 267

Goddard, Monsignor, 45, 46, 49, 62,
63, 64, 65, 76, III, 112, 137, 192,
219, 220, 225, 267, 302, 355

Goiran, General, 186

Gorce, Pierre de la, 231, 232

Got, M., 324

382

INDEX

Gougaud, Rev. Pere, 375
Gramont, Due de, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84,

85, 88, 89, 232, 233, 236
Granville, Lord, 157, 193, 194, 195,

236, 253
Gravidre, Admiral Jurien de la, 262
Grevy, President, 27
Gronow, Captain, 340
Grousset, Paschal, 146
Guerard, Madame, 254

H

Harry, Gerard, 373

Hepp, Commandant, 175, 182

Herisson, Comte d', 59, 215, 218,

219, 220, 221, 222
Hesse, Andre, 186
Hohenlohe, Prince Clovis Von, 98,

238, 239
Home, Daniel Dunglass, 194
Hortense, Queen, 42, 43, 116, 263,

264, 311, 312, 313
Houssaye, Henry, 99
Hugo, Victor, 271
Huillier, Madam Henriette L', 135-

141

Isabella, Queen of Spain, 143, 144
J

J ARRAS, 309

Jerrold, Blanchard, 228, 229, 230,

265
Joffre, General, 97
Josephine, Empress, 124, 130, 313,

314
Jourde, M., 146

K

KiRKPATRiCK family, the, 151, 152,

153. 154. 155. 156
Knollys, Lord, 158
Knollys, Miss Charlotte, 158

LAFERRlftRE, ComtC dc, 254

Laffitte, M., 189, 191

Lambert, Baron Tristan, 24, 45, 57

Lano, M. Pierre de, 218, 219

Launay, De, 23

Law, Captain David, 146

Leboeuf, Marshal, 85, 96, 97, 182,

233. 290, 306, 309
Leopold, Prince, 80, 82, 84, 230, 236
Lesseps, Captain Ismail de, 273

Count Ferdinand de, 273

Lintorn-Simmons, Sir John, 227,

228
Lipton, Sir Thomas, 40, 106
Lockroy, Edouard, 271
Lomas, J. (Prince Imperial's

groom), 221,223, 225
Longman, Thomas, 228
Loubet, Emile, 28
Louis XVI., King, 24
Louis, King of Holland, 311, 312,

313
Lynar, Prince, 174, 175
Lyons, Lord, 230, 236
Lytton, Lady Bulwer, 343

M

MacMahon, Marshal, 23, 26, 60, 78,

97, 182, 237, 367
Malmesbury, Lord, 240
Manning, Cardinal, 54
Mary Christine, Queen of Spain, 105

Princess, 18

Queen, 18, 319

Massa, Marquis de, 270
Masson, Frederic, 312, 313, 369
Mathilde, Princesse, 184, 270
Maugny, Comte de, 370
Maupas, de, 42
Maximilian, King, 268
Mercedes, Queen, 109
Mermillod, Monsignor, 75
Metternich, Princesse Pauline de,

27
Mill, John Stuart, 339
Miramon, Marquis de, 273
Misset, Abbe, 45, 342, 364
Mocquard, 42, 43, 143, 270
Moltke, 26, 61, 97, 168, 186
Montebello, Comte Jean Lannes de,

273
Montgomery, De (family), 244
Montijo, Count Jose de, 358

Comtesse de, 102

Francisca de, 106

Monts, General Count von, 46, 47,

172, 174, 175, 176, 178, 180, 183,

184, 335
Moore, Alf. S., 155
Mora, Comte de, 354, 374, 376, 378

Comtesse de, 342

Morley, Lord, 197, 198

INDEX

383

Momy, Due de. 43, 143, 311
Moskowa, General Prince de la, 175

Princesse de la, 365

Mouchy, Due de, 221, 268

Duchesse de, 21, 27, 113, 196,

316, 364
Prince, 46, 178, 182-220, 260,

286, 364
Murat, Prince Michel, 364
Princesse Anna (see Mouchy,

Duchesse de)

N

Napoleon I., 124, 136, 190, 266,
276, 282, 291, 299, 303, 311

III., 27, 42, 43, 46, 47. 78, 79,

80, 82, III, 125, 135, 139. 143.
144, 172, 174, 175, 182, 183, 184,
185, 186, 190, 193, 194. 195. 197.
198, 200, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233,
234, 235, 238, 255, 256, 261, 265,
276, 280, 282, 285, 287, 296, 306,
311, 312, 313, 316, 322, 340, 345,

355. 370. 378
— — Prince Louis, 241, 242, 244,

327. 329
Victor, 18, 20, 39, 91, 112, 275,

281, 283, 284, 319, 327, 328, 329.

332. 333. 377-378
Princess, 18, 20, 21, 40, 319,

342, 377. 378
Neville, Lady William, 107
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 179
Niel, Marshal, 97
Noailles, Mile Sabine de, 268
Normand, Jacques, 257
Northcote, Sir Stafiord, 199

O

Ollivier, M. Emile, 25, 61, 77, 78,
80, 81, 82, 98, 186, 231, 236, 270,
272
Orange, Prince of, 254
Orleans, Due d', 24, 55, 329
Omano, G. Cuneo d', 277
Oscar, I^ng of Sweden, 268

Pain, Ollivier, 146

Palikao, General de, 26, 61, 78, 79,

80
Paris, Comte de, 22
P6doya, General, 186, 187
Pembroke, Lord, 241, 242
Penaranda, Due de, 19

Pietri, Jean Baptiste Franceschini,

35. 38. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46,

47, 48, 92, 124, 150, 175, 221.

296. 316, 319, 355. 364. 369. 374.

379
Pinard, M. Ernest, 271
Pius IX., Pope, 54
Plummer, John, 336, 337, 338
Poincare, Raymond, 28
Potx, Prince and Due, 268
PoUet, Madame., 266
Poniatowski, Prince Stanislas, 261,

262
Ponsonby, Sir Henry, 194
Porto-Carrero, Jean de, 149
Portsmouth, Lord, 321
Pourtalds, Comtesse Edmond de,

263, 270
PrimoU, Comte, 63
Prince Imperial, the, 18, 24, 35,

44, 49, 50. 51. 56, 57. 61 (his

death), 102, 125, 135, 138, 198,

200, 201, 202, 212-225, 230, 255,

256,259,299, 355
Prince of Wales, 18, 319

Q

Qu6renet, M. Rene, 275, 276, 281,
283

R

Raimbeaux, M., 261, 262

Madame Firmin, 270

Redesdale, Lord, 322

Reinach, Salomon, 266

Renan, Ernest, 265, 266

Renier, Leon, 265

Reuss, Prince Henri de, 297

Ricci, Seymour de, 266

Rivoli, Due de, 270

Robertson, Dr, 223

Rochefort, Henri, 142, 146, 148,

235. 271, 337
Romilly, Lord, 302
Rothschild, Baroness Alphonse de,

270
Rouher, M., 198, 217, 220. 221, 264
Rousset, Lieut.-Col., 333
Rouvier, M., 293
Rudelle, M., 275, 283, 284

Santora, Duque de, 107
Savignac, Frdre, 375

384

INDEX

Scott, Dr, 223
Schaeffer, Mile, 243
Senior, Mr Nassau, 265
Sheppard, Rev. Canon Edgar, 213
Shorter, Clement, 338
Sims, George R., 339, 358
Smith, J. W. Gilbart, 245
SoleiUe, 309

Sophie, Queen of Holland, 254
Spain, Queen of, 32, 104, 105, 273
Stephens, Henry Pottinger, 147
Stofifel, Colonel, 92, 263
Strode, N.W., 334
Sutherland-Gower, Lord Ronald,
107

Tammanus, Marquise de, 319
Teck, Prince Francis, 160
Thierry, Martin, 287

Pierre, 287, 288, 293, 294

Thiers, Adolphe, 27, 77, 78, 79, 84

Thiery, Jean, 291

Toledo, General Ferdinand Alvarez

de, 106
Trelawny, Mrs, 188
Trochu, General, 78, 79, 80, 97, 98
Truffier, Jules, 257, 258
Turenne, Louis de, 220
Tiirr, General, 267

U

Uhlmann, M., 45, 220, 221
Unwin, T. Fisher, 154

Vaillant, Marshal, 290

Vambery, Arminius, 44

Vandam, 234

Vasili, Count Paul, 342

Vaughan, Mrs, 341

Victoria, Princess, 18

Victoria, Queen, 27, 29, 107, 137,

143, 158, 198, 201, 213, 233, 236,

244, 257, 355, 365, 378
Villates, Baronne Ed. de George

des, 371

W

Walewski, Comte, 266
Wallace, Sir Richard, 234
Welschinger, Henri, 87, 88, 89, 235,

237
WilhelmshShe, Chateau of, 173, 174,
William I., King, Emperor of

Germany, 38, 61, 80, 81, 98, 169,

196, 236, 238
William II. (the Kaiser), 228
Winterhalter, 113
Wolff, Sir Henry Drummond, 303,

304. 344
Wood, Sir Evelyn, 259
Wyse-Bonaparte, Princess Adelaide,

267

Young, Filson, 348

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