LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY Mrs. MacKinley Helm 'Ml THE EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON Thk Empress Eugenie. By Carpeaux. This head was soli) in l'aris, with all thk othkr works ok thk cele- BRATED sculptor, in 1914. Thk Empress reluctantly POSED KOR THIS PORTRAIT. CARPEAUX WAS SO VEXED WITH HER FAINT PRAISE OK HIS WORK THAT HE THREW IT INTO A CORNER OK HIS STUDIO, FROM WHICH ONE OF HIS PUPILS RECOVERED IT LONG AFTERWARDS THE EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON BY EDWARD LEGGE AUTHOR OF KING EDWARD IN HI8 TRUE COLOURS * WITH TWENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1916 TRINTED IN GREAT »RITA1N BV THE RIVERSIDE TRESS LIMITED EDINBURGH 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 in 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, 19 n): " 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. 1 The Empress of the French [the title sounds oddly in 1 916] 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 — " l'lmperatrice n'aime que les certitudes et la lumiere." [This is an extract from M. Daudet's "portrait."] Beautiful, witty and wise, just sufficiently capricious still io 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 III., 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 Ollivier, 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 Eugenie 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. ROCHEFORT 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 fAGE 17 22 29 35 38 49 58 63 77 102 in 135 142 149 157 161 172 184 188 14 CONTENTS CHAPTER XX. Lord Granville and the Empress — Lady Cowley visits the Captive Emperor XXI. Our Tribute to the " Little Prince " XXII. "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 ..... 193 200 212 227 241 245 253 259 275 287 295 299 306 311 316 380 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 . „ „ 38 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 . . . „ „ 114 After the portrait by Winterhalter The Empress Eugenie in the grounds of her Villa at Cap Martin . . „ ,, 130 Madame Adelina Patti (now Baroness Rolf Cederstrom) . . . „ „ 254 Madame Sarah Bernhardt in 1867 . „ „ 254 *5 16 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 C AW 260 .1 320 ll 338 )) >) 338 J) )) 346 M )) 346 e 356 »> >) 356 J) )! 364 ») >J 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 18 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, 191 5. 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 XVI. They assembled, as of yore, on the 21st of January 19 15, 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, 18th 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 VII. 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'Attainville and the late m. pletrl on either side) leaving the church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London, after the funeral service for her devoted friend, Mme. de Arcos, November 29, 1913. One of the Empress's rare visits to a London church • A LIFELONG FRIEND 3s 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 ^500 to that lady, ^"iooo to her nephew, Captain Ernest Mallet Vaughan, of the Grenadier Guards; ^1000 to her nephew, Gaptain 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 1, 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 o U < — 555 S z c = < « z as = < X En 5 < > 2 C z z S C/l D ~< S ' £ O, en Z r 2 H Z 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 Ouzel. A dozen members of the Benedictine community assisted, all these wearing the black robes of the order. There 38 The late M. Kranceschini Pietri, who died ai tub Empress Eugenie's residence, Farnhorouc.h Hill, in 1915. I Ik was successively Secretary <>!■' NAPOLEoN III, THE I'RINCE IMPERIAL AND THE Empress. I Ik knkw am. the secrets ok the Second Empire, and was the Empress's conn han't until his heath, a(.k1) 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 correspondence 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 19 16. 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, 19 1 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, 1871, 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 Allemagne." 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 deepest affection; a deferential os 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 everything 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 and 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 \j\yi£w his father reposed, and to which(jJalone accompanied •3 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 and 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 moHel 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 Hisplay 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 maconniques " 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 Illustre. Par Augustin Filon. Paris : Hachette et Cie. Price aof. 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 60 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. 3 ' Concealing her face with her hands, the wife and mother wept as the train disappeared. In a postscript to a letter written 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 Empress Eugenie in her "Doc'* carriage. The Prince Imperial on his pony, "Bout<>n d'Or." Prince Murat in uniform The Emperor Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial in the "Due" carriage M. FILON'S "LIFE" 61 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 III. 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 English 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 III. 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 I. 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, January, 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 Cardinal's " beloved Cousin, the Prince Imperial." Rome, July 29, 1873. Monsieur l'Abbe, — 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 l'Abbe, knowing how happy it will make you. I have not failed to execute your commission concerning my aunt, a religious of the Sacre Cceur, 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 l'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'Abbe, — 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 l'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 l'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'Abbe, — 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 l'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'Abbe, — 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 18, 1877. Monsieur l'Abbe, — 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 l'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 beloveb 1 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 1st, 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 be 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 Chislehurst* 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 Emile 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 s o HHI JM ■rfafcJr *** Ik "r** - ^ i t. — ■ — *v: .. **^T 5 x o ^ ? 55 • Z b. < g - s < H , * " 55 - ~ - - 55 o M 5 2 * £ * £ W 5 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 1 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 80 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 Ollivier'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 Ollivier'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 81 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 Hohenzollern [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 Zeitschrift," 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 l'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. f 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. l %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 Ollivier 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 ! And 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 : 1 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. 11 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). f 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 energumenes [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 Hohenzollern 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 III. 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. (18 12) ancl Nicholas I. (182 8- 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 1, 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 Bceuf '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 Bceuf 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 Bceuf 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 Bceuf 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 Bceuf 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 Bceuf'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 Bceuf 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 Bceuf, as the " cceur leger " 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 Bceuf 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 Bceuf, 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 cceur 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 naivete, 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 ch&let of St Gervais where he spent his summers. It is a rustic chalet, 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, ioo 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 * Ren£ Doumic (de l'Acad^mie Francaise), in the " Gaulois," August, 1913. EMPEROR, EMPRESS & LAST PREMIER 101 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 cceur 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 191 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 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. io 4 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 106 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 108 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 10th 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 III., 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 in ii2 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. ii 4 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, Rtesener and Lefevre. At the entrance the " official " bust of Napoleon I. faces that of Napoleon III. 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 The Empress Eugenie After the portrait by Winterhaltet 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 hacl 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 n6 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. 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 a 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. lTmperatrice Eugenie, veuve de S. M. Napoleon III., Empereur des Francois." 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- n8 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 120 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 dead, 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 i2 4 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 1914 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 1st 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 francais." 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. i 3 o 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, (io 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 The Km press Eugenie in the grounds ok hkr villa 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. 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 suffices, 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 a reviewof my "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 i 3 6 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 " Annexe 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 ancl 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 Fer," 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 chceur 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 i 4 o 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 lived — 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 10, 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. H4 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 Regente. 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 M. 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 (^400), 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 II. 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 Sefiora Dona Eugenie de Guzman y Portocarrero, Actual Emperatriz de los Franceses. 149 150 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON El Ayuntamiento de Granada Al Colocar esta Lapida se honra con Al recuerdo de so noble compatricia Afio 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 Kirkpatrick-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. Pietri, 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 2j 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 Montijo, 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 III., 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 l'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 fount! 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 i57 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 19 1 4 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 VII. 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 160 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 10, 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 i62 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 indemnity 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 * ^80,000,000. The money indemnity alone ultimately exacted was five milliards of francs, or ^200,000,000. 164 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; 166 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 l'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 168 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 250,000 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 170 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 1 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. 5 * 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 (1871), 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, f 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 Captivity de Napoleon III. en Allemagne." Souvenirs traduits de l'Allemand par Paul-Bruck Gilbert et Paul Levy. Preface par Jules Claretie, de l'Acaddmie Francaise. 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 f once) ; 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 'LTnde- 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 ! ' f 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. 180 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 sufficiently 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 181 " 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 182 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 Lebceuf. 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, couvert 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 Francais 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 * " Memoires du Prince Clovis de Hohenlohe " (Tome 8). Paris : Louis Conard, 1909. t " La Captivite de Napoleon III. en Allemagne." Souvenirs traduits de 1'Allemand par Paul-Bruck Gilbert et Paul Levy. Preface par Jules Claretie, de l'Academie Francaise. Paris : Pierre Lafitte et Cie, 191 1. 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 feerie, Napoleon III., 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. 1 86 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 III. 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 III.) 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 — (1) 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 XVIII. 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, 181 5, 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 i 9 o 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 20,000), 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 III. 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 and *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 emu 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 ,s 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 was' 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 III. 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 — July, 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 l'Empereur ! " " Vive Napoleon Quatre ! " 30 Q 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 16th day of March, 1856? His childhood was the ordinary childhood of princes; in his case there was, 204 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, 206 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 hadgoneout 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 Chelmsford- 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 208 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. 210 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 2§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 25th, 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. 2i 4 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 1st 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 Ve>it6 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." 216 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 distinguished 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, 218 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 coffin-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 1 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 1 the coffin it was found that the operation of embalming 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'HeVisson, 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 proces-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 Duperr6, 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 l'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 1 'identity 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, General Fleury, the Due de Mouchy, M. Pietri, Dr Corvisart and the other legataires. The coffin is opened, despite the rumoured opposition of the Empress. The constatation de l'identite 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 attends (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 16, 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 inter^ts." 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 tegistes, who make a speciality 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. 2 3 o 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 desperation, 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 Ollivier 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 l'Apogee et la Declin " *) that it was proposed, at one of the meetings of the Academie, 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 Academie 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 Affairs 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 l'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 Ollendorf. 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- zollern 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 Lebceuf, 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. Nelaton, 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 — 1910." 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 documented, in " Le Corre- spondent " (October, 1908), M. Henri Welschinger, of the Academie 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 Jer6me David, Clement 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 pierre, 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 Hohenzollern 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 a 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. 2 4 o 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 created 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 ^"2800 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 ,£1000." 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 ,£25,000. 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 II. 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, T report. 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 l'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, anb 1 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, clesolate, 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, anB 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." in 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, suffer on ! God shall restore tenfold on this great day." W. M. Hardinge. POETS' TRIBUTES 251 To the Memory of Napoleon III. The Briinig 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 and mignonette, And snows where day went flushing up the steep. The Tuileries And now this portraiture : — the pride, — the 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 ! 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 , 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 Francois 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 Tuileries 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 £■ - - ?! - s c - - a X ~ < Z ft, P. s S < z z £ S oh ~ __- r ^ •* 3 «£ < p z H a: Ed < > - < Z X — < a < X — C-H < r. ii si y. - X M H £ — ~ a: 5« 2: H H s x a X £ H a « ^ H i r* y. ■ — ■ sU / < *00 d 0. < r- . — . < < a: < , , £ ■y. ft. — ^ O Z s 2 <-M < HH 0: r "* U a: ,"". r 5S a 2 < — - r< _i ^ " y •r. X r r< — ^ 5, < — si •< a. f\ -'• — <^ 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 l'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 Franchise. 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 14, 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 societaire of the Theatre Francais. 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 259 260 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, n£e Somow), and wedded, in 1899, the sister of the Due cTElchingen (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 ol 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 55 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 l'Empereur ! " were heard in front of the Church of St Augustin, an edifice largely due to the liberality of Napoleon III. 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'fitat 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 frienHship with the Emperor. The late Mr Nassan 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, ancl 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. In 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 1 5, 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 1, 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 l'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 Ollivier (whose career is detailed in another chapter), and the Comtesse Edmond de Pourtales (19 14). 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, 19 14, 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, 19 15, 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, 19 15, Captain Ismail de Lesseps, 3rd Chasseurs de l'Afrique, 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 Francais," 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 275 276 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 : (1) By applying the principles of the French Revolution the Bona- partes owed their possession of power to the people only (Plebiscites of the Year VIII., of the Year IX., of the Hundred Years, of the 10th 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 2 8o 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 Portales 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-Etat, 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 1 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 scandals 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 III. 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 Ollivier'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 III. 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 ioth 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 1, 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 1, 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 1st, 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 1st 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 volonte. 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 1st, 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 1854-1855, 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 1' Industrie, 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. 2 9 o 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 Lebceuf 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 plaintiff's " 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 (,£2,381,960)? 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 haH no right to take possession of the monies and use them as against the wishes of legitimate owners." On the 1 6th 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 decide 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 anQl 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 Loue par ceux-ci, bl&me par ceux-la, me moquant des sots, bravant les mechants, 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 2 95 296 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. Eugdnie, 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 Eugdnie 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 Venddme. 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 Me>im6e offered his testimony, years after, they called him Eugenie's lover. . . . M6rim6e 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£rim6e? " laughed De Persigny. " Merimee 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 Eugenie 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, 1813 [a space for the date of the death was 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, 191 5, 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 high in the confidence of the Emperor Napoleon III., and I believe was one of the guardians * " Rambling Recollections." Two vols. Macmillan & Co. Limited. 1908. 3o 4 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 III. 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 III. 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 Lebceuf. " Pardon," I said, " Monsieur le Mare- 306 BAZAINE, LEBCEUF, 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 308 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 - . Lebceuf? 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 III. 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 held 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 shrugged 310 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 *" M^moires in^dits sur Napoleon III." Par le Baron d'Ambes. Recueillis et annotes par Charles Simond et M. C. Poinsot. Paris : Societe des publications litteraires illustrees. (An English edition has appeared.) 3* 1 3 i2 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 III. (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 ficole de Medecine (Paris) and discussed the question with Corvisart. * When M. Frederic Masson, of the Academie Francaise, speaks, we listen respectfully. He has spoken on the question of the paternity of Napoleon III., 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 III.), 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 10th 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 1st 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, 19 10. 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 I. 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 Je>6me 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 1801. 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, 1909, published an article giving Sardou's "confidences" to Dr Cabanes 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 ecloses, De toute la beaute des grands lis et des roses. Votre odeur s'exaspere dans 1 'ombre et dans le soir, Violettes, 6 fleurs douces au desespoir, 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. 19 1 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." 19 1 4. — The Empress arrived at Cap Martin in the third week of February, and in March entertained 318 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 21st 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. 1915. — 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 Cceli, and a few others. This year, by exception, the Empress was in England on the 1st 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, 19 15, 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, 191 5), 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 Ollivier, in his final volume of his great work, " L'Empire Liberal," of the Empress Thk Empress Eugenie in 1915, consoling oNe of the woiwdbd officers staying in the sanatorium established by her imperial Majesty at her residence, Faknborough Hill EMPRESS, HER SON AND FAMILY 321 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, 1912, 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. 1 This is terrible news,' he said. ' Yes,' I answered, 1 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 Francaise. 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 1914 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 Wurttemberg. 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, 19 15, 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 33o 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, 191 2) 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'etat 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 333 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 Attache 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, 1912), 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, 191 2, 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 337 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, tne nr st 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. i < ?- 5 < D O ; a-/ •/: J- -> —' y. r < - y'. tfl C a! 2 >7 U D "^ « H < > W 09 Z > o H :/: Z 2 as 5 Z 3 E SL, 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 Fun£. 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 Saarbrucken 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 (Saarbrucken), 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 16th, 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 191 3, 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 All-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 Academie Francaise. 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 37o 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 pretty ! ' 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. 1914. 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-Weimab, 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. 372 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 373 the necks of the birds and put them, feet upwards, under a crust." The same journal, September 10, 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, 1913, 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 (1915-1916) 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 9th 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, 1916, 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 18th 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, 1916) 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 1, 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 377 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, 19 1 6, 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 Ouzel; 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 we 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, I5 8 > 159. 269 Alfonso XII. of Spain, 102, 109 Alfonso XIII., King, 19, 102, 104, 269, 273 Amadeus, King, 104 Ambes, 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. 33°. 332 Arcos, Christine Vaughan de, 29, 33, 34, 41, 114 Arcos, Don Domingo de, 29 Attainville, Madame d', 375, 378 Aubert, Francis, 76 Augusta, Queen, 177 Austria, Emperor of, 27, 274 Avignon, Archbishop of, 75 15 Balliere, 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, in Bazaine, Marshal, 25, 96, 97, 164, 169, 182, 186, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310 Bazaine-Hayter, General, 25 Beaconsfield, Lord, 323 Beauharnais, Marquis Francois de, 3 J 3 Benedetti, Count, 80, 81, 83, 98 Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258 Bernstorff, 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, Francois, 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. 3°2, 3°3 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 Broglie, 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 Cambacerds, 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 38i Carey, Lieutenant, 214 Carlyle, Thomas, 23 Carpeaux, M., 369 Cassagnac, Granier de, 82, 236 Castelnau, General, 175, 177, 178, 182, 346 Castle- Vecchio, Francois 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 Coeli, Duchess de Medina, 319 Conegliano, Due de, 44, 270 Duchesse de, 27, 272 Connaught, Duke of, 27 Conneau, Dr, 222 Conti, M., 42, 264 Cornu, 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, Jerome, 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 Espabes, M. d', 346 Espeuilles, General de Viel d', 271 Evans, Thomas W., 217, 220, 221, 229, 321, 335, 336 Fallieres, Armand, 8 Fane, Rt. Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby, 340 Fardet, Antoine, 272 Fauconniere, Dugue de la, 236 Faure-Biguet, Charles, 369 Favre, Jules, 79, 84 Febvre, Frederic, 257, 258, 324 Fete Nationale, 22 Feuillant, 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, General, 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, 3*9 Gillois, Madame, 347 Gladstone, 157, 197, 198, 253, 304 Glenesk, Lord, 161, 267 Goddard, Monsignor, 45, 46, 49, 62, 63, 64, 65, 76, in, 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 Jarras, 309 Jerrold, Blanchard, 228, 229, 230, 265 Joffre, General, 97 Josephine, Empress, 124, 130, 313, 3H Jourde, M., 146 K Kirkpatrick family, the, 151, 152, 153. 154. 155. 156 Knollys, Lord, 158 Knollys, Miss Charlotte, 158 Laferriere, Comte de, 254 Lamtte, 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, 3°6, 3°9 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, All. S., 155 Mora, Comte de, 354, 374, 376, 378 Comtesse de, 342 Morley, Lord, 197, 198 INDEX 383 Morny, 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, in, 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. 37°. 37 8 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- 37 8 Neville, Lady William, 107 Nicholas, Grand Duke, 179 Niel, Marshal, 97 Noailles, Mile Sabine de, 268 Normand, Jacques, 257 Northcote, Sir Stafford, 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 Ornano, G. Cuneo d', 277 Oscar, King of Sweden, 268 Pain, Ollivier, 146 Palikao, General de, 26, 61, 78, 79, 80 Paris, Comte de, 22 Pedoya, 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 Poix, Prince and Due, 268 Pollet, Madame., 266 Poniatowski, Prince Stanislas, 261, 262 Ponsonby, Sir Henry, 194 Porto-Carrero, Jean de, 149 Portsmouth, Lord, 321 Pourtales, Comtesse Edmond de, 263, 270 Primoli, Comte, 63 Prince Imperial, the, 18, 24, 35, 44. 49. 5°. 5 1 - 56, 57. 6l (his death), 102, 125, 135, 138, 198, 200, 201, 202, 212-225, 2 3°> 255, 256, 259, 299, 355 Prince of Wales, 18, 319 Q Querenet, 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, Frere, 375 3^4 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 Soleille, 309 Sophie, Queen of Holland, 254 Spain, Queen of, 32, 104, 105, 273 Stephens, Henry Pottinger, 147 Stoffel, 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 Trufner, Jules, 257, 258 Turenne, Louis de, 220 Turr, 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 Wilhelmsh5he, 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, 3°4. 344 Wood, Sir Evelyn, 259 Wyse-Bonaparte, Princess Adelaide, 267 Young, Filson, 348 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. 10m-12,*67(H6886s8)9482 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 000 172 968