CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 OF 
 
 STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 
 1943 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DC 280.4. VS6 1912 
 
 Court of the Tuileries 1852-1B70 
 
 3 1924 028 283 186 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028283186 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS UPON 
 
 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 '* We welcome the publication of ' The Court of the Tuileries.' It appears to a hardened reviewer of 
 such volumes to be by far the best which has appeared upon the Second Empire. On the whole, the 
 writer is so accurate and so well informed that this book makes serious claim to be treated as history. . . . 
 The reviewer is glad to confess how soon he began to read with interest and even with delight. ... It 
 undoubtedly contains almost the first accurate collected statement on many of the most important inter- 
 national events of the period between 1852 and 1870." — AthencEutn. 
 
 " A most interesting book. . . . The author always writes pleasantly and clearly, and he can tell his 
 fund of stories without unnecessary flourishes." — Daily News. 
 
 " The book gives a really excellent picture of the Court of Napoleon III, its personages, Its morals* 
 and its manners. ... It contains much new information, and will be, for many years to come, a book of 
 reference for historians of the Second Empire." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 *' If it be true that * The Little Red Man * is really what the sound of his name implies, it is equally 
 true that he will very soon be the largely-read man. * The Court of the Tuileries * is an unusually well- 
 written and interesting book." — Taller. 
 
 *'The author of these memoirs has something far better to offer than tittle-tattle. He is able to give 
 an intimate picture of the Court and the social life of the glittering Second Empire. Whoever ' Le Petit 
 Homme Rouge ' m ay be, he has made an extremely valuable contribution to the history of the astonishing 
 ' last phase * of Napoleonic Imperial legend." — World. 
 
 " ' The Little Red Man ' is the revealer of secrets, the teller of all manner of things true and 
 traditional, and, therefore, always entertaining. , . , He has gathered together an extraordinary 
 miscelbny of personal gossip." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Demy 8vo, cloth, p. 6d. net each. 
 
 THE FAVOURITES OF HENRY OF NAVARRE 
 
 With 6 Portraits. 
 
 *' This is certainly real and responsible history, and the book is necessary to all who study the 
 personal side of French Court life." — Morning Leader. 
 
 " The ingenious author of the present work has a happy gift for sparkling and comparatively inoffensive 
 narrative. Nor is he exclusively an historian of amours. . . . He contrives to let the echoes of the great 
 world outside force themselves through the casement windows, where his lovers are lingering in secret 
 dalliance. . . . The lover of a good story may salve his conscience, as he reads of ' The Favourites of 
 Henry of Navarre,' with the well-founded excuse that he is at the same time increasing his general 
 acquaintance with the political and social history of Fraxic^."— Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "The author possesses a special talent for writing about the lively French Court circles. . . . Into 
 this single volume there is gathered much of the information hitherto scattered in many not very accessible 
 books,"— i?iM'^ Graphic. 
 
 ** The author's clear, pointed, and easy style carries the long and intricate story so lightly that we 
 read and follow with delight. He corrects some popular errors, and his footnotes refer the student to the 
 latest authorities on the period." — Outlook. 
 
 THE FAVOURITES OF LOUIS XIV 
 
 With 4 Portraits. 
 
 In this book Le Petit Homme Rouge continues the story of the women who helped to make French 
 History in the days of the Old Regime. An introductory chapter, treating of the feminine influence 
 exercised in the reign of Louis XIII, is followed by the story of the Grand Monarque's numerous love 
 affairs, beginning with his youthful passion for Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini. Then come the successive 
 royal mistresses — the candid Louise de la Valli&re ; the proud and beautiful Mme. de Montespan, whom 
 he believes to have beenless depraved than she is usually represented ; and the narrow-minded yet sincerely 
 religious Mme. de Maintenon, who became her royal lover's wife. The King's passing entanglements 
 with other fair women are also dealt with. Altogether, the work will throughout be found to cast vivid 
 side-lights upon the history of the time. 
 
 LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS 
 
iriiUcrhaUo pn 
 
 THE EMPRESS EUGENIE. 
 
THE COURT OF THE 
 TUILERIES 
 
 1852-187O 
 
 ITS ORGANIZATION, CHIEF PERSONAGES, 
 SPLENDOUR, FRIVOLITY, AND DOWNFALL 
 
 BY 
 
 LE PETIT HOMME ROUGE 
 
 
 VV' 
 
 A NEW IMPRESSION, WITH A FRONTISPIECE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS 
 1912 
 
/\liii^:b 
 
 ' Du coin d'oi le soir je ne bouge 
 J'ai vu le Petit Homme Rouge . . 
 Sa voix rauque en chantant pr&age 
 Au Chateau grand remii-m^nage. " 
 
 Berangss 
 
 All r^hU ratrvid 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Nearly every royal palace of any antiquity has its ghost. 
 Hampton Court has three — those of Katherine Howard, Jane 
 Seymour, and Mrs, Penn (nurse of Edward VI.). The old Schloss 
 of Berlin is haunted by the White Lady, Agnes of Orlamiinde, 
 who was buried alive in its vaults, and whose appearance always 
 forebodes death to some member of the Prussian Royal House. 
 Further, a spectral Capuchin, connected perhaps with the 
 monastery where the Hapsburgs have so long been buried, 
 is said to flit at times along the corridors of the Imperial 
 Hofburg at Vienna. In France the Palace of the Tuileries 
 was likewise haunted by a familiar spirit, The Liitle 
 Red Man, who, although he mostly remained unseen and 
 unheard while he prowled through the splendid chambers, 
 considerately revealed his presence every now and again in 
 order to foretell some great change or disaster. Occasionally, 
 when there was nobody of any consequence at the Tuileries, the 
 Little Red Man went roving. He followed the ruler ^f the 
 time to other palaces and places. He once journeyed as far as 
 Egypt to advise General Bonaparte to return to France. He 
 also visited the clifFs of Boulogne to foretell the failure of the 
 projected invasion of England ; and, again, in the last years of 
 the First Empire, he showed himself both at Fontainebleau and 
 at Waterloo. Madame Lenormand, the so-called Sibyl of the 
 early years of the nineteenth century, who is said to have 
 predicted to Josephine Beauharnais that she would some day 
 be Empress of the French, wrote an imaginative book on the 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 subject of the Little Red Man, in which she blundered sadly 
 by asserting that he was the " good genius " of Napoleon, 
 whereas he was at the most merely his " candid friend." 
 Beranger, whom the Red Man favoured with a visit about 
 the time when the restored French Monarchy was collapsing, 
 was better inspired when he composed a ballad warning King 
 Charles X. of impending calamity. 
 
 The years passed, and still the Little Red Man haunted the 
 Tuileries, seeing and hearing many strange things as he flitted, 
 invisible, from room to room, as well as giving due notice, by 
 occasional appearances, of some startling changes of regime. 
 He saw the Orleans Monarchy collapse, the ensuing Republic 
 expire, the Second Empire swept away by foreign invasion 
 and national wrath. But, at last, the day came when the 
 Tuileries itself perished, annihilated by incendiaries. Of course 
 the Little Red Man had known what would happen, and had 
 already decided to transfer his quarters to the Elysee Palace, 
 which is still his address for national business purposes. But 
 during the last five-and-thirty years he has led a less active life 
 than formerly. True, he found it necessary to warn Marshal 
 MacMahon that he would have to give in or go out, and 
 President Grevy that no good would come of a certain great 
 decorations scandal. He had to appear, too, at the time when 
 Le brave General Boulanger threatened the Republic ; he paid 
 a flying visit to Lyons when President Carnot was unhappily 
 assassinated ; and at the critical period of the great Dreyfus 
 case, he gave a private warning to President Faure, who was 
 shocked to such a degree by so unexpected an apparition that 
 he was seized with a fit which unfortunately proved fatal. 
 
 Of more recent times the Little Red Man has enjoyed plenty 
 of leisure. He is occasionally inclined to think that his 
 occupation, like Othello's, may be gone, that his warnings may 
 never again be required. To occupy the time which hangs 
 somewhat heavily on his hands he meditates on the past; 
 he recalls, somewhat regretfully, his snug old home at the 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 Tuileries, and it is not surprising, perhaps, that it should 
 have occurred to him to pen a record of the last years which he 
 spent there — the chequered years of the Second Empire. The 
 Little Red Man does not claim to have witnessed personally 
 everything which then occurred (he was never ubiquitous), 
 but during his years of leisure he has cultivated a taste for 
 reading, and, naturally enough, he has peeped into virtually 
 everything that has been written about his old surroundings. 
 He has come upon no little absui'dity, no small crop of errors, 
 garnered by outsiders, but he has also noted many interesting 
 facts emanating from Court gentlemen and ladies whom 
 he well remembers, though, as he himself usually remained 
 invisible, they were not aware of his presence beside them. 
 Briefly, piecing together his own personal recollections and 
 those of the more reliable men and women of the time, and 
 adding thereto a number of little-known facts and documents, 
 and sketches of the notable people whom he once knew, he has 
 written a book on the Tuileries Court as it was during the last 
 years of his residence at the Palace. He has described the 
 Court's organization, manners, and customs ; he has endeavoured 
 to depict both its magnificence and its darker side; he has 
 dealt, neither too harshly nor too indulgently, he hopes, with 
 its frivolities ; he has not forgotten to include some account of 
 its sojourns at such places as Compiegne, Fontainebleau, and 
 St. Cloud ; and he has made a few excursions into the realm 
 of politics in order that certain incidents may be the better 
 understood. He here offers the result of his labours to the 
 courteous critic and the indulgent reader; and as on most 
 occasions his appearance in propria persona is, unfortunately, 
 a foreboding of trouble, he sincerely trusts that he will never 
 have reason to visit them otherwise than in this present guise 
 of print and paper. 
 
 Paris, 1907. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY ... ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 II. MEN OF THE COUP D'eTAT — THE NEW COURT ... 23 
 
 III. THE IMPERIAL MAP.RIAGE — THE EMPRESS AND HER HOUSE- 
 
 HOLD ... ... ... ... ... ... 56 
 
 IV, QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS — BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 77 
 
 V. CONSPIRACIES — THB TUILBRIE8 POLICE— A CRIMINAL CENT- 
 GARDE ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 
 
 VI. THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET ... ... 129 
 
 VII. THE empress: SOME FEATURES OP HER LIFE ... ... 168 
 
 VIII. THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVB AFFAIRS ... ... 178 
 
 IX. THE IMPERIAL FAMILY ... ... ... ... 209 
 
 X. BANQUETS, BALLS, AND OTHER COURT FESTIVITIES — THE 
 
 GREAT YEAR 1867 ... ... ... ... 245 
 
 XI. THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE — SOME STATESMEN AND 
 
 DIPLOMATISTS ... ... ... ... ... 275 
 
 XII. THE IMPERIAi STABLES — FEMININE FASHIONS — SOME FEA- 
 TURES OF PARIS LIFE ... ... ... ... 300 
 
 XIII. THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT — THE EMPEROR'S ILLNESS 
 
 — CHALONS — THE MARSHALS — THE HUNT ... ... 327 
 
 XIV. THE IMPERIAL PRINCE — LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE — WAR 
 
 AND REVOLUTION — FATE OF THE TU1LERIE3 ... 376 
 
 INDEX ... ... ■■■ .- ... ... 415 
 
SOME EVENTS IN THE LIFE AND TIME OF 
 NAPOLEON III. 
 
 1808. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte born, April 20, in Paris. 
 1815. He aooompanies his mother into exile. 
 
 1830. Bevolution in France. Louis-Philippe King of the French. 
 
 1831. Louis Napoleon visits Paris and joins the Swiss artillery. 
 
 1836. He attempts to provoke sedition at Strasburg and is shipped to America. 
 
 1887. He returns to Europe and loses his mother. 
 
 1838. He takes up his residence in London (October). 
 
 1840. He attempts to proclaim the Empire at Boulogne, and is tried and 
 imprisoned at Ham. 
 
 1846. He escapes and returns to London. 
 
 1848. Louis-Philippe being overthrown, he returns to France, is elected in 
 June a member of the Assembly, and in December President of the 
 Republic. 
 
 1851. He effects his Coup d'Etat (December 2-6), which is ratified by a 
 
 Plebisoitum appointing him President for 10 years. 
 
 1852. A fresh Flebiscitum ratifies the proposed re-establishment of the 
 
 Empire, which is proclaimed on December 2. 
 
 1853. Napoleon III. and Eugenie de Montijo are married on January 29 
 
 and 30. 
 
 1854. The Crimean War declared. 
 
 1855. Visits of Napoleon and the Empress to England, and of Queen Victoria 
 
 to Paris. The Emperor's life attempted by Pianori. First Paris 
 Universal Exhibition. Fall of Sebastopol in September. 
 
 1856. The Prince Imperial bom on March 16. The Treaty of Paris signed. 
 
 1857. General Elections in Franco. Imperial visit to Osborne. Napoleon's 
 
 intrigue with Mme. de Castiglione. Tibaldi's plot. Indian Mutiny. 
 
 1858. The Orsini assassination plot. Law of Public Safety and stem rule in 
 
 France. Queen Victoria at Cherbourg. 
 
 1859. War in Italy from May to July (Magenta, Solferino, etc). The Empress 
 
 Eugenie's first Regency. 
 
xii CHRONOLOGICAL LIST 
 
 1860. Savoy and Nice annexed to France. Franco-British Commercial Treaty. 
 
 Garibaldi frees Sicily and Naples. The Empress Eug6nie visits 
 Scotland. The Emperor makes parliamentary concessions. Advent 
 of the " Liberal Empire." 
 
 1861, The King of Prussia visits Compiigne. International intervention in 
 
 Mexico. The English and French allied in China. The American 
 Civil War begins. The Kingdom of Italy founded. Death of the 
 Prince Consort. 
 
 1862. The French land in Mexico. Reduction of French rentes by Fould. 
 
 The Schleswig-Holstein trouble begins. 
 
 1863, Maximilian accepts the Mexican crown. The great Polish insurrection 
 
 begins. Napoleon's proposal for a Congress on Italian, Polish, 
 Danish, and Balkan affairs, rejected by Great Britain. Death of 
 BUlault, his chief minister. First symptoms of his illness. The 
 Greco plot. 
 
 1864. The Schleswig-Holstein War. Napoleon's affair with Mile. Bellanger. 
 
 Death of his secretary Mocquard. Convention with Italy to quit 
 Eome in two years. The Emperor ill in Switzerland. 
 
 1865. Death of M. de Momy. Napoleon ill at Chalons. He visits Algeria. 
 
 The Empress's second Regency. End of the American Civil War. 
 
 1866, War between Prussia (allied with Italy) and Austria. Koniggratz is 
 
 fought on July i. Napoleon very ill. The French begin to 
 withdraw from Mexico. 
 
 1867. The Constitution is modified by Napoleon. Rouher, " Vice-Emperor." 
 
 Neutralization of Luxemburg. Second great Paris Exhibition, 
 Royalties in Paris. Maximilian is shot on June 19. Failly defeats 
 Garibaldi at Mentana. French conquests and protectorates in Cochin 
 China. Napoleon has to abandon treatment at Vichy. 
 
 1868. Rochefort produces La Lanterne. Unrest in Paris and other cities. 
 
 Death of Count Walewski. Overthrow of Isabella of Spain. 
 
 1869, French general elections. Many Republican and Orleanist successes. 
 
 Resignation of Rouher and others, he becoming President of the 
 Senate. The Constitution again modified. Napoleon extremely ill, 
 
 1870, Parliamentary rule with Emile OUivier's ministry. Victor Noir shot by 
 
 Pierre Bonaparte. New Constitution and Plebiscitum. The Beaury 
 plot. Consultation respecting the Emperor's health. The Franco- 
 German War begins (July). The Empress's third Regency. Napoleon 
 surrenders at Sedan on September 1, and on the 4th the Empire is 
 overthrown in Paris. 
 
 1871, Napoleon arrives in England in March. 
 1873, He dies at Chislehurst on January 9. 
 
 1879, The Imperial Prince killed in South Africa on June 1, 
 
THE 
 
 COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 A glance at the History o£ the Tuileties— Louis Napoleon, Prince President 
 and Emperor of the French— The Solemn Proclamation o£ the Second 
 Empire — The Restoration of the Tuileries. 
 
 Thirty-six years ago, during that Bloody Week in May, 1871 , 
 when, with the fury of despair, the Commune of Paris liattled 
 vainly against the army of Versailles, the chief metropolitan 
 palace of the rulers of France was destroyed by fire. Archi- 
 tecturally inferior to the Louvre, though some of its apartments 
 were masterpieces of decoration, it was a massive but not par- 
 ticularly imposing pile. It laid no claim to antiquity. The 
 site on which it stood was, in the twelfth century, outside Paris, 
 and given over to brick and tile works, whence the name of 
 Tuileries was derived. About 1342 a couple of pleasure-houses 
 were built on the spot, and a hundred and sixty years later 
 these properties were acquired by Louise of Savoy, mother of 
 Francis I., who during her regency in 1525 gave them " for 
 life" to Jean Tiercelin, master of the Dauphin's household. 
 They subsequently reverted to the crown, and in 1564 Catherine 
 de' Medici ordered the demolition of the old houses, to make 
 room for a new royal palace by which she intended to replace 
 that of Les Tournelles, which, in conjunction with her son, 
 Francis II., she superstitiously destroyed because her husband. 
 
2 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Henri H., had died there from the effects of the lance-thrust he 
 received in a joust with Montgomery. 
 
 The original design for the palace of the Tuileries was pre- 
 pared by the famous Philibert Delorme, and the building was 
 entrusted to him and another notable man, Bullant, conjointly. 
 But all at once Catherine stopped the work, and devoted herself 
 to erecting near the markets a mansion which became known as 
 the Hotel de Soissons, and in the court or grounds of which 
 was raised the well-known column whence the Queen and her 
 astrologers made their astronomical observations. There is 
 a legendary story of the reason why Catherine abandoned the 
 building of the Tuileries. It was predicted to her, it is said, 
 that she would die at "Saint Germain," and on finding that 
 the site of the new palace was in the parish of St. Germain- 
 TAuxerrois, she fled from it in dread. The tale is, of course, 
 similar to that of Henry VII. of England and Jerusalem, and 
 may well be purely imaginary, although it is in keeping with 
 what we know of Catherine's superstitious nature. One thing 
 is certain, the palace of the Tuileries was always an " unlucky " 
 one. None of the princes born within its walls ever ascended 
 the throne of France. The King of Rome, the first 
 Napoleon's son, the Duke de Bordeaux,* the heir of the House 
 of Bourbon, the Count de Paris, the hope of the Orleans 
 dynasty, the Imperial Prince born to the Second Empire — all 
 these first saw the light at the Tuileries. And none of them 
 reigned; all found death abroad, exiled from France. Those 
 who are given to superstition might think that Catherine de' 
 Medici with her Italian necromancy, and her legendary pro- 
 pensity for ill-doing, had cast some spell over the palace which 
 she left unfinished. Certainly none ever had a better claim to 
 the name of Palazzo della Jettatura, 
 
 Even as a building the Tuileries was unfortunate. Had it 
 been built on the lines laid down by Philibert Delorme, it would 
 have been magnificent, but the plans were modified again and 
 again by successive generations of rulers and architects. Few 
 kings ever resided there. The Louvre was the abode of the last 
 Valois and the first Bourbons. It is true that in 1572 — the 
 year of St. Bartholomew — Charles IX. gave Lord Lincoln 
 • Better remembered, perhaps, by his later title of Count de Chambord, 
 
INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 Queen Elizabeth's ambassador, a grand supper in his mother's 
 unfinished palace, that being apparently the first court enter- 
 tainment associated with the history of the Tuileries ; but the 
 fragmentary piles raised by Delorme and Bullant were treated 
 with great neglect until Henri IV. thought of uniting the 
 Tuileries to the Louvre. He entrusted the work first to 
 Androuet du Cerceau, later to others, but his death stopped 
 it, and it was not resumed until the reign of Louis XIV. 
 
 That prince, during his lengthy minority, lived chiefly at 
 the Palais Royal, having St. Germain-en-Laye as his country 
 residence, and the Tuileries became the abode of Mile, de 
 Montpensier, " la grande Mademoiselle," and later of the first 
 Philip of Orleans. But before Louis gave rein to his passion 
 for Versailles, he spent some years at the Tuileries, and entrusted 
 to architect Levau the completion both of that palace and of 
 the Louvre. Levau destroyed nearly everything which then 
 remained of the work of the original builders. The interior 
 decorations by Bunel and Paul Ponce were also obliterated or 
 removed, and Mignard, Philippe de Champagne, and others 
 supplied innumerable allegories symbolical of the glory of their 
 young but already great monarch. Further, the Place du 
 Carrousel took its name from some superb jousts which were 
 held there by command of King Louis, and at which three 
 queens * distributed the prizes allotted for dexterity. A little 
 earlier, in Mile, de Montpensier's time, the great paved square 
 had been a delightful garden with superb basins of pink 
 marble, some fragments of which were discovered about fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 The private apartments of Louis XIV. were on the ground 
 floor, and were profusely decorated by Mignard, the best of 
 whose paintings was perhaps that which adorned the alcove 
 where the King slept. It represented the Goddess of Night, 
 crowned with poppies, and carrying two sleeping children in 
 her arms. In the King's cabinet, either in his time or a little 
 later, was placed a large picture which portrayed him present- 
 ing his grandson, the Duke of Anjou, to the Spanish envoys, 
 and saying, " Gentlemen, here is your King," on which occasion, 
 
 • Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XTV., Anne of Austria, his mother, and 
 Henrietta Maria, his aunt and widow of Charles I, of Great Britain. 
 
4 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 according to the story, the chief Spanish ambassador exclaimed, 
 " Sire, there are no more Pyrenees." In any case it seems that it 
 was at the Tuileries, and not at Versailles, that the first Bourbon 
 King of Spain was presented to the representatives of his future 
 subjects. That, in the eyes of the superstitious, may account 
 for all the unhappy vicissitudes of the Spanish Bourbons. Ever 
 fatal was the palace of the Tuileries. 
 
 Its principal inmate after Louis XIV. removed to Versailles 
 was the Grand Dauphin, who never reigned. Then, in succes- 
 sion, various governors of " Sons of France " took up their 
 quarters in the superb rooms in which Philippe de Champagne 
 had depicted the education of Achilles — misfortune of one 
 kind and another meantime pursuing the scions of the royal 
 house. Louis XIV; had intended to unite the palace to the 
 Louvre on the northern (or, as some readers may prefer us to 
 say, the Rue de Rivoli) side, even as in Henri IV. 's time the two 
 buildings had already been connected on the south, that is, the 
 side of the Seine. But neither of the Great Monarch's imme- 
 diate successors embarked on the work. Louis XV. seldom, if 
 ever, showed himself at the Tuileries after his childhood, and 
 Louis XVI. only resided there when he was forced to do so by 
 the Revolution. In the earlier period of the reign, when Marie 
 Antoinette came from Versailles to Paris to witness a theatrical 
 performance or participate in some festivity, she usually slept 
 at the Garde Meuble on the Place Louis X.V., now the Place 
 de la Concorde. 
 
 During the Revolution the Tuileries witnessed many stirring 
 scenes, which ended in the memorable attack of August 10, 
 1792, when Louis XVI. and his family quitted the palace, never 
 to return to it. In the following year the Convention installed 
 itself in the palace play-house, while various branches of the 
 administration of those days found quarters in one or another 
 part of the building — the famous Committee of Public Safety 
 meeting in the Pavilion de Flore, whither Robespierre with his 
 shattered jaw was carried from the Hotel de Ville on the night 
 preceding his execution. Later, both the Council of the 
 " Ancients " and that of the " Five Hundred " assembled at the 
 Tuileries, the latter in the same hall as the defunct Convention 
 and the former in the large lofty apartment which, in our times. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 6 
 
 was called the Salle des Mar^chaux, but which had been Icnown, 
 under the old monarchy, as the Hall of the Swiss Guards, 
 The scene in later years of many great gatherings, many 
 splendid entertainments, the Salle des Marechaux will often be 
 mentioned in this book. Two storeys in height, and almost 
 square, its breadth being fifty-two and its length sixty feet, it 
 embraced the space occupied by a superb winding staircase 
 erected by Philibert Delorme for Catherine de' Medici but 
 demolished by Louis XIV. 
 
 While the Legislature of the Directory met at the Tuileries, 
 the Directory itself was installed in a building raised by another 
 Medici, the Palais du Luxembourg.* It was there that 
 Barras reigned over France and regaled his harem ; there, too, 
 that he and his colleagues gave a triumphal reception to General 
 Bonaparte, when the latter returned to France in 1797 after his 
 Italian victories. 
 
 Before long, Bonaparte, in his turn, resided at the Luxem- 
 bourg as First Consul of the Republic, but on February 19, 
 1800, he and his colleague Lebrun lodged themselves at the 
 Tuileries — Lebrun in the Pavilion de Flore by the Seine, and 
 Bonaparte in that part of the palace extending from Lebrun's 
 quarters to the Pavilion de I'Horloge. The Empress Josephine's 
 apartments were on the ground floor on the garden side. 
 
 Under Napoleon the palace theatre was re-established, a 
 meeting hall for the Council of State was built, and the 
 northern gallery joining the Louvre was begun. But the 
 Empire fell; the battle of Paris was impending when Marie 
 Louise and the King of Rome fled from the Tuileries to 
 Blois, and soon afterwards Louis XVIII. installed himself and 
 his court at the palace. In his turn he had to quit it, and 
 Napoleon, coming from Elba, was carried in triumph up the 
 palace stairs, kissed on each step by fair women, and acclaimed 
 by devoted adherents. During those last hundred days of 
 power, however, he prefeiTed to reside at the Elysee Palace : it 
 was there that he planned the campaign which ended at 
 
 * So called because an earlier mansion on the same site had belonged to 
 the Duke de Piney-Luiembourg. When the palace of Marie de' Medici passed 
 to her second son, Gaston, it became known officially as the Palais d'OrUans, 
 but the traditional name of Luxembourg always prevailed, and subsists to-day. 
 
6 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Waterloo ; and when, a fugitive from the battle-field, he once 
 more returned to Paris, it was to the Elyse'e that he again 
 betook himself, there that he signed his second and final 
 abdication. Then Louis XVIII., restored once more, made 
 the Tuileries his residence until his death. He was the only 
 King of France that ever died there. 
 
 During his reign and that of Charles X., the work of 
 completing the palace on the north was resumed. But the 
 Revolution of 1830 swept the senior branch of the Bourbons 
 away, and the Parisians burst into the Tuileries during the 
 Three Glorious Days. In October, 1831, after numerous 
 alterations had been effected in the interior arrangements, 
 Louis Philippe and his family made the palace their abode. 
 Little harm had been done to it by the mob in 1830, but at 
 the Revolution of 1848, when Louis Philippe fled to England 
 as plain "John Smith," many of the apartments were sacked 
 and badly damaged. The palace became for a while a kind of 
 ambulance, many of those wounded in the Revolution being 
 carried to it ; then, in 1849, it served for the annual fine art 
 exhibition, the " Salon," as one generally says. 
 
 On January 1, 1852, however, a new master took possession 
 of the royal pile, one who was superstitious in his way, who 
 believed in destiny, who at night, in the gardens of Arenenberg 
 above Lake Constance, had heard, or fancied he heard, voices 
 telling him that he was predestined to rule France and restore 
 the glory of the Empire. Believing in that mission, he gave 
 no heed to the sinister reputation of the Tuileries, no thought 
 to the Little Red Man who appeared there periodically to 
 announce danger to some prince, downfall to some dynasty. 
 Besides, his task was already virtually accomplished ; success 
 was his ; of the Republic over which he presided only the name 
 remained ; he had overthrown the Constitution on December 2, 
 and all who were minded to oppose him had afterwards been 
 shot down, banished, or imprisoned. So he took possession 
 of the Tuileries, and though it was in a sadly neglected 
 state, greatly in need of repair and re-decoration, the Govern- 
 ment architects and other officials worked so zealously that 
 the reception rooms were got into a sufficiently clean and 
 orderly condition to enable the Prince President to give his 
 
INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 first reception in the palace on the evening of January 24. 
 It was then that the men who had effected the Coup d'Etat 
 first met in joyous assembly, congratulating one another on the 
 success of their enterprise, and raising their glasses, brimful of 
 " Veuve Clicquot," to fortune and the coming Empire. 
 
 Here let us pause. This book is not intended to be a study 
 of high politics. Its purpose is rather to depict the manners 
 and customs of the Court of the Second Empire, to chronicle 
 some of the magnificence and pageantry that marked the last 
 years of the life of the ill-fated Tuileries — years which were 
 the most splendid the palace ever knew, but which, after some 
 nine months of semi-quiescence, were suddenly followed by its 
 annihilation. The imperial Court will also be followed to St. 
 Cloud, Compiegne, Fontainebleau, Biarritz, and other places; 
 we shall peep into the Palais Royal, into the mansion of the 
 Princess Mathilde, and some others of those days, and the social 
 rather than the political aspect of affairs will always be our 
 principal theme. But at the same time some mention of 
 politics is necessary, and something must be said, too, of the 
 physical and moral characteristics, the careers and aims, of 
 the chief personages flitting across our pages. Here, at the 
 outset, it is appropriate to speak of the man who was at the 
 head of them all — that is Napoleon III. 
 
 At the time of the Coup d'Etat of December, 1851, Charles 
 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was in his forty-fourth year. 
 Slightly below the middle height, he had a long trunk and 
 short legs, in such wise that while he looked almost insignificant 
 on foot he appeared to advantage on horseback. He was the 
 third son of Napoleon''s younger brother, Louis, some time King 
 of Holland, by the latter's marriage with Hortense Eugenie de 
 Beauharnais, daughter of the Empress Josephine by her first 
 husband. The fii-st son bom to Louis and Hortense died in 
 childhood, and the second succumbed to typhoid fever while 
 participating in a Carbonaro rising in the Romagna in 1831, 
 when the remaining son became the sole heir of the family. It 
 is indisputable that on more than one occasion Louis Bonaparte 
 asserted in writing that this third son was no child of his. In 
 a letter addressed to Pope Gregory XVI., after his second son's 
 death, he said : " As for the other [the future Napoleon III.] 
 
8 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 who usurps my name, he, as you know. Holy Father, is nothing 
 to me, thanks be to God." In another communication to the 
 same Pontiff, ex-King Louis reiterated that allegation, but the 
 truth appears to be that his knowledge of his wife's faithless- 
 ness at various periods inclined him to believe, at times, that 
 none of the children of their union were his own. In more 
 reasonable moments he acted very differently, laying claim to 
 the boys, and insisting on his rights as their father. There 
 was certainly more than one quarrel, more than one period of 
 coldness, almost hostility, between the ex-King of Holland 
 and the future Emperor of the French, but in their personal 
 correspondence, at least so far as it has been published, there 
 appears no indication of any denial of paternity. Indeed, the 
 father often sends the son his blessing and advice, and inter- 
 venes with others on his behalf. 
 
 Again, in Napoleon III.'s younger days, there was consider- 
 able physical resemblance between him and King Louis, neither 
 being of the accepted Bonaparte type, owing, perhaps, in King 
 Louis' case, of some prepotency on the maternal side. Moreover 
 Napoleon III. often evinced a disposition similar to that of King 
 Louis. The latter was more or less a dreamer, one who shut 
 himself up and wrote romances and poetry. There was the 
 same bent in the son, who also dreamt many dreams, and 
 evinced decided literary inclinations. Further, as Taxile 
 Delord, no friend of the Bonapartes, has pointed out, King 
 Louis, by his last will and testament, virtually proclaimed to 
 the world that Louis Napoleon was his son ; and that statement 
 emanating from a man who had long been ailing, and who knew 
 that death would soon be upon him, may be taken as decisive. 
 One may therefore assume that the bitter enmity with which 
 Louis regarded the wife whom he had married under com- 
 pulsion, and from whom he sought judicial separation,* carried 
 him at times further than was accurate or just. 
 
 It has been pointed out that there was at one period a 
 certain facial resemblance between King Louis and his third 
 
 ♦ By a judgment o£ the Court of First Instance of Paris, January 19, 1816, 
 his second (and then eldest surviving) son was handed over to his custody. 
 He did not claim the third, perhaps on account of the latter'a tender age — 
 he was not eight years old. Still, the circumstance is curious. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 son. There was none, however, between the latter and his 
 mother, Hortense. From her, as well as from his father, 
 Louis Napoleon, doubtless, derived some of his literary bent 
 She also transmitted to him some of her own taste for display, 
 and partiality for the frivolities of life. Those characteristics 
 were not apparent in her husband. He wished his sons to 
 be reared with what he deemed to be Spartan simplicity, and 
 in a note respecting the future restorer of the Empire, he 
 insisted that the boy should be given plain food, and drink 
 only Bordeaux claret, neither coffee nor liqueurs being allowed 
 him. Further, he wrote : " My son is to wash his feet once a 
 week, clean his nails with lemon, his hands with bran, and 
 never with soap. He must not use Eau de Cologne or any 
 other perfume. . . . Broad shoes are to be made for him, such 
 as serve for either foot." 
 
 In one respect Napoleon III. proved himself essentially the 
 son of Queen Hortense. She, from her mother, the adven- 
 turess Josephine, had inherited no little sensuality, to which 
 she repeatedly gave rein. It is true we have only the assertion 
 of Bourrienne that, prior to her marriage, she was the mistress 
 of her step-father Napoleon, who, when his aide-de-camp, Duroc, 
 refused to make her his wife, forced her on his brother Louis ; 
 but it is certain that she subsequently had favoured lovers, 
 among others the Count de Flahault, father of the child who 
 became known as Duke de Morny. The amorous passions of 
 Hortense were transmitted to Napoleon III., who had several 
 mistresses of English, Italian, and French nationality. 
 
 In spite of many adverse circumstances, the education he 
 received was fairly good. His first tutor, Philippe Lebas, the 
 son of a friend of Robespierre and St. Just, was a man of 
 letters, well versed in classical history and hterature ; the 
 second, Narcisse Veillard, had been an artillery officer, and was 
 possessed of considerable mathematical attainments. Doubt- 
 less it was Louis Napoleon's association with M. Veillard which 
 afterwards prompted him to enter the Swiss artillery under 
 Dufour, and write on gunnery ; while Lebas, from what we know 
 of his principles, may have first suggested to him, not only that 
 veneer of republicanism which he at one period cast over his 
 actions, but also the humanitarian ideas by which he was often 
 
10 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 haunted, the interest he took in the claims of the masses to a 
 larger share of material comfort than they then enjoyed. For 
 the rest, the social question repeatedly came to the front during 
 Louis Philippe's reign, and Louis Napoleon's perusal of some 
 of the many works dealing with the subject, and his intercourse 
 at times with men whose attention it had seriously engaged, 
 tended to keep it well before his mind. 
 
 He was governed, however, by one predominant idea. It is 
 certain that he was well versed in the history of his great 
 uncle's career, that he studied virtually every writing that had 
 emanated from Napoleon, or that had been issued with his 
 approval. It was apparently his mother, Queen Hortense, who 
 first impressed on him that he was predestined to restore the 
 Empire. In pursuing that task he imitated, as closely as 
 circumstances permitted, the steps by which the Empire had 
 been originally founded. He had no great victories behind 
 him, nor had he the genius of his uncle, and it was only by 
 patience and dexterity that he could hope to secure what the 
 other had won by his daring. At first he thought otherwise. 
 The memory of the Empire was recent, the idea of its glory 
 still appealed to many Frenchmen, numbers of Napoleon's old 
 companions in arms still lived : hence the attempts of Stras- 
 bourg and Boulogne, those imitations — with variations — of the 
 return from Elba. They failed, however, and Louis Napoleon 
 then realized that he must adopt other methods if he were to 
 attain his object. 
 
 It has been contended that he was not a man of action. 
 Nowadays the world best remembers him as he was in his 
 declining years, afflicted by a terrible disease. In his younger 
 days, however, he combined with a dreamy and imaginative 
 mind no little physical vigour and activity. A good swimmer, 
 an expert shot, a skilful rider, one too who could appreciate all 
 the points of a horse, he contended not unsuccessfully against 
 the lymphatic side of his nature. One has only to consult the 
 French newspapers for the years 1851 and 1852, to realize how 
 immense was Louis Napoleon's expenditure of physical energy 
 during the period of preparation first for the Coup d'Etat, and 
 later for the re-establishment of the Empire. He was here, he 
 was there, he was everywhere, he travelled incessantly, when he 
 
INTRODUCTORY 11 
 
 was not riding he was receiving or banquetting, or dancing, or 
 speaking. Few were the hours which he can have accorded to 
 sleep during that all-important period in his life. 
 
 That he was personally brave, heedless of danger on the 
 battlefield, is acknowledged by his worst enemies, but at the 
 same time there were lacunce in his energy. In his earlier 
 years, although the restoration of the Empire was his fixed idea, 
 he would probably never have made the attempts he did had 
 he not been brought to the necessary pitch by some confederate 
 — such as Fialin de Persigny, probably the most daring of his 
 band. There is a tale that at the time of the Coup d'Etat he 
 momentarily shrank from the prosecution of his designs, and 
 that an adherent — Fleury, it is asserted — fearing that he and 
 others would be left in the lurch, threatened him with a pistol, 
 saying that it was too late to retreat, and that the business 
 must be carried through. Even if that story were true, however, 
 it would hardly suffice to prove Louis Napoleon a coward. 
 Caesar hesitated to cross the Rubicon till a portent appeared to 
 him, and the first Napoleon hesitated at the Coup d'Etat of 
 Brumaire, which might have failed had it not been for the 
 energy of Lucien Bonaparte and Lefebvre. Thus, if Louis 
 Napoleon hesitated for an instant in December, 1851, he only 
 followed a family precedent. 
 
 In later years, when General Boulanger procrastinated, and 
 had nobody of sufficient authority beside him to compel him to 
 act, he lost his chance irremediably. All Louis Napoleon's 
 various postponements of the Coup d'Etat in 1851 were due 
 to circumstances, such as the incompleteness of the preparations, 
 the last one occurring because Colonel Espinasse, who was 
 appointed to seize the Palais Bourbon, where the Assembly 
 met, required two days to study the interior arrangements of 
 the building, when it was that he discovered the still existing 
 subterranean passage by which Baze, the quasstor, and the 
 other officials of the assembly had hoped to escape in the event 
 of a surprise. 
 
 Louis Napoleon's Coup d'Etat was an illegality which 
 attendant circumstances converted into a crime. But whatever 
 considerations guided many of his adherents, he himself was 
 not swayed by any motives of base animosity or sordid greed. 
 
12 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 The Bonapartist historians assert that if he had not deposed 
 the Assembly, the Assembly would have deposed him ; whereas 
 Republican writers maintain that the Assembly had no such 
 intention. But we believe that it really harboured that design, 
 and that the case was simply one of Coup d'Etat against Coup 
 d'Etat. The President, however, held the trump cards, the big 
 battalions were on his side, and he used them. 
 
 It must be said, too, that France was not Republican at that 
 time. There was, of course, a Republican party, but it consisted 
 of only a fraction of the nation, for the enthusiasm of 1848 had 
 been killed by a series of occurrences — several great blunders, 
 and some deplorable excesses. As for the Legitimists, who wished 
 to restore the senior branch of the Bourbons, they were not 
 numerous enough to achieve that object. The Orleanists were 
 still discredited, in fact, " impossible " ; and thus the outlook 
 generally was a gloomy one. France desired a stable govern- 
 ment, such as was denied to her by the strife of politicians. 
 The various ministries formed by Louis Napoleon as President 
 of the Republic were constantly being overthrown by one or 
 another parliamentary vote, and continuity of policy was 
 extremely difficult. Two courses were open to the President. 
 He might resign and wash his hands of the whole business, 
 or he might follow the example of Cromwell and the first Napo- 
 leon, and make his power effective. He took the latter course, as 
 was natural, possessed as he had always been by the idea that 
 he was predestined to restore the Empire. 
 
 If he had resigned, however, what would then have happened, 
 what man, what party, was there, competent to put an end 
 to the general unrest, and guide the national life into orderly 
 channels ? We can name neither man nor party, we can only 
 picture confusion and chaos. And in any case, although Louis 
 Napoleon's Coup d'Etat was undoubtedly an illegal act, a 
 brutal act, attended by the most deplorable circumstances, 
 bloodshed, violent, wanton, and revengeful deeds, it solved for 
 a time the difficulties in which France was plunged. Under 
 all the circumstances, some such solution was, we think, inevi- 
 table. If Louis Napoleon had not seized power by force another 
 would have attempted it. There are times when the knot in a 
 nation's life is so inextricable that it must be cut with the sword. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 Louis Napoleon, though extremely fond of military pomp, 
 and an adept at "playing with soldiers,"" can hardly be 
 accounted a warlike prince. He was, we believe, sincere when 
 he said that the Empire would mean peace — a declaration which 
 clenched the question of the revival of the Imperial Regime. 
 Prior to the act of force which made him dictator, he had 
 fought his way onward chiefly hy Jinesse and stratagem, and his 
 success in that respect convinced him that he was possessed of 
 diplomatic abilities. In later years, after such experiences as 
 the Crimea, the war in Italy, and the Mexican affair, he seems 
 to have placed far more reliance in diplomacy than in arms, 
 but he was, as all will remember, no match for Bismarck either 
 before or after Koniggratz. 
 
 He had his good qualities. He was faithful to his friends, 
 he was generous, he spent almost without counting, he was 
 always desirous of finding employment for the working classes, 
 and of improving the opportunities of the peasantry. His 
 policy in that connection may be regarded as one of bribes, but 
 the country undoubtedly benefited by it. Equity requires us to 
 say that with all allowance for incidentfd mishaps and scandals, 
 such as the Credit Mobilier affair, France had never known such 
 a period of material prosperity as that which she enjoyed 
 between 1852 and 1870. 
 
 Before the Coup d'Etat Louis Napoleon did much to further 
 public works ; and during the ensuing year down to the pro- 
 clamation of the Empire, the pages of the Moniteur literally 
 teem with decrees and announcements relating to bridges, 
 buildings, roads, canals, docks, and so forth, and to subventions 
 granted with respect to them. Other decrees record more 
 obvious and less worthy bribes, some thousands of people being 
 appointed to the Legion of Honour solely by way of securing 
 or requiting their political support. Curiously enough a large 
 number of priests figured in those decrees, doubtless because 
 Louis Napoleon intended to employ the Church as an instrument 
 of rule. At the same time the Moniteur also reproduced 
 innumerable addresses from city and town, village and hamlet, 
 asking for the restoration of the Empire. Those addresses were 
 not of a stereotyped pattern. We have read some hundreds of 
 them and have not found any two couched in precisely the 
 
14 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 same language, though all undoubtedly breathe one and the 
 same spirit: A stable government, a return of prosperity in 
 commerce, industry and agriculture, that was the desire of 
 France. 
 
 The Empire came, the Prince President assuming the 
 imperial dignity with as little delay as possible. Let us now 
 return to what we think of him. He was, as we have said, 
 in his forty-fourth year, and rather below the middle height. 
 He had dark chestnut hair, and a colourless countenance. His 
 eyes, which seldom looked one in the face, were almost black. 
 In later years he kept them half closed and expressionless. He 
 combined, as we have seen, considerable physical vigour and 
 personal courage, with a dreamy, imaginative mind and a very 
 amorous, sensual temperament. That was acknowledged by 
 one who knew him well, and for whom he had great regard, 
 his foster sister, Madame Cornu. Speaking of his attitude 
 towards her sex, she said that he had no moral sense whatever, 
 but by reason of his position exerted himself to keep his 
 passions under control; in which exertion, as is well known, 
 he did not always succeed. His energy in that as in other 
 respects was intermittent. There were moments when he 
 needed the spur or the goad, the help of Morny's " iron hand 
 in a velvet glove," and of Persigny's unscrupulous audacity. If 
 at times he thus lacked vigour and initiative, it was, we think, 
 because he fully believed in predestination. He was in no wise 
 the savage brute suggested by Victor Hugo's " Chatiments," 
 which, while it contains many admirable lines, is altogether 
 surcharged with invective. As was previously said, Napoleon 
 certainly had humanitarian leanings, particularly with respect 
 to the dissemination of the comforts of life. As for his 
 diplomatic powers, he overrated them, and his diplomacy 
 generally proved more mischievous than fruitful. 
 
 In spite of his literary leanings, he entertained no good 
 opinion of the press. He often said : " The best newspaper 
 is worth nothing." He lacked his mother's ear for music, 
 though, like her, he was fond of pomp and display. At the 
 same time he remained accessible, and free from haughtiness. 
 Both before and for some years after he had become 
 Emperor, he readily danced with one and another village girl 
 
INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 at a country ball, cordially offered a soldier a smoke, and 
 chinked glasses with a peasant mayor. He could smile readily 
 enough at the period when his destiny was still trembling in 
 the balance. It was only some time after he had assumed the 
 imperial purple that his countenance became saturnine, and 
 his manners marked by distrust. He was surrounded by many 
 devoted police-agents, but he had been a conspirator himself, 
 and he feared conspirators, attaching, as was perhaps natural, 
 increased value to his life after the birth of his only son, to 
 whom he desired to bequeath a united and prosperous France. 
 Further, he felt, we may be sure of it, the strictures passed 
 upon him personally in connection with the Coup d'Etat, and 
 brooded over them more than once. Thus, before long, he 
 grew more and more reserved, becoming one of the most 
 taciturn of monarchs. 
 
 Many years of his life had been spent in exile, in Italy, 
 Switzerland, Germany, England, and America, and in spite of 
 his education by French tutors, there was always a suspicion 
 of a foreign accent in his speech, and some suggestion of 
 foreign customs in his manners. He spoke English and 
 German fluently, and his Italian was nearly as good. Cosmo- 
 politan in his speech and his loves, he evinced a similar spirit 
 in his dress. If his coats were French, his trousers were 
 English — Dusautoy making the former, and the latter being 
 supplied by Poole, who frequently despatched a representative 
 to the Tuileries with patterns. As time elapsed the Emperor 
 became more and more partial to civilian dress, never assuming 
 a uniform unless occasion expressly required it, whereas before 
 ascending the throne his uniforms were constantly in use. 
 
 In October, 1852, on his return from the long tour through 
 southern France when he declaimed that the Empire would mean 
 peace, he made a pompous entry into Paris, escorted by fifty- 
 two squadrons of cavalry and several batteries of horse artillery. 
 Numerous triumphal arches had been erected between the 
 terminus of the Orleans railway line and the Tuileries, all of 
 them bearing inscriptions which foreshadowed the approaching 
 change of rigime. On one appeared the woi-ds : " Vox Populi, 
 Vox Dei," on another, "Ave Caesar Imperator;" while on a 
 third, at the entrance of the Tuileries Gardens, the Prince (as he 
 
16 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 still was) could read this pompous eulogy : " To Napoleon III., 
 Emperor and Saviour of Modern Civilization, Protector of 
 Art, Science, Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, from the 
 grateful Workmen of Paris." Under that ai-ch he made his 
 way into the garden, and so to the Tuileries Palace. At night 
 the city was illuminated, and during the ensuing week the 
 Prince, who had installed himself at St. Cloud, attended gala 
 performances at the Opera and the Theatre Franjais, where 
 enthusiastic imperialist demonstrations were made. 
 
 On November 4 the Senate, having assembled to discuss the 
 steps to be taken concerning what was styled "the proposed 
 modification of the constitution," nominated a commission to 
 report to it on the subject. This report, which emanated from 
 a marshal of France, four generals, two cardinals, two dukes, 
 and an astronomer, Levenier, proved to be a long and learned 
 production in which Tacitus and Machiavelli {ben trovato) were 
 freely quoted. Its recommendation was that the question 
 ought to be decided by a national vote or Plebiscitum. The 
 Corps Legislatif was thereupon convoked to control and 
 report on the returns of this Plebiscitum, which was taken 
 on November 21 and 22. The votes recorded for the re- 
 establishment of the Empire were 7,864,189, while those 
 against it were but 253,145; another 63,326 being declared 
 null. The majority was overwhelming, but one may point 
 out that a fairly large number of people refrained from voting. 
 In Paris, for instance, there were 315,501 electors on the 
 lists, but only 270,710 cast their votes, the number of ayes 
 being 208,615. The truth appears to be that, although the 
 opponents of the Empire were badly routed, they were more 
 numerous than was shown by the official returns. 
 
 The result of the Plebiscitum was laid before the Prince 
 in state at the chateau of St. Cloud, whither he had returned 
 after a stay at Fontainebleau, where he had been conferring 
 with his friend, Lord Cowley, the British Ambassador, respect- 
 ing his recognition as Emperor by foreign Courts. It was at 
 once decided that the proclamation of the new Empire should 
 take place on December 2, which was the anniversary alike 
 of the battle of Austerlitz, of the coronation of the first 
 Napoleon by the Pope, and of the recent Coup d'Etat. For 
 
INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 that reason the decision was a bold one, for while it linked 
 the new to the former Empire, and recalled the latter's military 
 glory, it also showed that whatever protests had been raised, 
 whatever strictures had been passed on the overthrow of the 
 Constitution, Louis Napoleon prided himself on what had 
 been done in that respect. As it happened, he was doomed 
 to drag that date of December 2 after him all his life. Far 
 from proving an advantage, it became like the heavy ball 
 attached to a convict's chain ; and if it were not for Sedan it 
 would alone suffice to explain the anecdote related by Madame 
 Cornu about a gipsy who once predicted to her foster-brother 
 that he would rise to the highest eminence of power, but be 
 killed by a houlet. 
 
 At seven o'clock on the morning of December 2 a salute of 
 101 guns burst upon Paris from the Esplanade of the Invalides. 
 At ten o'clock the solemn proclamation of the Empire took 
 place on the Place de I'Hotel de Ville, and this time the salutes 
 were formidable. One of 101 guns came from the Invalides, a 
 second, also of 101 guns, from Montmartre, and a third of like 
 number from the Place du Trone, while other salvoes were fired 
 by each of the forts around Paris. 
 
 The new Emperor left St. Cloud at noon. The whole army 
 of Paris was on duty ; the sovereign's escort alone consisted of 
 four squadrons of Lancers, a regiment of Dragoons, a whole 
 brigade of Cuirassiers, and another of Carabineers, with two 
 bands of music. In addition to many generals, five Marshals 
 of France rode in the procession : Jerome Bonaparte, Vaillant, 
 Leroy de St. Arnaud,Castellane,and Magnan(general-in-chief);* 
 and at the moment when Napoleon III., followed by his per- 
 sonal aides-de-camp, Fleury and Edgar Ney, passed under the 
 Arc de Triomphe atop of the Champs Elysees, the winter sun — 
 "the sun of Austerlitz," said the zealots — suddenly shone out 
 as if in greeting. Nineteen years later, early one mild March 
 morning, a little troop of German Hussars cantered under that 
 same arch raised to the glory of " la grande Armee " — which 
 was no more ! 
 
 On to the Tuileries went the imperial procession, and there, 
 
 • St. Arnaud, Oastellane and Magnan had been created Marshals that 
 Bame morning. 
 
18 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 on the Carrousel, all the troops were passed in review, then 
 drawn up to hear the proclamation of the Empire which was 
 read to them by Leroy de St. Arnaud, Minister of War, while 
 once again there arose the deafening salvoes of 101 guns. The 
 cost of the affair in gilnpowder alone must have been consider- 
 able. In the evening Paris was ablaze with illuminations, 
 and the first imperial reception was held at the Tuileries. 
 Napoleon III. was never actually crowned ; he preferred to 
 distribute some d&10,000 among the Paris hospitals and the 
 various foundling establishments of France. 
 
 On the day of the revival of the Empire the appearance of 
 the Tuileries was very different from what it had been on the 
 occasion of the reception held there in the previous month of 
 January.* A great deal of work still remained to be done, but 
 an army of architects, artists, and decorators had long been 
 busy in the palace. Naturally enough, attention had first been 
 given to the State apartments. Entering the palace on the 
 Carrousel side, ascending the stairs, and turning to the left into 
 the ante-room of the Salle des Travdes, or " Room of the Bays," 
 you found the ceiling decorated with the freshly gilded sun 
 of Louis XIV., and restored medalUons of Wisdom, Justice, 
 Science, and Power. On either side stood several short columns 
 supporting handsome bronze and porphyry busts of Roman 
 Emperors. In the anteroom of the Galerie de la Paix the 
 ceiling displayed medallions of wrestling children, on a gold 
 ground, with a central subject which depicted Glory holding a 
 palm and a crown, and heralded by winged boys who were 
 blowing their trumpets.! In the Galerie de la Paix itself the 
 Ionic columns and pilasters of Philibert Delorme had been 
 restored and their capitals gilded. Gilding was also scattered 
 profusely over the ceiling, the doors, and the wainscotings. 
 The marble statues of Undpital and D'Aguesseau, set up here 
 in Louis Philippe's time, had been removed, and their place 
 taken by two huge crystal candelabra with feet of gilded 
 bronze. Over the mantelpiece appeared a portrait of the new 
 Emperor by Charles liOuis Miiller, while at the farther end of 
 the gallery rose a fine silver statue of Peace. A few years later, 
 after the Crimean War, when the Grand Duke Constantine of 
 ♦ See ante, p. 7. t The work of Vauohelet. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 19 
 
 Russia came to France and was entertained at the Tuileries, he 
 noticed this statue and inquired what it represented. " It 
 is Peace — in silver," the Empress Eugenie replied. "Peace, 
 madam ? " the Grand Duke retorted, " Ah, it ought to have 
 been cast in gold." 
 
 Let us proceed, however, with our survey of the palace. TTie 
 famous Salle des Marechaux had been considerably modified. 
 It now had six instead of four doors, the view extending beyond 
 it into a long suite of magnificent rooms. On the walls hung 
 fourteen large portraits of Napoleon's marshals, and below them 
 were the busts of a score of First Empire generals, set on elegant 
 scahelli. There had formerly been six imitation windows — 
 figured by huge mirrors — on the north side of this great hall, 
 but now there were ten, which gave increase of light. The 
 vaulted ceiling, whence descended a huge chandelier, all gold 
 and crystal, had become superb, intersected by four gilded ribs, 
 which started from the four corners, where you perceived some 
 large, gilded, eagle-surmounted shields, bearing the names of 
 the victories gained by Napoleon personally. Between the ribs 
 the ceiling simulated a sky, and above the gilded balconies 
 running right round the hall, a balustrade with vases of flowers 
 was painted. The lofty, imposing caryatides — plaster copies of 
 Jean Goujon's work — had been gilded from top to bottom, and 
 between four of them appeared a platform whence the new 
 Emperor might view the revels of his Court. Green was the 
 colour of the hangings and upholstery — perhaps because it was 
 that of the Bonaparte family. 
 
 No little renovation had been bestowed on the adjoining 
 Salon Blanc — a guard-room in the time of Louis XIV. The 
 grisaille paintings by Nicolas Loyr, representing an army on 
 the march, a battle, and a triumph, had been fully restored, 
 and the mouldings of the doors, the window-recesses, the shut- 
 ters, and the ceiling were all freshly gilded. On every side 
 were costly hangings, handsome consoles, Boule cabinets, superb 
 candelabra and chandeliers — state property, .much of which 
 had formerly figured either at the palace of Versailles or at 
 Trianon. 
 
 In the Salon d'Apollon Lebrun's great painting of " Phaeton 
 and the Nereids," and Loyr's ceiling depicting "The God of 
 
20 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Day starting on his career," had been most carefully renovated ; 
 the dragons and chimerae of the cornices were gilded; the 
 upholstery was all fine Gobelins tapestry ; there was a handsome 
 new chimney-piece, and a superb old clock in the form of a 
 terrestrial globe upheld by genii. Entering the next room — 
 once Louis XIV.'s " Chambre de Parade " — one found, at the 
 further end, the new Emperor's throne with its splendid canopy 
 of crimson velvet, spangled with the gold bees of the Bonapartes 
 and bordered with a design of laurel leaves. Overhead was 
 perched a great gold eagle with outspread wings, another being 
 embroidered in an escutcheon on the hangings behind the Chair 
 of State. Throne and hangings alike had previously served on 
 one occasion only — a memorable one — that of the Coronation 
 of Napoleon I. at Notre Dame, since when they had been care- 
 fully preserved at the Garde Meuble. On either side of the 
 throne rose lofty candelabra, bearing above their lights an orb 
 and a crown — insignia of power ; while on the vaulted ceiling, 
 finely inlaid with enamel work by Lemoine, shone the device of 
 the Grand Monarque, Nee pluribus impar. 
 
 If the decorations of the Salon Blanc, which has already 
 been mentioned, supplied a very fair example of Louis XIII. 
 style, those of the so-called Salon de Louis XIV., following the 
 Throne-room, furnished an example of the Grand Sifecle. The 
 ceiling was a new and skilful copy of Lesueur's " Olympus," by 
 Lesurgues, while the panel paintings were grotesques by the 
 two Le Moines — all delicately restored. Three pictures were 
 now hung in this room, one a fine portrait of Louis XIV. by 
 Rigaud, another a good copy of Gerard's Philip of Anjou, and 
 the third a copy of Mignard's painting of Anne of Austria 
 giving instructions to her young son. On the east side of the 
 room was a door leading into Louis XIV.'s so-called winter 
 apartments — first the cabinet of his valet-de-chambre, secondly 
 his own bedroom, and thirdly his private study or library. 
 The King's bedroom had afterwards been that of Napoleon I., 
 Louis XVIII., and Charles X., and the decorations were not 
 of Louis XIV.'s time, having been much modified early in the 
 nineteenth century, in such wise that they supplied a free 
 example of the so-called Empire style. On the ceiling, painted 
 in grisaille, appeared Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, and Minerva, amid 
 
INTRODUCTORY 21 
 
 a number of genii and griffins. In a cavity in the wall of 
 the adjoining sumptuous bath-room, fitted by Napoleon I., was 
 found in revolutionary days the famous armoire de fer, in 
 which the unfortunate Louis XVI. kept his compromising secret 
 papers. 
 
 The bedroom and the dressing-room of Queen Marie Therese, 
 wife of Louis XIV., became in the first Napoleon's time his 
 study and his secretary's workroom. In the autumn of 1852 
 their seventeenth century decorations were carefully cleaned 
 and renovated. The paintings were chiefly by Jean Nocret and 
 Jacques Fouquieres. Minerva was depicted on the ceiling of 
 the dressing-room, above the doors of which appeared subjects 
 showing women at work on embroidery, tapestry, and so forth ; 
 while over the mantelpiece Minerva again rose up, attended 
 this time by Neptune. Beside the chimney-piece was painted 
 a fine figure of Immortality, in front of it you saw Vigilance, 
 then Minerva at her toilet ; while on the window side History 
 was symbolized. Mercury, the Arts and Sciences, Wisdom, 
 and many other allegorical figures, as well as the gold sun of 
 Louis XIV., adorned the adjoining bedroom of Queen Marie 
 Therese, whence you passed into her salon, later that of 
 Napoleon when he was First Consul. Here the Louis XIV. 
 style was more marked than in the previous apartments. Fine 
 Gobelins tapestry covered the panels, and paintings by Nocret 
 — Glory, Fame, and once again Minerva, this time carried aloft 
 by her priestesses — adorned the ceiling and the cat-touches above 
 the doors. Similar in style was the decoration of the Queen's 
 ante-room, the subjects here symbolized by Nocret being 
 Wisdom, Peace, and Architecture, to which were added some 
 landscapes by Fouquieres. All the paintings had literally been 
 exhumed from beneath layers of dust, greatly to the advantage 
 of Nocret's reputation. Unhappily everything was destined to 
 perish at the fall of the Commune in 1871. 
 
 In the old guard-room, re-christened Salon de Mars in the 
 first Napoleon's time, when it was decorated with grisaille 
 paintings (the chief one showing Mars in his chariot, surrounded 
 by the signs of the Zodiac), comparatively little work had to 
 be done in 1852, but great care was taken in cleaning the fine 
 Galerie de Diane, known under Louis XIV. as the Salon des 
 
22 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Ainbassadeurs. This was the only apartment of the palace in 
 which the paintings and the accessory decorations harmonized 
 properly — everything having been conceived in the same spirit by 
 the desire of Colbert, under whose supervision the original work 
 was executed. Forty-one mythological paintings adorned the 
 ceiling, the walls, and the cartouches over the doors — twenty-one 
 of them being skilful seventeenth century copies of Annibale 
 Caracci's famous frescoes at the Farnese Palace, notably 
 the subjects showing Diana with Pan and Endymion, these 
 giving the gallery its name. It was not an apartment seen to 
 advantage in the daytime, for the lighting was defective, but 
 it was used chiefly as a dining and supper-room, and on the 
 gala nights of the Court, in the radiance shed by hundreds of 
 wax lights burning in chandeliers and candelabra, it looked 
 splendid indeed. When the guests were comparatively few, 
 and would have seemed lost in such a spacious gallery, a portion 
 of it was shut off by means of a cleverly contrived movable 
 partition. 
 
 About two months and a half towards the end of 1852 were 
 spent on the early restoration work at the Tuileries, such as 
 we have described. Architecturally it was in the charge of 
 Visconti, but Basset and Haro were chiefly responsible for the 
 renovation of the paintings. Subsequently the private apart- 
 ments of the Empress were superbly decorated by Lefuel and 
 Charles Chaplin. Only a short time was to elapse before the 
 installation of an Empress at the palace, but at the end of 1852 
 there was as yet none. With that exception, everything was 
 ready for the revival of Court life on a splendid scale. The 
 new Emperor had already decided who should be his great 
 dignitaries of State, who should be added to his immediate 
 entourage. Let us now see of whom that entourage already 
 consisted, and then pass on to the composition of the new 
 Court. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MEN OF THE COUP d'^TAT — THE NEW COUET 
 
 Napoleon in.'g half-brother, the Duke de Momy — The first Napoleon's son, 
 Count Walewski — Marshals St. Amaud, Magnan, and Castellane— Persigny 
 and Pleury — The Imperial Household : its Minister Fould — The Civil List 
 and Dotation of the Crown — The Imperial Family's Allowances — Vaillant, 
 Great Marshal of the Court — General Bolin, Adjutant-General — The 
 Prefects of the Palace — The Great Chamberlain, Bassano, and his sub- 
 ordinates — The Court Domestics — The Great Master of Ceremonies and 
 his assistants — The Military Household — General Eoguet — Aides-de-camp, 
 Orderlies, and Cent-gardes — The Equerries — The Great Almoner and the 
 Palace Chapel — The Emperor's Confessor — The Medical Service. 
 
 In constituting the Empire and forming both its Administra- 
 tion and its Court, Napoleon III. was prepared to reward right 
 lavishly all who had helped him, first, to effect the Coup d'Etat 
 of 1851, and secondly, to transform the nominal Republic into 
 the regime he desired. There was, however, one man who 
 suddenly drew aside, throwing up office and declining honours, 
 and this was none other than the Coup d'Etafs chief artisan, 
 the new Emperor's half-brother, M. de Momy. His parentage 
 was no secret. He was the son of Queen Hortense by her lover. 
 General Count de Flahault de la Billarderie, who was descended 
 from an ancient Picard house. Flahault was a distinguished 
 soldier: he received his baptism of fire at Marengo, acted as 
 Murat's aide-de-camp at Austerlitz, and as Napoleon's after the 
 return from Elba. He also shared the hardships of the retreat 
 from Moscow, and, further, he fought at Waterloo, gaining 
 successive steps in rank, titles, and other honours, at the point 
 of his sword. Later he turned to diplomacy, becoming Louis 
 Philippe's ambassador in England from 1842 to 1848. Already 
 in 1816 he had tried to prevent the Bourbon Restoration and 
 
24 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 proclaim Napoleon II., and thirty-three years subsequently he 
 was one of the first to offer his services to Louis Napoleon on 
 the latter's arrival in France after the downfall of the Orleans 
 Monarchy. Flahault was in the secret of the Coup d'Etat, and 
 figured conspicuously in the Prince-Presideufs escort on that 
 eventful morning when the coming Emperor reviewed the soldiery. 
 His liaison with Queen Hortense was, of course, a very old 
 affair. It dated from 1810-1811, when Flahault was only 
 some twenty-five years of age. Later, in 1817, he married the 
 daughter of Admiral Viscount Keith, who became in her own 
 right Baroness Keith and Naime.* This lady would never 
 admit her husband's natural son, Morny, to her presence, in 
 spite of his father's predilection for him, and the high position 
 to which he attained. 
 
 Bom, like his legitimate brother Napoleon III., in Queen 
 Hortense's mansion in the Rue Cerutti — now Lafiitte — in Paris 
 (the house being at the present time the residence of the chief 
 of the French Rothschilds), Morny was promptly removed to 
 Versailles, and there registered as "Charles Auguste Louis 
 Joseph Demorny (sic) bom in Paris, October 23, 1811." He 
 was "fathered," as the saying goes, by an old military man, 
 described in the official register as Auguste Jean Hyacinthe 
 Demorny, landowner on the island of San Domingo, residing 
 at Villetaneuse, near Versailles. It is said that this Demorny 
 had served in the Prussian army, and that he joined the allies 
 in 1814, when, for his services against the Empire, Louis 
 XVIII. created him a Chevalier of St. Louis. In any case, 
 he was a very needy man, and Queen Hortense, in considera- 
 tion of his "fathering" her illegitimate offspring, agreed to 
 pay him an annuity of £240. He died, however, at the 
 hospital of Versailles, soon after the Empire's fall. The 
 entry of Morny's birth further stated that his mother was 
 Louise Emilie Coralie Fleury, wife of the aforesaid Demorny, 
 but no such person has ever been traced, and, indeed, the many 
 researches made respecting her, need not have been undertaken, 
 
 * The Covmteas de Flahault was well known in Paris during the second 
 Empire. She died at the Palace of the Legion of Honour (her hushand being 
 Chancellor of the Order) in 1867. Her daughter Emily married the fourth 
 Marijuess of Lansdowne, and became the mother of the present Marquess, 
 
MEN OF THE COUP D'ETAT 25 
 
 there being no doubt whatever that the child's real mother was 
 Queen Hortense. 
 
 The name was speedily changed from Demomy to De 
 Momy — a more aristocratic form — and the child was placed in 
 the charge of M. de Hahault's mother, who, having married 
 the Portuguese minister in France, was then known as the 
 Countess de Souza. M. de Flahault himself had no great 
 means at that time, the family having been ruined during the 
 Revolution, when his father was guillotined ; but Queen Hor- 
 tense entrusted Mme. de Souza with a sum of £8000 by way 
 of provision for the son she abandoned. Unfortunately the 
 lady had a bad failing ; she was a gambler, and, although bridge 
 was not played in those days, she contrived to lose her ward's 
 money either at cards or at rouge-et-noir. He, Momy, in later 
 years also became a gambler (though a very successful one),* 
 and that trait of his character may well have been inherited by 
 him from his grandmother, Mme. de Souza. t He spent his 
 early years at her residence in the Rue St. Florentin. Later, 
 being taken in hand by his father's former aide-de-camp, General 
 Carbonnel, he was sent to the Staff College, whence he emerged, 
 in 1832, as a sub-lieutenant of Lancers. Through Carbonnel 
 he secured the favour of some of the Orleans princes, and 
 notably of the young Duke who met with such an untimely 
 death in a carriage accident at Neuilly. Proceeding to Algeria, 
 Momy there gained the cross of the Legion of Honour by 
 helping to save General Trezel's life at the siege of Con- 
 stantine. Later he became orderly officer to General Oudinot. 
 But in 1838 he left the army and returned to Paris, where, in 
 spite of his precarious circumstances, he began to lead the life 
 of a viveur. 
 
 D'Alton-Shee, peer of France, and a close acquaintance of 
 Momy's in those days, has described him as then being a man 
 of distinguished bearing and extremely elegant appearance, 
 with a shrewd, pleasant expression of face, and a way that made 
 
 * Sii Bobert Peel oalled TiiTn the greatest speculator in Europe, at a time 
 when the term speculator verged on one of opprobrium. 
 
 t His literary leanings may have come from the same source, for Mme. de 
 Souza was a prolific novelist, writing many now forgotten books, such aa 
 "Ad^le de Sfinange," "La Comtesse de Fargy," "Eugtoe deRothelin," etc. 
 
26 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 him a great favourite with women. He had many love affairs, 
 and was more than once the successful rival of the young Duke 
 of Orleans. For a man of society, says D'Alton-Shee, Morny 
 possessed considerable knowledge, he had a taste for idleness 
 but a capacity for work, absolute faith in himself, boldness, 
 bravery, sangfroid, clear judgment, gaiety, and wit. He was 
 inclined more to good-fellowship than to friendship, he was 
 disposed to protect rather than serve, he was fond of pleasure, 
 and resolved to enjoy luxury, he was at once both prodigal and 
 greedy, and more venturesome than truly ambitious. Moreover, 
 while keeping his personal engagements, he was never influenced 
 by any political creed or principles of humanity. Such princely 
 characteristics as dissimulation, indulgence, and contempt for his 
 fellow-men were also his portion. He subordinated everything 
 to the object which he might have in view, not for the benefit 
 of any religion, system, or idea, but solely for the furtherance 
 of his own particular interests. 
 
 Women and speculation were his stepping-stones to fortune. 
 After supplanting the Duke of Orleans in the affections of the 
 Countess Lehon,* next door to whose mansion in the Champs 
 Elysees he took up his abode in a smaller house, nicknamed by 
 those who derided him Lm niche a Fidele (" Faithful's kennel "), 
 he obtained money from the lady to start some beetroot-sugar 
 works at Clermont-Ferrand, and used her influence to secure his 
 election as a deputy (1842), in which capacity he took a not 
 inconsiderable part in debates on financial and economic ques- 
 tions. When the Orleans monarchy fell, Morny still remained 
 one of its adherents. At that time he had no intercourse with 
 his brother Louis Napoleon, indeed it is doubtful whether they 
 had ever conversed together. It is said that whenever Morny 
 was in London during the forties (his father, Flahault, then 
 being ambassador there), he immediately rose and withdrew 
 from any drawing-room in which he found himself if Prince 
 Louis Napoleon were announced.f 
 
 Later he set himself against his brother politically. He 
 was a declared royalist candidate at the elections of 1849, and 
 
 » They fought a duel on account of her. 
 
 t Morny was proud, however, of his descent, and indulged In armes 
 pa/rlcmtes, his escutcheon bearing a hydrangea (French = hortensia) barred, 
 
MEN OF THE COUP D'ETAT 27 
 
 as such he was bitterly though unsuccessfully opposed by the 
 Bonapartists and Republicans. But he was also a shrewd man, 
 and soon saw which way the wind was blowing. Thus he was 
 one of the first to foretell the restoration of the Empire. His 
 own affairs, moreover, were becoming very much involved, and, 
 not wishing to be swept away, he felt it not only advisable but 
 necessary to place himself on what he cleverly called the side 
 of the broom handle. He, the illegitimate, and Louis Napoleon, 
 the legitimate, son of Queen Hortense, were brought together 
 then by Count Walewski, the illegitimate son of Napoleon I. by 
 that devoted Polish mistress who clung to the fallen conqueror 
 through the distressful days of Fontainebleau, and betook her- 
 self to him with her boy during his sojourn at Elba. Marie 
 Lonczynska, Countess Colonna-Walewska, subsequently married 
 General Count Ornano, by whom also she had a son, who 
 became attached to the Court of Napoleon HI. 
 
 Alexandre Florian, her son by the great Emperor, rose to 
 be ambassador in London at the time of the restoration of the 
 Empire, and like Lord Cowley, the British representative in 
 Paris, he did much to secure Great Britain's prompt recognition 
 of the change of rigime in France. Count Walewski, though 
 essentially his mother's son in character, was physically far 
 more like his father than the ill-fated Duke de Reichstadt ever 
 was; in fact, the Napoleonic cast of Walewski's countenance 
 was only slightly less marked than that of the Emperor's 
 nephew, Prince Napoleon Jerome. Twice married, first to an 
 English Montagu, and secondly to a Ricci of Florence, Walewski 
 played an important part as ambassador, minister, and president 
 of the legislative Body until his death in 1868. He favoured 
 the transformation of the "personal" into the "liberal" 
 Empire, and it was he who largely induced Emile OUivier and 
 the latter's band to support and effect that change. 
 
 Momy, being brought by Walewski into close connection 
 with the Prince-Presidient, fully espoused his interests — with a 
 view, of course, to the furtherance of his own. He rid himself 
 of his financial embarrassments by the sale of his house and 
 pictures, won many men over to the imperialist cause by his 
 address and plausibility, and, taking possession of the Ministry 
 of the Interior at the Coup d'Etat, he carried that measure to 
 
28 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 a successful issue throughout France. The vain-glorious and 
 extolled De Maupas, Prefect of Police, in spite of his big, 
 sturdy frame, and his healthy, florid face, was in reality a very 
 nervous and apprehensive individual, and proved a mere instru- 
 ment in Morny's hands.* Moreover, to the suggestions of the 
 Minister of the Interior, even St. Arnaud and Magnan were 
 largely indebted for the strategy they employed in the Paris 
 street fighting. 
 
 Much better looking and better built, more courtly, more 
 of a grand seigneur in appearance than his half-brother 
 Napoleon III., Morny was also the abler man of the two. Had 
 he been honest he might have been a great one. Shrewd and 
 strong-minded, as D'Alton-Shee indicated, " a hand of iron in 
 a velvet glove," he was also possessed of no little culture — real 
 artistic perception, genuine literary ability, and great expertness 
 of speech.f But the Empire was scarcely re-established when he 
 abruptly withdrew from office. This man, who figured in many 
 shady financial transactions, and who had not hesitated to rob 
 his friend, the Duke of Orleans, of various mistresses, under 
 circumstances by no means over clean, was either genuinely 
 disgusted by the seizure of the Orleans private property — 
 confiscated by a decree dated January 22, 1852 — or, at least, he 
 regarded that spoliation as a stupendous political blunder. 
 The latter view is, of course, more in keeping with his character. 
 In any case (like a few others, notably M. Rouher), he resigned, 
 
 " Maupaa was rewarded for Ms services at the Coup d'Etat, during which 
 he more than once lost his head, by being created a Senator and Minister 
 Secretary of State for General Police, a post of more prominence than real 
 authority. For the Prefecture of Police the right man was found in M. Pietri. 
 Maupas was a Burgundian who had been an advocate and a departmental 
 prefect, from which latter post he was dismissed for inventing a bogus political 
 plot, whereupon he turned to the Bonapartist cause. Later in life, after 
 serving as French Minister at Naples and Prefect at Marseilles, he secured the 
 grand cross of the Legion of Honour, but the advent of the " Liberal " Empire 
 prevented his further employment. He published two volumes of memoirs, 
 and died in Paris, in 1888. 
 
 t He wrote numerous plays, etc., performed either publicly or at the 
 private theatre at his residence as President of the Legislative Body. " M. 
 Choufleury restera ohez lui," with Ofienbach's music, was a deserved success, 
 and long held the stage. Other pieces were " Les Bons Oonseils " and " Les 
 Finesses du Mari," both comedies j " La Succession Bonnet," a vaudeville ; and 
 " Pas de Fumde sans un peu de Feu," a proverie, Morny's literary pseudonym 
 was St. B£my. 
 
MEN OF THE COUP D'ETAT 29 
 
 and had no share in the lavish distribution of favours which 
 attended the re-establishment of the Empire. For some time, 
 availing himself of the influence he retained in spite of his 
 apparent secession, he devoted himself to speculation, and it 
 was only in 1854 that he again came to the front politically, 
 this time as President of the Legislative Body. 
 
 From that period till his death in March, 1865, Morny was 
 regarded as the chief pillar of the Empire, the power standing 
 behind the throne, though he never relinquished his gambling 
 proclivities, readily turning from politics to promote banks, 
 railway, mining, and industrial companies, speculating, too, in 
 land, founding the fashionable seaside resort called Deauville, 
 and conducing, by his connection with the issue of the Jecker 
 bonds, to the development of that unfortunate Mexican affair, 
 which shook the regime so severely. Even when Morny went 
 to Russia as ambassador extraordinary for the coronation of 
 Alexander II., his business instincts prompted him to convey 
 thither an immense amount of saleable property, such as 
 jewellery and lace. He well knew that by diplomatic privilege 
 his baggage was not liable to duty ; and it followed that, as 
 France paid for all his magnificence in Russia, he returned 
 home wealthier than he had departed, in possession, too, of a 
 Russian bride, for he had contrived to fascinate a young lady 
 of a princely Lithuanian house, albeit he looked old enough to 
 be her grandfather. The Princess Sophie Troubetskoi, as his 
 bride was called, was a charming, slim, graceful, black-eyed 
 blonde, with a face fit for a cameo. Subsequent to Momy's 
 death this lady, who was much admired and esteemed, married 
 the Duke de Sesto.* 
 
 Such, then, was the half-brother whom Napoleon III. 
 ultimately raised to ducal rank, but who, after making the 
 restoration of the Empire possible, preferred to stand aside for 
 a time, officially unrewarded. Others put less restraint on their 
 appetite for power and honour ; but it so happened that several 
 did not appear fit for the highest places, and had to remain 
 content wiii subordinate ones. The three marshals created on 
 the day of the proclamation of the Empire retained their posts 
 — Leroy de St. Arnaud as Minister of War, Magnan as com- 
 
 • For further particulars of Morny and his wife, see ^st, p. 289 et aeq^. 
 
30 THE COUllT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 mander in Paris, and Castellane as commander at Lyons. The 
 last named, who belonged to a famous old noble family, has left 
 an interesting "Journal," which shows that he was privy to the 
 Coup d'Etat, and supported it in Southern France with alacrity 
 and zeal. The two others have been greatly attacked by all 
 save Bonapartist writers for their share in the events of the 
 period. It has been stated repeatedly that Leroy de St. 
 Amaud was not entitled to the latter part of that name, but he, 
 his brother and the other members of their family, were formally 
 authorized to assume it by a decree of Louis Philippe, dated 
 May 12, 1840, and they did so ; though eleven years later only 
 the Marshal was singled out for taking a name alleged to be " not 
 his own." As for the standing of the family, St. Arnaud's father, 
 Leroy (or, as he originally wrote it, Le Roy), had been an advocate 
 at the bar of the Parliament of Paris prior to the Revolution, 
 no mean position, and later a Prefect under the Consulate and 
 the First Empire. He died in 1809, at which date his eldest 
 son, the future marshal, was eight years old. Two years later 
 Le Roy's young widow, originally a Mile, Papillon de La Tapy, 
 married a M. Forcade de la Roquette, and a son she had by this 
 second marriage became President of the Council of State and 
 Minister of the Interior under Napoleon III. — being doubtless 
 indebted for some of his political advancement to the fact that 
 he was St. Arnaud's step-brother. 
 
 From the foregoing it will be seen that there was really no 
 basis for the innuendos respecting St. Arnaud's origin which 
 were repeated in Kinglake's " History of the Crimean War " 
 after figuring in a dozen French pamphlets by writers 
 antagonistic to the men of the Coup d'Etat ; but, on the other 
 hand, it seems clear that St. Amaud did at one moment seek to 
 disguise his identity by assuming the Christian name of Achille 
 instead of those of Armand Jacques, given to him at his 
 baptism. And it appears equally clear that he wished certain 
 episodes of his earlier life to be buried in oblivion. Some men 
 manage to " live down" the sins of their youth, others are ever 
 pursued by them. It is certain that St. Amaud, while a 
 member of the Royal Bodyguard of Louis XVIII., became 
 financially involved, and was dismissed from that corps (Telite 
 and drafted into the Corsican Legion, and later into a Line 
 
MEN OF THE COUP D'ETAT 31 
 
 regiment. But he joined the Bodyguard when he was only 
 sixteen years of age, and he was barely a man when he was 
 dismissed from it ; and it is unfair to lay stress upon youthful 
 folly, particularly when it can be pleaded that the transgressor 
 was quite without parental guidance. Of St. Arnaud's military 
 ability there can be little doubt. In that respect, General 
 Trochu (no admirer of things imperial), who was his last senior 
 aide-de-camp, speaks highly of him in his Memoirs, and we 
 are inclined to think that with some guidance in his youth 
 St. Arnaud's career might have been not only successful but 
 distinguished. 
 
 If in 1827 he quitted the French army it was to escape 
 dreary garrison life without prospect of promotion, for he was 
 more or less a marked man, by reason, as his antagonists say, 
 of his bad reputation in money matters, or, as his partisans 
 have alleged, of the imperialist sympathies which, as the son of a 
 former official of the Empire, he took no pains to conceal. At 
 all events, he was anxious to see foreign service, and going to 
 Greece, he fought there under Capo d'Istria. Later, however, he 
 drifted into a life of adventures and shifts, a harum-scarum 
 career in the East, in Italy, and in England, becoming at one 
 moment a strolling player under the name of Florival, and at 
 another earning some kind of a living as a fencing- master at 
 Brighton. 
 
 But on the establishment of the Orleans Monarchy St. 
 Arnaud applied — as a victim of Bourbon vindictiveness — for 
 reinstatement in the French army, and this he secured early in 
 1831. He became orderly officer to General, afterwards Marshal 
 Bugeaud, and his well-known hostility to the Bourbons (due, no 
 doubt, to his early dismissal from the Royal Bodyguard), led to 
 his being chosen to watch over the imprisoned Duchess de 
 Berri after her failure to stir up insurrection in La Vendee. 
 Later, he passed over to Algeria, where he rose to be a general of 
 brigade, and whence, after a prearranged campaign against the 
 Kabyles to enable him to distinguish himself (which he did by 
 "smoking" natives in their caves, thus following Pelissier's 
 example), he returned to France as one of the chosen instru- 
 ments of Louis Napoleon's Coup d'Etat. Thin, pale, haggard, 
 already suffering from an incurable malady, he looked the last 
 
32 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 man in the world for any such adventure, but he possessed an 
 indomitable spirit, as many have testified. Later, when he was 
 French generalissimo in the Crimea, the battle of the Alma 
 gave him fame, and soon afterwards he died.* 
 
 Marshal Magnan, who commanded the army of Paris at the 
 Coup d'Etat and afterwards, was a man of different stamp. 
 Tall, imperious, heavily whiskered, and loud-voiced, although 
 originally a notary's clerk, he had enlisted as a private in the 
 first Napoleon's time, and had fought at Waterloo ; but in 1831, 
 on being sent as a colonel to quell an insurrection against Louis 
 Philippe at Lyons, he acted so " mildly " that he was deprived 
 of his command by the advice of Thiers and other ministers, 
 whereupon, proceeding to Belgium, he took service there until 
 he was reinstated in the French army in 1839. His exclusion 
 from it, or at least from active service in it, had been a severe 
 lesson, which was to recoil ultimately on those who had given it 
 to him, for he was resolved that nobody should ever charge him 
 with mildness and fear of bloodshed again. In 1848 he tried to 
 save the monarchy, escorting the Duchess of Orleans to the 
 Chamber of Deputies, in the hope of securing the proclamation 
 of her young son as King. Later, he put down " Red " risings 
 in Paris and Lyons with vigour, sparing nobody. 
 
 Quite destitute of private means, but married, with a family 
 of several children, he was, unfortunately, always in debt, which 
 circumstance designated him to the attention of Louis Napoleon. 
 One of the latter's emissaries had tried to secure Magnan's 
 adherence to the cause already at the time of the Boulogne 
 attempt in 1840, and it is said that Magnan then gave the envoy 
 encouragement, but the evidence on the point is unsatisfactory, 
 and at Louis Napoleon's trial by the Chamber of Peers, 
 Magnan certainly protested that although he had been offered 
 a bribe he had resolutely refused to take it. He showed himself 
 less scrupulous at the time of the Coup d'Etat, for his services 
 on which occasion he became, like St. Arnaud and Castellane, a 
 marshal and a senator — the latter appointment alone meaning 
 considerable addition to his income. Subsequently he was 
 created Great Huntsman, the duties of which office he never 
 
 * We shall have occasion to speak of the St, Arnaud-Oornemuse aflalr 
 heieafter. 
 
MEN OF THE COUP D'ETAT 83 
 
 really performed, though he carefully pocketed the large salary 
 attached to it. Nevertheless, he was never able to extricate 
 himself from his debts, a large part of which Napoleon III. 
 discharged after his death. 
 
 All the foregoing men being well known to the new Emperor, 
 he selected none of them to organize and direct his Court, nor 
 did he choose the two boldest members of his band, men whose 
 venturesome audacity exceeded even that of St. Arnaud and 
 Magnan, These were Persigny and Fleury. Even as St. 
 Arnaud's original name had been Leroy, so Persigny's had been 
 Fialin. But there was this difference: the former had been 
 legally entitled to his new name since 1840, whereas the second 
 was not legally Persigny till he was created Duke de Persigny 
 by Napoleon III. The Fialin family was, however, an old one 
 of Dauphin^, which had passed first into the Lyonnais and later 
 into Forez. According to a work on the last-named province,* 
 Persigny's grandfather sold several of his fiefs in 1749, but 
 retained the manor of Persigny in the parish of Cremeaux ; and, 
 though the father and the uncle of the third Napoleon's acolyte 
 were simply called Fialin, the former possession of the Persigny 
 fief was held to justify a change of appellation. 
 
 Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin de Persigny, as he claimed to be, 
 was born in 1808. His father, according to some accounts, was 
 a provincial Receiver for the Treasury under the first Empire, 
 and according to others he was killed fighting at the battle 
 of Salamanca in 1812. In any case the future adherent of 
 Napoleon III. was brought up by an uncle, passed through 
 the cavalry school of Saumur, and became a non-commissioned 
 officer of Hussars. But after being dismissed the army for 
 alleged "republicanism," he soon blossomed forth as a zealous 
 Bonapartist, recruited a number of adherents to the cause, and 
 helped to organize Louis Napoleon's attempts at Strasburg and 
 Boulogne, t Briefly, he exerted himself in all ways and on all 
 occasions in the interest of the futm-e Emperor. He was to 
 have been Minister of the Interior at the Coup d'Etat, but 
 almost at the last moment his somewhat harum-scarum audacity 
 and the violence of some of his writings suggested that he 
 
 * " Lea Fiefs du Porez avant 1789," by D'Assier de Valenches. Paris, 1858. 
 t The latter in conjunction with Count Oisi. 
 
 V 
 
34, THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 might not be altogether acceptable to the botjrgeoisie, and thus, 
 though he had already signed several drafts of the intended 
 proclamations, his place was taken by Morny. When, however, 
 the latter retired in 1852, Persigny succeeded him. Shortly 
 afterwards he married Mile. Egl^ Ney de la Moskowa, then barely 
 out of her teens, on which occasion Louis Napoleon made him 
 a private present of .£'20,000. The bride and bridegroom seemed 
 very much attached to each other at first, and Persigny was freely 
 twitted for neglecting official duties and ceremonies in order to 
 hide himself away with his young wife. But stormy days ensued, 
 for the lady developed a trying temper and eccentric inclinations.* 
 Persigny held office as minister and ambassador (in London) 
 at various periods of the Empire, and became in course of time 
 the determined adversary of Rouher, whose superior in shrewd- 
 ness he undoubtedly was, though he failed to supplant him, 
 and repeatedly found his private advice to the Emperor treated 
 with neglect. To Persigny's credit it may be said that he was 
 one of the very first to apprehend the dire consequences of the 
 Franco-German war, and the errors made in the disposition of 
 the French forces.f 
 
 Emile Felix Fleury, whom Napoleon III. made a count, a 
 general and an ambassador, was as audacious as Persigny, but in 
 his earlier years more of a man of pleasure. His father had 
 amassed a handsome fortune in trade, but the property, he tells 
 us in his " Souvenirs," was squandered by his mother, who, 
 after his father's death, married a man of title. Fleury 
 acknowledges that he took to dissipated courses when he was 
 young, and that he was at last constrained to enlist as a piivate 
 in the Spahis. It was Persigny who first presented him to 
 Louis Napoleon in London in or about 1838. Eleven years 
 later he became the Prince's orderly officer, and it was he who 
 recruited the services of St. Arnaud, Magnan, and other strong- 
 handed men, for the purposes of the Coup d'Etat. After the 
 proclamation of the Empire, Fleury was appointed First 
 
 * Ten months after Persigny's death there was a scandalous lawsuit 
 between her and her mother, the Princess de la Moskowa, who vainly tried to 
 prevent her from marrying a young advocate named Lemoyne. She did so, 
 however, and after his death married yet again, surviving till 1890, when she 
 died at Cannes. 
 
 t He died at Nice, in January, 1872. 
 
MEN OF THE COUP D'ETAT 35 
 
 Equerry, and higher distinctions followed during the ensuing 
 years. His diplomatic services were by no means despicable; 
 he negotiated the meeting between Napoleon III. and Francis 
 Joseph of Austria, which led to the armistice of Villafranca 
 in 1859; he also had a good deal to do with the cession of 
 Venetia to Italy in 1866. Later he was sent specially to Victor 
 Emmanuel to prevent an Italian advance on Rome ; and sub- 
 sequently as Ambassador in Russia he sent valuable if futile 
 warnings to France concerning the policy of Bismarck. Fleury 
 possessed, however, one tsJent in particular — he was as good a 
 judge of horseflesh as could be found anywhere. The Emperor's 
 stables were, therefore, placed under his control, and he made 
 them famous. 
 
 Altogether there is no doubt that he was an able man, with 
 less cause to blush for his past than some others. His years 
 of dissipation, as he himself calls them, were brief. Long before 
 he entered Louis Napoleon's service he had been wounded three 
 times in action, and mentioned five times in orders of the 
 day — thus he was no craven. Again, his marriage with Mile, 
 Josephine Galley de St, Paul (whose father was long prominently 
 connected with the Ministry of the Interior) proved extremely 
 happy, for he became a model husband, TaJl, fair, and pre- 
 possessing in appearajice, ever bright, affable and ready, even 
 after the hardest day's work, he won the good opinion of many 
 who by no means shared his strong political views. He and 
 Mocquard, Napoleon's Chef-de-cabinet, knew virtueJly all the 
 Emperor's private secrets, and it became necessary for Fleury 
 to intervene more than once in the affaires defemmes in which 
 his imperial master entangled himself. That was one of the 
 unfortunate obligations of his position, and he at least en- 
 deavoured to act tactfully in such matters. 
 
 All the men who have been passed in review, were either 
 soldiers at the time of the Coup d'Etat or had previously 
 seen service. In constituting the Imperial Household Napo- 
 leon III. chose a soldier for the chief ornamental position, that 
 of " Great Marshal of the Court," held in his uncle's time by 
 Duroc, However, he rightly placed the supreme management 
 in the hands of one whom he knew to be an expert financier, 
 that is his recent Minister of Finances, Achille Fould, 
 
36 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 previously a partner in the banking firm of Benoit, Fould & Co. 
 It had originally been intended to ask the Senate for a Civil 
 List of dP480,000 per annum, a figure which Fould favoured ; 
 but Persigny, who was one of the hungry men of the imperalist 
 band, felt that such a sum would be quite inadequate, and by 
 an ingenious stratagem, involving the telling of a barefaced lie 
 (frankly admitted in his " Memoirs "), he contrived that the 
 amount should be increased to one million sterling. In after- 
 years, says he, the Emperor often expressed to him his gratitude 
 for his action, exclaiming: "What should I have done if 
 merely the amount originally proposed had been granted ! " 
 
 After all, a million sterling was the sum which had been 
 agreed upon in the case of Louis XVI. at the earlier period of 
 the Revolution, and subsequently adopted for Louis XVIII., 
 Charles X., and Louis Philippe. In addition, there was the 
 dotation or endowment of the Crown, estimated to represent 
 £200,000 per annum. This dotation included first the palaces 
 of the Tuileries, the Elysee, the Louvre, and the Palais Royal, 
 with a house in the Rue de Rivoli, a mansion on the Place 
 Vend6me, and stables in the Rue Montaigne; secondly, the 
 palaces, chateaux, and other buildings, land, farms, woods and 
 forests of the state domains of Versailles, Marly, St. Cloud, 
 Meudon, St. Germain-en-Laye, Compiegne, Fontainebleau, 
 Rambouillet, Pau, and Strasbourg, to which were added pro- 
 perties at Villeneuve TEtang, near St. Cloud, and La Mothe- 
 Beuvron and La Grilliere in Sologne, which the Emperor had 
 previously arranged to purchase privately, and which the law 
 required to be included in the general endowment. Thirdly, 
 the dotation embraced the state porcelain manufactory of 
 Sevres, and the tapestry works of the Gobelins and Beauvais, 
 the Garde Meuble or state furniture depository at the He des 
 Cygnes on the Seine, and the woods or forests of Vincennes, 
 Senart, Dourdan, and Laigue. Large as the dotation may seem, 
 it was less considerable than it had been in Louis Philippe's 
 time, when it had further embraced all the Orleans private 
 property, the revenue then being quite ,£280,000. 
 
 As " Ministre de la Maison de I'Empereur," Fould had every 
 household matter under his financial control, and exercised 
 supreme authority over all buildings, estates, furnishings. 
 
THE NEW COURT 37 
 
 imperial libraries, museums and manufactories, as well as over 
 the Paris Opera-house, the administration of which was at that 
 period vested in the Crown. Fould also dealt with all the 
 many horse-racing, exhibition, and other prizes given by the 
 Emperor, with all applications for pensions, the appointment 
 of all purveyors to the Emperor, and the granting of such 
 privileges as the Crown could accord. 
 
 Fould was a man of very abrupt, curt ways, one who soon 
 sent importunate solicitors to the rightabout, and who dis- 
 charged his duties with zealous care. Prior to the Coup d'Etat 
 he had rendered an important service to the Emperor or Prince 
 Louis Napoleon, as he then was. The Prince had contracted a 
 good many debts, notably in England,* and his adversaries 
 wished to secure his unpaid acceptances and create a scandal, 
 such as might damage him badly and even lead to his arrest 
 for debt. A certain English printer and publisher heard, 
 however, of what was brewing and communicated with Plon, the 
 eminent French publisher, who was a warm Bonapartist and 
 issued Louis Napoleon's writings. It thus happened that while 
 the agent of the Cavaignac party, a certain Fillineau, was 
 haggling with the holders of the unpaid bills, Plon conveyed 
 the information he had received to Fould, whom he knew well, 
 and Fould, forestalling the dilatory Fillineau, purchased the 
 acceptances and tendered them to Louis Napoleon without any 
 question of payment. 
 
 However, in spite of Fould's high ability and strictness of 
 management as Minister of the Household, the Civil List was 
 soon in debt. The constitution of endowments for various 
 members of the imperial family and the expenses of the 
 Emperor's marriage in 1853 resulted in a deficit of .£280,000. 
 When Fould resigned in 1860, the amount owing by the Civil 
 List was stiU nearly di&215,000, and throughout the reign the 
 indebtedness was never extinguished. At the fall of the Empire 
 it again stood at the figure of 1853, and was only met by the 
 sale of all sorts of property.f 
 
 • For the purposes of the Coup d'Etat he borrowed £20,000 of the Spanish 
 Marshal Naivaez. His mistress, Hiss Howard, also helped him financially 
 about that time, and others gave similar assistance. 
 
 t Alphonsa Gautier's " La Liste Civile en France "—the authoritative 
 
88 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 The Constitution formally provided for the creation of a 
 jointure or dower in the event of the Emperor marrying; but 
 the Empress Eugenie repeatedly refused to allow that provision 
 to be made, for she had no desire for personal wealth; and 
 Napoleon IH., in a like spirit, declined any special allow- 
 ance for the Imperial Prince. But the other members of the 
 imperial family were very handsomely treated. Capital sums 
 amounting to £4i80,000 were distributed among them, in 
 addition to annual allowances. Apart from those made 
 officially to the Jerome branch of the Bonapartes, whose 
 members being in the appointed line of succession to the throne 
 ranked as Imperial Highnesses, a large number of grants were 
 made to the other Princes, Princesses, and family connections. 
 We shall refer to them in some detail hereafter,* and for the 
 moment it need only be mentioned that throughout the 
 duration of the Empire from .£45,000 to .£50,000 were paid 
 annually to relatives and connections (Bonapartes, Murats, 
 Baciocchis, Primolis, Gabriellis, e tutti quanti) out of the Civil 
 List. This, too, was in addition to special presents at times 
 when these relatives or connections were in pecuniary difficulties, 
 owing to their ridiculous extravagance. It was often not 
 incumbent on the Emperor to make those allowances, but he 
 was a genuine oncle d'Ameriqiie, as one says in Paris, an ideal 
 " rich relation," with an ever-open purse. 
 
 But let us pursue our review of the Civil List. A sum of 
 £240,000 a year was apportioned among the various branches 
 of the Imperial Household : the departments of the Great 
 Almoner, the Great Marshal of the Palace, the Great 
 Chamberlain, the Great Equerry, the Great Huntsman, and 
 the Great Master of Ceremonies. The expenses included not 
 only the salaries of the aforementioned officers of State and 
 their assistants and servants, but all the outlay attendant on 
 living, linen, plate, horses, carriages, balls, receptions, theatrical 
 performances, the chapel and chamber music services, the 
 medical attendance to the Crown and the Emperor's Private 
 Cabinet. Next a sum of .£480,000 was devoted to the repair 
 
 work on the subject. M. Gautier was the general secretary of the Imperial 
 Household. 
 
 * See post, Chapter IX., p. 209 et sej. 
 
THE NEW COURT 39 
 
 or upkeep of the palaces and other buildings, manufactories, 
 libraries, agricultural establishments, forests and estates of the 
 dotation — this being ^^280,000 more than the dotation yielded 
 in revenue. Further, ^240,000 were allotted annually for 
 grants, gifts, or pensions — to the aforementioned members 
 or connections of the imperial family, to old servants of the 
 First Empire, to members of the clergy and army, scientists, 
 literary men and artists, workmen also, and particularly 
 inventors, the latter receiving during the reign very consider- 
 able sums of money as well as other support. This was one 
 of the good traits of the third Napoleon's character ; he 
 willingly received and encouraged inventors, and never wearied 
 of doing so, though more than one tried to impose upon him. 
 Another source of expense was the Imperial Bodyguard, known 
 as the Cent-Gardes, which cost the Civil List from ,£12,000 to 
 =£"16,000 per annum over and beyond a War Office grant of 
 ^12,000. Further, the Grand Opera (Rue Le Peletier) cost 
 between ePSOOO and ,£12,000 each year from 1854 to 1866, at 
 which latter date the management was detached from the 
 Household. Nevertheless the Emperor afterwards granted a 
 private subvention of ■£'4000, by way, said he, of " paying for 
 his box." Again, in the one year, 1867 — the great year of the 
 first Champ de Mars Universal Exhibition — a sum of £'48,000 
 was spent on entertaining foreign sovereigns and princes, over 
 and beyond the usual outlay of the Court. 
 
 Under Fould, the Minister, but otherwise at the head of 
 the Household, was the Great Marshal of the Palace, Marshal 
 and Senator Count Vaillant. In 1860, when Fould resigned, 
 the two offices were united, Vaillant becoming Minister as well 
 as Great Marshal.* He was an able man, a Burgundian, bom 
 in 1790, and had begun his career as an oflScer of engineers 
 under the first Napoleon. He had participated in the retreat 
 from Moscow, and had fought at the battles of Paris (when he 
 was wounded), of Ligny and of Waterloo. He afterwards took 
 part in the expedition to Algiers — indeed it was he who blew 
 up the so-called " Fort de TEmpereur," thereby compelling the 
 Dey to surrender to Marshal Bourmont. Subsequently, in 
 
 • The Ministry of Fine Arts, under the superintendence of Count da 
 Nieuwerkerke, was then attached to that of the Imperial Household. 
 
40 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 conjunction with Dode de la Brunerie, Vaillant directed the 
 erection of the fortifications of Paris, all the part north of the 
 Seine being his work. He afterwards became President of 
 the Comite des Fortifications for the whole of France, and he 
 was the real director of the siege of Rome in 1849. A zealous 
 Bonapartist, bearing in his heart the memory of the great 
 Napoleon who had decorated him on the battlefield, Vaillant 
 naturally proved a warm partisan of the restoration of the 
 Empire, but we do not find that he took any active part in the 
 Coup d'Etat, although he soon afterwards received his Marshal's 
 baton from Louis Napoleon. At all events, nobody ever 
 breathed a word against Vaillant's personal honour. He did 
 not, in his later years, evince much affability or graciousness, 
 but he was a man to whom no princely visitor or diplomatic 
 envoy could possibly take objection. He was, moreover, 
 learned alike in mathematics and the natural sciences, being a 
 member of both the Academie des Sciences and the Bureau des 
 Longitudes, as weU as President of the Societies of Protection 
 to Animals, Acclimatisation and Horticulture. Roses were his 
 particular passion, and he promoted the raising of several new 
 varieties. 
 
 A man who loves flowers can hardly be a bad one. Nor 
 was Vaillant. His different offices gave him an income of over 
 ri&lOjOOO a year, but he spent so much of the money on scientific 
 or semi-scientific pursuits, aU more or less useful in their way, 
 that one could scarcely reproach him with the high figure of 
 his emoluments. ' He was a good and careful steward of the 
 Imperial Household, and at times he remonstrated successfully 
 with the Emperor respecting the latter's " impulsive and incon- 
 venient acts of munificence." The Duke de Conegliano, a 
 prominent official of the Imperial Court, relates that in 1862 
 the Emperor desired that the Civil List should immediately 
 provide £32,000 for some particular purpose. Vaillant replied 
 that this could not possibly be done, but observing how vexed 
 the Emperor appeared, he straightway lodged a number of his 
 own securities with his bankers as security for a loan of the 
 required amount, and carried out the Emperor's wishes. 
 Napoleon III. heard indirectly of the Marshal's action, and 
 going up to him on leaving the palace chapel on the following 
 
THE NEW COURT 41 
 
 Sunday, he exclaimed : " What ! Marshal, are you ruining 
 yourself in my service, as you have to borrow money of your 
 bankers?" Then, pressing the old soldier's hand, he added: 
 " I must certainly set my finances in order ; I shall keep it in 
 mind." Whether he did so or not, however, the CivU List, as 
 we have previously mentioned, was never out of debt. 
 
 Vaillanfs office as Great Marshal included the military 
 command of the household and of all the imperial palaces, the 
 exercise of a general supervision over them, the distribution of 
 quarters to guests, officers and servants, the kitchen, table, 
 heating and lighting services, the plate, linen, liveries, and so 
 forth. The salary of this particular office was d£?2000 a year, 
 with free quarters and table. Immediately under the Great 
 Marshal was the Adjutant-general, this being General Alexandre 
 Rolin, who had acted as aide-de-camp of Count Gerard, and had 
 seen service under Napoleon I. Rolin held office at the Tuileries 
 until he died in 1869, when he was succeeded by General de 
 Courson. The Adjutant-general, whose Court salary was ^"1200 
 a year, with free quarters and table, transmitted the Emperor's 
 orders to all general-officers or officers of State; he acted also 
 as chief of the Sovereign's staff at all reviews ; and the Colonel 
 of the Cent-Gardes and the Chief of the Palace Police were 
 under his immediate orders. General Rolin was a very amiable 
 and obliging man, with whom the present writer's family often 
 came in contact. 
 
 The Prefects of the Palace were civil officers under the Great 
 Marshal's control. There were originally four of them, each 
 receiving £400 a year, and they did duty in rotation, for a 
 week at a time in Paris, and for a month when the Court was 
 elsewhere. Among those who filled these prefectoral offices at 
 various times were Counts de Lawoestine and Merle, Barons 
 Morio de I'lsle, de Menneval, de Maussion, de Yaraigne-Dubourg 
 and de Montbrun — the last named being a son of the first 
 Napoleon's famous cavalry general. There was also a quarter- 
 master-accountant, M. Bidos, who received ^^400 a year with 
 free quarters and board. Of the other quartermasters {marechaux 
 de logis), who prepared apartments for guests, and exercised 
 supervision over the furniture and other appointments of the 
 imperial residences, for which purpose they attended the Court 
 
42 THE COUllT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 not only at the Tuileries, but also at St. Cloud, Compiegne, 
 and its other places of sojourn, the chief was Colonel, later General 
 Count Lepic, aide-de-camp to the Emperor. As First Mare- 
 chal de Logis he received i6?800 a year, and he had four assistants 
 with salaries of ,£320 under him. Count Lepic, who afterwards 
 became Superintendent of the Imperial Palaces, was a man of 
 great artistic taste (which he transmitted to his son, the 
 painter), learned, moreover, in all questions of furniture, 
 tapestry, and other hangings, and under his direction the 
 private apartments of the Empress became extremely beautiful. 
 Major Oppenheim, one of Lepic's subordinates, was likewise a 
 man of great artistic taste and perception, notably with respect 
 to bibelots and china. 
 
 Although the palace kitchens and cellars were in the Great 
 Marshal's department, it is preferable, perhaps, that we should 
 speak of them elsewhere, in connection with the State banquets 
 of the Court, and we may here pass to the "Service de la 
 Chambre." The Great Chamberlain (with a salary of £1600 a 
 year, free residence and table) was the Duke de Bassano, the 
 son of the first Napoleon's Foreign Secretary, Maret. Tall and 
 slim, carrying himself very erect, M. de Bassano looked a 
 striking figure in his richly embroidered scarlet coat and plumed 
 cocked hat, with the gold key of his office depending from 
 a chain formed of gold and green acorns. He had served 
 as French Minister at Baden and Brussels, and was married 
 to a Belgian lady, who became one of the Empress's dames 
 d'honneur. All applications for audiences came before M. de 
 Bassano, who after preparing a list of them submitted it to 
 the Emperor. The latter then marked the names, indicating 
 those applicants whom he would receive personally, and those 
 whom one or another official was to see on his behalf. 
 
 More numerous were the duties of M. de Bassano's nominal 
 subordinate, the First Chamberlain, Count Marius Joseph 
 Baciocchi, who was a connection of the Bonapartes through the 
 first Napoleon's sister Elisa. Born in Corsica in 1803, Count 
 Baciocchi had married a lady of that island, a member of the 
 famous Pozzo di Borgo family. He occupied a small suite of 
 rooms, decorated with a nice collection of pictures, on the 
 ground floor of the Tuileries; and he, his secretary Bertoia, 
 
THE NEW COURT 43 
 
 and hia valet and factotum Nicolas, were besieged every 
 morning by artists, authors, actors, dancers and vocalists, for 
 all the artistic side of the Court, and notably its theatrical 
 patronage and the superintendence of the Opera, etc., were in 
 Baciocchi's department. It was his duty to attend every first 
 performance given in Paris, and to report on it to the Emperor 
 or the Empress. An easy-going, good-natured man, Baciocchi 
 was extremely partial to the stage, and also to pretty actresses ; 
 but as time elapsed he became bloated and unwieldy, afflicted 
 also, says the Duke de Conegliano, with a disorder which 
 kept him perpetually on the move, in such wise that he could 
 no longer sit down of an afternoon to play his favourite game 
 of piquet at the Cercle Imperial, and those who interviewed him 
 had to pace up and down the room by his side^ 
 
 In addition to the Great and the First Chamberlains there 
 were at first eight, and eventually twelve, others, each of whom 
 was in receipt of ^£"480 a year. Among those who thus held 
 office during the reign there were not only numerous members 
 of the Imperialist noblesse, but also several scions of the old 
 French aristocracy, who went over to the Empire often to the 
 great disgust of the Faubourg St. Germain, where the cult of 
 the Legitimist Monarchy was piously preserved. Among the 
 third Napoleon's chamberlains one found, then, not merely such 
 Bonapartist names as Macdonald, Duke of Tarento, Count 
 d'Omano, De Lab^doyere, and Moncey, Duke of Conegliano, 
 but such others as Marquis de Chaumont, Marquis de Gricourt, 
 Marquis de Belmont, Marquis d'Havrincourt, Count de Rien- 
 court, Count d'Ayguesvives, Viscount Walsh and Viscount de La 
 Ferriere. The last named, an ex-hussar officer and a very hand- 
 some and courteous man, has, since those days, made himself a 
 high literary reputation by his historical writings. He served, 
 we remember, at one time as chamberlain to the Empress, and 
 was promoted to Baciocchi's post after the latter's death in 
 1866. 
 
 There will be occasion to speak of the officials of the 
 Emperor's Private Cabinet in describing the usual course of the 
 sovereign's daily life. Those officials were only nominally under 
 the control of the Great Marshal and the Great Chamberlain. 
 The palace ushers, however, should be mentioned here. The 
 
44 THE COURT, OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 chief one, who always took the head of the imperial cortege to 
 announce the Emperor, was a tall, finely built man named 
 Thovex, in receipt of =£"196 a year. He had ten subordinates, 
 whose wages ranged from i?100 to ^"110, with allowances for 
 quarters. The Emperor's private usher, Felix Werwoort, who 
 had followed him from England, and who, by the way, always 
 carved for him at dinner, received as much as £9,4iO per annum, 
 but then he was quite a confidential servant. The wages of the 
 valets-de-cliamhre (six of the first and six of the second class) 
 ranged from £SQ to .£100 ; while £82. was the stipend of the 
 chief of the ^rgons d'appartement, who had eight men under 
 him. 
 
 Besides the servants already mentioned there were eight 
 suisses, who with powdered hair, cocked hats with green and 
 white plumes, red baldricks and short side-swords, stood at the 
 doors of the chief rooms in the palace, and struck the floor with 
 their staves while exclaiming aloud, " The Emperor ! " " The 
 Empress ! " " The Imperial Prince ! " whenever one or the other 
 passed in or out. Then, too, there was the little army of 
 footmen, forty, divided into two classes, with four brigadiers at 
 their head. The suisses received £70, the brigadiers of the 
 footmen £1!% and the footmen themselves, according to their 
 class, from ^^58 to £62 a year. Very splendid looked the footmen 
 on gala occasions, with their powdered hair, their gallooned and 
 plumed hats e7i bataille, their green coats a la Jrangaise with 
 gold on every seam, their gallooned scarlet waistcoats and 
 breeches, their gold garters, their white-silk stockings and their 
 patent-leather shoes with buckles again of gold. 
 
 Another branch of the Imperial Household was that of the 
 Great Master of Ceremonies, the Duke de Cambacer^s, a nephew 
 of the Archchancellor of the First Napoleon's Empire. Tall, 
 thin, clean-shaven and solemn, the Duke was the very man for 
 his post. With some assistance from Fleury he regulated all 
 the ceremonial at the imperial wedding, the baptism of the 
 Imperial Prince, the State receptions of Queen Victoria and 
 other sovereigns and royalties, the presentation of the Golden 
 Rose to the Empress Eugenie, and the conferring of birettas on 
 various French cardinals appointed by Pius IX. He was 
 also to the fore whenever addresses were presented by the 
 
THE NEW COURT 45 
 
 Legislature and other public bodies. With a large private 
 fortune of his own and a wealthy young wife of bourgeois birth, 
 who was as short, as lively and as amiable as he was long, frigid 
 and severe, M. de Cambac^rfes, besides being lodged by the 
 crown, received =&1600 a year for his services. 
 
 Under him was a First Master of Ceremonies, Count 
 Rodolphe d'Omano * (salary ^6*800), and several subordinate 
 masters, assistant-masters, and secretaries, among the first 
 being Baron Feuillet de Conches, chief of the Protocole at the 
 Ministry of Foreign Al&irs, and also — as testified by his many 
 writings and compilations — a most fervent, zealous admirer of 
 Marie- Antoinette, to which circumstance, in particular, he owed 
 the favour of the Empress Eugenie. M. Feuillet de Conches 
 retained office after the fall of the regime, becoming Introducer 
 of Ambassadors to both Thiers and MacMahon. 
 
 The Emperor's Military Household was composed of a 
 Commander and several aides-de-camp and orderly officers. 
 The aides-de-camp, who were generals of divisional or brigade 
 rank — or occasionally vice-admirals — received £480 per annum 
 for their attendance on the sovereign, which, as there were 
 always four (and at times six) in office, and each performed a 
 week's duty in rotation, did not cover a period of more than 
 three months in any year. The position of the Commander of 
 the Military Household was permanent, however, being held 
 from 1852 till 1865 by General Count Roguet, originally an 
 officer of engineers and son of a distinguished soldier of the 
 First Empire. General Roguet was in attendance on the 
 Emperor on the occasion of Orsini and Pierri's attempt at 
 assassination, and was somewhat seriously wounded by one of 
 the bombs which were then thrown. He belonged essentially 
 to the inner circle of the Tuileries, being one of the men in 
 whom Napoleon placed most confidence, and his services were 
 rewarded with a senatorship and the rank of Grand Officer of 
 the Legion of Honour. 
 
 Three officers who became Marshals of France f were aides- 
 de-camp to the Emperor at one or another time. These, to 
 
 * The son of Countess Walewska (someiiune mistress of Napoleon I,), by 
 her second marriage. See ante, p. 27. 
 
 t For the Marshals generally, see posi, p. 345 et seg. 
 
46 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 give their names in order of merit, were Niel, Canrobert, and 
 Leboeuf. It was the first named (originally an engineer officer) 
 who adopted the Chassepot rifle, and armed the French infantry 
 with it, besides devising the force known as the Garde Mobile, 
 which, however, owing to his untimely death, was not organized 
 as he had intended it should be. Canrobert's name is more 
 familiar, perhaps, to most readers on account of his survival 
 until comparatively recent times, and of his prominence in the 
 Crimea, where he succeeded St. Amaud. Originally a light 
 infantry and zouave officer, he was noted for his dash and 
 zest, but he was a much overrated man, deficient in the ability 
 required for high command. His appearance w£is eccentric, 
 for he had a short figure and a big head, which looked all the 
 larger owing to the mass of long hair waving around it. 
 Canrobert often showed himself to be a rattling raconteur, but 
 his language was usually better suited to a guardroom than a 
 salon by reason of the unnecessary expletives with which he 
 interlarded what he said. He was married to a lady much 
 younger than himself, a Macdonald, who rightly ranked as one 
 of the beauties of the Empire. Leboeuf, the third Marshal 
 whom we have named, became War Minister, and a little later 
 "Major-General" of the Army of the Rhine, for neither of 
 which offices he was fitted. But he was a superb-looking man, 
 with wonderful moustaches, and it should be acknowledged 
 that he was a clever artillerist. He ought never to have left 
 that branch of the service. 
 
 Among other aides-de-camp to the Emperor were General 
 Count de Goyon (who at one time commanded the French 
 army of occupation at Rome), Generals Lannes de Montebello, 
 Count Pajol (in attendance at Sedan), de Castelnau, and MoUard. 
 The last named, a native of Savoy, had a very distinguished 
 record in the Sardinian service, having commanded a brigade 
 both at the Tchernaya in the Crimea, and at Solferino in 1859, 
 when with a handful of men he for several hours kept some 
 thousands of Austrians under Benedek at bay. Mollard was 
 largely instrumental in promoting the annexation of Savoy to 
 France, and became a French senator as well as a Grand Officer 
 of the Legion of Honour.* 
 
 • He was a near relative of the present writer's wife. In 1870, despite his 
 
THE NEW COURT 47 
 
 Another notable aide-de-camp of the Emperor's was General 
 Fave, a distinguished scientist, who (like lleftye) had much to do 
 with the invention of the mitrailleuse and the general transforma- 
 tion of the French artillery. He also largely assisted Napoleon in 
 writing the Life of Caesar. Then, too. General Felix Douay, 
 who commanded the 7th Army Corps at Sedan — the corps 
 whose fortunes are chronicled in the novel " La Debacle " — had 
 served for a time as an imperial aide-de-camp. So too had 
 Frossard, the beaten commander at Forbach in 1870, before he 
 became (in 1867) Governor to the Imperial Prince.* So also 
 had M. de Failly, who defeated Garibaldi at Mentana — when, 
 said he, " the chassepots did wonders " — and who in his turn was 
 routed at Beaumont just before Sedan. Again, among the ex- 
 aides-de-camp to the Emperor, one finds the unlucky Bourbaki, 
 who commanded the Army of the East during the latter pai-t of 
 the Franco-German War ; while yet another who became pro- 
 minent at that time, as commander of the 12th Army Corps, 
 was Lebrun, a diminutive, simple, modest, hard-working man, 
 who fought gallantly at Bazeilles, and whose revelations during 
 these later years have proved that although Prussia may have 
 forced on the war in 1870, France and Austria fully intended to 
 attack her early in the following year, by which date their 
 armies were to have been ready. It was as Napoleon's aide-de- 
 camp and secret envoy that Lebrun entered into all the arrange- 
 ments at Vienna. Finally, among the notable aides-de-camp 
 to be mentioned in connection with the war was Count Reille, 
 who carried the Emperor's letter of surrender to the King of 
 Prussia, on whom he had been in attendance in Paris in 1867. 
 Such is the irony of fate. 
 
 Plentiful as were the aides-de-camp who became conspicuous 
 in 1870-71, only three, inclusive of Canrobert, had figured 
 prominently in the Coup d'fitat. The other two were Espmasse 
 and Beville. The former, who then seized the Palais Bourbon, 
 became Minister of the Interior and General Safety after the 
 
 advanced age, Mollaid again took aer^oe, and placed Qrenoble in a state of 
 defence. 
 
 • Frossard was in many respects a very able man, and his defeat in 1870 
 was due, we believe, far more to the scattering of the French forces, and the 
 lack of support which he had a right to expect, than to any personal incom- 
 petence for command. 
 
48 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Orsini aflFair, when his harshness made him so unpopular on all 
 sides that his death at Magenta a year afterwards seemed a 
 positive deliverance. General Baron de Beville, for his part, 
 had occupied the National Printing Works at the Coup d'Etat, 
 and directed, in conjunction with St. Georges, the printing of 
 Louis Napoleon's proclamations. In addition to a military 
 position beside the Emperor, Beville became chief of the 
 private topographical service. Among the naval aides-de-camp 
 one need only record the name of Vice- Admiral Jurien de la 
 Graviere, sometime Minister of Marine, but best remembered, 
 perhaps, as a writer on naval history and warfare. 
 
 The Emperor's orderly officers were selected from among 
 captains in the army set down for promotion. They usually 
 served two years in the Imperial Household, which they quitted 
 with a step in rank. On appointment they received J'^OO for 
 an outfit, and besides the ordinary pay of officers of their rank 
 stationed in Paris, they had an annual salary of £320 and were 
 lodged and boarded when on duty. Each, however, was required 
 to provide two horses of his own. Many distinguished names 
 are to be found in the long list of Napoleon's orderlies : 
 Cambriels, Berckheim, Espeuilles, Aubigny, Ney d'Elchingen, 
 Clermont - Tonnerre, La Tour d'Auvergne, Friant, Quelen, 
 Excelmans, Schmitz, Verch^re de Reffye, StofFel, and last but 
 not least, GallifFet. 
 
 It was Captain, eventually General, Schmitz who attended 
 Napoleon III. in Italy and brought back and presented to the 
 Empress Eugenie, in solemn audience, the various Austrian 
 flags taken at Magenta and Solferino ; whereupon, in accord- 
 ance with State ceremonial, she rewarded him for his mission 
 with what was officially styled an accolade, vulgo a kiss. He 
 was, we believe, the only man so distinguished during the reign. 
 Schmitz also served as Chief of the Staff to Cousin-Montauban 
 (otherwise Palikao) in China, when the Summer Palace was 
 looted ; and during the siege of Paris in 1870 he became General 
 Trochu's right-hand man^ Verchfere de Reffye for his part 
 became director of the Meudon artillery- works and the inventor 
 or perfecter of mitrailleuses, breech-loading and rifled guns, 
 besides assisting his imperial master with the latter's Life of 
 Cassar. Stoffel is best remembered as French military attache 
 
THE NEW COURT 49 
 
 at Berlin, ■whence he forwarded to Paris such valuable but 
 unheeded reports respecting the military progress of Prussia. 
 As for the Marquis de Galliffet, Prince de Martigues, his 
 service as an Imperial orderly dated from the early sixties after 
 he had won a captaincy in the Spahis in Algeria. He quitted 
 the Court when he volunteered for service in Mexico, where, 
 as we shall presently have occasion to relate — in his own words 
 — he was very seriously wounded by an exploding shell. That, 
 however, as we all know, did not prevent M. de Galliffet from 
 resuming duty, and subsequently participating in — we do not 
 say commanding — the great cavalry charge at the battle of 
 Sedan. That the Marquis had a sound constitution and much 
 physical vigour was shown already in his early years by his 
 ardour in the pursuit of pleasure. Of average height, with an 
 elegant figure, and a bright face, almost as full of colour as 
 MacMahon's, he was indefatigable both as a rider and a dancer, 
 and could sit up night after night, playing cards, and supping 
 at matutinal hours, without, to quote a popular expression, 
 " turning so much as a hair." His wife, a woman of most gentle 
 and amiable disposition, was one of the chief beauties of the 
 Empire, and, after the Empress herself, one of the foremost 
 leaders of fashion of the time.* The marriage was not satis- 
 factory, and eventually Mme. de Galliffet lived apart from her 
 husband. 
 
 In addition to the aides-de-camp and orderlies, the Emperor's 
 military household included a cavalry corps, which, though 
 known as the Cent-Gardes, or " Hundred Guards," t was at no 
 time of exactly that strength, its numbers having varied from 
 64 to 208, or 221 inclusive of ostlers and farriers. The organizer 
 of the corps was Lieut.-Colonel Count Lepic, who in 1859 was 
 succeeded in the command by Major, later Colonel, Baron Verly, 
 an officer of Creole origin, who had risen from the ranks in the 
 Guides, and who, with his lofty figure, his martial face, and 
 his splendid uniform, all aglitter with foreign decorations, was 
 a conspicuous figure at the Tuileries until the war of 1870, 
 when he accompanied his sovereign, and was taken prisoner at 
 Sedan with three of his subordinate officers and half of the 
 
 * See post, p. 275 et seq. 
 
 t See ante, p. 39 ; and fost, pp. 121 et seq., and 130. 
 
50 THE COURT QF THE TUILERIES 
 
 1st squadron of the corps.* This was instituted by a succession 
 of decrees in 1854, the quarters assigned to it being the Caserne 
 de Panthemont in the Rue de Bellechasse. The officers were 
 twelve in number ; the chief commander received ^400 and the 
 men .£'40 a year. The minimum stature necessary for incorpo- 
 ration was fixed at about 5 feet 11 inches ; but although some 
 of the men were 6 feet 2 inches, and even 6 feet 4 inches in 
 height, it was at first difficult to recruit a sufficient number 
 reaching the minimum figures, as only cavalry " non-coms.'" of 
 the most irreproachable character were eligible. Eventually 
 several drum-majors with cavalry experience were incorporated, 
 as well as privates with good records. 
 
 The men's duties were a great deal more arduous than was 
 generally supposed by those who merely saw them escorting the 
 Emperor. A detachment guarded the Tuileries inside and out 
 every night, and the men were in constant requisition for 
 reviews, public ceremonies, official receptions, imperial visits 
 to the theatres, and journeys into the provinces. They attended 
 the Emperor not only in 1870, but also during the war in Italy 
 in 1859. They were helped with respect to the grooming of 
 their horses, but their superb uniforms demanded close personal 
 attention. These Cent-Gardes were, of course, quite distinct 
 from the Imperial Guard, which was also instituted in 1854,t 
 its first commander being Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, and 
 its last Bourbaki. The Guard was a mixed division of infantry, 
 cavalry, and horse artillery — the first named including two 
 regiments of Grenadiers, two of Voltigeurs, and one of Chas- 
 seurs; the second, a regiment of Cuirassiers, one of Horse- 
 Gendarmes and one of Guides — light cavalry of the Hussar 
 type, but armed with carbines. 
 
 These Guides were first organized and commanded by Count 
 Fleury, who, as previously indicated, also held the office of First 
 — and eventually of Great — Equerry to the Emperor, the higher 
 post being originally assigned to Marshal St. Arnaud. It 
 carried with it a salary of ^61800 a year, with ,£480 for expenses 
 and residential quarters at the Louvre. | St. Arnaud's duties 
 
 * The other half, which escorted the Imperial Prince to the Belgian 
 frontier, was commanded by Lieut. Watrin. 
 
 t We mention it here, but it did not belong to the Household. 
 
 j In the histories of the Second Empire it is frequently asserted that St. 
 
THE NEW COURT 51 
 
 were merely nominal, all the work from the outset being done 
 by Fleury * and his coadjutors, among whom was an English- 
 man, Mr. Gamble, who was long in direct charge of the horses 
 ridden by the Emperor personally. Respecting them and the 
 splendid equipages of the Court we shall have something to say 
 as our narrative proceeds. Among the equerries under Fleury 
 were M. de Valabregue, who was in attendance on Napoleon III. 
 when Pianori attempted the latter's life in the Champs Elysees ; 
 M. Raimbeaux, who, when Berezowski fired at Czar Alex- 
 ander II. in the Bois de Boulogne in 1867, rode forward to 
 screen the monarch, and whose horse was thereupon shot through 
 the nostrils ; Count Davillier, who was on duty at Sedan, Baron 
 de Bourgoing, Baron Lejeune, Count de Castelbajac, Mr. de 
 Burgh (an Irishman — perhaps of the Clanricarde family f), and 
 the Marquis de Caux. 
 
 The name of the last is well remembered from the fact that 
 he became the first husband of Madame Adelina Patti, now 
 Baroness CederstrOm. The Marquis de Caux, who when quite 
 young inherited a large fortune, was of a very gay and impulsive 
 disposition, and ran through most of his money in a few years. 
 He thereupon turned to diplomacy for a livelihood, and was 
 attached to the French embassies at Florence and Rome. After 
 becoming an equerry to the Emperor, he added no little gaiety 
 to the Court life. An expert dancer, he conducted the cotillons 
 at the State balls during several successive seasons. It was his 
 passion for music, and his consequent intimacy with the 
 Stiakosch family, which led to his acquaintance with Madame 
 Patti. At the time of their marriage, whatever the difference 
 of fortune might be", there was every reason to believe that the 
 union was one of genuine affection on both sides. But 
 separation eventually came. 
 
 Yet another branch of the Imperial Household which we 
 
 Amaud, like others, leoeived £4000 a year for bis Court post. That is quite 
 erroneous. All the figures wo give are the ofSoial ones as they are to be found 
 in the Civil List. 
 
 * Before he became Great Equerry be received £1200 a year, with a 
 residence adjoining the Imperial stables in the Avenue Montaigne. 
 
 t We have not been able to identify him fully. The Duke de Conegliano 
 states that he was " honorary equerry," received £480 a year, and came to 
 France from time to time to ride in State processions. 
 
52 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 must mention was that of the Venerie or Hunt. Though 
 Marshal Magnan held the post of Great Huntsman, the duties 
 were always discharged by Count Edgar Ney, who took Magnan's 
 place in 1855, and on the death of his elder brother two years 
 later assumed by imperial decree the title of Prince de la 
 Moskowa. The subordinate officers of the Hunt (of which we 
 shall have to speak in connection with the Court's sojourns at 
 Compiegne, Fontainebleau, and elsewhere) were the Marquis 
 de Toulongeon, Colonel Baron Lambert, the Marquis de la 
 Tour Maubourg, the Baron de LSge, and M. de la Rue. Prince 
 Edgar de la Moskowa was a good-looking, unaffected man, on 
 the most intimate terms with the Emperor, who invariably 
 " thee'd " and " thou'd " him, and addressed him by his Christian 
 name. 
 
 We have yet to speak of both the Almonry and the Medical 
 Service of the Court. Louis Napoleon's first chaplain — at the 
 Elysee in 1848 — was Abbe Laisne, a curate of the Madeleine 
 church. In 1853 the Emperor appointed Mgr. Menjaud, 
 Bishop of Nancy, to be his First Almoner, and four years later 
 a "Great Almoner or Archchaplain of the Imperial Chapel" 
 was instituted by a Papal brief, the post being assigned to 
 Archbishop Morlot of Paris, and later to his successor, Mgr. 
 Darboy, the high-minded and unfortunate prelate who was 
 murdered by the Paris Communards in 1871. Among the 
 salaries attached to the Almonry and chapel services were the 
 following: Great Almoner, ^1600; First Almoner, ,£800; 
 Almoner,* ,i&480; chaplains (all canons of St. Denis and in 
 receipt of salaries as such), .£240. Auber, the famous com- 
 poser, also received .£600 a year as Director of the Imperial 
 Chapel and Chamber Music. He chose all the pieces which 
 were to be executed, presided at all rehearsals, organized the 
 concerts given at the Tuileries during Lent (when dancing was 
 not allowed), and was very regular in his attendance at the 
 palace chapel on Sunday mornings. 
 
 From 1848 onwards the tall, ascetic-looking but devoted 
 
 * This was Mgr. Tirmaolie, Bishop of Adraa, who had known Louis 
 Napoleon when the latter was a prisoner at Ham. It was Mgr. Tirmaohe 
 who, in oonjunotion with Abb6 Laisne, actually discharged most of the 
 duties of the Almonrj, 
 
THE NEW COURT 53 
 
 Abbe Laisne, Vicar-general of the Imperial Chapel, acted as 
 confessor to the Emperor, whom he accompanied to Italy in 
 1859. In 1870, however, as he had then become Chaplain- 
 general of the French Army, M. Laisne deputed his confessor- 
 ship to Abb6 Metairie, who followed the sovereign to Sedan. 
 Napoleon always figured at divine service on Sunday mornings 
 in full uniform, and attended by the officers of the Household. 
 It was on his behalf that every year, on August 15 ("St. 
 Napoleon's Day "), the Prefect of the Palace on duty presented 
 the consecrated bread at mass at St. Germain TAuxerrois, the 
 Tuileries parish church. It was then borne thither proces- 
 sionally by footmen of the Household in gala liveries, preceded 
 by ushers also in gala attire. 
 
 The most notable clerics who preached before the Court 
 in the Tuileries chapel were Fathers de Ravignan and Ventura, 
 Archbishop Darboy, Mgr. Bauer, and Abbe Deguerry of the 
 Madeleine.* Although Darboy was a learned theologian, his 
 Court sermons were marked by great simplicity of diction, and 
 imbued with a spirit of plain, straightforward Christianity, based 
 on the teachings of the Gospels. No political allusion ever 
 passed his lips, and all disputations were reserved for his private 
 chats with Marshal Vaillant, who was somewhat of a free- 
 thinker. 
 
 The first physician of the Court Medical Service was Dr. 
 Franfois Rend Conneau, the trusty friend who had attended 
 Queen Hortense in her last moments and had enabled Louis 
 Napoleon to effect his escape from the fort of Ham. Born at 
 Milan, Conneau married a Corsican lady of the Pasqualini 
 family, and their son, brought up at the Tuileries, became the 
 playmate and friend of the Imperial Prince. Conneau's own 
 medical attainments were not of the highest order, as he himself 
 freely acknowledged, saying that it was more as a friend than 
 as a doctor that he remained beside the Emperor. However, 
 he fully organized the medical service, in which he enlisted 
 some of the ablest men of the time. Adjoined to him, and 
 residing also at the Tuileries, was Dr. Baron Corvisart (a 
 great nephew of the first Napoleon's medical attendant), who 
 
 * The last named was murdered at the same time as Daiboy, by the 
 Oommunarda ol 1871. 
 
54 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 accompanied the Emperor during the campaign of 1870, and 
 was one of the three men in close attendance on the despairing 
 monarch when, riding forth from Sedan to La Moncelle, he 
 advanced beyond the brick and tile works there, into the open, 
 shell-swept space, where he long but vainly courted death. 
 The two who accompanied Napoleon and Corvisart were General 
 Count Pajol, aide-de-camp, and Count Davillier, first equerry. 
 The escort was formed of Cent-Gardes. As will be remem- 
 bered, both Corvisart and Conneau were present when the 
 Emperor died at Chislehurst. 
 
 The Medical Service also included four physicians and 
 surgeons in ordinary, each receiving .fSSO a year, among them 
 being (at one or another time) Arnal, Andral, Darralde, Fauvel, 
 Baron Larrey, and Nelaton. There were also six honorary 
 consulting physicians and surgeons, including Bouillaud, Levy, 
 Ricord, See, Velpeau and Tardieu — celebrities of the healing 
 art. Then, after the imperial marriage. Dr. Baron Paul Dubois, 
 son of the Dubois who attended Marie Louise at the birth of 
 the King of Rome, was appointed surgeon-accoucheur to the 
 Empress Eugenie.* For the personnel of the Court there were 
 eight medical men doing duty in rotation, and each in receipt 
 of £240 a year. Two of them, with one of the head doctors, 
 were always in attendance at the Tuileries, Court officials 
 and domestics were also visited free of charge at their homes, 
 accounts being kept too with pharmaceutical chemists in 
 various parts of Paris. But there was also a well-appointed 
 pharmacy at the Tuileries, in the charge of M. Acar, whom 
 the Emperor had known at Ham, and who, in addition to 
 permanent quarters and board, received £9,W a year. 
 
 As the reader will have perceived, we have not here entered 
 fully into the cost of maintaining the Imperial Court — we have 
 postponed, for instance, such matters as the Emperor's private 
 cabinet, the palace kitchen and table, the equipages, horses, 
 and hunt, and we have not yet come to the organization of the 
 households of the Empress and the Imperial Prince; but 
 enough has been said already to show that Napoleon III. had 
 
 • Subsequently a medical attendant in ordinary to the Imperial Prince 
 was appointed, with a salary of £320. We should have mentioned that £1200 
 was Oonneau's and £800 Corvisart's salary. 
 
THE NEW COURT 55 
 
 few, if any, opportunities for saving money. Large emoluments 
 certainly went to men of very indifferent character ; but, taking 
 the Court in its ensemble, the artisans of the Coup d'Etat were 
 decidedly in a minority, and death soon thinned their ranks. 
 The majority of the others were neither better nor worse than 
 the average Frenchman of those times, while some were men of 
 real distinction and merit. The legend that the Court of the 
 Tuileries was formed exclusively of profligate banditti is utterly 
 absurd. The Court had its scandals undoubtedly, and of some, 
 including the worst, we shall have occasion to speak ; but if only 
 a quarter of all the alleged scandals had been true, the regime 
 would have been swept away long years before the downfall of 
 Sedan. To imagine the contrary would be a gross libel on the 
 French nation. 
 
Chapter hi 
 
 The imperial marriage — the empress aTs'D her 
 household 
 
 The Emperor's first Matrimonial Negotiations — Opposition to the Allianca 
 with MUe. de Montijo — The Speculations of Fould and St. Amaud — The 
 tragic Oamerata Scandal — Mile, de Montijo's first glimpse of Louia 
 Napoleon — Her juvenile sympathy with him at Ham — Intercourse of the 
 Montijos with the Prince during his Presidency — The Proposal of Marriage 
 — Position of the Jerome Branch of the Bonapartes — The Parentage of 
 the Empress Eugenie — The Empress's Beauty at the time of her Marriage 
 — Her sister, the Duchess d'Albe — The Wedding Preparations — The Civil ■ 
 Marriage — Prince Napoleon in Mourning — The Bridal Dress and Jewels — 
 The Ceremony at Notre Dame — Favourable popular Impression — The 
 Empress's Household — The Great Mistress, the Lady of Honour and the 
 Ladies of the Palace — The Maids of Honour and the Lady Reader— The 
 Great Master of the Household and the Chamberlains — The Secretary and 
 the Librarian. 
 
 Some time elapsed before the Imperial Household was com- 
 pletely constituted and set in working order ; but it had been 
 planned by Count Fleury (who, as he tells us, took the Court 
 of Napoleon I. as his model), and the plans had already been 
 largely carried out, prior to the Emperor's marriage. On the 
 other hand, Louis Napoleon had turned his thoughts to 
 matrimony even before the restoration of the Empire was 
 officially proclaimed. There is a legend that he asked MUe. de 
 Montijo, later the Empress Eugenie, to become his bride 
 prior to the Coup d'Etat; but the facts are different. It is 
 known that Count Walewski, French ambassador to England, 
 approached Queen Victoria, in December, 1852, on the subject 
 of a marriage between the new Emperor and the Princess 
 Adelaide of Hohenlohe, a niece of her Majesty, and that 
 although the Queen did not seriously object, the Princess's 
 
THE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 57 
 
 father did, on account not only of difference of religion, but 
 also of Napoleon's reputation from the moral standpoint. 
 Further, about the same time, the Emperor's cousin. Count 
 Tascher de la Pagerie,* carried on some negotiations elsewhere, 
 perhaps in Bavaria, to which country he had for many years 
 belonged; while Fleury, as recounted by himself in his 
 " Souvenirs," set out on a mission to secure the hand of Carola 
 Frederika, Princess Wasa, daughter of Prince Wasa, the son of 
 Gustavus IV. of Sweden. f Whatever Fleury may allege to the 
 contrary, it seems that Napoleon III. hoped to succeed in that 
 quarter, for the Princess Carola's grandmother, on the maternal 
 side, was a Beauharnais, a daughter of Count Claude of that 
 name, and a first cousin of Queen Hortense. Napoleon I. had 
 adopted her, and she had espoused the Grand Duke of Baden, t 
 Nevertheless, however favourably she might be disposed towards 
 Louis Napoleon, Fleury's mission failed, because, says he, the 
 Princess Carola's hand had been virtually promised already to 
 Crown Prince Albert of Saxony. That may be so, for six 
 months later she married that Prince, and eventually rose with 
 him to the Saxon throne. 
 
 Napoleon, according to Fleury, was relieved by the failure 
 of the negotiations, but the case is very suggestive of the fable 
 of the fox and the grapes. It is certain that the majority of 
 the Emperor's advisers wished him to maiTy a foreign Princess. 
 When the alliance with Mile, de Montijo was first mooted, it 
 was opposed by Pei*signy, then Minister of the Interior ; Drouyn 
 de Lhuys, the Foreign Secretary ; Abbatucci, the Keeper of the 
 Seals ; Fortoul, the Minister of Public Instruction ; Bineau, the 
 Minister of Finances ; Troplong, the President of the Senate ; 
 Walewski, and several others — in fact, by far the greater part 
 
 * Of the family of the Empress Josephine. See post, p. 74. 
 
 t The reader may be reminded that Gustavus IV. was deposed and sue 
 ceeded by his uncle, Charles XTTT., who adopted as his successor Bemadotte, 
 from whom the present Swedish royal house is descended. According to 
 legitimist doctrine, the Prince Wasa mentioned above was by right King of 
 Sweden. 
 
 X Her record, as regards the occupation of thrones by her posterity, is 
 almost as remarkable as that of the Danish royal house. From the Grand 
 Duchess Stephanie are descended the Kings of Saxony, Portugal, and 
 Boumania, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Princes of HohenzoUem- 
 Sigmaringen, the Prince of Monaco, and the Count of Flanders, as well as 
 the Dukes of Hamilton. 
 
58 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 of the administration ; its only partisans being Fleury, Morny, 
 St. Amaud, Edgar Ney, Toulongeon (the Emperor's orderly), 
 and Fould, the Minister of the Impenal Household. Fould, 
 however, seems to have played a double game in the affair. 
 Aware as he was that the outside world anticipated that the 
 new Emperor, should he decide to marry, would contract some 
 great alliance, he resolved to profit by what would happen, and 
 when the public announcement of the marriage with Mile, de 
 Montijo almost led to a panic on the Bourse — a fall of two 
 francs in Rentes, and a drop in most other public securities — 
 he, having played for the fall, reaped very large profits, whereas 
 St. Amaud — an inveterate gambler — who had done his utmost 
 to support the market, was hit so badly that (according to the 
 Archives of the Prefecture of Police) he narrowly escaped 
 "execution," and was only extricated from his difficulties by 
 the liberality of the Emperor, to whom he excused himself for 
 his misfortune by attributing all the blame to the "bearing" 
 tactics of Fould.* 
 
 A connection of the imperial house, young Count Camerata, 
 a grandson of the first Napoleon's sister Elisa, also speculated 
 disastrously on that occasion, and after vainly appealing for 
 assistance both to his mother. Princess Baciocchi, and to Prince 
 Jerome Bonaparte, who, it has been asserted, owed him 
 money at the time, he committed suicide. His death was 
 followed a few days afterwards by that of a promising young 
 actress of the Vaudeville Theatre, Elisa Letessier, who appeared 
 professionally under the name of Mile. Marthe. She and 
 Camerata were much attached to each other, and she would 
 not survive him, but put an end to her life by means of a pan 
 of charcoal. All the theatrical notabilities of Paris followed 
 the young artiste to her grave. 
 
 But we must not anticipate. The early matrimonial 
 negotiations with foreign Courts having failed, Napoleon was 
 evidently of opinion that others would have a similar result, 
 and he thereupon seriously turned his thoughts to the question 
 of wedding Mile, de Montijo. She and her mother, the 
 
 * Fleury tells the story in bis own fashion, and informs us that he defended 
 St. Arnaad against the charge of being a gambler. Eat it was] Fleury's 
 business to defend his Coup d'Btat confederates. 
 
THE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 59 
 
 Countess, were frequently in Fi'ance. They had first gone 
 there during some of the troubles in Spain in 1834', when, as 
 Marshal de Castellane relates in his " Diary," he met them at 
 Perpignan. During Louis Napoleon's presidency of the 
 Republic they had been frequent guests at his entertainments. 
 The first time, however, when they caught sight of the future 
 Emperor was after the Strasburg affair in 1836, when, being in 
 Paris, they happened to call at the Prefecture of Police to see 
 the Prefect's wife, Mme. Delessert, a Spaniard by birth and a 
 family friend, on which occasion they saw the Prince passing in 
 the custody of several policemen. Eugenie de Montijo was 
 then only a child, some ten years old, but the incident impressed 
 her, and when Louis Napoleon was imprisoned at Ham, after 
 the Boulogne affair, she, " being always inclined towards those 
 who suffered, interested in all the oppressed, and nourishing a 
 secret sympathy for the Prince, urged her mother to go and 
 carry the captive such consolation as might be possible. The 
 Countess de Montijo had decided on that pious pilgrimage 
 when she was diverted from her object by unlooked-for 
 circumstances."* The first actual meeting only took place 
 during the Prince's Presidency at a dance at the Elys6e Palace, 
 to which Mme. de Montijo, by her connections in society, easily 
 obtained an invitation. 
 
 Virtually, from that time forward, wherever the Prince 
 President stayed, whether at St. Cloud, Fontainebleau, or 
 Compiegne, the Montijos were among his most frequent guests. 
 One constantly finds their names in the various lists of invites 
 published at the time. They also attended all the reviews, 
 whether at the Carrousel, the Champ de Mars, or Satory. 
 Castellane, meeting them one day at St. Cloud, remarked with 
 some surprise that the fair Eugenia was still unmarried, although 
 extremely d la mode. The position of the young lady was 
 certainly somewhat invidious, though then, as ever, she con- 
 ducted herself with great propriety. Ill-natured people are apt 
 to talk, however, when a young lady is long in " going off," and 
 Mile, de Montijo was no longer a mere girl in years. Whether 
 
 • From an article In Napoleon UL's organ, Le Dix Ddcembre, De- 
 cember 15, 1868. The MS. of this article, in the Emperor'8 own handwriting, 
 was found at the Tuilezies after the reyolution of 1870. 
 
60 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 she made it her express purpose to fascinate Louis Napoleon — 
 as many French and English writers have asserted — or whether 
 she did not, he at all events fell in love with her. We ourselves 
 do not think that she needed to exert herself in order to please. 
 Napoleon was extremely susceptible to female charms, and she 
 was extremely beautiful. And we are quite ready to believe 
 that, while she was willing to become Empress of the French, 
 she was also prepared, as Fleury states, to quit France and 
 return to Spain at the slightest sign of disrespect. 
 
 When Napoleon first told his friend Fleury that he was in 
 love with Mile, de Montijo, Fleury at once advised him to 
 marry her. But knowing what we do of the third Napoleon's 
 character — he was still entangled with an English mistress. Miss 
 Howard — it is certain that love in his case did not necessarily 
 mean marriage. It appears from Fleury's narrative that the 
 Marchioness de Contades, daughter of Marshal de Castellane, 
 sounded her friend Mile, de Montijo respecting her sentiments 
 towards Napoleon, and communicated the result to Fleury ; and 
 when the matrimonial negotiations with foreign Courts had 
 failed, the Emperor suddenly made up his mind and asked for 
 Mile, de Montijo's hand. It is said that in the first instance 
 he addressed himself to the young lady herself on a favourable 
 occasion in the reserved park of the Chateau of Compiegne. 
 But the definite official proposal was made by the Minister 
 of his Household, Fould. It would have been more in accord- 
 ance with French social usage if Mme. de Montijo had been 
 approached by a Princess of the Emperor's house ; and, indeed, 
 the Princess Mathilde, daughter of the first Napoleon's brother, 
 Jerome, sometime King of Westphalia, was thought of, and it 
 is stated in several works that the official proposal was actually 
 made by her. Even Fleury asserts it in the first volume of his 
 " Souvenirs," but, corrected by the Princess herself, acknowledges 
 his error in the second. The fact is, that the duty would not 
 have been a pleasant one for the Princess Mathilde, for the 
 Emperor's marriage was likely to deprive her brother, Prince 
 Napoleon, of his chance of succeeding to the throne. 
 
 For that very reason many people were delighted that the 
 Emperor should have decided to marry. In framing the Con- 
 stitution of the Empire, the Senate had deliberately modified 
 
THE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 61 
 
 a proposed clause setting forth that in the event of no direct 
 issue the crown should pass to the Jerome branch of the 
 imperial family. In lieu of adopting that stipulation, the 
 Senators had left to the Emperor the duty of designating his 
 successor, taking that course because they were unwilling to 
 co-operate in the selection of Prince Napoleon, whom most 
 of them cordially detested on account of his pretensions to 
 radical republicanism and free-thought. The result was that 
 old Prince Jerome, then President of the Senate, resigned that 
 post in a huff — while, of course, assigning another reason for his 
 action — and that he, his son Prince Napoleon, and his daughter 
 Princess Mathilde, were only placated by a decree, which the 
 Emperor himself issued, establishing the succession in their 
 branch of the family in the event of his demise without leaving 
 a son. That decree was dated December 18, 1852, but the 
 pleasure of the Jeromites was short-lived, as on the 22nd of 
 the following January, Napoleon III., having overridden the 
 objections of the majority of his Ministers, announced to the 
 great bodies of the State assembled at the Tuileries his 
 approaching marriage ; the Moniteur adding, almost unneces- 
 sarily, on the morrow, that Mile, de Montijo was the sovereign's 
 choice. It is true that the Emperor had not named her in his 
 speech, but he had designated her clearly enough.* 
 
 Several years ago a number of French newspapers were con- 
 victed of publishing an erroneous, even libellous, account of the 
 Empress Eugenie's origin. They wrongfully asserted that she 
 and her sister, the Duchess d'Albe (Alva), were the daughters 
 of Doiia Maria del Pilar de Penansanda, who, after marrying 
 Don Joaquin de Montijo, captain in the Regiment of Segovia, 
 in February, 1810, was divorced from him in France in 1813, 
 but, on the divorce being annulled in Spain, lived with him 
 
 • It was an impertinence on the Emperor's part, after vainly soliciting the 
 hands of two foreign princesses, to sneer, as he did, in the marriage announce- 
 ment at alliances with European royalties. In remarkably bad taste was the 
 allusion to the Duke of Orleans (son of Louis Philippe), whom the new ruler 
 pictured as having fruitlessly solicited an alliance mth one and another 
 sovereign house, and " securing at last the hand of a princess of only secondary 
 rank and a difierent religion." He, Napoleon HI., had been refused even by 
 princesses of less than secondary rank. On the other hand, his reference to 
 himself as a ■parvenu was not misplaced, though it was greatly disliked by 
 many leading imperialists. 
 
62 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 again until his death on October 30, 1823. The date of the 
 Empress Eugenie's birth being 1826, it followed that she could 
 not be the daughter of Don Joaquin. That story,* and the 
 conclusions which were drawn from it, met, however, with 
 annihilation during the legal proceedings which took place, it 
 being shown that the Empress had never claimed to be the 
 daughter of the aforesaid Don Joaquin and Dona Maria del 
 Pilar. In an anonymous brochure, issued by the Empress's 
 desire and written, it is believed, by M. F. Masson, the real 
 facts were set forth, with certificates of birth, baptism, and other 
 documentary evidence. Nevertheless, in later years another 
 romantic account of the Empress's origin has appeared in some 
 French works, it being asserted that she and her sister were no 
 Montijos at all, but the children of Queen Christina of Spain — 
 the wife of Ferdinand VII. and mother of Isabella II. — who 
 induced the Countess de Montijo to bring them up as if they 
 were her own offspring ! Queen Christina is not accounted a 
 virtuous woman by historians, but not a shred of evidence of the 
 slightest value has ever been tendered in support of the above 
 story. The facts, indeed, are such as were stated in the legal 
 proceedings and the pamphlet already mentioned.t The father, 
 then, of the Empress Eugenie was Don Cipriano Portocarrero, 
 Palafox, Lopez de Zuniga, Rojas y Leiva, Count of Montijo 
 (Conde del Montijo), Duke of Peiiaranda, Count of Miranda del 
 Castafiar, etc., and grandee of Spain. He inherited most of his 
 titles from his elder brother, Don Eugenio, seventh Count of 
 Montijo, who died without issue in 1834. Before then Don 
 Cipriano was generally known by the names of Guzman, 
 Palafox y Portocarrero. He was a Napoleonist Spaniard, served 
 in the French artillery as Colonel Portocarrero, received the 
 Legion of Honour, was severely wounded at Salamanca, and 
 again at the battle of Paris in 1814. He ultimately became a 
 Spanish senator, and died at Madrid on March 15, 1839. 
 
 On December 15, 1817, he had married Dona Maria 
 Manuela Kirkpatrick y Grevign^ the daughter of William 
 
 • We refer to it chiefly because it is still preserved in certain books, 
 notably in Hamel's "Histoire du Second Empire"— in spite of the legal 
 proceedings, 
 
 t " L'lmp&atrice : Notes at Documents," 8vo, Paris, 1877t 
 
TIIE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 63 
 
 Kirkpatrick * y Wilson, Consul of the United States at Malaga. 
 Kirkpatiick's wife was Doiia Francisca Grevigne, whose family 
 had originally belonged to Liege, and whose sister. Dona 
 Catalina, married Count Mathieu de Lesseps, Commissary- 
 General of the French Republic in Spain from 1800 to 1802, 
 and father of the famous Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was 
 thus a second cousin of the Empress Eugenie on the maternal 
 side. 
 
 By his marriage with William Kirkpatrick's daughter, Don 
 Cipriano de Montijo had two children, both bom at Granada : 
 the elder, Maria Francisca de Sales Cipriana, on January 29, 
 1825, and the younger, Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina, on 
 May 5, 1826. It was the latter who became Empress of the 
 French. Her sister, Francisca de Sales, was married in Februai-y, 
 1844, to a lineal descendant of James II. of Great Britain, that 
 is, Don James Stuart FitzJames, Ventimiglia, Alvarez de 
 Toledo, Belmonte y Navarra-Portogallo, eighth Duke of Berwick, 
 fourteenth Duke of Alva, Duke of Leiria, Jerica, Galisteo, 
 Montoro and Huesca, Count-Duke of Olivares, Count of Lemos, 
 senior grandee of Spain, twelve times a first-class grandee, con- 
 stable of Navarre, etc. The bride's father, it may be mentioned, 
 had been eight times a count, twelve times a viscount, four 
 times a grandee ; but in giving the Count de Montijo's name we 
 spared the reader a full enumeration of his titles. It is certain, 
 however, that his two daughters were of high lineage, coming as 
 they did on his side from the ancient houses of Guzman and 
 Palafox. 
 
 It will be seen that the elder daughter married the Duke of 
 Berwick and Alva when she was only nineteen,t whereas her 
 sister was nearly twenty-seven when she espoused Napoleon III. 
 In all the official documents of that time Eugenie de Montijo is 
 described (like her mother) as " her Excellency," and the title 
 of Countess de Teba and other places is assigned to her. Both 
 desisnations were correct. When her father succeeded his elder 
 
 * He belonged to the Kirkpatriobs of Closeburn, and seems to have been 
 bom at Dumfries. 
 
 t She died young, in 1860, as we shall have occasion to relate; her 
 husband, who was about four years her senior, survived till 1881. In Prance 
 they were always known as the Duke and Duchess d'Albe [Alva], by which 
 titles we propose to refer to them. 
 
64. THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 brother as Count de Montijo, certain entailments, which 
 stipulated that the countships of Montijo and Teba should never 
 be held by the same person, had compelled him to relinquish the 
 latter to his younger daughter.* 
 
 The bride of Napoleon III. was more beautiful than her 
 sister, the Duchess d'Albe, and, though on placing photographs 
 of them side by side one is immediately struck by the resemblance 
 of one to the other, this was not in reality so marked as might 
 be supposed. Not only were the Duchess's features less delicately 
 chiselled, not only was her figure slighter than the Empress's, 
 but her hair was dark, whereas her sister's was of a golden 
 chestnut hue. In all respects, indeed, the Empress Eugenie 
 was of a fairer complexion, with skin of a transparent whiteness, 
 delicately tinted cheeks, and fine, bright, blue eyes, shaded by 
 drooping lids and abundant lashes. Her nose, if somewhat long, 
 was slender, aristocratic ; her mouth was small, and lent itself 
 to an engaging smile. Slightly above the average height of 
 Frenchwomen, she had a graceful and supple figure, an easy and 
 yet dignified carriage. Her neck, her shoulders, and her arms 
 were delicately statuesque, her feet worthy of her Andalusian 
 birth. But to many she suggested rather the famous Venetian 
 type of beauty, and it was often said that if Titian had been 
 alive he would have gone on his knees to beg her to sit to 
 him. It is, perhaps, a pity that the great painter was not a 
 contemporary, for we might then have been spared the Jadeurs 
 of Winterhalter and others. On the other hand, the Empress 
 had less ease of manner, gaiety, and charm of disposition than 
 her sister. The Duchess d'Albe was a woman whom everybody 
 immediately liked and appreciated, while often contenting 
 themselves with admiring the Empress. 
 
 The marriage having been decided on, all open hostility to 
 it among the Emperor's entourage ceased immediately, that is 
 to say, excepting in one quarter : Miss Howard,t who had 
 aspired to the rdle of La Pompadour, was extremely irate. 
 Money, huge sums of money, did not pacify her, and at the 
 time of the ceremony the devoted Mocquard, the Emperor's 
 
 * Teba is in the heart of Andalusia, north of Eonda, whereas Montijo is in 
 Bstiemadura, between Merida and Badajoz, 
 
 t For some account of Miss Howard, see^ost, p. 182 et seq. 
 
THE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 65 
 
 private secretary and confidant, had to keep her away from 
 Paris. The preparations were pushed on with all possible 
 speed. While the bride-elect and her mother took up their 
 residence at the Elys^e, Fleury, the chief stage-manager of the 
 regime, exerted himself to organize the nuptial caiiege with 
 proper splendour. Nearly all the gala carriages of the State 
 dated from the time of Charles X. and Louis Philippe, and 
 bore the Bourbon or Orleans arms, which had to be effaced. 
 Moreover, the gilding, the painting, the upholstery required 
 renovation, while there was also a deficiency both of horses and of 
 trappings. As for horses, Fleury ingeniously met the difficulty 
 by hiring a large number of the best animals which the London 
 jobmasters could supply. They were promptly sent across the 
 Channel, while at the State carriage depot at Trianon and in 
 Paris a little army of painters, gilders, decorators, embroiderers, 
 saddlers, and so forth, worked zealously both day and night in 
 order that all other requisites might be ready in time. 
 
 The civil marriage took place at the Tuileries on the evening 
 of January 29, 1853. At eight o'clock, Cambaceres, Great 
 Master of Ceremonies, went to the Elys6e to fetch the bride 
 and her mother. They entered the Tuileries by the Pavilion 
 de Flore, and were received in the vestibule by St. Amaud, 
 Fleury, two masters of ceremonies, and others, who conducted 
 them upstairs, first to the family drawing-room, at the door of 
 which they were welcomed by Prince Napoleon and Princess 
 Mathilde. Of all those assembled on the occasion. Prince 
 Napoleon was the only man who wore neither uniform nor 
 official costume of any kind. He was simply attired in black 
 evening dress, as if, indeed, he were in mourning for his chance 
 of succession to the throne. But that was a fashion which, with 
 pretended Republicanism, he affected during the early period 
 of the Empire, and the story runs that when he was suddenly 
 created a General of Division, though he had never served a 
 single hour in the army, the Emperor took that course chiefly 
 in order to compel him to wear a uniform on official occasions.* 
 
 • We have given the above anecdote because it is amusing ; but Prince 
 Napoleon became, we think, a senator at an early date, and had no real excuse 
 for not wearing at least the senatorial dress on official occasions. Several 
 writers of the time agree in stating, however, that the Prince afiected plain 
 
 F 
 
66 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 The Prince revenged himself on his cousin, however, by taking 
 the matter seriously and insisting on being sent to the Crimea, 
 whence he returned to Paris with a reputation which was 
 anything but favourable. 
 
 Uniform or no uniform, however, gay at heart or secretly 
 mourning. Prince Napoleon contrived to do his duty at the 
 imperial wedding. He and his sister conducted Mme. and Mile. 
 de Montijo from the salon de Jamille to the salon d'homieur, 
 where the bridegroom, wearing the order of the Golden Fleece 
 and the collar of Chief of the Legion of Honour (which had 
 belonged to Napoleon I.), was awaiting them. Marshals, 
 admirals, ministers, officers of State and of the Household, 
 pressed around, and finally, a procession being formed in strict 
 accordance with the rules of precedence and etiquette prescribed 
 during the first Empire, the whole company betook itself to the 
 Hall of the Marshals. 
 
 Thither had been brought the old Register of the Imperial 
 House, preserved since the great Napoleon's downfall. The 
 last signed entry in it recorded the birth of the King of Rome. 
 Achille Fould, as Minister of State and the Household, 
 officiated. He went through the usual formalities, inquired of 
 the bride and bridegroom if they were willing to take each other 
 in marriage, and on receiving their assent, pronounced them 
 to be man and wife : " In the name of the Emperor, the Consti- 
 tution and the law, I declare that his Majesty Napoleon III., 
 Emperor of the French by the Grace of God and the National 
 Will, and her Excellency Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo, 
 Countess de Teba, are united in man-iage." Then the register 
 was signed, and the newly married pair and the whole company 
 passed into the palace theatre to hear a cantata, specially com- 
 posed by Auber, with verses by Mery, the Provenpal writer, 
 who congratulated Spain on having formed the new Empress 
 out of one of its splendid sunrays. 
 
 After the concert the bride was re-escorted to the Elys^e, 
 where early on the morrow she attended a low mass. But at 
 noon she returned to the Tuileries amid the roar of the guns 
 
 black. Perhaps, remembering the instance of Wellington and the decora- 
 tions at the Congress of Vienna, he imagined that somebody would repeat 
 Metternich's remark : Ma foi, c'est bien distingui I If so, he was mistaken. 
 
THE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 67 
 
 of the Invalides. Her long-trained bridal gown was of rich 
 white silk, covered with exquisite Alenfon. As she had legally 
 been Empress since the previous evening, the Crown jewels of 
 France had been placed at her disposal, and she thus wore 
 a boucle de ceinture simulating a sun, the historic Regent or 
 Pitt diamond* forming the planet, and three hundred other 
 brilliants figuring its rays or hanging as aiguiUettes. Further, 
 a diadem of six hundred brilliants bedimmed the effulgence 
 of her hair, whence, from under a spray of orange-blossom, 
 fell a veil of Brussels point. A rope of pearls, her own pro- 
 perty, was wound four times around her fair young neck. And 
 to all the splendour of jewels and raiment was added the grace 
 of a born queen. 
 
 A decree constituting the new Empress's Household had 
 been signed, and she was attended by her Great Mistress, the 
 Princess d'Essling, Duchess de Rivoli, of the Massena family, 
 her Lady of Honour the Duchess de Bassano, and her first 
 Chamberlain, Count Charles Tascher de La Pagerie. The 
 Great Master of her Household, the senior Count Tascher de 
 La Pagerie, nephew of the Empress Josephine, and her Equerry, 
 Baron de Pierres, were in attendance on the Countess de 
 Montijo. We lack the space to describe in detail the cortige 
 which proceeded by way of the Carrousel, the Place du Louvre, 
 and the Rue de Rivoli to Notre Dame. Fleury, whose 
 resplendent regiment of Guides figured conspicuously on the 
 occasion, had planned such a show as the Parisians had not 
 witnessed since the earlier years of the century. The Emperor 
 and Empress — he in full uniform and again wearing the collar 
 of the Legion of Honour and the Golden Fleece — went together 
 in a great coach, surmounted by an imperial crown and 
 elaborately gilded and adorned with paintings, which had been 
 built for the wedding of Napoleon I. and Marie Louise. But at 
 the outset a curious and ominous mishap occurred. The bridal 
 pair had taken their seats, and the vehicle was passing from 
 under the vaulted entrance of the Tuileries into the courtyard, 
 when the imperial crown suddenly fell from the coach to the 
 ground. The eight horses were at once halted, the crown was 
 picked up, and in some fashion or other set in place again. 
 * An inch and a haU long, an inch wide ; weight 136 carats. 
 
68 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Meantime, as the Emperor, surprised at the delay, inquired the 
 cause of it, Fleury, approaching the coach, quietly informed him, 
 whereupon the Emperor replied that he would tell him an anec- 
 dote some other time. But the First Equerry knew it already. 
 A virtually identical accident had occurred with the same coach 
 and the same crown at the marriage of Napoleon I. and Marie 
 Louise. Infanstum omen ! 
 
 It was not the only inauspicious augury that day. A 
 Spanish lady who witnessed the wedding expressed her amaze- 
 ment that the Empress, being a Spaniard, should have ventured 
 to wear a rope of pearls, for, according to an old Castillian 
 saying, "The pearls that women wear on their wedding-day 
 symbolize the tears they are fated to shed." 
 
 Fifteen thousand candles were burning in the fane of Notre 
 Dame de Paris, and the ancient edifice was crowded with digni- 
 taries, officials, diplomatic representatives and ladies, when 
 the procession arrived there. According to the poets, on the 
 coming of Helen to Troy, the inhabitants who flocked to con- 
 template her recoiled in amazement, wonderstruck, almost 
 frightened, by the sight of such incomparable beauty. In some- 
 what similar fashion, a great wave of emotion swayed the 
 spectators in Notre Dame when they saw the young Empress 
 enter. Slowly, to the strains of grave soft music, the bridal 
 pair stepped along the nave under a canopy of red velvet lined 
 with white silk. Holy water and incense were offered them, 
 and they took their places on a throne-like platform, whither 
 Archbishop Sibour of Paris * came to salute them. Then they 
 proceeded to the altar, and the ceremony began. The Bishop 
 of Nancy presented the offering of gold pieces, tendered the 
 wedding ring for the Archbishop's blessing, and with 
 the Bishop of Versailles held the canopy over the bridal pair, 
 who, at the conclusion of the marriage rites, returned to the 
 platform while mass was celebrated. The register was after- 
 wards signed, the witnesses to the Emperor's signature being 
 Prince Jerome and Prince Napoleon, and to the Empress's, the 
 Marquis de Valdegamas, Spanish ambassador, and several 
 
 ♦ Four years later, Mgr. Sibour was stabbed to death in the church of St, 
 Etienne du Mont by a priest named Verger, We shall have occasion to 
 recount that crime. 
 
THE IMPERIAL MARRIAGE 69 
 
 grandees. It was to the strains of Lesueur's Urhs beata that the 
 Emperor and Empress quitted the cathedral, and when they 
 appeared at the entrance deafening applause arose from the 
 waiting crowd. They returned by way of the quays to the 
 Tuileries Palace, where a State banquet, a concert, and many 
 presentations ensued. Finally, the newly wedded pair escaped 
 to the little chateau of Villeneuve TEtang, adjoining the park 
 of St. Cloud, and there, and in excursions to Versailles and 
 Trianon, they spent the first days of their union. 
 
 On the whole the marriage was certainly popular. The 
 Parisians, however lively they may be as a community, are but 
 poor applauders, as everybody knows. On that first day and 
 for some time afterwards, however, the Empress's beauty 
 repeatedly stiired them from their wonted reserve. Said one 
 man of the people to another on the wedding day, as the cortege 
 passed : " Well, at all events, he [meaning the Emperor] has 
 good taste. He can tell a pretty woman when he sees one." 
 " Sapristi, yes," the other replied ; " shouldn't I like to be in 
 his place ! " 
 
 Apart, however, from the bride's attractiveness, a distinctly 
 favourable impression had been created by her refusal of a 
 diamond parure which the Administrative Commission of 
 Paris * proposed to offer her at a cost of .£24,000, which sum 
 she preferred to see devoted to some charitable work, and 
 notably, said she, to the establishment of a school where poor 
 girls might receive a professional education. Eventually the 
 money was used to found the Orphelinat Eugfene-Napoleon. 
 With respect to a sum of .sPlOjOOO which the Emperor placed 
 in his bride's corbeiUe de mariage, she divided it among various 
 hospitals for incurables and maternity societies. Apart from 
 those pecuniary matters, however, the marriage had a good 
 effect because the Emperor deigned to " pardon " 3000 persons 
 who had been arrested, transported or exiled for daring to 
 oppose or disapprove of his illegal Coup d'Etat. For that 
 offence 41,000 persons had been apprehended or prosecuted, and 
 
 • There was no real Municipal Council in those days. Paris was not 
 allowed to have elected representatives. It was ruled by a Prefect and a 
 Commission, which was appointed by Government and composed exclusively 
 o{ feirent Bonapartists, on whom the supreme authorities could rely. 
 
70 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 29,000 of them convicted and sentenced by courts martial, or 
 ordinary courts, or arbitrary mixed commissions.* The figures 
 had been diminished by successive decrees of pardon, but at the 
 time of the imperial marriage there still remained some 6000 
 persons imprisoned at Lambessa, at Cayenne or in France, or 
 else exiled from the country. It was with satisfaction therefore 
 that people heard of the new decree which considerably reduced 
 the number of the Coup d'Etafs victims. 
 
 It has been mentioned that a Household had been constituted 
 for the new Empress. The Princess d'Essling, who was appointed 
 its Great Mistress with a salary of £1600 a year, was a daughter 
 of General Debelle. Short and slight of figure, with fair curly 
 hair, she nevertheless had a very dignified bearing, in fact she 
 was inclined to frigidity and curtness of manner. She did not 
 live at the Tuileries, but called there every day to take the 
 Empress's orders. She attended her, of course, at all state 
 ceremonies, banquets, and receptions, and was charged with the 
 presentation of ladies at Court. In her absence her duties were 
 undertaken by the Empress's Lady of Honour, a post held at 
 first by the Duchess de Bassano, nee Hoogworth, wife of the 
 Emperor's Great Chamberlain, and a lady who contrasted 
 strikingly with the Princess d'Essling, for, like a true Fleming, 
 she was tall and buxom, and possessed of a very amiable smile 
 and disposition. Even the most scurrilous of the scandal- 
 mongers of the Empire never assailed the Bassano menage. 
 Husband and wife were regarded as patterns for the whole 
 Court, and the Duke was grievously afflicted when Mme. de 
 Bassano died still young, leaving three children in his charge. 
 She was succeeded in her office by a beautiful Florentine, 
 Countess Walewska, who was very amiable, indeed (according 
 to Lord Malmesbury and others) too amiable — particularly 
 with the Emperor. Of no lady of the Court have the emec- 
 dotiers of the Empire related more amazing and, probably, 
 mendacious stories. 
 
 Besides the Great Mistress and the Lady of Honour there 
 
 were six so-called Ladies of the Palace (with salaries of .g^SO 
 
 a year) in attendance on the Empress. Among their duties 
 
 were those of accompanying her when she went out, and of 
 
 * Bepoit discovered at the Tuileries after the fall of the Empire. 
 
THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD 71 
 
 introducing lady visitors into her presence. They did not reside 
 at the Tuileries, but attended in rotation week by week, there 
 being always one " Dame de grand service " and one " Dame de 
 petit service" on duty. Among the first appointed was the 
 Countess de Montebello, nie de Villeneuve-Bargemont and wife 
 of General de Montebello, sometime ambassador at the Papal 
 Court. A fervent catholic and a great friend of the Empress's 
 sister, the Duchess d'Albe, Mme. de Montebello was extremely 
 attractive and elegant ; but towards the end of the Empire she 
 fell into a decline, and passed away almost on the eve of the 
 Franco-German war. Next one may mention the Baroness de 
 Pierres, wife of the Empress's first Equerry. She was of American 
 birth, her father, Mr. Thome, having been one of the early 
 millionaires of the United States, one who had dazzled Paris 
 with his wealth during the reign of Louis Philippe. It was 
 through Mme. de Pierres that more than one American lady 
 obtained the entrie to the Court of the Tuileries, for it must not 
 be forgotten that beauties and heiresses of the new world were 
 cordially welcomed there very many years before they succeeded 
 in invading the Court of St. James. The Baroness de Pierres 
 was a splendid horsewoman — in fact, one of the best riders in 
 France. 
 
 Another Lady of the Palace, the Marchioness de Las Maris- 
 mas, was a famous Court beauty, with fair golden hair, a bright 
 dazzling complexion, and a most graceful figure. But she was 
 gradually borne down by successive misfortunes. First her 
 husband, a naturalized Frenchman of Spanish origin and ex- 
 tremely wealthy, lost his reason, whereupon she would not 
 suffer him to be removed to any asylum, but watched over him 
 until his death. A new life seemed to be opening for her when 
 by special dispensation she married her deceased husband's 
 brother. Viscount On&ime Aguado, but she lost in succession 
 her lovely daughter Carmen, Duchess de Montmorency, then 
 both her sons, and her second husband also. It is not sur- 
 prising that she should have ended her life in close and sorrowful 
 retirement. At one time, however, the Aguado mansion in the 
 Rue de I'Elysde witnessed some of the most splendid enter- 
 tainments given in Paris, while the Aguado equipages were 
 renowned. 
 
72 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Among the very first Ladies of the Palace who were appointed 
 was the Countess Feray, daughter of Marshal Bugeaud, who, 
 being extremely proud of her birth, found Court duties and 
 habits of deference irksome. She therefore soon withdrew from 
 the post. The Countess de Lezay-Marnesia, a very amiable 
 woman, who was another of the first ladies-in-waiting, also 
 resigned, but in consequence of failing health ; whereupon the 
 Empress selected as her successor the beautiful Madame Carette, 
 grand-daughter of Admiral Bouvet, and for some years her 
 Majesty's reader. Mme. Carette's husband was a prominent 
 landowner and agriculturist of northern France. Of recent 
 years she has penned various volumes of recollections, which we 
 have consulted and quoted from in this narrative. 
 
 The Marchioness de Latour-Maubourg, a granddaughter 
 of Marshal Mortier, was also a Lady of the Palace. She was 
 tall, good-tempered, and witty, had little taste for display, but 
 was extremely attached to her husband, a tall and handsome 
 man, who held ofiice in the Imperial Hunt. A succession of 
 misfortunes, similar to those of the Aguados, fell upon the 
 family, and Mme. de Latour-Maubourg, the last survivor, 
 ended by seeking refuge in a convent. Among her colleagues 
 at Court were the two daughters of the Marquis de la Roche- 
 Lambert, sometime Ambassador at Berlin — first the Countess 
 de La Bedoyere, and secondly the Countess de La Poeze.* The 
 former, a radiant blonde with a fine figure, is often mentioned 
 by the anecdotiers of the time. Becoming a widow, she 
 married Edgar Ney, Prince de la Moskowa, but after her 
 second marriage she was always ailing, and died comparatively 
 young. Her sister, Mme. de La Poeze, was of slighter build 
 and less beauty, but st^e possessed a very lively wit. 
 
 The Baroness de Malaret, noted for her taste in dress, was 
 only for a short time in attendance on the Empress, having 
 followed her husband to Turin when he received a diplomatic 
 appointment there. Mme. de Sancy de Parabere, a daughter 
 of General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, and therefore a family con- 
 nection of the Bonapartes, appeared upon the scene in 1855, 
 when she was still very young. A woman of the highest 
 distinction, witty and high-minded, expert too in retaining 
 
 * See p. 355 for further references to these ladies. 
 
THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD 73 
 
 her beauty in spite of the lapse of years, she became one of 
 the Empress's favourites. Her colleague, Mme. de Saulcy, 
 a daughter of Baron de Billing, was very charming, tall, slim 
 and graceful, with a gentle face. Her husband was a writer 
 of repute on the Holy Land and Jewish history. The Baroness 
 de Viry de Cohendier, a handsome young woman with large 
 dark eyes, for which Marshal Vaillant very bluntly expressed 
 his admiration,* only became a lady-in-waiting after the 
 annexation of Savoy, to which province she belonged. She 
 was, without reason, very jealous of her husband, a tall, pale, 
 frigid man, who was appointed an honorary chamberlain and 
 mooned about the palace, making friends with nobody. 
 
 The Countess de Lourmel, another Lady of the Palace, was, 
 says the Duke de Conegliano, plain, but very gay and amiable. 
 Perhaps so — with gentlemen. But Mme. Carette, while men- 
 tioning that the Countess was quite destitute of beauty, differs 
 from the Duke in other respects, for she rather spitefully 
 describes Mme. de Lourmel as vain and imtable, and en- 
 deavouring fruitlessly to become the Empress's favourite. 
 She was generally known as the "lady with the emeralds," 
 owing to a wonderful parure which she was fond of wearing, 
 and which was supposed to be composed of false stones, as her 
 private circumstances were slender. She died towards the end 
 of the Empire after losing her reason. The Tuileries was an 
 unlucky palace, as we have said before. 
 
 There were two Maids of Honour in office. At first Mile. 
 Bouvet (Mme. Carette) find Mile, de Kloeckler, who were 
 succeeded by Mile. Marion (later Countess Clary) and Mile. 
 de Lermont. The post of reader to the Empress was occupied 
 at various periods by MUe. Bouvet, the Countess de Pons de 
 Wagner, a somewhat eccentric old lady,t and Mme. Lebreton 
 
 * According to Mme. Carette's " Souvenirs," he told the lady that she 
 reminded him of " Juno with the cow's eyes." If he had left out the last four 
 words the Baroness would have felt flattered, hut she disliked the allusion to 
 a four-footed animal, particularly the one mentioned. 
 
 t Mme. Carette relates that Mme. de Wagner usually wore a plain dark 
 wig, but that on one occasion, when Hortense Schneider was turning every- 
 body's head in Paris with her golden tresses as la Belle H616ne, the old lady 
 arrived at the Tuileries wearing a new and curly wig of the fashionable aureate 
 hue. Mme. Carette rushed from the room laughing at the sight, and the 
 Empress, who met her and ascertained the cause, sent orders that Mme. de 
 
74 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 (sister of General Bourbaki), the well-remembered and devoted 
 attendant who followed the Empress Eugenie into exile. The 
 Maids of Honour (and eventually the Empress's reader) lived 
 at the Tuileries, and one or other was on duty every morning, 
 and accompanied her Majesty on her private visits to hospitals 
 and charitable establishments. Much time was also given to 
 classifying and putting away the Empress's correspondence, the 
 greater part of which is still in existence, in her Majesty's 
 custody. It may be added that the reader never actually read 
 to the Empress — who preferred to do her reading herself, 
 perusing several newspapers regularly — but she penned many 
 letters such as the Empress did not care to have written by her 
 " Secretaire des Commandements." 
 
 It was a rule that the Court ladies should wear low-necked 
 dresses every evening, but that their toilettes should be simple 
 and their jewels few, unless there happened to be some grand 
 entertainment. The rank of the Great Mistress of the House- 
 hold was indicated by a superb medallion which she wore on 
 her breast, and which had a portrait of the Emperor on one 
 side and of the Empress on the other. After the birth of the 
 Imperial Prince the "Governess of the Children of France" 
 displayed a similar medallion. The Ladies of the Palace, for 
 their part, wore, on the left side of their bodices, a jewel 
 bearing the Empress's initial in diamonds set in blue enamel. 
 All the insignia mentioned were surmounted by the imperial 
 crown in brilliants, and hung from ribands striped blue and 
 white. 
 
 The men of the Empress's Household were first Count 
 Tascher de la Pagerie, the Great Master, and his son, Count 
 Charles, the First Chamberlain. They received =£'1600 and 
 £1200 a year respectively. The former, born at Martinique 
 in 1787, had fought at the battle of Eylau and in Portugal 
 under Junot. He had subsequently attached himself to the 
 fortunes of Eugene de Beauharnais, and followed him to 
 Bavaria. He returned to France in 1852 at the request of 
 
 Wagner was to take ofi her golden wig at onoe and never come to the palace 
 in it again. M. de Fiennes, one of the chamberlains, persuaded the astonished 
 old lady (who had expected to he much admired) to take the wig back to 
 the coiffeur of whom she had purchased it. 
 
THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD 75 
 
 Napoleon HI., who thereupon made him a senator. He had 
 spent so many years in Bavaria, however, that he had become 
 more a German than a Frenchman. His duties as Great 
 Master were few and light, but being very gouty he left them 
 almost invariably to Count Charles, who was still more of a 
 German, having been born in Bavaria in 1822. Very iU 
 favoured as regards his looks, and fond of grimacing, he had, 
 as the Duke de Conegliano rightly says, no taste at all, as was 
 shown when he arrayed the male members of the House- 
 hold in vivid Bavarian blue. He was very intimate with all 
 the secretaries and attaches of the various German embassies 
 in Paris, and entertained them freely at his residence. His 
 sister, Countess Stephanie Tascher de la Pagerie, a Canoness in 
 Bavaria, was far more tasteful and much brighter. She held 
 no Court office, merely residing with her father at the Tuileries, 
 but she organized several of the most successful entertainments 
 given at the palace, and has written an interesting account of 
 her life there.* 
 
 The chamberlains of the Empress, each in receipt of £^0 
 a year, were Count de Lezay-Mam^sia, husband of the lady 
 we previously mentioned and a connection of the Bonaparte 
 family, the Marquis de Piennes and Count Artus de Cosse- 
 Brissac. The Marquis d'Havrincourt also served for a short 
 time. The three others were all of artistic tastes. The first 
 painted in oils, the second was a sculptor, the third a good 
 draughtsman. M. de Marnesia, who was tall, fair, and very 
 good-looking, succeeded Count Charles Tascher as First 
 Chamberlain in 1869. He was fond of dabbling in politics, 
 like his colleague M. de Piennes, who married the daughter 
 of Marshal MacMahon. Count Artus de Coss^-Brissac be- 
 longed to a famous house with which Court functions were 
 hereditary under the old French monarchy; for in addition 
 to the four of its members who became Marshals of France, 
 one was Great Almoner, four were Great Falconers, while no 
 fewer than ten successively became Great or First Pantlers to 
 the King — the last only giving up his office in 1789. Count 
 Artus, the Empress's chamberlain, was a man of lively and 
 
 * Both the Counts Tasohei de la Pagerie died at the Tuileries, the elder in 
 1861, the younger in 1869. 
 
76 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 open disposition. His wife was nee La Mothe-Houdancourt, 
 another famous name in the days of the old regime. 
 
 It is said that when the selection of a Secretaire des 
 Commandements to the Empress was mooted, she suggested 
 Merimee for the post, and that Napoleon III. was unwilling 
 to appoint the author of "Carmen" and "Colomba." The 
 story runs that the suggestion really emanated from Madame 
 de Montijo, with whom Merimee's name was often associated 
 in a very invidious manner. In any case the appointment was 
 not made, the post being given to a certain M. Damas-Hinard, 
 a little, bald-headed, smiling old man, who was always faultlessly 
 arrayed in a glossy dress-coat and a white cravat, while that 
 of librarian went to a M. de St. Albin, who delighted in very 
 ancient hats and well-worn clothes, so creased and untidy, that 
 it seemed as if he slept in them. 
 
 The Empress's chief maid was Mme. PoUet, her assistants 
 including the Demoiselles Bayle, daughters of the Emperor's 
 jailer during his imprisonment at Ham. Something will have 
 to be said of Mme. Pollet when describing the routine of the 
 Empress's daily life. It is now best to pass to some of the chief 
 incidents which marked the Court's earlier years. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS — BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL 
 
 PRINCE 
 
 The Corps L^gislatif and its Dancing Bears — The Crimean War and the 
 " Entente Oordiale " with Great Britain — The Prince Consort at Boulogne 
 — The first Paris International Exhihition — The Emperor and Empress 
 visit Queen Victoria — The Despair of the Empress's Hairdresser — The 
 first Lord Mayor seen by the Parisians — Queen Victoria's State Visit to 
 Prance — The Emperor's narrow Escape from Death — The Queen's Recep- 
 tion in Paris — The Visit to the First Napoleon's Tomb — Queen Victoria 
 and the Battle of Fontenoy — The Great F^te at Versailles — The Queen's 
 Departure — ^Victor Emmanuel in Paris — Chevalier Nigra — The Birth of 
 the Imperial Prince — Mishaps of the Empress Eugenie — The Layette and 
 the Cradles — The Pope's quandary about baby-linen — The Governesses 
 and Nurses — Twenty Hours of Suspense — The Guns of the Invalides — 
 Appearance of the Imperial Prince — Th^ophUe Gautier and Camille 
 Doucet celebrate his birth — Civil List Benefactions — The Private and the 
 Public Baptism — The Empress and the Golden Rose, 
 
 However great were the gaieties of the Second Empire, there 
 was eilways a little rift in the lute even amid festivities which 
 seemed the most likely to prove harmonious. Not long after 
 the imperial marriage the deputies of the Corps Legislatif gave 
 a ball in honour of the Empress. The hall of the Palais 
 Bourbon where they met was transformed for the occasion into 
 a magnificent dancing saloon, and both as an entertaining 
 spectacle for those who did not dance and as a source of per- 
 sonal physical enjoyment for those who did, the fete was a 
 brilliant success. Rabelais' " uncomfortable quarter of an hour " 
 ensued, however. It had been arranged that the entertain- 
 ment should be a subscription affair, each deputy paying his 
 quota of the expenses. The total outlay being about ^4,800, 
 it followed that the deputies were called upon to pay some six- 
 teen guineas apiece. At that time they were being remunerated 
 
78 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 at the rate of .£100 a month for as long a period as any session 
 lasted ; nevertheless a good many of them made somewhat 
 wry faces when their dancing bill was presented. Ultimately, 
 with but one exception, they all "paid up" — the exception 
 being the famous Catholic politician the Count de Montalem- 
 bert, who, having refused to attend the entertainment on the 
 ground that it was quite indecent for deputies to disport 
 themselves on the light fantastic toe, also refused to pay any 
 subscription. At the same time, not wishing to appear 
 niggardly, he decided to send sixteen guineas to the mayor 
 of Besanpon (which town he represented in the Chamber), 
 requesting him to add the amount to some apprenticeship fund 
 which had been recently established there. The mayor, how- 
 ever, dreadfully shocked at the idea of dealing in that fashion 
 with money which, said he, ought to have been employed in 
 ministering to the pleasures of the Empress, immediately sent 
 it back to M. de Montalembert, who had to expend it in 
 private charity. Such was the press regime of those times that 
 the newspapers scarcely dared to comment on the affair either 
 one way or the other ; still one of them ventured to remark : 
 " It used to be said that the National Assembly of the defunct 
 Republic was like a bear-garden, and indeed we remember many 
 occasions when the representatives of the people were within an 
 ace of clutching and clawing one another. We have progressed 
 since then, as everybody is aware. And frankly, for our part, 
 we infinitely prefer to see our bears tamed and dancing." That 
 season, in those circles of Parisian society which were inimical 
 to the Empire, the deputies of the Legislative Body were freely 
 called " the dancing bears." 
 
 In September that year (1853) the Emperor and Empress 
 went on a tour through parts of Normandy and northern 
 France. They next betook themselves to Compifegne and 
 Fontainebleau, where for a while no little gaiety prevailed. 
 But clouds were gathering, and early in the following year 
 the Crimean War began. The French Republicans were not 
 displeased to see the Empire (which was to have been Peace) 
 already embroiled with a foreign power, for they anticipated 
 complications that would give them an opportunity to over- 
 throw the regime. Victor Hugo, "perched on the rock of 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS 79 
 
 Jersey," expressed himself in that sense in some grandiloquent 
 apocalyptical verses ; while others declared that the Empire was 
 evidently in sore straits, as it recognized that it must speedily 
 collapse unless it could secure a baptism of glory. 
 
 No matter what may have been said, however, by the 
 " irreconcilables " of that time, or by Frenchmen generally in 
 these later years of the more or less stable Russian alliance, it 
 is certain that the Crimean War was popular with the great 
 mass of the nation. Moreover, the rapprochement with England 
 which had been going on ever since the Coup d'Etat (in spite of 
 the outspokenness of the English press with respect to the 
 Emperor and many of those around him), was gradually meeting 
 with greater and greater favour. Several little incidents 
 contributed to that result. The British Government had pre- 
 sented the will of Napoleon I. to the new Emperor ; cordial 
 speeches had been exchanged on the occasion of the visit of 
 some of the chief London merchants to Paris ; a project for the 
 piercing of a Panama canal with British capital and French 
 support had been mooted with some success; and pleasant 
 courtesies had attended the reception of the English colony at 
 Boulogne during an imperial visit to that town. 
 
 Various matters of that kind, coupled with the agreement 
 of the French and English Governments on the Russo-Turkish 
 question, helped to draw the two nations together. There 
 was, of course, no unanimous approval of the rapprochemenU 
 Unanimity was impossible. There were still, on both sides, too 
 many people alive who retained a vivid memory of W^aterloo, 
 which was then only thirty-nine years old. Besides, French- 
 men barely of middle age readily recalled all the trouble over 
 Mehemet Ali, the Spanish marriages, the Pritchard aflFalr and 
 other matters, which had repeatedly endangered the entente 
 cordiale of the two countries during the reign of Louis Philippe.* 
 But Waterloo alone was a terrible memory, such as it is hardly 
 possible for people of the present generation to conceive ; and, 
 curiously enough, while on the one hand the Second Empire 
 
 • Aocording to littr^, the expression entente cordiale, as applied to the 
 relations of Prance and Great Britain, was first employed in 1840, in an 
 Address of the French Chamber of Deputies to the Crown, We believe, how- 
 ever, that it originated a few years previously. 
 
80 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 sought to obliterate it, on the other it lent it continuity of life 
 by its repeatedly declared ambition to " tear up the treaties of 
 1815." We now live at a much faster pace than we did then. 
 Never was the saying " here to-day and gone to-morrow " more 
 appropriate than it is at present. Yet there are things which 
 remain unforgotten even amid the helter-skelter of these quick- 
 change days. In France the memory of Sedan abides even as 
 did the memory of Waterloo, and who can tell when it will pass 
 away ? Not, perhaps, for many years. Little interest may now 
 attach to the Crimean War, but it is a question whether Lord 
 Salisbury's dictum, about putting " money on the wrong horse," 
 ought not to be qualified. In any case, that war was not 
 without its happy consequences, for it did more than anything 
 else to bring Frenchmen and Englishmen together. There was 
 trouble again between them not long afterwards, but only 
 passing trouble. The sting of Waterloo was virtually healed 
 by Alma and Inkermann. 
 
 In the autumn of 1854 the Emperor was at Boulogne inspect- 
 ing and reviewing the forces there. In one of his addresses to 
 the troops at that time he remarked, sagely enough : " Any 
 army whose different parts cannot be united in four and twenty 
 hours is an army badly distributed." The aphorism was based 
 on the dicta of the first Napoleon, and it was a pity for France 
 that the third one did not remember it sixteen years afterwards. 
 While he was at Boulogne he received a visit from the Prince 
 Consort, in whose honour various manoeuvres took place. A 
 little later the Empress arrived from Biarritz, and accompany- 
 ing Napoleon on horseback, participated in the reviewing of the 
 troops. Then came a brief period of rejoicing, for the victory 
 of the Alma tended to the belief that the war would be short. 
 But St. Arnaud died, the Russians retired on Sebastopol, and 
 in spite of Inkermann all hope of a speedy peace departed. 
 Thus there were no fetes at Compifegne or Fontainebleau that 
 autumn ; the Court was almost in mourning. 
 
 In the spring of 1855 public attention was in a measure 
 diverted from the Crimea by the first of the Paris international 
 exhibitions, for which a company erected, at a cost of half a 
 million sterling, the huge building, some 900 feet in length, 
 known as the Palais de ITndustrie and for many years a 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS 81 
 
 conspicuous feature of the Champs Elysfes.* A month before 
 the inauguration of this world-show (in which Russia, naturally, 
 did not participate) the Emperor and Empress went to England 
 on a visit to Queen Victoria. This was quite an event. In 
 attendance on Napoleon were Marshal Vaillant, the Duke de 
 Bassano, General de Montebello, Edgar Ney, Count Fleury, 
 and M. de Toulongeon, whUe the Empress's retinue included 
 the Princess d'Essling, the Countess de Montebello, the Baroness 
 de Malaret, and Count Charles Tascher de la Pagerie. Fleury, 
 who made all the arrangements for the journey, blundered 
 badly by dividing the retinue into various sections, for, as the 
 yachts in which the imperial party crossed the Channel became 
 separated, the Emperor and Empress had already reached 
 London when some of their attendants were barely landing 
 at Dover. A special train conveyed the belated ones at full 
 speed to the metropolis, though not in time to overtake the 
 others, who had already left for Windsor. 
 
 As Fleury was getting into the court-landau which was 
 to carry him to Paddington he was accosted by an individual 
 with a greenish hue and woebegone expression of countenance 
 whom he did not recognize, but who earnestly entreated 
 permission to get up behind with the footmen. "But who 
 may you be ? " Fleury somewhat sharply inquired. " I am 
 Fdix, her Majesty the Empress's hairdresser," was the reply, 
 " and I am in despair at being left behind ! What her 
 Majesty will do without me I cannot tell, but I feel like 
 cutting my throat!" The position was indeed serious: the 
 Empress already at Windsor and no coiffeur to dress her hair 
 for dinner ! What a disaster ! " Quick, then, get up behind," 
 said Fleury, and away the party went. When they arrived at 
 Windsor Fleury hastened to inform the Empress of the incident. 
 " Tell F^lix not to distress himself," said she, laughing ; " he 
 must on no account commit suicide. We want no affaire 
 Vatel here.t My maids have done their best for me in his 
 absence." 
 
 * other buildings, costing another quarter of a million sterling, were also 
 erected. The enterprise, though successful in many ways, resulted in a heavy 
 deficit for the company, which was only extricated from its difficulties by the 
 purchase of the Palais de I'lndustrie by the State. 
 
 f The reader will remember that Vatel, the Prince de Condi's cook, spitted 
 
 G 
 
82 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 At this time Napoleon appears to have created a favourable 
 impression on Queen Victoria, and she was especially pleased 
 with the Empress, whose manner was " the most perfect thing " 
 she had ever seen, "so gentle and graceful . . . the courtesy 
 so charming, and so modest and retiring withal." The stay at 
 Windsor was marked by a review of troops under Lord 
 Cardigan of Balaclava fame, and by a council of war which pro- 
 nounced unanimously against a project then entertained by the 
 Emperor of proceeding in person to the Crimea, in order to 
 hasten the military operations. For the time he was unwilling 
 to relinquish that scheme, though he ultimately abandoned it, 
 as we shall see. During his sojourn at Windsor he was installed 
 with aJl pomp and ceremony as a Knight of the Garter, a 
 distinction which, as a parvenu Emperor, he rightly prized. 
 The French Moniteur, when publishing a grandiloquent 
 account of the proceedings, laid particular emphasis on the fact 
 that Queen Victoria had distinguished his Majesty by giving 
 him the accolade on either cheek, instead of merely tendering 
 him her hand as was her custom when other Knights of the 
 Garter were installed. Later, upon the Emperor and Empress 
 going to London, they were banqueted by the Corporation of 
 the City, when the most cordial speeches were exchanged in 
 celebration of the Franco-British alliance. All this had effect 
 on public opinion, not only in England and France, but also on 
 the continent generally. The authority of Napoleon III. as a 
 sovereign was enhanced, consolidated, both among his own 
 people and in foreign states — such was the benefit reaped by 
 those who secured the favour of Great Britain, such her prestige 
 under Palmerston. 
 
 But there was more to come. After the opening of the Paris 
 Exhibition on the return of the imperial party to France, the 
 Lord Mayor of London and numerous members of the corporation 
 went in state to the French capital, where their visit awakened 
 great interest and curiosity. The Lord Mayor of that time, 
 Sir Francis Graham Moon — the famous fine-art publisher who 
 did so much to popularize Wilkie, Eastlake, Landseer, Roberts, 
 Stanfield, Cattermole, and others — had often been in France 
 
 himself with his sword because the fish was late in arriving on the occasion of 
 Louis XIV.'s famous visit to Ohantilly. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS 83 
 
 previously as a private individual, but this was the first time 
 that the Parisians were privileged to gaze upon a " Lor' Maire " 
 arrayed in all his pomp and glory, with his chain of office 
 hanging from his shoulders, and his attendant mace-bearer, 
 sword-bearer and trumpeters, besides aU such satellites as 
 sheriff's, aldermen, and common councillors robed in scarlet or 
 mazarine. Frenchmen knew very little about the Corporation 
 of London, but their novelists had taught them to regard it as 
 a wonderful, mysterious survival of the middle ages, and Milor' 
 Maire's authority in England was supposed to be second only 
 to that of the Queen herself. Sir Francis Moon and his family 
 were sumptuously lodged at the H6tel de Ville, the other 
 visitors were suitably provided for, and receptions, balls, and 
 banquets, in which the Imperial Court as well as the Parisian 
 municipality participated, became the order of the day. 
 
 If that were the first time that Paris had ever gazed upon a 
 Lord Mayor, some four and a half centuries had elapsed since 
 a reigning sovereign of England had set foot within the city's 
 walls. Since the departure of the infant Henry VI., crowned 
 at Notre Dame, only two exiled English sovereigns — Charles II. 
 before the Restoration and James II. after the Glorious Revo- 
 lution — had been seen in the French capital. Now, however, 
 Queen Victoria, still further cementing the alliance of the two 
 countries, came to visit Paris and the Exhibition. Accompanied 
 by the Prince Consort, the Princess Royal and the Prince of 
 Wales (now, of course, Edward VII.), she crossed the Channel 
 from Osborne to Boulogne, where she was received by Napoleon 
 III., who had resolved to escort her to his capital. 
 
 On the morning of August 18, before the royal yacht and 
 the attendant British squadron were sighted from the port, the 
 Emperor, accompanied by Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, rode 
 to the heights to ascertain if from that point of vantage 
 anything could be discerned of his visitors' approach. Halting 
 his horse at a short distance from the overhanging cliff; he let 
 the reins hang on the animal's neck, while, with both hands, he 
 raised a pair of field glasses to his eyes. All at once, the horse, 
 startled perhaps by some action on the part of a few men who 
 were digging a trench near by, bounded forward, the Emperor's 
 hat flew off, and he precipitately dropped his glasses in order to 
 
84 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 seize the reins and checic the impetuous animal. He was an 
 expert equestrian — indeed, little as he might look it, he had 
 been quite a dare-devil rider in his younger days, as Lord 
 Malmesbury and others who then knew him have testified — still 
 his danger was real, and it was only with the very greatest 
 difficulty and by the combined force of skill and muscles that 
 he was able to pull his horse back upon its haunches when it 
 was within but a foot or two of the depths yawning beyond 
 the cliff. In after years Napoleon referred more than once to 
 that incident. He had never feared, said he, the bombs or 
 bullets of would-be assassins, but, for just one second, on the 
 cliff of Boulogne, he had felt that he could see death staring 
 him in the face.* 
 
 That same afternoon at two o'clock the Queen landed at 
 Boulogne, and shortly before seven she made her entry into Paris. 
 For several days people had been flocking into the city ; £12 
 was the lowest price for a window overlooking the Boulevards, 
 and the footways were packed for miles with enthusiastic sight- 
 seers. The decorations inside and around the railway station, 
 the triumphal arches on the Boulevards, were such as only 
 Parisian taste can devise. It is unnecessary to dwell on the 
 undoubted warmth of the reception given to the Queen as she 
 drove by in an open carriage drawn by four horses — the 
 Princess Royal sitting by her side, and the Prince Consort and 
 the Emperor sharing the front seat. Cannon boomed, flags 
 fluttered, bands played the National Anthem, soldiers presented 
 arms, and ladies waved their handkerchiefs, while Paris cheered 
 as, within the memory of its oldest inhabitant, it had never 
 cheered before. Night was setting in when the procession 
 
 * It is unprofitable to speculate on the " ifs " of history, but it may be 
 pointed out that a curious situation would have arisen had the Emperor met 
 with a fatal accident on the occasion referred to. The Empress was then 
 enceinte, but as yet the Constitution contained no provision respecting a 
 Eegency. Such provision was only made in 1856 (Senatus-oonsultum ol 
 July 17). As matters stood in 1855, it seems as if the Ministers in office 
 would have had to form themselves into a " Government Council," which 
 would have exercised Kegenoy powers — perhaps untU the Imperial Prince 
 attained his majority. Even the Senatus-consultum of 1856 left several 
 points in uncertainty, to dispel which the Emperor, on February 1, 1858, 
 expressly issuecl Letters Patent designating the Empress Eugenie as Eegent 
 in the event of his death,—" Organisation politic[ue de I'Empire Pran^ais." 
 Paris, 1867. 
 
OUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS 85 
 
 reached the Bois de Boulogne, but the troopers of the escort 
 had been provided with torches, which they lighted and carried 
 aloft as they rode before, beside, and after the carriages through 
 the broad avenues going towards St. Cloud. 
 
 It was there that the royal party was to stay, there that 
 the Empress, then in an interesting state of health, was waiting. 
 Beautiful rooms had been assigned to the Queen, and every 
 possible provision made for her comfort, one of the State 
 upholsterers having proceeded some time previously to Windsor 
 in order that the appointments of the royal bed-chamber might 
 include everything to which the Queen was accustomed. In 
 fact, the Emperor carried his solicitude so far as to order 
 careful replicas of her favourite reading-chair and table — the 
 sight of these replicas on her arrival at St. Cloud filling her 
 with astonishment. General de Montebello, the Marquis de La 
 Grange, Count Fleury, Mme. de Saulcy, and the Countess de 
 La Bedoyere were attached to the Queen's person during her 
 stay, which was spent in a round of sight-seeing, receptions 
 and entertainments. Wherever she appeared, at the Exhibition, 
 in the streets of Paris, or in the grounds of Versailles, she was 
 received with the warmest acclamations, but, as usual, there 
 was a little rift in the lute. 
 
 It became known at the Tuileries that the Queen wished to 
 visit the tomb of Napoleon I. at the Invalides, of which old 
 Prince Jerome was Governor. At that time he was staying at 
 Havre, and when the Emperor requested him to return to 
 Paris, in order that he might do the honours of the Invalides 
 to the Queen, he feigned illness to avoid obeying the command. 
 Unfortunately, he could not control his tongue, and the truth 
 leaked out. " He had fought at Waterloo," said he, " and he 
 was not going to exhibit his brother's tomb to the descendants 
 of those who had sent the great man to perish on the rock of 
 St. Helena. He had no fancy for crocodile's tears, such as 
 those English royalties would doubtless shed." Meantime, the 
 Emperor had suggested to Marshal Vaillant that he, in default 
 of Prince Jerome, should receive the Queen at the Invalides ; but 
 that old soldier of the first Empire, though frequently in contact 
 with the royal visitors, was apparently influenced by feelings 
 akin to Jerome's. At all events, he eluded the duty by pleading 
 
86 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 that it was surely one which a Prince of the Imperial House 
 ought to discharge. Eventually, the visit was made in privacy, 
 and just before the Queen's departure, Prince Jerome, alarmed 
 by threats of the Emperor's displeasure, came from Havre to 
 St. Cloud to pay her his respects. 
 
 Apropos of those incidents, mentioned here because they 
 illustrate previous remarks on the memory of Waterloo, it may 
 be added that on one occasion, when the Queen was confronted 
 by the souvenir of former hostilities between the two nations, 
 she met the difficulty in a happy manner. It was in the Galerie 
 des Batailles at the Palace of Versailles. "And what is that 
 engagement .'' " she inquired, as she passed along, indicating a 
 painting in which an army was shown retreating in disorder, 
 hard-pressed by a victorious foe. Napoleon III. was momen- 
 tarily embarrassed. He replied, however, " It is the battle of 
 Fontenoy. Your Majesty must overlook it — such subjects are 
 scarce with us." " I wish," the Queen retorted, " that for the 
 sake of both our countries all such warlike subjects were scarcer 
 still." 
 
 The three principal entertainments which marked the royal 
 visit were a gala performance at the Paris Opera-house, a ball 
 at the Hotel de Ville, and another at Versailles. The scene on 
 the last occasion was magical. For a few hours the great 
 deserted palace became as animated, as crowded, as full of state 
 and splendour as in the palmiest days of Louis XIV. There 
 were flowers everywhere, banks of flowers lining every staircase, 
 festoons of flowers hanging around every room. The great 
 Galerie des Glaces — where fifteen years later the victorious 
 King of Prussia was to be hailed as German Emperor — pre- 
 sented, amid the blaze of thousands of wax candles, as brilliant 
 a scene as Cochin depicted in that engraving which is his 
 masterpiece. True, no cardplay was in progress, there was 
 no Louis Quinze turning up the ace of hearts, no Madame de 
 Pompadour beside him, no bewigged courtiers standing around, 
 with their hands thrust in their muffs. But the ladies in their 
 crinolines recalled the old-time ladies in their lace-flounced 
 hoops, particularly as, that year, 1855, white silk and satin 
 covered with the costliest Chantilly were the grande mode for 
 evening wear. And at Versailles the Queen, the Empress, and 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS 87 
 
 all the other ladies displayed as many diamonds as ever flashed 
 upon any great gala gathering of the old regime. The Queen 
 danced, as she had done at the Hotel de Ville, opening the ball 
 with the Emperor, while the Prince Consort and the Princess 
 Mathilde were their vw-a-vis. The Empress, however, was not 
 allowed to disport herself in that fashion. She had contrived 
 to attend ^hefete in defiance of her physicians, but they asserted 
 their authority when the question of dancing was mooted. 
 After all, the ball was only one part of the entertainment, for 
 the gardens of Versailles, like the palace itself, were wonderfully 
 illuminated. The fountains seemed to be throwing myriads of 
 rubies, topazes, emeralds, and sapphires into the air, and the 
 basins, across which glided the gondolas of fairyland, coruscated 
 like rippling, seething masses of molten gems.* 
 
 During her stay in France, Queen Victoria was at the 
 Tuileries on various occasions. She lunched there one day, and 
 afterwards called there to take formal leave of the Empress and 
 the French Court. Her departure was an imposing ceremony. 
 On quitting the palace, although she was simply attired in a 
 plain grey silk travelling costume, she entered the great state 
 coach, all gilding and carving, which had done duty on the 
 occasion of the imperial wedding. This time, fortunately, the 
 crown on the summit did not fall ofi". At measured pace went 
 the huge vehicle, drawn by eight splendid horses, richly capari- 
 soned, and bestridden or attended by postilions and grooms in 
 gala liveries. Other superb equipages followed, and there was 
 a dazzling escort of Carabineers and Guides and Hussars com- 
 manded by Marshals and Genersils arrayed in full uniform, and 
 mounted on milk-white chargers, all going in pompous procession 
 towards the railway station, amid plaudits every whit as 
 enthusiastic as those which had greeted the Queen's arrival 
 The Emperor and Prince Napoleon accompanied the royal 
 visitors to Boulogne, where 50,000 troops were reviewed before 
 the farewell dinner at the imperial paviUon. At last, at 
 eleven o'clock that night, the Queen, amid the cra^h of artillery, 
 
 * There was also a great display of fireworks, the principal set-piece of 
 which was a representation of Windsor Castle, with the royal standard waving 
 over it, and the legend, "God save the Queen." The Imperial Civil List 
 spent £20,000 on this one flte at Versailles. 
 
88 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 went on board the Victoria aiid Albert, and the memorable visit 
 was at an end. 
 
 There were again gay doings in Paris a few weeks later, 
 the news of the fall of Sebastopol being received with popular 
 rejoicings and a solemn " Te Deum" at Notre Dame. Another 
 great pageant ensued in November, when theEmperor distributed 
 the awards to the prize-winners of the Exhibition. About 
 this time the Duke and Duchess of Brabant (the former now 
 King of the Belgians) came on a visit to the Tuileries, and 
 were followed by Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, attended by his 
 astute minister Cavour. The Italian party afterwards crossed 
 over to England, but when Cavour was returning to Turin he 
 left his young secretary. Chevalier Nigra, behind him in Paris 
 to act as Sardinian Minister there. Possessed of several artistic 
 gifts, and somewhat of a Bohemian in his ways, Chevalier Nigra 
 was nevertheless a diplomatist of great talent — one who as 
 Cavour's alter ego at the side of Napoleon III. contributed in 
 no small degree to the Liberation of Italy. A conspicuous 
 figure at the Court of the Tuileries, he contrived to secure the 
 favour of the Empress Eugenie, although he was the unflagging 
 supporter of political interests which were absolutely opposed 
 to those she had at heart. Many a secret battle was waged 
 between them over the Italian question in its relations to the 
 independence of the Pope, yet Nigra with his bright smile, his 
 clean-cut face, his triumphant moustache, and his soft voice, was 
 ever persona gratissima in the petits appartements when the 
 Empress gathered her more particular friends around her. At 
 the supreme hour of her distress in 1870 he, like Prince Richard 
 Metterfiich, the Austrian ambassador, hastened to her help. 
 It was they who escorted her out of the Tuileries to the vehicle 
 in which she drove to Dr. Evans's, an Empress no longer but a 
 fugitive. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel had an enthusiastic reception in Paris, less 
 (at that period) on account of French sympathy with the cause 
 of Italian independence than on account of the participation of 
 the Sardinian contingent in the Crimean campaign, A little 
 later (in December, 1856) the Parisians celebrated the return 
 of the Imperial Guard from the war. Then, early in the new 
 year, while the Peace Conference assembled at the Quai d'Orsay, 
 
BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 89 
 
 public attention was turned to the Empress, who was known 
 to have been enceinte since the previous summer. There had 
 been reason for her to expect the birth of a child twice previously, 
 but a mishap had occurred on each occasion. As early as 
 April 30, 1853,* the Moniteur — the official journal of the 
 Empire — published the following announcement : "Her Majesty 
 the Empress, who had been enceinte for two months past and 
 who during the last few days had been feeling somewhat in- 
 disposed, had a miscarriage yesterday evening, April 29. Her 
 Majesty's state of health is as satisfactory as is possible under 
 the circumstances." This announcement took everybody by 
 surprise, for no official notification of the Empress's condition 
 had ever been issued, and Viel Castel, in his " Memoirs," very 
 properly trounces the Court functionaries for publishing the 
 mishap to the world in the way they did. We believe that on 
 the second occasion there was no official announcement at all, 
 either one way or the other, though of course the truth leaked 
 out and became known to a considerable number of people. 
 Those two mishaps, it should be mentioned, had awakened the 
 kindly interest of Queen Victoria, who when the Emperor and 
 Empress visited Windsor insisted that the latter should consult 
 Sir Charles Locock, one of the royal physicians. Further, if we 
 remember rightly, the Queen sent the Marchioness of Ely to 
 France to be in attendance on the Empress when, early in 
 1856, she again expected the birth of a child. 
 
 Throughout the first fortnight in March Pai'is did not cease 
 wondering whether the Emperor would be presented with a son 
 or a daughter. The birth of a girl would make no difference 
 in the appointed order of succession to the throne, for the 
 Second Empire had retained the Salic Law which adjudges 
 women to be unworthy of the crown. Thus, if a Princess should 
 be bom, the Jerome branch of the Bonapartes would retain the 
 right of succession, and such was its unpopularity that every- 
 body hoped the expected babe would be a boy. Meantime all 
 needful preparations were made for the auspicious event. Day 
 after day the Rue Vivienne was blocked with the carriages of 
 ladies anxious to view the costly layette, which had been ordered 
 
 • The marriage, it will be remembered, had taken place on ITanuary 29-30 
 that year. 
 
90 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 of the renowned Mme. Felicie, and which included everything 
 that a chi]d, boy or girl, could possibly require until it was two 
 years old. There was also an ormolu bassinet costing iPlOOO, 
 with hangings of blue silk and Mechlin lace, sheets edged with 
 Valenciennes, and a white satin coverlet embroidered with the 
 imperial crown and eagle in gold — these representing another 
 ■£"1600. The state cradle was, however, a far more expensive 
 affair, being a marvel of the goldsmith's art executed by Froment 
 Meurice at the expense of the city of Paris, in whose name it 
 was presented to the Empress. A ship, it will be remembered, 
 appears on the city's escutcheon, and this cradle took the form 
 of a vessel, at whose poop stood a silver figure of Paris robed in 
 gold and raising an imperial crown of the same precious metal, 
 whence fell the cradle's curtains. Beneath the figure of Paris 
 were two sea-deities glancing in a kindly protecting way towards 
 the interior of the cradle, while lower still, at each corner of 
 the hull, appeared mermaids with tails entwined. Right at the 
 stern a shield of gold was emblazoned with the arms of Paris, 
 around which went a scroll with the city's motto, Fluduat nee 
 mergitur. The ship's prow was supported by a golden eagle 
 with open wings, and on either side of the rosewood hull, inlaid 
 with silver, were medallions of blue enamel figuring Prudence, 
 Strength, Vigilance, and Justice. The interior was lined with 
 pale blue satin ; and the most beautiful lace formed or adorned 
 the curtains, coverlet and piUow. 
 
 Prior to the Empress's accouchement the widow of Admiral 
 Bruat, the gallant officer who had commanded the French fleet 
 in the Black Sea, was named "Governess of the Children of 
 France," the widows of General Bizot and Colonel de Brancion 
 — ^both killed before Sebastopol — becoming " Under Governesses." 
 Further, from among a large number of candidates from all 
 parts of France the Court physicians carefully selected as wet- 
 nurse a bright, comely, intelligent peasant woman of Macon, 
 who, pending the Empress's delivery, continued suckling her own 
 child, a boy about two months old. The Emperor, however, as 
 will be remembered, had long lived in England, and had there 
 formed a very favourable opinion of the manner in which English 
 children were reared, so he decided that an English woman should 
 be chief nurse, and engaged a lady, named Shaw, for the post. 
 
BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 91 
 
 So general was the anticipation that the expected child 
 would be a boy that thousands of people signed a petition 
 praying the Emperor to bestow the title of " King of Algeria " 
 on the infant, in imitation, of course, of that of "King of 
 Rome " given to the son of Napoleon I. The latter title would 
 naturally have been out of place in the case of the third 
 Napoleon's heir — the more so as it had been arranged that 
 Pope Pius IX. was to be godfather of the expected babe. An 
 amusing story was circulated respecting that sponsorship. 
 Although, as we have already mentioned, a very sumptuous 
 layette had been ordered in Paris, his Holiness thought it his 
 duty also to provide one ; but when the question of the articles 
 which it ought to include and their cost was mooted at the 
 Vatican, neither the Pope nor any of the Cardinals who were 
 called into council was able to give an opinion. Had they been 
 married men they would soon have been extricated from the 
 difficulty by their wives, but they had none, and when it was 
 suggested that a certain Monsignore shovdd make inquiries at a 
 Roman baby-linen warehouse, the poor man nearly succumbed 
 to an attack of apoplexy in his alarm as to what might be 
 thought of him if he were to carry the suggestion into effect. 
 Eventually one of their Eminences remembered that he had a 
 married sister, whose services were duly requisitioned. 
 
 On the morning of Saturday, Mai-ch 16, 1856, it was 
 believed that the birth would take place before the day had 
 elapsed. The Princess d'Essling, as Great Mistress of the 
 Empress's Household, at once sent word to the Princes of 
 the Imperial Family, who betook themselves in all haste to 
 the Tuileries, The news sped through Paris like lightning, 
 and while crowds of people assembled on the Place du 
 Carrousel, in the Tuileries garden, and in the Rue de Rivoli, 
 preparations for illuminating the city in the evening were 
 hurried forward in every direction, and all day long the old 
 artillerymen of the Invalides stood to their guns, with matches 
 in readiness to fire the salute directly the signal flame should 
 go up from the Tuileries. None was seen, though hour after 
 hour went by. The whole day passed, the Emperor, the 
 Countess de Montijo, the Princess dTEssling, the doctors and 
 the nui-ses staying with the Empress all the time, while the 
 
92 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Princes of the Bonaparte family, the great dignitaries of the 
 Empire, the aides-de-camp and other officers remained in 
 adjacent rooms, installed there virtually en permanence, and 
 scarcely venturing to absent themselves for a few minutes 
 to snatch a bite of food. The evening fell, then night, and 
 still everybody was waiting. Special services were held in the 
 churches, special prayers were offered up on the Empress's 
 behalf. At last, about half-past two o'clock on the morning 
 of the 16th (Palm Sunday), the decisive moment seemed to be 
 near, and, in accordance with the prescribed ceremonial, the 
 Minister of State and the Keeper of the Seals, with Prince 
 Napoleon, Prince Charles Bonaparte,* and Prince Lucien Murat, 
 were ushered into the Empress's chamber, that they might 
 witness the birth of the imperial offspring. The sudden arrival 
 of so many people, however, had a most unfortunate effect on 
 the patient, the course of nature was suspended, and the doctors 
 were compelled to resort to surgical treatment. At last, at a 
 quarter past three o'clock, the child, a boy, was brought into 
 the world. t 
 
 For hours and hours, all through the day and through the 
 night, the crowd had been waiting outside the Tuileries. 
 Suddenly two lights appeared at a window of the palace on 
 the Carrousel side, and a loud acclamation immediately arose. 
 If there had been but one light it would have meant that a 
 Princess had been born, but two lights signified the birth of 
 a Prince. However, the people who were massed on other sides 
 of the palace and who saw nothing of those lights were still in 
 uncertainty, and waited for the salute. At last the guns of 
 the Invalides began booming, and, as on March 20, 1811, when 
 the King of Rome came into the world, and September 30, 
 1820, when the widowed Duchess de Berri gave birth to the 
 " Child of the Miracle," so now, again, the attentive multitude 
 counted report after report. A salute of twenty-one guns 
 would mean a girl, a salute of a hundred and one a boy. One 
 
 ' Eepresenting his father, Prince Louis Luoien, who had met with a bad 
 accident. 
 
 t Baron Dubois, the Empress's surgeon-aooouoheur, received a fee of 
 £1200 for his services. Although the Empress appeared in public again 
 within a few months, a very long time elapsed before her health was com- 
 pletely re-established. 
 
BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 93 
 
 after another the detonations rang out with the utmost 
 precision, under the wild March sky. Twenty-one — then 
 silence. For a moment the listeners felt grievously dis- 
 appointed. But all at once a twenty-second report was 
 heard, and then the salute continued with the same precision 
 as before. As the Parisians finally turned their steps home- 
 ward, many of them wondered why there had been a pause 
 after the twenty-first report. On the morrow the newspapers 
 enlightened them. An old wooden-legged artilleryman of the 
 first Napoleon, who was among those firing the guns at the 
 Invalides, had stumbled and fallen at the critical moment of 
 the salute, and this had caused the brief delay. 
 
 The etiquette of the Tuileries Court did not require that 
 a newly born infant of the imperial house should be at once 
 deposited on a gold salver and exhibited to aU the assembled 
 functionaries of the State, as we once saw an Infanta of Spain 
 exhibited immediately after her birth ; nevertheless Mme. Bruat 
 ceremoniously presented the Imperial Prince to his father and 
 the relatives and ministers assembled in the Empress's apart- 
 ments. Then due entry of the birth was made in the imperial 
 register, and telegrams were despatched to the Pope, the Queen 
 of Sweden (the godmother), the Grand Duchess of Baden, Queen 
 Victoria, and others. It was then barely four o'clock in the 
 morning, and it was regarded as a curious circumstance that 
 congratulatory answers to the telegrams should have been 
 received within a couple of hours — for this testified to the 
 activity of the world's great personages at a time when 
 the community at large is usually wrapped in slumber. The 
 members of the Senate and the Legislative Body had remained 
 waiting at their respective palaces until half-past one o'clock — 
 having their wives and daughters with them to keep them 
 company, and indulging both in music and champagne to 
 beguile the tedium of the hours. At last a message from the 
 Tuileries sent them home, but at 8 a.m. they re-assembled to 
 receive official notification of the great event. 
 
 The ill-starred Imperial Prince, whose advent was enthusi- 
 astically celebrated in so many directions, was at birth a well- 
 developed child, with an abundance of dark hair, resembling his 
 father's, and features that in an infant seemed of an unusually 
 
94 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 marked character. During his early childhood, indeed, the 
 Empress often said of him to Count Fleury : " Louis will be 
 dreadfully ugly ; he already has a nose like a man's." But it 
 happened that he grew up fairly good looking, with a virile 
 face, no doubt, yet with something of his mother's expression 
 to soften the features which he had derived from his father. 
 
 After mass in the chapel of the Tuileries at noon that 
 day, the ondokment, or private baptism, of the new-born " Son 
 of France" took place there. Four Cardinals, all the great 
 dignitaries of the State, the Emperor, and the Princes of 
 the Blood were present. It was the Bishop of Nancy, First 
 Almoner of the Household, who officiated, pouring the 
 baptismal water on the infant's head from a golden ewer. 
 The boy was named Napoleon and Louis after his father, 
 Eugene after his mother, Jean after the Pope, and Joseph 
 after the Queen of Sweden, his godmother, her name being 
 Josephine. At the conclusion of the ceremony he was carried 
 in state to his apartments, and this time a whole host of 
 officials was able to catch a glimpse of the new heir to the 
 throne. Paris, of course, illuminated her monuments and her 
 houses that night, though the rain fell incessantly ; and in the 
 meantime addresses of congratulation poured in from all parts 
 of the provinces. It was a repetition of what had happened 
 when the King of Rome and the Duke de Bordeaux and the 
 Count de Paris were born. They, also, had been saluted as 
 the hope of the country, as its future rulers, yet none of them 
 had reigned. StiU, in that month of March, 1856, people 
 fancied that Fate must surely be weary of pursuing the heirs 
 of France. The poets, for their part, entertained no fears for 
 the future. In the Moniteur, on the morrow of the Imperial 
 Prince's birth, Theophile Gautier sang as follows : — 
 
 Au vieuz palais dea Tuileiies, 
 
 Charge dfeji d'un grand destin, 
 Paimi le luxe et les fSeiies, 
 
 Uu enfant est n& ce matin, 
 
 Aux premiers rayons de I'aurore, 
 
 Dans les rayons de I'Orient, 
 Quand la ville dormait encore, 
 
 II est yenu, fraia et riant, , . . 
 
BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 95 
 
 Et le canon des Inyalides, 
 
 Tonnene m61£ de rayons, 
 Fait paitout aux foules avides 
 
 Compter ses detonations. 
 
 Au bruit da fracas insoUte, 
 
 Qui fait trembler son piidestal, 
 B'4meut le glorieuz Stylite 
 
 Sur son bronze monumental.* 
 
 Lea aigles du socle s'agitent, 
 
 Essayant de prendre leur vol, 
 Et leurs ailes d'alraln palpitent, 
 
 Gomme au jour de S^bastopol, 
 
 Mais ce n'est pas une victoire 
 
 Que chantent cloches et canons. 
 Sur I'Aro de Triomphe I'Histoire 
 
 Ne salt plus oil graver les noms. 
 
 G'est on Jdsus i tSte blonde. 
 
 Qui porte en sa petite main, 
 Pour globe bleu, la paiz du monde 
 
 Et le bonheur du genre humain. 
 
 La creche est faite en bois de rose, 
 
 Ses rideauz sont couleur d'azur, 
 Paisible, en sa conque il repose, 
 
 Car fluctuat nee mergitur. 
 
 Sur lui la France Stend son aile. 
 
 A son nouyeau-n£, pour beroeau, 
 Ceiicatesse matemelle, 
 
 Paris a pr^tS son vaisseau. 
 
 Qu'un bonheur fidMe accompagne 
 Ii'enfant imperial qui dort, 
 
 Blanc comme les jasmins d'Espagne, 
 Blond comme les abeilles d'or I f 
 
 Camille Doucet was yet more emphatic with respect to tlie 
 destiny of the imperial infant, and declared roundly that the 
 days of mischance and instability were quite past : 
 
 Trois fois, depuis quarante ann^es, 
 
 S'est rempli le berceau des roia ; 
 Et trois fois se sont d^toum^es 
 Les infid^les destinies, 
 
 Qui Tavaient saluS trois fois. 
 
 • Napoleon I. on the Venddme column, 
 
 t The bees of the Bonapartes. Gautier was wrong, however, in calling the 
 Prince bUmd. He had a freah, clear complexion, but his hair was dark. 
 
96 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Fareil au beiceau de Moise, 
 
 Sur les flots batiu sans espoir, 
 Toujours une vague insoumise, 
 Lui fermant la terie promise, 
 
 L'emportant sans qu'il pAt la voir : 
 
 La France, aprSs mille naufrages, 
 
 Impatiente de repos, 
 S'^lanfait vers tous les rivages, 
 Souriait 4 tous les pr&ages, 
 
 S'abritait sous tous les drapeaux 
 
 C'est la fin deg heures de doute, 
 
 Des folles instability, 
 Plus de perils que Ton redoute, 
 Plus de berceaux perdus en route, 
 
 Plus de tr6nes dfishfiritfe I . . , 
 
 Dors, enfant, et que Dieu t'inspire I 
 
 Dormez aussi, m^re sans peur. 
 La France, qui pour vous conspire, 
 Vous donnait nagu^re un empire, 
 
 Vous lui donnez un Empereur I 
 
 In celebration of the Prince's birth, the Emperor and 
 Empress offered to act as godfather and godmother to all the 
 children born in France on the same day as their son. The 
 number was no less than 3000, nevertheless presents were sent 
 to all the parents. There were also handsome donations from 
 the Civil List to the poor relief-offices of the municipalities, and 
 to the various associations of authors, composers, painters, and 
 actors. A still more pleasant feature was the granting of 
 freedom or of permission to return to France to all the 
 remaining political prisoners or exiles of the Coup d'Etat who 
 would undertake to submit to the Government of the country 
 and respect the laws. A good many accepted that condition, 
 but the irreconcilables, led by Victor Hugo, contemptuously 
 spumed the Emperor's offer. It was the little rift in the lute 
 again. Some jarring note always made itself heard amid the 
 most enthusiastic strains of the Empire's partisans. 
 
 Early in April, 1856, the Treaty of Paris being at last signed, 
 the Court and the city celebrated the restoration of peace. Then, 
 disastrous inundations occurring in the south of France, the 
 Emperor hastened thither for the purpose of alleviating the 
 
BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 97 
 
 distress, which was great indeed.* But he was back in Paris for 
 the state baptism of his son, which had been deferred until 
 June 14. Pius IX. had despatched a special legate, Cardinal 
 Patrizzi, to officiate at this pompous ceremony, which filled 
 Notre Dame with as large and as splendid an assembly as that 
 which had witnessed the imperial wedding. The procession 
 started from the Tuileries about five o'clock in the afternoon. 
 Eleven carriages, each drawn by six horses, conveyed the high 
 officers of state, the Princes of the imperial family, and the Court 
 guests, including Prince Oscar of Sweden, the Grand Duchess 
 Stephanie of Baden (representing the royal godmother), and her 
 daughter, the Duchess of Hamilton. Then, preceded by a 
 squadron of Guides, came a great gilded state coach, which had 
 served for the coronation of King Charles X. It was drawn by 
 eight horses, each with a groom at its head, and in this pompous 
 coach sat Madame Bruat, a still young and beautiful woman, 
 carrying on her lap the infant Imperial Prince, around whom 
 was cast a mantle of purple and ermine. Beside the coach rode 
 two newly created Marshals of France, Canrobert on the right. 
 Bosquet on the left. Behind came yet another splendid eight- 
 horse state carriage, that of the imperial wedding, containing 
 the Emperor and Empress, he attired, as usual, in a general's 
 uniform, she in a cloud of light blue silk and gauze and lace, 
 while from the crown upon her head the blazing Regent diamond 
 scattered flakes of lambency. 
 
 Over the Place de I'Hotel de Ville and through a great 
 triumphal arch erected there, then across the bridge to Notre 
 Dame, went the procession. Under the vaulted roof of star- 
 spangled azure, the interior of the ancient cathedral was all 
 crimson and gold. In the centre of the transept appeai-ed a 
 large stage, on which were set the altar, the throne of the 
 Emperor and Empress, that of the Legate, and the seats for the 
 Canons of Notre Dame. Behind the Cardinal's throne were 
 ranged the seventy-five Archbishops and Bishops of France in 
 their gemmed mitres and full canonicals. [Where sit their 
 successors now ?] Up the nave went the imperial cortege, the 
 Empress, the Grand Duchess of Baden, and the Princesses, with 
 long trains upheld by pages. When all was in readiness the 
 • Nearl7 £40,000 were oolleoted in Great Britain and sent to France. 
 
98 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Cardinal Legate descended from his throne to the altar and 
 chanted the Veni Creator, accompanied by a full orchestra, while 
 the Empress's ladies glided softly to the credence tables in order 
 to deposit on them the various ai'ticles provided for the 
 baptismal rites. The Countess de Montebello carried the 
 candle, the Baroness de Malaret the chrism cloth, the Marchioness 
 de Latour-Maubourg the salt, the Countess de La Bedoyere 
 the ewer, the Countess de Rayneval the basin, and Madame de 
 Saulcy the napkin. Meantime, the little Prince was sitting up 
 in Madame Bruat's arms, looking around him as fearlessly, in 
 his infantile simplicity, as years afterwards, in his young man- 
 hood, he looked on the Zulus who struck him down. 
 
 The Veni Creator being ended, the Master of Ceremonies 
 bowed to the altar, then to the Emperor and Empress, and 
 approached the Cardinal, followed by Madame Bruat with her 
 charge. Then the baptismal rites were performed, and the 
 register was signed, first by the Legate, next by the Sovereigns, 
 and afterwards by several of the Princes present. At last, 
 making a slight obeisance, Madame Bruat approached 
 Napoleon HI. and placed the Imperial Prince in his arms. 
 As his uncle had done at the time of the baptism of the King 
 of Rome, the Emperor turned towards the brilliant assembly, 
 proudly raising his son aloft. This was the formal presentation 
 of the Heir to the Throne to the representatives of the 
 French people. Meantime, an Assistant-Master of Cere- 
 monies had stepped to the centre of the choir, and there 
 he thrice raised the cry, " Vive le Prince Imperial ! — Vive le 
 Prince Imperial ! — Vive le Prince Imperial ! " Thousands of 
 voices took up that vivat, while the orchestra burst into music. 
 On receiving the infant Prince again from the Emperor, Madame 
 Bruat retired to a side chapel, which had been fitted as a with- 
 drawing room, and shortly afterwards, escorted by Guides and 
 Cuirassiers, she and her charge returned to the Tuileries, while 
 in the cathedral the Legate celebrated the Te Deum, and, when 
 the Domme salvumfac Imperatorem had been chanted, bestowed 
 with all solemnity the Pontifical benediction on France, her 
 ruler, and her people. 
 
 That evening at the Hotel de Ville there was a great banquet 
 at which the Emperor and Empress were present, and Paris 
 
BIRTH OF THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 99 
 
 once more blazed with illuminations. A few days later another 
 solemn ceremony took place before the Court, assembled on this 
 occasion in the chapel of the chateau of St. Cloud. This was 
 the ceremony of the presentation, by Cardinal Patrizzi, of the 
 Golden Rose which Pius IX. had sent to the Empress Eugenie, 
 thereby singling her out as a pattern of piety and virtue. It 
 is said that in the earlier centuries of Christianity fihngs of 
 certain chains, alleged to have bound St. Peter's wrists, were 
 blessed and then presented to distinguished upholders of the 
 faith, and that later the rite was performed with gold euid 
 silver keys emblematical of the apostle's. Subsequently a 
 golden rose appears to have taken the place of the keys. It 
 has usually assumed the form of a miniature rosebush bearing 
 flowers of wrought gold, and emerging from a gold pot or 
 vase — the whole representing a value of about i?400. On the 
 fourth Sunday in Lent, at high mass at St. Peter's or in the 
 Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, the topmost flower of the bush 
 is anointed with balsam, sprinkled with musk, incensed, and 
 then solemnly blessed by the Pope. It is afterwards sent to some 
 sovereign, eminent personage or famous church, or if no worthy 
 recipient be found at the time, the presentation is deferred 
 until the following year. The vase of the rosebush sent to the 
 Empress Eugdnie was mounted on a stand of lapis lazuli, in 
 which her arms and those of Pius IX. were incrusted in mosaic 
 work. On the vase itself were bas-reliefs, representing the Birth 
 of the Virgin and her Presentation at the Temple. That the 
 consort of Napoleon III. was not unworthy of the gift may be 
 readily granted ; but unfortunately the same Pontifl' also sent 
 a Golden Rose to Isabella II. of Spain, a Queen whose life was, 
 from the standpoint of common morality, an example to be 
 shunned. But then Pius's predecessors had sent Golden Roses 
 not only to the Empress Maria Theresa, but also to Henry VIII. 
 of England, who, indeed, received no fewer than three of them — 
 though that did not prevent the Reformation. 
 
 Here let us pause. We have just had a glimpse of the 
 Empire in its pride and splendour, in the heyday of success and 
 triumph, which seemed full of fair promise for the future. We 
 will now glance at what was lurking so menacingly beneath all 
 the imperial power and pomp. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CONSPIKACIES — THE TUILERIES POLICE — A CRIMINAL 
 CENT- GARDE 
 
 Attempts on the Emperor's Life — Association of the Paris Theatres with those 
 Crimes — The Plots of the Hippodrome and the OpSra Oomique — The 
 Keloh Affair and GrisoeUi — Pianori's attempt on Napoleon III. — Demon- 
 stration in Paris — Why the Emperor never went to the Crimea — The 
 Attempt of Bellemare the Lunatic — The Murder of the Archbishop of 
 Paris — Mazzini's Letters, the Tibaldi Plot, and the Countess de Castig- 
 lione — The Orsini Attempt— The Opera Programme — The Scene in 
 the House and the Tragedy outside — The Culprits, their Trial and 
 Punishment — ^A Keign of Terror in Prance and Trouble with England- 
 Consternation of the French Court — The Special Tuileries Police — The 
 Spy system in the Palace — The Cent-Gardes and the story of Provost. 
 
 "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." Many were the 
 dangers to which the life of Napoleon III. was exposed, parti- 
 cularly during the earlier years of his rule. Six months after 
 the Coup d'Etat, and before he had actually become Emperor, 
 there was a plot to assassinate him in Paris, and a little 
 later (September, 1852), during his journey through Southern 
 France, an unfinished infernal machine was discovered at 
 Marseilles — "providentially," said the Bonapartist journals of 
 the time, "before his arrival in that city." Some people sus- 
 pected the affair to be a bogus one, concocted by the pohce 
 to stimulate public sympathy with the Prince President, but 
 whatever may have been the facts in that particular instance, 
 there can be no doubt of the genuineness of many subsequent 
 plots or individual attempts on his life. The list of those 
 which secured publicity is no mean one, but the Archives of 
 the Prefecture of Police contain indications of many others, 
 either suddenly abandoned by men who took to flight, or else 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 101 
 
 nipped in the bud and dealt with in a secret arbitrary fashion 
 by the authorities. The latter, indeed, often thought it best 
 to hush up one or another affair for fear lest public confidence, 
 already tried by what came to light, might be too severely 
 shaken if the nation should learn the whole truth about the 
 persistent hatred of the Emperor's enemies. But, however 
 careful the authorities might be, there was often a little leakage. 
 Mysterious rumours circulated in whispers in one and another 
 circle of Parisian society, tending to a vague haunting sense 
 of insecurity, such as was suggested by an English versifier of 
 the time : — 
 
 " The years had fled, 
 
 The old King * was dead ; 
 An Emperor governed the land In his stead — 
 A gentleman famed for a very long head. 
 Things went on much hetter : the people were fed ; 
 
 The city had grown 
 
 From mud unto atone ; 
 The monarch seemed pretty well fixed on his throne. 
 Bat stUl there was something, an undefined dread. 
 As you feel when the sides of Mount Etna you tread ; 
 And sorely the Emperor puzzled his head, 
 
 Ever seeking in vain 
 
 For some means to restrain 
 The dim, hidden dangers that threatened his reign," 
 
 It is by no means pleasant for a man to know that he 
 cannot visit a public place of entertainment, spend an evening 
 at a theati'e, without incurring the risk of assassination, as 
 was the case with Napoleon III. The present Paris Opera-house 
 has not been associated with crime except in the pages of a 
 well-known novel by Fortune du Boisgobey, but matters were 
 different with its predecessors. The first Napoleon had scarcely 
 become Consul when there was a plot — an ill-contrived and 
 half-hearted one, it must be admitted — to stab him to death 
 with daggers at the Opera-house of that time, which occupied 
 the site of the present Place Louvois in the Rue de Richelieu. 
 A little later, on Christmas Eve, 1800, as Napoleon was repairing 
 to the Opera to attend a performance of Haydn's oratorio 
 " Saul," an infernal machine w£is exploded in the Rue Nicaise, 
 near the Tuileries ; and the future Emperor only escaped injui-y, 
 
 * Louis Philippe. 
 
102 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and perhaps death, owing to the semi-drunken condition of his 
 coachman, who drove with reckless rapidity, and the miscalcula- 
 tions of Robinet de St. Rejant by whom the machine was fired, 
 he having expected that a guard of cavalry would precede the 
 carriage. Twenty years afterwards the Opera-house was again 
 associated with a crime, for at its very door Louvel stabbed 
 Louis XVIII.'s nephew, the Duke de Berri, who died a few 
 hours afterwards. Then, in 1835, when Fieschi fired his in- 
 fernal machine at Louis Philippe and his escort on the Boulevard 
 du Temple, the Opera figured even in connection with that 
 terrible affair, for it was there that on the previous evening the 
 police were vainly warned of the contemplated attempt upon 
 the King. 
 
 Under Napoleon III. there was at first a change of venue on 
 the part of the would-be regicides, though they still selected 
 places of entertainment for the accomplishment of their designs. 
 In spite of the vigilance of the imperial police under Maupas 
 and Pietri, some of the secret societies, which had sprung up 
 under Louis Philippe and flourished under the Republic of '48, 
 were still in existence or had been merged into other associations, 
 better adapted to the new order of things. Among them was 
 one called " The Consuls of the People," another " The Sanitary 
 Cordon," and a third « The Two Hundred." The two first- 
 named were composed of old Republicans, the last of Republican 
 students of the Quartier Latin. In the spring of 1853, those 
 three societies entered into a league and covenant for the purpose 
 of ridding France of the new Emperor. The more ardent 
 members desired to kill him, the others thought that the 
 seizure of his person would suflRce to bring about the fall of the 
 Empire and the restoration of the Republic. The views of 
 the former prevailed, and as it had been publicly announced 
 that the Emperor would attend a performance at the Paris 
 Hippodrome on June 7, the conspirators resolved to attack him 
 on that occasion. But there was a traitor in their ranks who 
 revealed everything to the police. Precautions were therefore 
 adopted by the authorities, and the attempt became impossible. 
 Moreover, two of the leaders, named Ruault and Lux, were 
 arrested, while a printing press and a quantity of revolutionary 
 papers were seized at the abode of a Moldavian refugee named 
 
CONSPIRACffiS— THE TUILERIES POLICE 103 
 
 Bratiano, one of whose brothers was a member of the " Central 
 European Revolutionary Committee " installed in London. 
 
 Nevertheless, the other plotters did not relinquish their 
 purpose. At the suggestion of one of their number, a Belgian 
 named de Merens, they resolved to fall upon the Emperor as he 
 quitted the Opera Comique on the night of July 6. Once 
 again, however, they were betrayed to the police, and after the 
 arrival of the Emperor and Empress at the theatre, a dozen of 
 them were arrested among the crowd lingering outside. About 
 this time, it may be mentioned, a vigorous pamphlet warfare 
 was being carried on against the Empire, not only by such 
 writers as Victor Hugo, Louis Blanc, Edgar Quinet, and Colonel 
 Charras, but also by a London organization "La Commune 
 Revolutionnaire," which was directed by three refugees — Felix 
 Pyat, Boichot, and Caussidiere. Those men were beyond the 
 reach of the Imperial Government, but several of their un- 
 fortunate acolytes in France were apprehended and sentenced 
 to varying terms of imprisonment. Four months later, when 
 the plotters of the Hippodrome and the Opera Comique were 
 brought to trial at the assizes, seven of them were sentenced to 
 transportation for life, one to ten, three to seven, six to five, 
 and one to three years' imprisonment, while three others were 
 banished from France for eight years. Six prisoners, acquitted 
 on the main charges, were detained for having belonged to secret 
 societies and tried with forty others for that offence. Of those 
 thus indicted only four secured acquittal, the others being sent 
 to prison for periods varying from five years to one. 
 
 There was also another strange affair in that same year, 
 1853. An ex-lieutenant of the French army named Frederic 
 Kelch arrived in Paris from London and secured lodgings over 
 a wine-shop at Montrouge. Two refugee Italians had quarters 
 in the same house, and they and Kelch were suspected of designs 
 on the Emperor's life. When a detachment of detective police 
 descended on the place to arrest them, they offered a most 
 desperate resistance, and were badly wounded before being 
 secured. They were never brought to trial, but shipped by 
 "administrative orders" to Cayenne. Some time afterwards, 
 however, according to official data, Kelch was for some mysterious 
 reason released, and made his way to China, where he became 
 
104 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 one of the officer-instructors of the " Ever- Victorious Army." 
 However, an Italian named Griscelli, calling himself " Baron de 
 Rimini," and for a time one of the secret police who watched 
 over the safety of Napoleon III., declares in his "Memoirs" 
 that he himself shot Kelch dead in the wine-shop, where he had 
 gone to arrest him; that he received in reward for his deed 
 <£400 from the Emperor, J'40 from M. de Maupas, and 6^60 
 from M. Pietri ; and that the Empress Eugenie defrayed the 
 cost of his daughter's education at a convent at Issy. It is just 
 possible that there may be some little truth in Griscelli's 
 narrative, but that, instead of shooting Kelch dead, he only 
 wounded him. 
 
 Kelch's acolytes were Italian revolutionaries, and before long 
 it was from men of that class and nationality that Napoleon III. 
 stood in most need of protection.* About five o'clock on the 
 afternoon of April 28, 1855, the Emperor, attended by an 
 aide-de-camp and an orderly officer (Edgar Ney and Lieut.-Col. 
 Valabrfegue), was riding up the Champs Elysees in order to join 
 the Empress, who was driving in the Bois de Boulogne, when a 
 man suddenly sprang towards him from the footway near the 
 corner of the Rue de Balzac. This man, who was armed with 
 a double-barrelled pistol, fired at the Emperor twice, but with- 
 out hitting him, whereupon he flung his weapon away and took 
 another from his coat. He had been perceived, however, from 
 the other side of the avenue by a vigilant plain-clothes police 
 officer, a Corsican named Alessandri, who, drawing a dagger which 
 he had about him, rushed forward to seize the man. There was a 
 slight delay as a carriage passed at that moment, nearly running 
 over Alessandri, who had to make a detour to avoid it. How- 
 ever, before the Emperor's assailant could fire a third shot the 
 
 • It was generally supposed that Napoleon was pursued by the hatred of 
 Italian Carbonari, he having previously belonged, it was said, to their organiza- 
 tion, and having failed to keep his oath. The Emperor laughed when he 
 heard this tale, and remarked, in the presence of several members of his Court, 
 that he had never been a Carbonaro or supported the Carbonaro cause ; all 
 that had been written and said on the subject was, he declared, a profound 
 mistake. He had been confused with his elder brother, and the error had 
 largely arisen, said he, from the circumstance that his own Christian names 
 and his brother's were identical, though they did not follow the same order. 
 This statement, it will be perceived, refutes the assertions made by Count 
 Orsi in his " Recollections." 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 105 
 
 detective was upon him. They rolled over on the ground 
 together, and in the frantic struggle which ensued the man was 
 twice stabbed by Alessandri. Nevertheless he fought on, and 
 was not definitely secured until the arrival of other policemen. 
 The Emperor, meantime, had remained quite calm, and went 
 his way to join the Empress, who burst into tears upon hearing 
 of what had happened. 
 
 Reports of the attempt sped like wildfire through Paris, and 
 when the Emperor and Empress repaired to the Opera Comique 
 in the evening, they were enthusiastically acclaimed by dense 
 crowds of people, as is acknowledged even by Viel Castel, that 
 great sneerer at things imperial. " I must say," he writes in 
 his " Diary," " that if I were to read what I have just seen I 
 should not believe it, I should charge the newspapers with flat- 
 tery and courtisannerie. But the shouts of ' Vive TEmpereur ! ' 
 thundered forth like discharges of artiller}', continuing farther 
 and farther away. The emotion was general; I saw not one 
 person but twenty, thirty people weeping. . . . Inside the 
 theatre the Empress looked pale and anxious, in spite of her 
 efforts to appear calm. The Emperor also was thoughtful. On 
 the return to the Tuileries they were gi'eeted with the same 
 ovation as before, and the houses they passed were resplendent 
 with illuminations." 
 
 That is the usual outcome of such attempts. They stir even 
 an ordinarily callous population to sympathy with the intended 
 victim. 
 
 The Emperor's assailant was named Giovanni Pianori. Born 
 at Fuenza in the Papal States, in 1827, a shoemaker by pro- 
 fession, and the father of several children, he had served under 
 Garibaldi, at Rome, during the revolutionary period. The 
 French police tried to show that, under another name, he had 
 been sentenced to twelve years at the galleys for political assassi- 
 nation in Sicily, whence he had escaped to Genoa; but that 
 conviction was never clearly established. It would seem that, 
 after the French expedition to Rome in 1849, Pianori took 
 refuge in Piedmont, and, under the name of Liverani, made 
 his way to Marseilles, Lyons, and Paris, thence passing over to 
 England, where he may well have met various political refugees. 
 JNIazzini and others were mentioned at his trial, but there was 
 
106 THE COURT OP THE TUILERIES 
 
 no proof that they had instigated his crime, though it was 
 certainly very strange that, while the prisoner's circumstances 
 were plainly precarious, his wants were supplied in some 
 mysterious way, that he wore attire far superior to his real 
 position, and that he had returned from London to Paris 
 only five days before making his attempt. But this, he 
 asserted, had been suddenly conceived and as suddenly carried 
 out. He had been ruined, he said, by the French occupation 
 of the Papal States, and had bethought himself of all the misery 
 prevailing there since the Pope and the priests had regained 
 power. He had also pictured the distressful situation of his wife 
 and children, whom he had been obliged to leave behind him ; 
 and on remembering that it was Napoleon HI. who had robbed 
 Italy of Rome, and thereby brought about all his misfortunes, 
 he had lost his head and resolved to shoot the Emperor. He 
 was sentenced to death for his attempt, but there is reason to 
 believe that he was offered his life in exchange for revelations, 
 which he did not make, however, adhering to his original state- 
 ment that he had no accomplices. The Emperor being deemed 
 " the father of his country," Pianori suffered sentence as a 
 parricide, that is, going to the guillotine bare-footed in a long 
 white shirt, and with a black hooded veil hanging from his head. 
 " Vive ritalie ! Vive la Republique ! " he cried, as he ascended 
 the scaffold steps, displaying until the last moment the utmost 
 fortitude. 
 
 Pianori's attempt had a result of some importance, for had 
 it not occurred the Emperor would have carried out his design 
 of proceeding to the Crimea, in spite of the views which had 
 been expressed at the War Council of Windsor.* In fact, at 
 the time of the attempt the preparations for the imperial 
 departure were being quietly hastened. But the sovereign's 
 entourage became alarmed both for his safety at the seat of war 
 and for the regime itself in the event of any outbreak in his 
 absence. Pressure was therefore brought to bear on him by the 
 Empress and the Ministers, as well as by his old confederates of 
 the Coup d'Etat, and he reluctantly yielded to it. Officially, 
 of course, other reasons were assigned for the abandonment of 
 the imperial plans. 
 
 • See ante, p. 82. Pleury's Memoirs confirm the statement made above. 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 107 
 
 Some four months elapsed, Queen Victoria paid her visit to 
 Paris, and the Affaire Pianori was almost forgotten, when on 
 the evening of September 8, 1855 — the day of the victorious 
 attack on the Malaiioff — as one of the imperial carriages drew 
 up outside the Theatre des Italiens in the Place Ventadour, a 
 young man drew a pistol from his pocket, placed the muzzle 
 close to the window of the vehicle, fired, and broke the glass. 
 Immediately afterwards he raised a second pistol, but before he 
 could fire it a sergent-de-ville struck his arm down, and the 
 charge entered the ground. It so happened that the carriage 
 did not contain the Emperor, but three of the Empress's ladies, 
 and that the would-be regicide had been deceived by a sudden 
 shout of " Vive I'Empereur ! " which an impetuous bystander, an 
 old First-Empire pensioner, had raised on recognizing the im- 
 perial liveries. The ladies, at whom the pistol was discharged, 
 escaped unhurt, but they were quite unnerved by the occurrence ; 
 while Madame Ristori, the famous tragedienne, who was giving 
 her last performance of the season that evening (and who, as it 
 happened, was to be associated, in a similar way, with the 
 subsequent and more famous attempt of Orsini and his con- 
 federates), fainted on hearing that the Emperor's life had been 
 threatened, and was scarcely able to appear in her role as 
 Phaedra when, shortly afterwards. Napoleon III. airived. The 
 acclamations with which he was received were so pronounced 
 that he inquired the cause, and on hearing of the outrage 
 remarked : " Let nothing of this be communicated to the 
 Empress. Stop all telegrams about it." * 
 
 The would-be assassin was a young fellow of two and 
 twenty named Bellemare, a native of Rouen, and, curiously 
 enough, a bootmaker by calling, like Pianori. Of a low 
 physical standard, slight, pale, and scrofulous, he had been 
 sentenced, when he was barely sixteen, to two years' imprison- 
 ment for robbing his employer, most of his punishment being 
 remitted, however, by the Emperor (then Prince President) 
 on account of his youth. Nevertheless, according to his own 
 statement, Bellemare had taken no small part in the resistance 
 to the Coup d'Etat, when he had figured, he asserted, among 
 the defenders of the Rue de Rambuteau barricade, and composed 
 • She was then enceinte. 
 
108 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and posted a placard bearing the title of " Reasons why Louis 
 Napoleon Bonaparte is Condemned to Death." Briefly, he 
 gloried in having done so many things — most of which, in all 
 probability, he had never done at all — that he was arrested and 
 sent to BeUe-Ile-en-Mer as a political offender. Released in 
 January, 1855, he then retui-ned to Paris, where, finding no 
 work as a shoemaker, he entered the employment of a huissier 
 or process-server. Evidence at his trial showed that his 
 behaviour at Belle-Ile had been very strange indeed, and that 
 he had quite a maniacal craving for notoriety. Finally he was 
 adjudged to be insane, and was sent as such to an asylum. 
 
 In the following year, 1856, the regicides allowed the 
 Emperor breathing time, that is to say, although plotting still 
 went on there was no open attempt at assassination. In 
 January, 1857, Paris was horrified by an abominable crime, 
 the murder of Archbishop Sibour — a broad-minded and popular 
 prelate — in the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. The culprit 
 was an interdicted priest named Verger, whom the Archbishop 
 had frequently befriended, and who at one moment had been 
 attached as cross-bearer to the Tuileries chapel, under the 
 acting- Almoner, Mgr. Tirmache. Verger had no grounds for 
 personal animosity against Archbishop Sibour (for it was the 
 Bishop of Meaux, his diocesan, who had "interdicted" 
 him), but his mind had been affected by repeated brooding 
 over the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,* 
 which he deemed contrary to true Christianity. Thus it was 
 with a cry of " No goddesses ! Down with the goddesses ! " 
 that he plunged his knife into the unfortunate prelate, while 
 the latter was advancing, processionally, up the nave of the 
 church. There can be little doubt that Verger was insane, 
 nevertheless he was guillotined. 
 
 During the ensuing summer the "Black Cabinet" of the 
 French Postal Service seized a letter which was found to 
 contain three notes written by Mazzini and intended for 
 certain of his friends named Massarenti, Campanella, and 
 
 ♦ It was not a new dogma, having been known to the Church for many 
 centuries, and confirmed by Paul V., Gregory XV., and Alexander VII. ; but 
 in December, 1854, Pius IX. had issued a bull again declaring it to be an 
 article of fait£, and pronouncing all who might speak against it or doubt it to 
 be gvulty of heresy. 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 109 
 
 Tibaldi. The French police promptly concluded that these 
 communications referred to a plot against the Emperor's life. 
 Massarenti and Campanella were in London, out of the reach 
 of the imperial authorities, but Tibaldi, an optician by pro- 
 fession, was in Paris, where he was immediately arrested, as 
 were also two men named Bartolotti and Grilli, who were 
 mentioned in one of Mazzini's notes, and who, like Tibfildi, 
 had lately arrived from London. Further, in a room occupied 
 by a female acquaintance of Tibaldi's the police found a valise 
 containing fourteen double-barrelled pocket-pistols, five daggers, 
 a horse-pistol, and one of the then newly invented American 
 revolvers. When the three men were brought to trial, Tibaldi, 
 who denied all guilt, explained his connection with the others 
 by asserting that they had been introduced to him by an 
 acquaintance as compatriots in distress, for whom he had there- 
 fore tried to find employment. Indeed, he had secured a 
 situation for Grilli at a hatter's in the Rue du Temple. But 
 Grilli and Bartolotti told a diff"erent story. They asserted that 
 they had each received .£'40 from Mazzini as a retaining fee to 
 assassinate the Emperor, and that Tibaldi had undertaken to 
 provide them with weapons, and select the best opportunity 
 and spot for the perpetration of the crime. Not content with 
 these disclosures, the prosecution made great efforts to connect 
 the French Republican exile, Ledru-Rollin, with the plot. 
 Grilli and Bartolotti asserted that they had seen a man whom 
 they believed to be Ledru-Rollin at Mazzini's when they called 
 there, and a witness named Ge'rault also made a statement 
 respecting some money which Ledi-u-Rollin had handed to him 
 in 1853 for an individual named Beaumont, a connection of 
 the Lieutenant Kelch, whom Griscelli claimed to have killed. 
 But, all considered, there was no evidence against Ledru-Rollin, 
 who, after the proceedings, protested vigorously against the 
 charges levelled at him, and offered to stand his trial in 
 England if the Imperial Government would prosecute him 
 there : a suggestion which the Parisian authorities did not 
 
 entertain. 
 
 With respect to Mazzini, the case was different. His letters 
 could not be denied, and they were significant enough. It has 
 been claimed, however, that in any case he did not seek out 
 
110 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Grilli and Bartolotti, but that they sought him, playing the 
 part of agents provocateurs, and leading him, Tibaldi, and others 
 into a trap. That might, in a sense, slightly lessen the culpa- 
 bility of Mazzini, but the fact remains that he entertained the 
 proposals made to him, and, while freely acknowledging that he 
 was a great Italian patriot, it is, we feel, impossible to hold 
 himgguiltless in this affair. Tibaldi, condemned to transporta- 
 tion for life, was promptly shipped to Cayenne, where he was 
 still in durance at the fall of the Empire in 1870 ; while Grilli 
 and Bartolotti, who throughout the trial protested that poverty 
 alone had induced them to take Mazzini's money, and that they 
 had never intended to carry out their mission, were sentenced to 
 fifteen years' solitary confinement. Some writers have asserted, 
 however, that, like Lieutenant Kelch, they remained but a 
 short time in prison, that an order suddenly came for their 
 release, and that they disappeared. 
 
 That would certainly tend to confirm the view that they 
 had merely acted as agents provocateurs. But there is another 
 point to be considered. Not the least curious feature of the 
 affair was the selection of the occasion when the Emperor was 
 to be attacked. This was to have been either on his arrival at 
 or his departure from a certain house, which, throughout the 
 trial, was invariably referred to as " No. 53 " — no street being 
 mentioned. It so happened, however, that No. 53, Rue 
 Montaigne, was at that time the residence of a young arid 
 beautiful Italian, daughter of the Marquis Oldoini of Florence, 
 and wife of Count Francesco Verasis di Castiglione of Piedmont, 
 King Victor Emmanuers First Equerry, whom she had married 
 when only fifteen years of age. The Countess — whose Christian 
 name, Virginia, was in marked contrast with her real nature — 
 had been for a short time one of Victor Emmanuel's many 
 mistresses, and had taken up her residence in Paris with the 
 express object of becoming that of the Emperor. Whether 
 she acted, as some have asserted, at the instigation of Cavour, 
 and for the purpose of bringing pressure to bear on Napo- 
 leon III. in connection with the deliverance of Northern Italy 
 from the Austrians, has never been established; and, in fact, 
 it may well be doubted, for although the Countess was ex- 
 tremely beautiful, wearing on her face an expression of juvenile 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 111 
 
 innocence which completely concealed her depravity, she displayed 
 no mental gifts. Such wit or shrewdness as she possessed was 
 apparently only that of a courtesan. She posed, she exhibited 
 herself, but she never evinced any conversational power in 
 public, and it seems unlikely that so able, so shrewd a man as 
 Cavour would have selected as an emissary a woman devoid of 
 rudimentary ability. On the other hand, the Countess was 
 remarkably extravagant. Like a true Florentine she had a 
 passion, a craving, for jewellery, for splendour of every kind — 
 on which, indeed, in comparatively few years she squandered 
 her husband's handsome fortune. And we incline to the belief 
 that, far from being inspired by any high political motives in 
 her designs on Napoleon III., she was merely actuated by base 
 and sordid desires. That she became for a short time the 
 Emperor's mistress is well known, and that he visited her in 
 the Rue Montaigne is equally certain. The affair was notorious ; 
 and, as the Countess had several Italians round her, it is not 
 surprising that Bartolotti and Grilli should have been sufficiently 
 informed as to the possibility of falling upon the Emperor on 
 the occasion of one of his visits to the Rue Montaigne. 
 
 It is this design, admitted at the trial (though neither the 
 street nor the Countess was actually mentioned), that prevents 
 us from regarding the affisiir as a mere bogus conspiracy. If 
 it had been simply " put up " by the police, there would have 
 been no compromising mention of any mysterious "No. 53" 
 — such as induced Viel Ceistel, writing at the time, to 
 remark that everybody knew what house was meant, and that 
 the secret was merely " Polichinelle's." In fact, if, as some 
 have alleged, Grilli and Bartolotti were mere police spies, they 
 would never have made statements in court in any degree 
 likely to cast reflection on the morality of the Emperor. That 
 they were regarded as mere instruments in the affair, and re- 
 leased and sent out of France in return for their denunciations 
 of Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin, seems the best explanation of their 
 subsequent disappearance. 
 
 Some five or six months elapsed, and at last, in January, 
 1858, came the most famous of all the attempts on the life of 
 Napoleon III. Both he and the Empress Eugenie were partial 
 to theatrical performances, and there were, of course, " imperial 
 
112 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 boxes" (sometimes two) at every Paris theatre of any conse- 
 quence. When the sovereigns visited the Comedie Franpaise 
 they entered by way of the Pavilion Montpensier of the Palais 
 Royal, and passed through some of Prince Jerome's salons (later 
 his son's) to a doorway which gave admittance to the theatre on 
 a level with their box. At the Opera-house, which was then 
 in the Rue Le Peletier, there was a special entrance near the 
 public one, with private stairs conducting to a salcm, beyond 
 which you found the chief imperial box — a large avant-scene 
 on the left of the spectators seated in the body of the house. 
 On the right of that principal box there was another which was 
 usually occupied by members of the Imperial Household, 
 while on the left there was a little stage-box to which the 
 Empress often withdrew during the entr'actes, for it amused 
 her to watch the performers and privileged subscribers con- 
 versing in the slips, the stage-managers giving their orders, 
 and the scene-shifters preparing everything for the next act. 
 On the arrival of the Emperor and Empress at the Opera-house 
 they were always received by the First Chamberlain (Baciocchi, 
 who took care to arrive in advance) and b)' the director, who 
 awaited them at the foot of the private staircase, carrying 
 a lighted candelabrum which he held aloft as, stepping back- 
 ward, he preceded their Majesties up the stairs. Behind the 
 gilded armchairs which the Emperor and Empress occupied in 
 the chief box, were other seats for the First Chamberlain, the 
 acting Chamberlain, the Aide-de-camp, and the Lady of the 
 Palace on duty. These attendants remained standing during 
 the first few minutes, after which it was usually suggested to 
 them that they might sit down. The sovereigns themselves also 
 remained standing while they acknowledged the bows or accla- 
 mations of the spectators; but it was not the custom, as in 
 England, for the orchestra to honour their arrival by playing the 
 national air of the time—" Partant pour la Syrie " — though on 
 the occasion of the State performance during Queen Victoria's 
 visit in 1855 she made her entry to the strains of the British 
 national anthem. 
 
 On January 14, 1858, the "bill" of the Opera-house was 
 of an unusual character. A notable baritone, Massol, a faithful 
 servant of the " Academie de Musique " for thirty years, was 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 113 
 
 retiring from the stage, and a performance had been organized 
 for his benefit. The most distinguished members of the musical 
 profession had promised to rally round him ; the chief exponents 
 of the choregraphic art, the Ferraris, Rosati, and Richard, were 
 also prepared to contribute to the entertainment ; and in par- 
 ticular it had been aiTanged that Adelaide Ristori should 
 figure in the performance, which the Emperor and Empress had 
 promised to attend. For several days all tickets had been at a 
 premium, and when the appointed evening aiTived the audi- 
 torium was crowded with the leading members of Parisian 
 society, ambassadors and marshals, senators and bankers, 
 exquisites of the Jockey Club, litterateurs, ladies of rank and 
 notorieties of the demi-monde. Briefly, there was a splendid 
 "house," and an enjoyable evening was anticipated. 
 
 Yet the programme was of a strange description, and 
 looking back one wonders by what remarkable chance such 
 a succession of ominous "items" was ever chosen. First on 
 the bill was the third act of " Guillaume Tell," a conspiracy ; 
 next the third act of " Massaniello," a revolution ; then (with 
 La Ristori) the execution scene of " Maria Stuarda," a political 
 murder; and finally the masquerade or assassination act of 
 " Gustavus III." How Count Baciocchi, the First Chamberlain 
 and Superintendent of the Imperial Theatres, allowed such a 
 bill to be adopted, knowing that the Emperor and Empress 
 were to attend, has always been a mystery. It was a fateful 
 circumstance, for we know that the very character of the per- 
 formance, announced some time in advance, was a powerful 
 factor in the choice of this occasion for yet another attempt on 
 the life of Napoleon III. 
 
 The house, as we have said, was crowded, and on the 
 arrival of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who preceded 
 the Emperor and Empress, Baciocchi gave orders for the per- 
 formance to begin. All at once, amidst the finale to the 
 third act of "Guillaume Tell"— the great scene when Arnold 
 von Melchthal swears to avenge his country — a violent detona- 
 tion was heard, and everybody at first imagined that some 
 explosion of gas had taken place in the slips. But again and 
 again there came a loud report, and the whole audience quivered 
 with alarm. Amid the confused hubbub which ensued, a sharp 
 
114 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 imperative voice suddenly rang out : " On demande des medecins 
 — a I'instant ! " — " Doctors are wanted, at once ! " It was a 
 Commissary of Police who called, and such members of the 
 medical profession that happened to be present immediately 
 hurried out. Everybody now realized that something dreadful 
 had happened. The most terrible suspicion flashed on one and 
 all. Excited men rushed from their seats to ascertain the facts. 
 Women sobbed, some of them even fainted. Anxious ejacu- 
 lations arose on every side. The Emperor — was he killed ? The 
 Empress — what of her? There was yet another moment of 
 suspense. Then all who were not overcome by their feelings 
 sprang excitedly from their seats, turned towards the imperial 
 box, and burst into acclamations. Before them stood the 
 Emperor and Empress acknowledging their plaudits. "The 
 Man of Mystery," as Napoleon HI. was then so often styled, 
 looked as composed as ever — neither paler nor redder than was 
 his wont. Not a quiver either of any facial muscle or of hand, 
 not a sparkle in his side-glancing eyes, was to be detected. 
 As somebody said at the time, if there were any man in the 
 world who could bear being blown up with gunpowder without 
 changing countenance, it was Napoleon III. The Empress, in 
 spite of her efforts, was much less composed; she looked as 
 pale as death, and had quite a scared expression on her beautiful 
 countenance. Her cheeks had been slightly grazed, and there 
 were drops of blood on her white silk bodice. Some time elapsed 
 before the prolonged plaudits allowed the sovereigns to sit down, 
 but at last they did so, and the performance proceeded in spite 
 of the frightful tragedy which had marked their arrival at the 
 theatre. 
 
 This is what had happened. The imperial carriage had 
 stopped outside the house, and the Emperor and Empress were 
 about to alight when four small hand-bombs were thrown in 
 succession at the equipage. Three of them exploded with 
 terrible effect. One of the carriage horses was killed on the 
 spot, the other injured. General Roguet, who accompanied 
 the sovereigns, was wounded in the neck, the coachman in the 
 head, and the three footmen also received slight injuries. At 
 the same time a splinter of one of the bombs pierced the 
 Emperor's hat, and another tore the collar of his cloak. The 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 115 
 
 slight injury to the Empress's cheek was due to the broken 
 glass of one of the carriage windows. But all that was of little 
 moment. The worst was that eight people were mortally 
 wounded, including two of the Lancers of the imperial escort. 
 Serious injuries were inflicted on seven other Lancers, five more 
 being hurt less severely. The roll of those who were seriously 
 wounded included also seventeen civilians, eleven men of the 
 Paris Municipal Guard, and thirty-two police officers of various 
 categories. But altogether no fewer than a hundred and fifty 
 people were struck and bruised. Moreover, twenty horses of 
 the escort were injured, seven of them fatally. 
 
 The plot is too well known to require detailed recital here. 
 We need only glance at the main points. One of the culprits, 
 PieiTi, recognized as a man who had previously been expelled 
 from France, and who was already suspected of regicidal designs, 
 was arrested on the spot a few minutes before the attempt 
 occurred, in such wise that he did not actually take part in it. 
 But his intentions were manifest, for a bomb, a dagger, and a 
 pistol were found on him. However, the chief culprit, Felix 
 Orsini, had been able to act. Injured himself by one of the 
 explosions, he repaired to a chemist's shop for treatment, and 
 after his return to his lodgings, some inquiries which his servant 
 Gomez made at the chemist's, led to the aiTest of both. 
 Moreover, a search at the hotel where Pierri was residing 
 resulted in the apprehension of a fourth culprit, one Charles 
 de Rudio, who went under the name of Da Silva. If the chief 
 police authorities had acted on the warnings of a detective 
 officer named Claude, who had been on the track of the band 
 for some days previously, the attempt would never have taken 
 place. However, Claude's acumen and foresight were sub- 
 sequently rewarded. He became chief of the service of which 
 he had long been a zealous and capable officer. He was, 
 perhaps, the greatest detective that France ever produced, and 
 he served as the prototype of the famous " Monsieur Lecoq " 
 — the " hero " of Gaboriau's novels. 
 
 Although, as we have mentioned, the performance at the 
 Opera proceeded in spite of the painful tragedy which had 
 occurred outside, the spectators generally paid little attention 
 to what took place on the stage. The one point of interest 
 
116 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 was the imperial box, whither functionaries of one and another 
 category betook themselves in succession, either to tender their 
 congratulations or to report on the condition of the wounded, 
 or the progress made by the police with respect to the arrest 
 of the culprits. Prince Napoleon, moreover, hastened to the 
 theatre from the Palais Royal, where he had been entertaining 
 a number of friends with, curiously enough, a performance of 
 Alfred de Vigny's " proverb," Quitte pour la Peur, It was 
 midnight when the Emperor and Empress rose to retire. They 
 were then again acclaimed by the audience, and on their way 
 back to the Tuileries they found most of the houses illuminated 
 and the foot pavements thronged with people, whose applause 
 the Empress acknowledged by impulsively waving her hand- 
 kerchief from the carriage window. At the Tuileries all was 
 excitement, the Salle des Marechaux was thronged with Princes, 
 ambassadors, and high dignitaries, who had repaired thither 
 to offer their felicitations and denounce the outrage. On the 
 morrow the Emperor and Empress drove through Paris in an 
 open carriage without escort, and again met with a great 
 reception. 
 
 The men who had been arrested were in due course brought 
 to trial. Their leader Orsini, born at Meldola in the Papal 
 States, was about thirty-nine years old, tall, handsome, with a 
 curly black beard and piercing eyes. His father had served the 
 first Napoleon, and had subsequently figured in that same 
 insurrection in the Romagna, in which the elder brother of 
 Napoleon IH. had participated.* In time Orsini the younger 
 likewise became an insurgent and conspirator, bent on ridding 
 Northern Italy of the Austrians, and Rome of priestly rule. At 
 the Roman Revolution of '48 he became a member of the 
 Republican Convention, and was sent by the Triumvirate to 
 Ancona to put down some serious troubles there, on which 
 occasion he roundly denounced political assassination, declaring 
 that it was not a proper course to pursue even for the pur- 
 pose of securing liberty. But the French expedition to Rome 
 modified his views. Like Pianori, he conceived a deadly hatred 
 for Napoleon III, Falling into the hands of the Austrians in 
 1653, Orsini was sent to the citadel of Mantua, but he escaped 
 ♦ See cmte, p. 7. 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 117 
 
 and made his way to England, where he endeavoured to enlist 
 public sympathy in the cause of Italian independence. At last, 
 feeling that the French Emperor was the great obstacle to the 
 realization of his desires, Orsini decided to act against him. 
 His original intention was to do so alone, unaided ; but he came 
 into contact with his compatriot Piem, a native of Lucca, who 
 had been living at Birmingiiam as a professor of languages for 
 some years. Pierri was then about fifty years old, and his 
 career had been a chequered one. He had served in turn in 
 the French Foreign Legion, in the Piedmontese Bei-saglieri, and 
 in the Roman Republican forces, in which last he held the rank 
 of colonel. Thus he was as much a partisan of Italian inde- 
 pendence as Orsini, and of a far more excitable, violent nature. 
 Gomez, Orsini's servant, who likewise figured in the plot, was 
 a Neapolitan partisan of " the cause ; " while Rudio, who was 
 only five and twenty years of age, belonged to Belluno in the 
 States of Venice, and had served as a youth under Manin 
 during the siege of la citta unica. The quartette symbolized, 
 then, four of the chief divisions of Italy : Venetiji, Naples, 
 Tuscany, and the Roman States. 
 
 Orsini was the first to arrive in Paris for the purpose of 
 assassinating the Emperor, being followed by the others about 
 three weeks later. The imperial authorities, according to their 
 usual tactics, tried to implicate various French Republican 
 exiles in the affair, but except as regards Dr. Bernard, of whom 
 we shall speak hereafter, there was not a scrap of evidence to 
 support that view. Moreover, the only link by which even 
 Mazzini could be connected with the affair was a manifesto of 
 his on the subject of Italian independence, which had been 
 issued in the Italia del Popolo of Genoa, five days prior to 
 the attempt. As for an Englishman named Allsop, who was 
 indicted (by default) at the same time as the others, Orsini, 
 while admitting that this person had lent him his passport and 
 helped him to make the bombs, declared that he had not 
 known the real purpose for which they were intended, but had 
 been led to believe that they were to be used in some rising 
 in Italy.* 
 
 * Allaop, whose whereabouts in England were discovered, found it prudent 
 to go to America. 
 
118 THE COURT Of THE TtJlLERIES 
 
 Orsini's behaviour at the trial was frank and dignified ; he 
 stated his reasons for the crime, and acknowledged the essential 
 facts without casting undue responsibility on his fellow-prisoners. 
 He asserted that he had had another confederate unknown to 
 them, an Italian, who had actually thrown one of the bombs, 
 but he refused to give this individual's name. Pierri, for his 
 part, denied everything, even the most patent facts; while 
 Gomez and Rudio, fearing for their heads, confessed their guilt 
 with an air of craven repentance. The result was a foregone 
 conclusion. The eloquence of Jules Favre, who appeared for 
 Orsini, could be of no avail in such a case. Thus Orsini, Pierri, 
 and Rudio were condemned to death, and Gomez to hard 
 labour for life — to which latter penalty the sentence on Rudio 
 was ultimately commuted. The Emperor at first wished to 
 spare the lives of all four prisoners, holding, and perhaps 
 rightly, that a broad act of clemency would deter other Italians 
 from similar enterprises ; but the Ministers and the Court would 
 not hear of it. So many people had been killed or injured, they 
 said, that leniency was out of the question. There must be no 
 weakness, but unflinching severity, and that view prevailed, as 
 France soon learnt to its cost when it awoke one morning and 
 found a Minister of Public Safety in office, and hundreds of 
 absolutely innocent persons arrested and consigned to prison. 
 Under the unscrupulous Espinasse * a perfect Reign of Terror 
 set in and continued until the Emperor, alarmed at seeing his 
 Minister going so far that the national discontent threatened 
 the very regime, rebuked him in such a manner as to compel 
 him to resign. 
 
 While Orsini was awaiting his trial he had written the 
 Emperor a remarkable letter, urging him to restore the inde- 
 pendence of Italy. In a second missive, penned from his 
 condemned cell, and published after his execution, he acknow- 
 ledged that bomb-throwing was a fatal error, offered his blood 
 in atonement for that of his victims, and called on his fellow- 
 countrymen to reject henceforth all methods of assassination 
 and win their " freedom and independence by unity of effort 
 and sacrifice, and the practice of true virtue." That appeal was 
 printed in large type in King Victor Emmanuel's official organ, 
 * See ante, pp. 11 and 47. 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUlLERlES POLICE 119 
 
 the Turin Gazette, where its appearance created no slight 
 sensation. 
 
 But trouble had arisen with England. The crime having 
 been planned there, the British Government was roundly 
 denounced for harbouring assassins. Many colonels of the 
 French army, whose addresses congratulating the Emperor on 
 his escape were published in the Moniteur, availed themselves 
 of the opportunity to upbraid and threaten the British nation. 
 Thereupon British public opinion rose against the French 
 Imperialists. The Government of the time was swept away 
 for introducing a Crimes Bill intended to placate Napoleon III. 
 Dr. Bernard, an ex-ship's surgeon, who had introduced Rudio to 
 Pierri, who had been intimate with Orsini, and who was known 
 to have been in the possession of bombs, not exactly identical, 
 however, with those used in Paris, was acquitted by an English 
 jury of all complicity in the attempt against the Emperor ; 
 and although Queen Victoria and Napoleon afterwards had a 
 cordial meeting at Cherbourg, the entente of the two nations, 
 so conspicuous at the time of the Queen's Paris visit, received 
 a blow from which it only partially recovered when a few 
 years later Cobden negotiated the Treaty of Commerce. 
 
 Orsini and Pierri, arrayed in the garb of "parricides," 
 suffered death on March 13, 1858. Few civilians actually 
 witnessed the execution, for 5000 troops were massed on the 
 Place de la Roquette. On reaching the foot of the scaffold 
 both men kissed the crucifix. Then Pierri ascended the steps, 
 leaning on a priest, and singing the old chant of the first 
 French Revolution : " To die for one's country is the most 
 splendid fate, the one most deserving of envy." At the 
 moment when his black veil was raised he cried to the distant 
 spectators: "Long live Italy! Long live the Republic!" 
 Two minutes later his head fell into the basket. Then came 
 Orsini's turn. Of a much less excitable nature than Pierri, 
 he remained quite composed, merely exclaiming, "Vive la 
 France ! " when the executioner's assistants seized him. 
 
 As we have already mentioned, the immediate result of the 
 Orsini affair for France was the prompt establishment of a 
 reio'n of terror under the provisions of an abominable enact- 
 ment, called "Law of Public Safety," which was drafted 
 
120 THE COURT OF THE TUILEIIIES 
 
 expressly for the occasion, and which swept away almost every 
 vestige of individual liberty and trial by jury. The adoption 
 of this law was a profound mistake, for it revived all the 
 memories of the Coup d'Etat, and deprived Napoleon IH. of 
 much of the sympathy which had gone to him as a result of 
 Orsini's deed. Yet only a handful of deputies voted against 
 the measure when it was discussed by the Corps Legislatif, and 
 only one senator dared to take a similar course — this, curiously 
 enough, being General, later Marshal, MacMahon. However, 
 the members of the Emperor's entourage had lost their heads ; 
 it was they who, in their consternation, had induced him to 
 make General Espinasse chief Minister, and of course the 
 Law of Public Safety had their approval.* 
 
 Those were dark days at the Tuileries. Everybody became 
 suspicious of everybody else. Any unusual incident aroused 
 apprehension. Jealous, in particular, was the watch kept over 
 the little Imperial Prince. He was strongly guarded on all 
 sides, both in the palace and whenever he drove out. On 
 those occasions he was invariably brought to the Empress, who, 
 after kissing him, made a sign of the cross on his forehead. 
 Until she learnt that he had returned safe and sound to the 
 Tuileries, she remained in a state of anxiety. 
 
 Strict watch was kept over the great army of servants on 
 duty at the Palace. There were so many of them, that however 
 carefully they might have been selected, it was possible that 
 some black sheep or other had crept, here and there, into the 
 fold. Thus the special Police Service of the Tuileries was 
 ever on the qui tiive. For some years it was controlled by 
 M. Hyrvoix, but he, though a very zealous and able ofRcial, 
 
 * There were some later conspiracies against the Emperor's life. About 
 the end of December, 1863, four Italians, named Greco, Trabuoco, Imperatore, 
 and Maspoli — aUas Soaglioni — ^were arrested in Paris, and found possessed of 
 bombs, revolvers, and daggers. The two first-named were transported for life 
 to Cayenne, each of the others being sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. 
 Again, in 1870, under Bmile Ollivier's administration, another plot — this time 
 a French one — was discovered, but it would seem to have been in part the 
 v^ork ol agents provocatewrs. The chief culprit was a young man named 
 Beaury, a deserter from the army, and an acquaintance of Grustave Plourens, 
 the well-known revolutionary ; but quite a number of prisoners were tried at 
 Blois for being more or less coimeoted with the conspiracy, and were sentenced 
 to various terms of imprisonment. 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 121 
 
 contrived to offend the Empress in one or another way, and 
 thereupon received an appointment in the provinces. His 
 successor was Lagrange, who remained in office till the fall of 
 the Empire. The duties of the Palace Police or "Police du 
 Chateau," as it was usually called, were multifarious. It was 
 requisite that some of its members should watch over the 
 personal safety of the Emperor, the Empress, the Imperial 
 Prince, foreign royalties, and other distinguished visitors. It 
 was necessary also to keep a watch on all the functionaries in 
 office — chamberlains, aides-de-camp, orderlies, equerries, and 
 so forth. Many a time was an eye or an ear applied to a key- 
 hole, many a time was a mental note made of some incautious 
 remark, which was communicated to the " Chief," and by him 
 to Mocquard, the confidential secretary at the head of the 
 Emperor's Private Cabinet. Among the servants, at least one 
 of each department really belonged to the Palace Police, and 
 reported on the behaviour of his colleagues. And it was not 
 merely what went on at the Tuileries itself that was subjected 
 to this constant espionage. Officials, ladies of the court, 
 servants also, were, on the slightest suspicion, watched wherever 
 they might be. 
 
 In the kitchens the surveillance was very strict, in order 
 that there might be no tampering with the food. Thoroughly 
 reliable men waited on the Emperor and Empress ; no dish, no 
 sauce intended for either of them, w£is for a single moment lost 
 sight of. There were night watchers also. Trusty men of the 
 Palace Police prowled hither and hither, and Cent-Gardes 
 went their rounds. When these Cent-Gardes were on duty 
 they showed themselves, on the whole, very vigilant and 
 devoted men, but they had a faOing, as we shall see. Tall, 
 well-built, and often possessed of very handsome features, they 
 looked truly superb in their gala uniforms, both when they 
 escorted the Emperor on horseback, and when they stood 
 rigid, at attention, with drawn swords, on the stairs or in 
 the coiTidors of the Tuileries, when some ball or banquet was 
 given. 
 
 Long white horse-tails hung from their polished steel 
 helmets, which had tri-colour side plumes and brass plates 
 bearing the imperial crown and initial. Their tunics were sky 
 
122 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 blue, with scarlet, gold-braided collars. Brass nuts bespangled 
 their bright steel cuirasses, which weighed from twelve to 
 thirteen pounds apiece, and in which you could see yourself 
 as clearly as in a mirror. Their epaulettes and aiguillettes 
 were golden, their gauntleted gloves of white buff leather, 
 their tight breeches of white buckskin. To their brilliantly 
 polished boots, rising above the knee in front and to the joint 
 behind, spurs a la chevaliere were fixed. The undress uniforms 
 which they wore on their walks abroad when off duty, were 
 also very smart, and, all considered, it is not surprising that 
 they should have been much admired by the Parisiennes of 
 their time, and have frequently become extremely vain of the 
 bonnes fortunes they met with. 
 
 The police reports of the period often contained passages re- 
 flecting on the morality of those superb bodyguards. It was no 
 mere question of cooks and nursemaids as might be supposed. 
 Giddy women of position were fascinated by them, and extra- 
 ordinary incidents occurred. On evenings when the men were 
 free they would frequently be found supping in the private 
 rooms of fashionable restaurants, en tete-a-tete with such ladies. 
 The police kept a particular watch on a restaurant in the 
 Rue du Bac, which by reason of its proximity to the barracks 
 in the Rue de Bellechasse, was freely patronized by these 
 stalwart Musketeers of the Empire * and their inamoratas. 
 Certain rooms there were reserved for them, and nobody was 
 allowed to enter who could not give the passwords, Tresor et 
 mystere. 
 
 Another house they visited was the Vieux Moulin Rouge 
 (no connection with the Moulin Rouge of present times), in 
 the Avenue d'Antin, where ladies of fashion and the stage kept 
 appointments with them. To make matters worse some of the 
 men openly boasted of their conquests, and scandal ensued. 
 In spite of various severe disciplinary measures the evil was 
 never entirely eradicated, though it became less marked when, 
 owing to the difficulty of obtaining sufficient picked men of 
 the requisite height, it was decided to include privates as well 
 
 * They were, as a matter of fact, armed with Treuille de Beanlieu carbinas, 
 ot mouiguetons, to which their long, Btraight-bladed sabres of the Cuirassier 
 pattern could be adapted as bayonets. 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 123 
 
 as non-commissioned officers in the corps. The latter thereupon 
 lost a good deal of its prestige in the eyes of giddy elegantes, 
 who were then not unwilling to yield the pas to their rivals of 
 the kitchen and the nursery. 
 
 It was to the Emperor personally that M. Hyrvoix, who — 
 with the title of Commissary of the Imperial Residences, was, as 
 we have said, at the head of the Palace Police — reported all 
 scandalous incidents that came to his knowledge. He more 
 than once had to direct the sovereign's attention to the 
 behaviour of his bodyguards. On one such occasion he in- 
 formed him of a strange disappearance which had occurred in 
 Paris. A woman of Mexican origin, supposed to be connected 
 with a New York newspaper, had vanished from her flat, and 
 the police had been unable to trace her. He, Hyrvoix, had 
 previously come in contact with her under curious circumstances, 
 and this is the tale he related. 
 
 At one of the balls given at the Tuileries a woman, whom 
 the palace police agents, dressed as ushers and footmen, were 
 unable to identify, had been observed in the company of an 
 attache of one of the foreign embassies. At a certain moment, 
 moreover, she had been seen making memoranda in a note- 
 book, and the circumstances having seemed suspicious, both she 
 and her cavalier had been followed on their departure from the 
 ball. The attache, who was approached on the matter, made a 
 clean breast of it, the more willingly as he was throwing up his 
 post and leaving France. He admitted, then, that the woman 
 was not his wife but his mistress ; that she wrote on Parisian 
 society and fashions for an American journal ; and that, being 
 unable to obtain the entree to the Tuileries by any direct means, 
 she had prevailed on him to take her to the ball in order that 
 she might see and describe it. Briefly, she was one of the very 
 first of a now long line of lady-journalists, and made her 
 appearance in Paris about the very time when Adrien Marx, 
 with his " Indiscre'tions Parisiennes,'" was writing the first news- 
 paper " interviews " published in Europe. 
 
 So far as the police were able to verify the attache's story it 
 appeared satisfactory, and the only further action they took was 
 to keep a discreet watch on the woman's movements. They 
 ended by finding, after the departure of her diplomat lover from 
 
124 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Paris, that she had transferred her affections to one of the Cent- 
 Gardes, whom she had met one day when he was off duty. 
 Appointments had followed between the pair; it was known 
 that they had met on various occasions at a restaurant in the 
 Avenue de Neuilly, and that they had supped together in Paris 
 on the night when the woman was presumed to have dis- 
 appeared. All inquiries respecting her in the city having failed, 
 a letter had been addressed to her newspaper, whose editor had 
 answered that he had heard nothing of her for some time past, 
 and felt rather anxious about her. On the other hand, apart 
 from the fact of the intrigue, there had been nothing suspicious 
 in the behaviour of her friend the Cent-Garde, who, on being 
 interrogated, had admitted the liaison but expressed his utter 
 inability to account for the lady's disappearance. In the state 
 of the case it hardly seemed fair to prefer a serious charge 
 against the guard. A premature public scandal would damage 
 the prestige of the entire corps, for the opposition journals 
 would certainly pounce on the affair and exaggerate it. All 
 considered, then, it was deemed best to take no immediate 
 action, but simply to watch and wait. 
 
 The Cent-Garde in question was one of the most striking- 
 looking men of the corps — a veritable Porthos in build and 
 strength. His name was Victor Prevost. Bom in December, 
 1836, he had been apprenticed to a Paris wire-worker, but being 
 afflicted with the terrible rapacious appetite known as bulimy, 
 he had left that master and found employment at a butcher's, 
 where he was able to satisfy his unnatural craving for food. It 
 was not lost on him, for he developed great muscular power at 
 an early age, and became an expert slaughterer. Joining the 
 army in 1855, he soon passed into the Cuirassiers of the Guard, 
 with which regiment he took part in the Italian campaign of 
 1859. In 1862, his term of service having expired, he re- 
 enlisted, and four years later he was incorporated in the 
 Cent-Gardes. 
 
 Prevost seems to have performed his duties efficiently, and 
 by reason of his great physical powers he was better able than 
 some of his comrades to stand the strain of that rigid immo- 
 bility, on which Colonel Verly, the commander of the corps, 
 invariably insisted when his men were stationed inside the 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 125 
 
 Tuileries, guarding either stairs or doorways. Visitors to the 
 palace often wondered how it was that the Cent-Gardes con- 
 trived to remain at their posts as motionless as statues during 
 all the long hours of some great ball. In reality, however, they 
 did nothing of the kind. No human being could have accom- 
 plished such a feat ; and in point of fact, each Cent-Garde was 
 quietly, unobtrusively, relieved after one hour's duty.* Prevost 
 was among the few who boasted that they could bear the strain 
 for twice that time, and a propos of his imperturbability when 
 he was on duty there is a tale which may be repeated here. 
 
 During the Imperial Prince's childhood boxes of sweetmeats 
 constantly arrived at the Tuileries addressed to him, but the 
 Empress gave orders that he was never to eat these sweets 
 without her express permission. One day, when he w£is eleven 
 or twelve years old, a box of dragees being offered to him by 
 somebody of the court, he resolved to ask his mother if he might 
 accept it. On leaving the room, however, he espied the Cent- 
 Garde on duty at the door, and a comical idea suddenly entered 
 his boyish head. The soldier stood so upright, so motionless, 
 that one might have thought him a statue. Could he be made 
 to move ? wondered the little Prince. At all events, he would 
 try. Opening, therefore, his box of dragees, he dropped a first 
 sweet into one of the Cent-Garde's big boots, but without effect. 
 The man did not stir. A second dragee followed with no better 
 result, nor did the man move even when the impatient little 
 Prince ended by pouring down his boots every sweet that was 
 left in the box. That feat accomplished, young Louis, as his 
 parents called him, ran off to tell his mother of it, and the story 
 being repeated caused much amusement in the palace. Now, the 
 Cent-Garde in question was Prevost. 
 
 He quitted the corps in 1869. M. Hyrvoix was then no 
 longer at the head of the Palace Police, and the affair of the 
 missing Mexican woman had been shelved. Prevost passed into 
 the ordinary Paris police force, £is one of the sergents-de-ville, 
 who after the fall of the Empire were re-christened gardiens de 
 la pave; and with them he continued serving until 1879, being 
 
 • There were a few occasions when a man, having been overlooked, fainted 
 at his post. The weight of helmet and breastplates, and the temperature of 
 the ballrooms, should be borne in mind. 
 
126 THE COURT OF THE TUILElilES 
 
 still and ever a superb-looking animal, afflicted with the same 
 voracious appetite as in the past, and, though he was now over 
 forty, still making conquest after conquest among women. He 
 distinguished himself on one occasion by stopping a runaway 
 horse at the risk of his life, but he was often reprimanded 
 for neglect of duty, such as absenting himself from his beat, 
 either to satisfy his hunger or to meet one of his female 
 acquaintances. 
 
 He seems to have had also a peculiar passion for jewellery, 
 which he acquired by hook or crook, and afterwards turned into 
 money. It was this which led to his downfall. One day in 
 September, 1879, a jeweller named Lenoble called by arrange- 
 ment at his lodgings with a large selection of jewellery, worth 
 about ,£240. Prdvost chose a gold chain, for which he was to 
 pay by monthly instalments, but while Lenoble was writing out 
 the necessary promissory notes Prevost struck him three times 
 on the head with a heavy coupling-iron, and to make sure of 
 killing him cut his throat. Being off duty that day, the 
 murderer spent his time in chopping his victim into pieces, 
 which he carried off after sunset in a laundress's basket, and 
 dropped into the street drains and round about the fortifications 
 of Paris. It was a dark evening, and he was wearing a blouse, 
 nevertheless, a female acquaintance recognized him, and on seeing 
 him throw away what seemed to be a piece of meat she picked 
 it up. On showing it to a butcher, however, she learnt that it 
 was not meat but human flesh. 
 
 Provost was arrested. Abundant proofs of his crime, in- 
 cluding his victim's head, clothes and jewellery, were found at 
 his lodgings. It was ascertained also that the unfortunate 
 Lenoble (a married man with children) had been cut into no 
 fewer than seventy-seven pieces. Prevost ended by making a 
 full confession of his horrid deed, and he even admitted a 
 previous crime, the murder of a woman named Adele Blondin, 
 in February, 1876. Some of her relatives had then reported 
 her disappearance, but although her liaison with Prevost was 
 known, nothing came of the investigations made at the time, 
 though the scoundrel had pawned some of his victim's jewellery, 
 sold the remainder to colleagues, and even found dealers to buy 
 her clothes and other articles stolen from her lodgings. He 
 
CONSPIRACIES— THE TUILERIES POLICE 127 
 
 had disposed of her remains in the same manner as he had tried 
 to dispose of the jeweller's, and after his confession he pointed 
 out to the authorities a spot on the fortifications where the 
 unfortunate woman's head was found buried. However, he 
 never confessed the murder of the American lady-joumahst 
 whom he had known when a Cent-Garde, though there is little 
 doubt that he was guilty of that crime also. It was generally 
 believed that in committing the murders of which he was convicted 
 he had been actuated by a desire to procure money for the purpose 
 of satisfying his inordinate voracity. He was sent to the guillo- 
 tine (Deibler acting as executioner) in January, 1880. Such 
 was the end of one of the most imposing of those Cent-Gardes 
 whom the Parisiennes had admired so intensely in the days of 
 the Empire. But let us add that he was quite an exception. No 
 other man of the corps, whatever his failings, was ever convicted 
 of crime. 
 
 Nor except as regards pilfering * were there any serious 
 offences among the palace servants if one may judge by the 
 Adjutant-general's repoi-ts. One day the Empress having asked 
 for a carafe frapp&e, her usher at once told a footman to fetch 
 one. The footman, however, neglected to do so, and the 
 Empress remained waiting for her iced water, whereupon the 
 usher scolded the footman, one of whose colleagues took 
 the delinquent's part. There were high words — a somewhat 
 noisy and scandalous scene — and in the end the affair came 
 before General Rolin, by whom both offenders were punished 
 with extra duty. At anotlier time we find a servant sent a short 
 distance with a letter. He leaves the Tuileries at 11.45 a.m. 
 and returns at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Worst of all he is 
 drunk, and as a natural consequence his dismissal follows. But 
 such incidents occur at times in most large households, however 
 carefully the servants may have been chosen. 
 
 There were, of course, police inquiries respecting every 
 domestic who applied for a post in the imperial household. 
 That precaution was taken even when Napoleon III. was merely 
 President. A police report, a copy of which lies before us, states 
 
 * If any inmate of the palace were indisposed, and tea d la frav^aise were 
 served him in his bedroom, not a drop of rum or a scrap of sugar ever went 
 back to the kitchens. 
 
128 THE COURT OF THE TUILEIIIES 
 
 that a man named Rouyer, who has circumvented Count Clary 
 with the object of obtaining a situation as usher or footman at 
 the Elysde, formerly belonged to the household of Charles X., 
 and is a dangerous Vendean, whose only purpose is to put some 
 poisonous substance in the Prince President's food or drink. 
 Whether that were true or not, Rouyer did not obtain the 
 situation for which he applied. J. p-opos of his affair it may 
 be stated that in the earlier years of the Empire, the palace 
 service, the imperial stables and the hunt included many men 
 who had served Charles X. or Louis Philippe. We shall have 
 occasion to mention some of them hereafter ; for the present it 
 will suffice to say that they seem to have served Napoleon III. 
 quite as well as they had previously served the house of 
 Bourbon or Orleans. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 
 
 The Emperor's Booms — Their Decorations and Appointments — The Eagles of 
 the Imperial Guard — The Council Chamber and the Newspaper Room — 
 The Imperial Sanctum — The Room where New Paris was planned — The 
 Dressing-room and Bedroom — The Emperor's Valets — His Morning 
 Work — Secret Audiences and State Councils — The Lnnches with the 
 Empress — Afternoon Work — ^Work-day Dinners — Plain and Substantial 
 Pare — The Wines and Liqueurs drunk at Court — Coffee in the 
 Drawing-room — The Emperor's Evening Work — The JIultiplicity of 
 his Occupations — The Chief Officials of his Private Cabinet : Mooquard, 
 Conti, Pifitrl, and Th61in — Some of the Private Cabinet's Work — Petitions 
 and Grants — Management of Estates — High Diplomacy — The Cabinet 
 Noir and Secret Police Reports — Current Accounts — A New Nobility — 
 Novels and Newspaper Articles — A Tale of the Imperial Sanctum — The 
 Alleged Theft of £8000 from the Emperor's Table— Did Marshal St. 
 Arnaud kill General Cornemuse ? 
 
 A NUMBER of changes were made in the internal arrangements 
 of the Tuileries during the eighteen years of the Second Empire. 
 The rooms which the Emperor used for personal purposes 
 during the greater part of the reign were not in all respects 
 those in which he first installed himself. It would be of little 
 interest to enumerate all the alterations. Let us content our- 
 selves with glancing at rappartement de FEmpereur such as it 
 became and remained until the downfall of the rSgime. 
 
 All the rooms were on the ground floor and extended, 
 roughly speaking, from the Pavilion de THorloge to the 
 Pavilion de Flore on the garden side of the palace. The first 
 apartment of the suite was a small Ushers' Room, which you 
 entered near the staircase conducting to the State Rooms on the 
 first floor. All the doors, let us add, were double ones, and of 
 solid mahogany as was all the woodwork throughout the suite. 
 
130 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 From the Ushers' Room, which contained nothing of note, you 
 reached the Chamberlains' Salon, hung in grey silk and decorated 
 with Prudhon's portrait of the Empress Josephine. Here also 
 was a mahogany flag-stand in which were assembled the eagles 
 and colours of the Imperial Guard. The Emperor being 
 Colonel-in-chief of the regiments of the Guard, those colours 
 were deposited in his keeping. Whenever any particular 
 regiment was transferred from Paris to such places as Fontaine- 
 bleau or Compiegne, a troop of Cent-Gardes conveyed its eagle 
 to the palace there ; and on the occasion of any great review in 
 the Bois de Boulogne or on the Champ de Mars, the Cent- 
 Gardes again removed the eagles from the Tuileries and 
 ceremoniously handed them over to the respective regiments. 
 The latter, with similar ceremony, returned them to the Cent- 
 Gardes at the close of the day. At one of the last Salons of 
 the Empire there was a huge painting of considerable merit by 
 Albert Girard (a forgotten Grand Prix de Rome) depicting the 
 Cent-Gardes returning with the eagles to the Tuileries, by way 
 of the Champs Elysees. This picture was purchased by the 
 Emperor and sent to the Cent-Gardes' barracks, but being 
 removed on the fall of the Empire, it was subsequently given 
 by the Empress to M. Franceschini Pietri. 
 
 Let us now return to the Emperor's apartments. From the 
 Chamberlains' Salon you entered the Council Room, which was 
 lighted by a window and a glass door, the latter opening on to 
 a flight of steps which descended to the reserved garden. The 
 two principal paintings in this Council Room were Winter- 
 halter's large official portrait of the Empress Eugenie in her 
 state robes and coronet, and a portrait of the Emperor's elder 
 brother when a young man. The walls of the room were hung 
 with red silk, and the furniture included a couple of large book- 
 cases, full of works on jurisprudence, and, of course, a great 
 oblong table at which the Ministers sat under the Emperor's 
 presidency. 
 
 The Newspaper Room was the next of the suite, and here, 
 against the red silk hangings, was seen a large portrait of the 
 Empress dressed in red velvet, and with the Imperial Prince on 
 her knees. Quantities of newspapers, French and foreign, includ- 
 ing copies of those which were confiscated by the police in order 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 131 
 
 that the ordinary public might not read them, were disposed in 
 an orderly fashion both on some large consoles and beside the 
 piles of reports and documents set out upon a central table; 
 while at one end of the room was a book-case containing, 
 curiously enough, a collection of Latin poetry and prose. 
 Near a door which you opened to enter the Emperor's private 
 cabinet was a stand on which the chamberlains deposited their 
 lists of applications for public or private audiences. 
 
 The imperial sanctum, a very spacious apartment with two 
 windows, had been contrived, like the newspaper room, in a 
 space previously occupied by some open arcades. In the centre 
 stood the Emperor's large writing-table, on which you might 
 perceive a curious gold snuflF-box, previously the property of 
 Napoleon I., and a delightful miniature portrait of the Empress 
 Eugenie. The Emperor sat at this table with his back to the 
 fire, and with the windows on his right hand. Facing him, on 
 the other side of the table, were chairs for his Chef-de-cabinet 
 and his private secretary when they worked with him. On the 
 right was another chair for any Minister or similar personage 
 under like circumstances. Then, on either side of the fireplace 
 stood a roomy armchair upholstered in leather. The Emperor 
 occasionally rested in the one facing the windows, and anybody 
 who might be with him at the time was invited to take the 
 other. The clock and candelabra on the mantelpiece belonged 
 to the Louis XVI. period. On the right of the fireplace was an 
 interesting collection of miniatures of Napoleon I. and other 
 members of the Bonaparte family, as well as a fine marble 
 medallion of the young Imperial Prince. 
 
 Facing the fireplace, and between two cabinets full of valu- 
 able bibelots and old Sevres, was a doorway conducting to the 
 rooms occupied by the Chef-de-cabinet and the private secretary, 
 while at the far end of the apartment you saw a long low 
 mahogany nest of drawers, full of papers and surmounted by a 
 large plan of Pai'is, Above another stack of drawers on the 
 left of the chimney-piece hung Ingres' study in oils of Julius 
 Caesar. 
 
 Among what may be called the annexes of the imperial suite 
 of offices was a large Salon de Service, containing writing-tables 
 for chamberlains, aides-de-camp, and other officials who might 
 
132 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 be on duty. Here in a great show-case you saw Mene's wonder- 
 ful series of statuettes of men and officers of the French army. 
 Every different corps, every variety of uniform and accoutrement, 
 whether of horse, foot, or cavalry, was represented in this collec- 
 tion with the greatest exactness, and many of the little figures 
 were masterpieces of modelling. Most unfortunately they were 
 destroyed in the conflagration of 1871. 
 
 There were also special rooms where officers and function- 
 aries lunched, and yet another — near the Emperor's sanctum — 
 where stood a number of large tables covered with plans of 
 Paris. In that room Napoleon III. spent many months, if not 
 years, of his reign. There, with Haussmann and Alphand and 
 Viollet-le-Duc, he enthusiastically studied and prepared all 
 those improvements, all those wonderful transformations, of his 
 capital, which were the wonder of the age. Let no mistake be 
 made. Every man is entitled to his due, and the new Paris of 
 the Second Empire was as much the creation of Napoleon III. as 
 of Haussmann, Alphand, or another. There were financial 
 blunders undoubtedly, financial scandals, too, of no little 
 magnitude, and men such as Morny reaped golden gains ; but 
 the Emperor never pocketed a sou, nor did the much-abused 
 Haussmann — an ever-needy man, who died poor. And though 
 some Parisians of those days may have sneered and said that 
 the fine new streets were simply laid out so straight and broad, 
 in order that they might be conveniently swept by artillery in 
 the event of a popular rising, the generations which have added, 
 of later years, to all the city's improvements, have never had 
 cause to regret that so much had been done already before their 
 time. Nevertheless, how mean and despicable has been the 
 action of those in authority, who, imagining that they could 
 blot out whole pages of the history of Paris, have effaced 
 from building after building every inscription, every crowned N, 
 recalling the period of its erection ! In the patriotic wrath 
 which followed Sedan, such action may have been excusable; 
 but again and again since those days have workmen been seen 
 obliterating some emblem or lettering, previously overlooked, 
 and of a nature to recall the imperial regime. Often have men 
 of sense marvelled at the zeal of those petty, narrow-minded 
 iconoclasts. But passons. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 133 
 
 Near the Emperor's cabinet were his bedroom, dressing- 
 room, and bath-room. On the left of the last named was a 
 private staircase conducting to the Empress's apartments on the 
 first floor. In the dressing-room hung some views of Arenen- 
 berg — so closely associated with Queen Hortense's last years and 
 the Emperor's early ones — as well as several engravings of Arab 
 sheiks after paintings acquired by Napoleon I. in Egypt. Near 
 this dressing-room were sundry closets and such places, where 
 the Emperor's wardrobe was kept, one of them containing a 
 large assortment of overcoats, from the lightest of summer ones 
 to a heavy sealskin " Inverness," which Napoleon — a very chilly 
 mortal by the way — wore in severe weather. From the dressing- 
 room the bedroom was entered. Its chief decorations were two 
 Italian mosaics on either side of the fireplace, one being a copy 
 of a Virgin by Raffaelle, and the other a copy of a St. John the 
 Baptist by Guido Reni : the last-named a gift from Pius IX. 
 Portraits of the Emperor's father and mother hung on either 
 side of the bedstead, which was of the empire style. Against 
 the wall facing the fireplace stood a large cabinet of carved oak, 
 while between the windows was a smaller one containing trinkets 
 and family souvenirs, and surmounted by some racks of side- 
 arms of various kinds. 
 
 The Emperor had five valets-de-chambre. The head one 
 was Leon Cuxac, who had been his valet long before he ascended 
 the throne. Under Cuxac, who received £9A0 a year and many 
 valuable perquisites, were Gouttelard and Miiller, who attended 
 on alternate days. Their salary was £100 a year with an 
 allowance for quarters. The other men were supplementary 
 valets, whose services were only requisitioned on special occa- 
 sions. There was also a valet-coiffeur in receipt of ■£'120 a year, 
 whose duties were confined to cutting the Emperor's hair from 
 time to time, for Napoleon lU., unlike the present German 
 Kaiser, always shaved and pointed his moustache himself.* 
 Further, there was a fire and candle-man attached to the private 
 apartments, and {onr frotteurs, who, besides waxing and polish- 
 ing the marquetry floors, dusted and cleaned the rooms. 
 
 * It was originally a medium broton, as shown in the better paintings from 
 the life ; but in later years it was, for a time, darkened by a dye to conceal 
 greyness. 
 
134 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 The day-valet usually entered the Emperor's bedroom to 
 draw up the blinds and open the shutters at half-past seven 
 o'clock. The Emperor then speedily rose and repaired to his 
 dressing-room, where he found Cuxac awaiting him. He took 
 a bath and dressed, and while he was drinking a cup of tea, 
 Charles Thelin, the Keeper of the Privy Purse and Wardrobe 
 Superintendent (in which capacity he checked all tailors', 
 hosiers', hatters', and bootmakers' accounts), came in — displaying 
 his huge moustache a la Victor Emmanuel — to take orders 
 respecting a variety of private donations and charitable con- 
 tributions. Dr. Conneau arrived at the same time, and usually 
 profited by the opportunity to call attention to cases of distress 
 which needed relief. Conneau and Thelin, those old associates 
 of the days of Napoleon's imprisonment at Ham, were always the 
 best intermediaries for folk who sought pecuniary assistance of 
 the Emperor. The cases which Dr. Conneau brought forward 
 were included in the general expenses of the Imperial House- 
 hold ; while as those which Thelin dealt with concerned only the 
 Privy Purse, the accounts respecting them were rendered privately 
 to the Emperor himself 
 
 It may be mentioned that Napoleon III. usually partook of 
 only two meals a day — dejeuner at noon and dinner in the 
 evening. After his matutinal cup of tea and his consultation 
 with Conneau and Thelin, he went straight to his private 
 cabinet or work-room, unless, indeed, there were some occasion 
 for him to go out. On ordinary work-days at the Tuileries he 
 wore a dark blue frockcoat and waistcoat, with fancy trousers, 
 and for a good many years he adhered to the trouser-straps 
 which had been fashionable before he came to the throne. In 
 Paris, whenever he went out in civilian attire, he wore the 
 orthodox silk hat and — almost invariably — SuMe gloves of the 
 shade known as pearl-grey. He generally took with him his 
 favourite walking-stick, which was of rhinoceros hide with a 
 gold handle figuring an eagle's head. 
 
 On entering his work-room, whither he was followed by the 
 Chef-de-cabinet, the first functionary whom he usually received 
 was that important personage the Prefect of Police. Later 
 came one or another Minister with whom the Emperor worked 
 during a part of the morning. Those who attended most 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 135 
 
 frequently were the Ministers of State and of Foreign Affairs. 
 Other private audiences were also occasionally given in the 
 morning, though the usual time was from 1 to 3 p.m. Apart, 
 however, from the audiences respecting which the usual routine 
 of the Chamberlain's service was observed, there were others of 
 a particularly private, virtually secret character, such as were 
 accorded to certain politicians and journalists. Those visitors, 
 then, did not pass through the Chamberlains' Salon, but were 
 ushered direct into the Emperor's sanctum by Felix Werwoort, 
 his trusty first usher. Werwoort was a confidential servant of 
 high importance, whose zeal was rewarded by many handsome 
 gifts from the Emperor. 
 
 Twice a week when the Court was at the Tuileries a 
 Ministerial Council, beginning at 9.30 a.m. and usually lasting 
 a couple of hours, was held in the Council Room under the 
 Emperor's presidency. There were also occasional meetings of 
 the Council of State to examine some proposed law of im- 
 portance, and these, as the room where the Ministers assembled 
 was not large enough for a numerous gathering, were held in 
 the Salle des Trav&s, which was then fitted up with all the 
 appurtenances of a council chamber. The Councillors arrived 
 in dress coats and white cravats, and the Emperor wore the star 
 of the Legion of Honour, and was attended by the aide-de- 
 camp and chamberlain on duty. 
 
 On ordinary work-days the Emperor quitted his cabinet 
 about noon and received in the Council Room the various Great 
 Officers of the Household who came to present their reports. 
 He then climbed the private stairs to the apartments of the 
 Empress, with whom he went to dejewier. The appointed horn- 
 was noon, but owing to the great amount of work to which the 
 Emperor had to attend, he was invariably more or less late. 
 During the earlier years the sovereigns lunched en tete-a-tete ; 
 a little later a cover was laid for the Imperial Prince ; but after 
 a time, when the boy's studies required that he should take his 
 meals at regular hours, he lunched alone with his tutor. The 
 dejeuner of the Emperor and Empress was a very simple affair 
 — eggs, steaks or chops, and fried potatoes, boiled fowl, calves' 
 liver or beef or sheep's kidneys, (and, of course, fish every Friday) 
 — such were the dishes set before them. There were also early 
 
136 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 vegetables and fruit from the kitchen gardens of the Palace of 
 Versailles. Preillon, the Empress's maitre cThotel, presided over 
 the service, and the Emperor and Empress's valets-de-chambre 
 and a couple of footmen were in attendance. 
 
 The meal being finished the sovereigns retired to the 
 Empress's study, where the Emperor remained for a time 
 chatting and smoking cigarettes ; but this respite from work 
 was very brief, as there was always somebody waiting to be 
 received by him. He was thus compelled to return to his own 
 room. The household officials were also in readiness to resume 
 their duties, having lunched together either in the Stucco Hall 
 or in a dining-room near the palace chapel — the meals being of 
 three and four courses, with red and white vin ordinaire, two finer 
 wines, coffee, and cognac. For an hour or two, after giving one 
 and another private audience,* the Emperor rode or drove out, or 
 walked in the reserved garden. Then, returning to his private 
 room, he continued working until dinner time. Shortly after 
 seven o'clock, realizing that he was already late, he hurried into 
 his dressing-room, made a hasty toilet, and wearing a white 
 tie and a black dress-coat with the star of the Legion of Honour, 
 betook himself once more to the Empress's rooms.f 
 
 He then accompanied her to the drawing-room, either the 
 Salon des Tapisseries or the Salon d'ApoUon, where the officers 
 and ladies on duty were waiting. On ordinary occasions the ladies 
 were in a decided minority, as they then consisted solely of the 
 two " dames du palais " in attendance on the Empress, whereas 
 the men included the adjutant-general of the palace, the 
 aide-de-camp of the week, the chief officer of the detachment of 
 the Imperial Guard stationed at the Tuileries, the colonel of 
 the Cent-Gardes, the chamberlain, the equerry, and the 
 orderlies on duty, as well as Dr. Conneau, and occasionally the 
 equerry to the Empress. Count Baciocchi was also present 
 whenever the sovereigns intended to spend the evening at a 
 theatre ; Count Arfese, a particular friend of the Emperor's, was 
 
 * The public audiences were usually given on Sunday, after Mass, and the 
 Emperor was then generally detained for a long time by the crowd of military 
 men and civil functionaries who presented themselves. 
 
 t At certain official dinners he wore a blue dress-coat, a white waistcoat, 
 black silk breeches and stockings, and at the more important banc[uets he 
 appeared in military uniform. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 137 
 
 also a frequent guest, and a cover was laid for General Dufour 
 of the Swiss army — Napoleon's former military tutor — whenever 
 he happened to be in Paris. 
 
 The Prefect of the Palace having informed the Emperor 
 that dinner was served, the whole company passed in procession 
 into the dining-room. On ordinary occasions the Emperor and 
 Empress sat side by side, but at official dinners they faced one 
 another. From sixteen to twenty servants were usually present. 
 The cuisine was not particularly recherchee. The Emperor 
 personally preferred plain and substantial fare — salmon, stewed 
 beef a la j'ardmi^re, roast capon, and mutton cti ragodt were 
 among his favourite dishes — and moreover Benolt, the head 
 cook, was a man of somewhat old-fashioned ideas. The 
 Empress's tastes differed, and now and again when she had 
 dined with Prince Napoleon or Princess Mathilde, both of whom 
 kept a very good table, she would ask why such dishes as she 
 had then partaken of could not be served at the Tuileries. 
 M. Benoit would thereupon make an effort to distinguish 
 himself, but he soon relapsed into his usual heavy, monotonous 
 style. At the same time it must be said that there was a great 
 abundance of edibles, and that the finest fish, game, vegetables, 
 and fruit were provided. The wines mostly drunk at the 
 Tuileries were vin ordinaire (Mont-Rose), then Cos d'Estoumel, 
 Chateaux Leoville, Margaux and Lafitte, Sautemes, Schloss 
 Johannisberg, and some very fine old tawny Port. Burgundy 
 was seldom seen. When Champagne was served, either at the 
 dinners or the ball suppers, it was invariably Veuve Clicquot. 
 The Emperor had a particular friendship for M. Werle, the 
 senior partner in that famous house, who was both Mayor of 
 Rheims and a deputy. As for the liqueurs which figured at the 
 Tuileries, these, in addition to brandy of the best quality, 
 included rum, kirsch, and anisette, the Empress occasionally 
 sipping a few drops of the latter after dinner. There was also, 
 in strictly limited quantities, some absinthe for the officers who 
 could not forego that deadly aperitif. 
 
 On ordinary days there was little conversation at table. 
 Those who were present exchanged a few remarks in under- 
 tones, never raising their voices unless it were to reply to the 
 Emperor and Empress when addressed by them. Neither then 
 
138 THE COURT OP THE TUILERIES 
 
 nor in the drawing-room afterwards, was any allusion made 
 either to politics or to any current Parisian scandal. At times, 
 when the Emperor was going to the theatre he would speak of 
 the stage generally, and of previous works by the author whose 
 new play he was about to see performed. On other evenings he 
 would turn the conversation on to some fire or street accident 
 of which he had read in an evening newspaper. 
 
 In the earlier years of the reign dinner was served in the 
 Galerie de Diane, or rather in a part of it separated from the 
 rest by the movable partition of which we previously spoke.* 
 Subsequently the Louis XIV. Salon, a small but elegantly 
 appointed apartment, was used. Directly the meal was over a 
 procession was again formed and the whole company returned 
 to the drawing-room. The maitre d'hote! on duty then handed 
 to the Prefect of the Palace a richly worked silver-gilt salver 
 called porte-a-boire, having beneath it a central foot or handle 
 by which it was carried. A cup and saucer and a sugar-basin 
 were set upon the salver with which the Prefect then cere- 
 moniously approached the Emperor, who allowed the maitre 
 iFhotel to pour a few drops of black coffee into the cup. CoiFee 
 was next offered to the Empress in the same manner, but she 
 never accepted it, and the maitre (Thdtel proceeded to serve the 
 ladies and gentlemen who were present. 
 
 Occasionally the Emperor, seating himself at a little table, 
 would take up a pack of cards and try his hand at " patience " ; 
 but before long he again went downstairs to his private room to 
 peruse the despatches and reports which had arrived for him. 
 The evening ones were almost always the more important. 
 TiU ten o'clock he remained closeted with his Chef-de-cabinet 
 or his private secretary. When ofiicial business did not claim 
 his attention he turned to his "Life of Julius CsBsar." On 
 some evenings when he had invited certain members of the 
 Institute of France to dinner, he communicated passages of 
 that work to them. Next, about ten o'clock, he returned to 
 the drawing-room where he had left the Empress and the 
 officials, and drank a cup of tea. Then back to his private 
 room he went once more, and at the time when he was busy 
 with the " Life of Cassar " he remained working at it in privacy 
 
 * See ante, p. 22. 
 
The emperor and His private cabinet 139 
 
 until past midnight. At last, however, he threw down his 
 pen and betook himself to his dressing-room where a valet was 
 waiting. His toilette de nuit was soon completed, and he went 
 to bed after a sixteen or seventeen hours' day. In the earlier 
 years he slept soundly, but his malady subsequently compelled 
 him to use narcotics. 
 
 Of course his life was varied. There were often times when 
 he had to entertain foreign royalties, open the Legislature, 
 inaugurate some building, inspect some work in which he was 
 interested, review his army, put in an appearance at an 
 exhibition or a race-course, undertake a journey, and so forth. 
 On those occasions, however, the ordinary work still had to be 
 done, and it became necessary for the Emperor to expedite 
 everything at the double-quick, never dawdling for an instant 
 if he wished to regain lost time. From 1851 to 1861 the 
 work which fell on Napoleon III. was far heavier than that 
 which is the lot of the constitutional sovereign, for during 
 that period his was essentially a personal rule, and he deemed it 
 necessary to look into every matter of any importance. Quite 
 apart, moreover, from ordinary affairs of State the work accom- 
 plished by the Private Cabinet — most of which came under the 
 Emperor's eyes — was very great indeed. Let us try to give 
 some account of it. But first we will glance at the principal 
 officials of the cabinet — M. Mocquard, its chief, and his suc- 
 cessor, M. Conti, M. Franceschini Pietri, the private secretary, 
 and M. Thelin, the keeper of the Privy Purse. 
 
 Jean Fran9ois Constant Mocquard, born at Bordeaux in 
 1798, was descended on his father's side from a family of San 
 Domingo planters and merchants, and on his mother's from the 
 scandal-loving Bussy-Rabutin, the author of " L'Histoire amou- 
 reuse des Gaules." Though educated for the law, he began 
 life in the diplomatic service of the First Empire, being sent to 
 Germany as a secretary of legation ; but on the downfall of 
 Napoleon he withdrew into private life. In 1817, when he was 
 but six and twenty he was presented to Queen Hortense at 
 Arenenberg, and his comparative youth, his flow of spirits and 
 his ready wit were well calculated to produce an impression on 
 a woman of an inflammable nature, one too, who might still be 
 classed, to use Balzac's expression, as a femme de trente ans. 
 
140 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Only surmises, however, no proofs, have ever been tendered 
 with respect to the relations of Mocquard and the ex-Queen of 
 Holland. He returned to France, and practising as an advocate, 
 he came to the front by pleading for Bonapartist and Re- 
 publican defendants in the great political conspiracy trials of 
 the Restoration, such as those of the Black Pin secret society, 
 and the Sergeants of La Rochelle. But a throat complaint and 
 the loss of his voice constrained him to retire from the bar, 
 and he next tried his fortune as a subprefect in the Pyrenees, 
 under Louis Philippe's government. Difficulties arising with 
 his superiors he threw up that post in or about 1839, and being 
 a Bonapartist at heart, his thoughts turned to Queen Hortense's 
 son, Louis Napoleon, with whom apparently he had more than 
 once corresponded. He visited the Prince in London, and after- 
 wards supported him on the Paris press, becoming one of his 
 most trusty adherents. As such he opposed the expedition to 
 Boulogne, predicting its failure, and some little estrangement 
 ensued ; but after visiting the Prince at Ham Mocquard again 
 became one of his representatives in Paris, and in 1848 it was 
 he who chiefly organized those Bonapartist demonstrations 
 which first prepared the way for the coming Empire, 
 
 Mocquard was a man who detested ceremony and etiquette. 
 Had he chosen he might have held some great public office. It 
 is true that he was made both a grand officer of the Legion of 
 Honour and a senator, but he very seldom went to .the Luxem- 
 bourg. He much preferred to work behind the scenes, in a 
 semi-private capacity. Chief of Napoleon's Private Cabinet 
 under the Republic, such he remained under the Empire. That 
 he took a prominent part in planning the Coup d'Etat is well 
 known. He helped to compose the various proclamations 
 which were then issued, and all the drafts were in his hand- 
 writing. He went into the affair prepared to sink or swim, 
 and on that fateful night of December 1, when those who met 
 in Napoleon's private room at the Elysee were full of anxiety, 
 it was Mocquard who revived their spirits by jocular de- 
 scriptions of what would happen in a few hours' time. 
 
 Poor little Monsieur Thiers, how that lock of hair a-top 
 of his head would rise in amazement when he saw a police 
 commissary enter his bedroom ! How dreadful would be the 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 141 
 
 awakening of that doughty warrior, General Changarnier, 
 forced to rise and put on his stays in the presence of the 
 grinning officers of the law ! It was to be hoped that Mme. 
 de X. would not be there. Then, too, what a pompous oration 
 the olympian Victor Hugo would deliver! How blue Charras 
 would turn in his impotent fury ! And how woefully quaestor 
 Baze would fume and fret at finding himself caught like a rat 
 in a trap, in spite of all his secret passages! In that style 
 Mocquard rattled on, sketching in turn all the anti-Bonapartists 
 who were to be arrested, expatiating on their physical im- 
 perfections, and mimicking their consternation at finding that 
 they would have no nice hot cafe au lait by a warm fire-side 
 that cold December morning. The Chef-de-cabinet's flow of 
 spirits proved contagious. His fellow conspirators laughed, 
 and anxiety subsided. 
 
 For his duties at the Tuileries under the Empire Mocquard 
 received ^1200 a year, and Napoleon furnished and granted 
 him as residence a house in the Rue de Rivoli comprised in 
 the dotation of the Crown. Inclusive of his pay as a senator 
 and his Legion of Honour allowance, Mocquard's official income 
 was about .£2600 per annum, but he also made a good deal of 
 money by writing melodramas. How he found time to do so 
 was a mystery, for his duties at the Tuileries were heavy. All 
 the letters and despatches addressed to the Emperor (and they 
 were legion) passed through his hands : he opened and classified 
 them early every morning. He also worked with the Emperor 
 for some hours each day, and he was constantly entrusted with 
 confidential missions and negotiations, at one moment attending 
 to Napoleon's farming and land-reclaiming schemes ; at another 
 having a furtive interview with some secret envoy on matters 
 which, if divulged, might have made Europe tremble; at 
 another scolding or pacifying some greedy or angry imperial 
 mistress ; and at yet another betaking himself to the residence 
 of some member of the imperial family, either to signify a 
 private command or express the sovereign's displeasure. But, 
 as we have said, he found time to write melodramas, sometimes, 
 as with " La Fausse Adultfere " and " La Fiancee d'Albano," in 
 conjunction with D'Ennery, then in his eaily prime; or else, as 
 with "La Tireuse de Cartes," in collaboration with Victor 
 
142 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Sejour; while on other occasions he produced pieces which 
 were entirely his own, such as " Les Volontaires de 1814," and 
 particularly the famous "Prise de Pekin," that most extra- 
 ordinary, most comical, most successful military melodrama of 
 the period, the memory of which has haunted us for over foi-ty 
 years. 
 
 Ah ! that play, and ah ! its hero — the fair-complexioned 
 and red-whiskered War Correspondent of The Times, with 
 his tropical helmet, his green "Derby" veil, his umbrella, his 
 telescope, his camp-stool, and his portable desk, all of which 
 he took into action, seating himself at the desk in the front 
 rank of battle, and there carefully penning his "copy," quite 
 regardless of shot and shell. " You will be killed if you remain 
 there!" a grizzly French sergeant cried to him. "Go to the 
 rear ! " " To the rear ! " the hero of The Times indignantly 
 retorted, while the bullets whistled around him. " Why, in 
 that case, I should see nothing, and I have to describe this 
 battle for the first newspaper of the first country in the 
 world!" Thereupon English spectators, who had previously 
 felt inclined to resent the hero's comical " make up," applauded 
 frantically. 
 
 The writing of melodramas was not Mocquard's only hobby. 
 He had a penchant for American trotters, and it was a sight to 
 see him occasionally whisking along the Rue de Rivoli and up 
 the Champs Elysees, with " Flying Jenny," going her fastest, in 
 front of him, and his " tiger " clinging behind. He was, let 
 us add, a very tall, slim man, quick in his movements, and 
 in his later years somewhat strange in his appearance. A few 
 grey hairs fell over his broad, bumpy forehead, he had a long 
 nose, black, sparkling eyes, and thin, twitching lips, which, on 
 parting, disclosed the fact that he had lost nearly all his teeth. 
 Excepting when he was absolutely forced to attend some official 
 ceremony, he invariably wore a grey frockcoat — " la Redingote 
 grise " of Napoleon I., some used to call it, though others averred 
 that it was the garb most appropriate to the Chef-de-cabinefs 
 position, for was he not the " Eminence grise " hovering beside 
 the purple of the throne ? In some circumstances Mocquard 
 undoubtedly acted as Napoleon's alter ego, and he was certainly 
 for many years the confidant of his most secret thoughts and 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 143 
 
 schemes, the man who knew more of what was passing in his 
 masters mind than either Momy, or Persigny, or Rouher, or 
 even Fleury, that other coiifidant, ever knew. Mocquard died 
 in December, 1864, and was buried with no little state and 
 ceremony. On the Emperor's behalf, M. de la Gueronniere 
 pronounced a significant oration by the grave-side: "His 
 Majesty," said he, "weeps to-day for the faithful servant 
 who has so long been the depository of his thoughts." 
 
 Mocquard's successor as Chef-de-cabinet was M. Charles 
 Conti, a Corsican by birth and a lawyer by profession. His 
 name is mentioned in some strange letters addressed to Ledru- 
 Rollin about the time of the Revolution of 1848. He then 
 courted Ledru-RoUin's favour as a very zealous, advanced 
 Republican. But he soon changed his tactics. Becoming a 
 deputy, he voted for the Expedition to Rome, and later, as 
 a Public Prosecutor, he made no secret of his animosity for 
 all Republicans. A post as Councillor of State was his reward. 
 Like Mocquard, Conti had a literary bent, but instead of writing 
 melodramas he preferred to trifle with the Muses. He lacked 
 the flow of spirits which distinguished his predecessor, being of 
 a far more sedate disposition. Perhaps he was a more suitable 
 Chef-de-cabinet for a sovereign of advancing years, but in any 
 case we do not think he was ever taken as fiilly into the 
 Emperor's confidence as Mocquard had been. 
 
 Under the Chef-de-cabinet was the Sous-chef, who for some 
 years was M. de Dalmas. He did a great deal of work in 
 connection with the correspondence, but neither he nor his 
 successor, M. Sacaley, was entrusted as were Mocquard and 
 Conti with any very secret matters. There was also, as already 
 mentioned, the Emperor's private secretary, M. Franceschini 
 Pi^tri, a nephew of the two Prefects of Police of that name. 
 M. Pi^tri's work was largely of a secret character. Having 
 the custody of all the Emperor's cyphers and codes, it was he 
 who translated and transcribed the despatches which arrived, 
 and prepared the answers to them. He was in close attendance 
 on Napoleon, during both the Italian campaign of 1859 and 
 the war of 1870. At the Tuileries he led a life of extreme 
 hard work, rising betimes and retiring late, having to remain 
 with the Emperor every evening, unless there were a ball or a 
 
144 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 reception. It is well known that M, Pietri was an extremely 
 faithful servant. He followed the imperial family into exile, 
 and after Napoleon's death acted as private secretary to the 
 Imperial Prince and the Empress Eugenie successively. 
 
 We have yet to speak of Charles Th^lin, originally Napo- 
 leon's valet, but promoted under the Empire to the posts of 
 Keeper of the Privy Purse and Wardrobe Superintendent. The 
 reward was not excessive, perhaps, for the services which he 
 had rendered to his master. In 1840, while Dr. Conneau, 
 inside the fort of Ham, assisted Napoleon to escape from it, 
 Th61in, who was outside, made the escape certain by providing 
 the necessaiy vehicle and horses for flight. Under him at the 
 Tuileries were all the Emperor's valets, including even Cuxac 
 and the latter's successor, Miiller, who followed Napoleon to 
 England in 1871. Further, Thelin had charge of all the 
 private jewellery and such of the crown jewellery as might be 
 kept at the palace. Every article was enumerated in a ledger, 
 and whenever the Emperor or Empress sent for one thing or 
 another, a written order had to be handed to Thelin, and an 
 entry made in the ledger to the effect that such or such an 
 article had been given out. In due course its return was 
 noted. Twice a year there was a careful verification of all the 
 crown jewels in the presence of high officials of the Imperial 
 Household. 
 
 The work done in the Private Cabinet, that is in the rooms 
 of the Emperor, Mocquard, Pietri, and Thelin, was of the most 
 varied nature. Communications of all kinds poured in without 
 cessation, and had to be attended to. Of petitions for pecuniary 
 assistance or for employment of one or another kind, there was 
 no end. One day the notorious Vidocq, of Detective Police 
 fame, the author of the axiom, " Set a thief to catch a thief," 
 writes thanking Mocquard for past favours, and reminding him 
 that New Year's Day is at hand, and that he, Vidocq, is 
 eighty-four years old, and poor. Then Prince Poniatowski 
 writes that as the Emperor is unwilling to appoint him manager 
 of the Opera, will he at least give him a receivership to the 
 Treasury or a post in Algeria ? A certain M. Cerfbeer begs to 
 be made a senator, grimly pointing out in his letter that it 
 would not be for very long, as he is already seventy-four years 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 145 
 
 old ! D'Aurelles de Paladines — destined to fight Von der 
 Tann at Coulmiers, winning one of the few French victories of 
 the War of 1870 — begs that he may be kept in active service, 
 urging as one of his chief claims for that favour his services at 
 the Coup d'Etat! Then, too, the Prince de Crouy-Chanel, 
 subsequently involved in some financial scandals, entreats the 
 Emperor to confirm his title. And so on, and so on. 
 
 Next there are quaint suggestions and angry denunciations. 
 Some provincial magnate thinks it would be a good idea to 
 turn all non-commissioned officers into village schoolmasters on 
 their retirement from the army ; while another is indignant at 
 the manner in which a certain regiment of Hussars behaves to 
 the women of his locality. There are also curious, even aston- 
 ishing, offers. A Mr. J. Blofield writes from Sloane Street, W., 
 stating that he is the proud possessor of the identical truncheon 
 which the Emperor carried when he did duty as a special con- 
 stable in London during the Chartist riots. He will be pleased, 
 however, to sell it to the Emperor for £12, "Decline this 
 offer," writes Napoleon on the margin of the letter. He had 
 no further use for truncheons — his police were armed with 
 deadlier weapons. But the prize for amusing offers is certainly 
 due to a M. Raphael Osson, who states that he is the father of 
 a son aged nine months, but " considering the exceptional and 
 really prodigious qualities of the child," he regards himself as 
 " unworthy to retain such a treasure," and thinks that " he 
 cannot do better than offer it" to his Majesty the Emperor, 
 for which sole purpose he has come all the way from Egypt 
 to Paris ! That letter is not annotated ; but though the 
 Emperor's family was very cosmopolitan, he can have had no 
 desire to add to it any Egyptian baby, even a phenomenal 
 one. We can picture the laugh which arose in the imperial 
 sanctum when the gleeful Mocquard, anxious perhaps to drive 
 some cloud from his master's brow, showed him that extra- 
 ordinary letter. 
 
 Quite as amusing, if in another way, is a petition iiddressed 
 to the Imperial Prince, but referred to the Private Cabinet for 
 consideration. It is written by a notable hairdresser of the 
 time, one Edmond Lespes, of the Boulevai-d Montmartre. 
 " Your young head," says he to the Prince, " needs no severe 
 
148 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 coiffure, such as that of Titus, nor even a coquettish wig, such 
 as that of Louis XIV., but the best-disciplined things require 
 guidance, and I should feel honoured if I were allowed to pass 
 the light-brown tortoiseshell comb through your light-brown 
 locks. I should not forget that I was touching a brow destined 
 to wear a crown. I am not a traitor like Leonard [Marie 
 Antoinette's coiffeur\, nor a perfidious counsellor like Olivier le 
 Daim [barber to Lous XI.]. I am not a political man at all, 
 but merely a capillary artist." In spite of that elegant effusion 
 — worthy of the other Lespes — Timoth^e Trimm of Le Petit 
 Journal — we do not think that M. Edmond was ever appointed 
 hairdresser to the Imperial Prince. He would scarcely have 
 suited the Tuileries, for he was a talkative man, with far too 
 many journalists among his Boulevardian customers. 
 
 At another time, the Emperor having finished his "Life of 
 Caesar,'" and despatched presentation copies to prominent 
 French and foreign literary men, the Private Cabinet is inun- 
 dated with letters of obsequious flattery and congratulation. 
 Further, there are the innumerable petitions, drawings, models, 
 and specimens emanating from inventors. These are all ex- 
 amined and reported on, and again and again the Emperor, 
 struck by some idea, grants the applicant a personal audience. 
 On one occasion he gives a whole morning to M. Boutet, who 
 comes to him with twenty or thirty huge plans of a projected 
 bridge over the Channel — one of the earliest schemes for linking 
 England to France. 
 
 Diplomacy also largely engages the attention of the Private 
 Cabinet. The Foreign Minister is one of the most frequent of 
 the Emperor's visitors ; but there is also secret as well as official 
 diplomacy. Here first germinates the so-called "gi-eatest 
 scheme of the reign," the foundation of an empire in Mexico ; 
 here the idea of the annexation of Belgium is first mooted ; here 
 originates that of mediating between Prussia and Austria and 
 securing Venetia for Italy. One morning, too, an estafette 
 summons Fleury, who, after a brief chat with Napoleon, hurries 
 away from France to prevail on Victor Emmanuel to renounce 
 his ideas on Rome. Here, too, comes Lebrun before starting on 
 his secret mission to Vienna, to prepare a combined Franco- 
 Austrian attack on Prussia in 1871 — the attack which Prussia 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 147 
 
 forestalls the previous year. Before then, Cavour and Bismarck 
 and many others, famous ministers and unknown secret agents, 
 had occupied the armchair which faces Napoleon's beside the 
 fireplace in the imperial sanctum. It was well, perhaps, that 
 the Emperor invariably strove to preserve an expressionless 
 countenance, for he always sat in the armchair facing the light, 
 to which the others turned their backs. That was an imperial 
 blunder, such as none of the many investigating magistrates at 
 the Palais de Justice would ever have perpetrated. 
 
 But let us picture the Emperor alone for a moment. 
 Mocquard has just handed him one of " Elizabeth's " reports on 
 the chit-chat and social scandals of Paris, and Napoleon scans 
 it attentively, bent on ascertaining both what the royalist 
 salons of the Faubourg St. Germain and the cafes of the 
 Boulevards are saying and doing. At another moment a report 
 from a secret agent in London receives attention, and the 
 Emperor on reading it notes that Rimmel, the perfumer, 
 Grillon, the landlord of the Clarendon Hotel, and Fechter, the 
 actor, are described as " dangerous Orleanists." 
 
 But here come the transcripts of the letters opened in the 
 " Black Cabinet " of the post-office, and if the Emperor likes 
 he can pry into the secrets, not only of the regime's adversaries, 
 but of his own ministers and aides-de-camp, and his wife's ladies 
 and equerries as well. The Prefect of Police is supposed 
 to be trusted; nevertheless there are reports on him also, as 
 there are others on the Director of Public Safety at the 
 Ministry of the Interior. If a lady of rank takes a lover, or a 
 married functionary a mistress, Napoleon learns all about it. It 
 is the same when St. Arnaud loses heavily at the Bourse, and 
 when Morny is not particularly careful to concejj the secret 
 commission which he pockets over some shady speculation. 
 Transcripts of private letters, written by such partisans as 
 Baroche, Bazaine, and Rouher, arrive at the same time as tran- 
 scripts of those penned by adversaries like Thiers, Clement 
 Thomas, and Charras. It is a certain Simonel who directs the 
 Cabinet Noir. Under him, from 1851 to 1859, is Commissary 
 of Police Musse, and from 1859 to 1870 Commissaries Marseille 
 and Berillon. Those are the gentlemen who operate, who 
 seize, open, read, transcribe, and reseal all suspicious letters 
 
148 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 confided to the postal service, letters which are afterwards duly 
 delivered at their addresses. Simonel often has to work very 
 hard indeed. During the Mexican expedition, the Emperor 
 becomes extremely anxious to ascertain the real truth respecting 
 the situation. For that purpose private letters written by 
 officers of the expeditionary corps are freely opened. Every 
 time a Mexican mail arrives Simonel spends three days and 
 nights " working at it," with the utmost diligence. Yet he is 
 treated neglectfully. He is not a man of any means, and his 
 secret emoluments are only paid him after long delays. At 
 last he complains privately to Persigny, who acquaints the 
 Emperor with his position. 
 
 The Civil List and the Privy Purse have to make many 
 strange disbursements. If it is not Charles Thelin it is Pierre- 
 Michel Bure, the Emperor's foster-brother and Crown Treasurer, 
 who has to provide money. At one moment large sums go to 
 the Countess de Montijo. A memorandum, in which the year 
 is not indicated, says : " Sent to Mme. de Montijo in Spain, 
 through Messrs. Rothschild, Feb. 4, 600,000 francs; April 9, 
 89,739 francs; May 27, 668,421 francs. Total, 1,358,160 
 francs " — that is about £54,326. Some have wondered why so 
 much money was sent to the Empress's mother. The most 
 likely explanation is that it was in connection with the improve- 
 ment and development of the Empress's estates in Spain. 
 Napoleon, for his part, spent large amounts on the estates which 
 he acquired in France, the tracts of country which he reclaimed 
 and planted in Les Dombes and Les Landes ; all of which, be it 
 noted, was very useful and beneficial work. The same may be 
 said respecting the Emperor's experimental farm at La 
 Fouilleuse, which, again, was no light tax on him. 
 
 Let us now glance at one of Bure's registers. Here, item 
 by item, is set forth the expenditure incurred at the baptism of 
 the Imperial Prince — total ^^35,920 ! Turn a few pages, here 
 are extra allowances to Prince Achille Murat, making d&3328, 
 special grants to Princess Anna Murat of £333 per month, and 
 the same to Pierre Bonaparte of £80 a month over and beyond 
 his regular allowance ; while during a long period £120 is spent 
 monthly on excavations in the Farnesina Gardens at Rome. 
 Now peep into one of Thdlin's books. The Privy Purse seldom 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 149 
 
 has any large balance in hand at the end of the month. Out 
 of i?4000 paid into it only a few hundreds will be left. 
 Dusautoy, the tailor, relieves it of ^PIOOO or so from time to 
 time ; Baron Jerome David, who will figure in our chapter 
 on the imperial family, pockets money for furniture as well as 
 for living expenses. And there is a hungry crew of ofRcisJ 
 journalists duly provided for. Payments are made also to the 
 executors of Lieutenant Aladenize, one of Napoleon's con- 
 federates at Boulogne in 1840. 
 
 We give on pages 150 and 151 two statements of accounts 
 found in the Emperor's private room after the Revolution of 
 1870. They include only regular payments foreseen in advance, 
 and represent but a fraction of the outgoings. 
 
 Yet other matters occupied the Private Cabinet. At one 
 moment there was an elaborate scheme for the foundation of a 
 new nobility. Ministers, judges, senators, prefects, and other 
 functionaries were to be given titles, according to their office 
 or the duration of their services. Reports were drawn up on 
 the subject, a proposed law was even drafted and discussed by 
 the Council of Ministers. The Empress, who held many titles 
 herself and belonged to a country where they were very plentiful 
 and also often absurd,* is said to have smiled upon this 
 plan, but it came to nothing; and only now and again did 
 the Emperor create some duke, marquis, count, or baron. The 
 scheme was, in part, based on the circumstance that the old 
 nobility was fast dying out, and that, in particular, the titles 
 granted in the time of Napoleon I. were lapsing year by year for 
 lack of heirs. 
 
 That was certainly quite true. As regards the old French 
 aristocracy the average duration of a noble house was not more 
 than three hundred years. Yet research has shown that the 
 nobles often had many children. Three of the Montmorencys 
 left fifteen sons, the four first Guises left thirty ; one of the 
 Noailles had nineteen children, one of the Harlays eighteen, 
 while the Birons, the Condes, the Villiers de I'lsle-Adam, and 
 
 • CJould there be anything more ridiculous than such titles as Marquis ot 
 the Lover's Rook, Marquis of Eggshell (Algara), Marquis of the Calves' Grotto 
 (Gueva de Beoerros), Count of the Castle of Sparks, and Viscount of the Deep 
 Bay of Royal Fidelity ?— aU of which may still be found in Spain. 
 
150 
 
 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
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152 THE COURT OP THE TUILERIES 
 
 many other families were at times so numerous that one might 
 have thought they would last for ever. But they died off like 
 the twenty branches of the Montmorencys, the seven of the 
 Harcourts, and the six of the Luxembourgs. In like way few 
 now remain of the nobksse of the First Empire, which was far 
 less prolific than the older aristocracy, and has thus become 
 well-nigh exhausted in a single century. But however repub- 
 lican the majority of Frenchmen may be nowadays, there is 
 still no lack of individuals who fancy a title and assume one — 
 occasionally, by reason of some remote connection with a family 
 of authentic noblesse, but more often without the faintest shadow 
 of justification for their action. 
 
 But let us leave that subject, and resume our survey of 
 the Emperor's Private Cabinet. He had literary proclivities, 
 as we know, and on at least two occasions he thought of 
 writing a novel. That is, a novel with a purpose. In the 
 first instance, apparently, it was to have been a satire on the 
 stubborn folly of some folk of the middle class in not rallying 
 thoroughly to the support of the Empire. In the second it 
 was to have glorified all the material progress made by France 
 under the imperial auspices. In both cases the chief character 
 was to have been, curiously enough, a grocer. First Rossignol, 
 and later Benoit, was to have been his name. It is probable 
 that the calling of grocer was chosen for this personage because 
 then, as now, it was often associated with ignorance and 
 stupidity. Henri Monnier and others had repeatedly satirized 
 it, and sometime in the sixties, when the Emperor was thinking 
 of this novel of his, a grocer's assistant committed suicide in 
 Paris under curious circumstances. He left a paper behind 
 him stating that he had often endeavoured to embark in some 
 other calling but had failed, having been invariably thrust back 
 into the grocery line, though he loathed and detested it, as it 
 was paltry, unmanly, and degrading. Finally, he asked that his 
 savings might be applied to the expenses of his burial and the 
 erection over his remains of a neat tombstone bearing the 
 inscription : " Born to be a Man, but died a Grocer." 
 
 Whether the Emperor ever read that tale in his favourite 
 evening newspaper La Patrie, we do not know, but it might 
 well have influenced him in choosing a calling for his " hero." 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 153 
 
 Memoranda respecting the two " plots " were found among his 
 private papers after the fall of the Empire. In the first scheme 
 Rossignol was portrayed as an obstinate, shallow individual, 
 with antiquated and foolish ideas ; in the second Benoit was 
 shown going to America in 1847 and returning to France in 
 1868, when everything he beheld, the absolute transformation 
 of the country under the beneficent Napoleonic sway, filled him 
 with the utmost amazement. 
 
 At various times the Emperor financed political newspapers, 
 such as Le Constitutiormel, Le Pays, V Etendard, Le Pvblic, 
 IjB Dix Decembre, UEpoque, (whose nominal owner was his 
 tailor Dusautoy), and Le Peuple Fraiigais, for which Thelin, 
 with many shakes of the head, had to disburse in one year 
 no less than £56,000. Most of this financing was done 
 during the last period of the regime, when, more liberty having 
 been given to the press, several opposition journals were 
 started, and it was thought necessary to have organs to answer 
 their attacks. Occasionally the Emperor wrote articles for 
 these journals, more particularly for Le Dix Decembre, or, 
 if he did not actually write them, he drew up, as an 
 editor might do, memoranda setting forth various facts and 
 arguments which he wished to see elaborated. Several such 
 memoranda were found at the Tuileries after Sedan, and 
 journalists of a class were by no means the least frequent 
 visitors to the Private Cabinet — though, of course, many were 
 dealt with by the official Press Bureau at the Ministry of the 
 Interior. During the last years of the Empire the interest 
 which Napoleon took in journalism seemed to indicate that he 
 no longer held the opinion, so often expressed in his early years 
 and his prime, that the best newspaper in the world was not 
 worth a rap. 
 
 Among the curious and notable meetings which occurred in 
 the Emperor's private room was one with his foster sister, 
 Mme. Comu, in the spring of 1863. She who, in spite of her 
 misshapen frame, was at heart one of the straightest of women 
 as well as possessed of a shrewd and clever mind,* had broken 
 
 » She helped him to write his book on artillery practice. Although hump- 
 backed, she had found a husband in the person of a painter of considerabla 
 talent, whose speciality was the decoration of churches. 
 
154 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 off nearly all intercourse with him since the Coup d'Etat, 
 which she blamed severely. He repeatedly tried to bring about 
 a reconciliation, sent her New Year greetings, wrote to her 
 respecting his " Life of Caesar," and so forth. But her answers 
 were very brief, and she was unwilling to visit him. At last, 
 at the time we have mentioned, he wrote her an urgent letter 
 saying that long years had elapsed since their last meeting, 
 and that he did not wish to die before seeing her embrace his 
 son, who was just completing his seventh year. Mme. Cornu 
 was touched by the appeal, and allowed the Countess Walewska 
 to conduct her to the Tuileries. 
 
 She found both Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie 
 awaiting her, and the former, throwing his arms round her 
 neck, kissed her heartily. " You bad woman," said he ; " for 
 twelve years past you have refused to unbend to me." Without 
 replying, she returned his kiss. They all felt very moved and 
 even shed tears. At last, making Mme. Cornu seat herself 
 in one armchair, and the Empress in the other, while he took 
 his stand with his back to the fireplace. Napoleon sent Mme. 
 Walewska for the little Imperial Prince. He came in, all 
 alacrity, but was much surprised when the strange lady took 
 him in her arms and kissed him. Hjs father afterwards wished 
 him to recite one of the fables he had learnt. " But I have 
 forgotten the beginnings," said he. "Then let us have the 
 ends," the Emperor replied. " But I have forgotten them too." 
 "Let us hear the middle then." "Papa," the little fellow 
 retorted, " where does a middle begin .•' " " Your Majesty will 
 find it difficult to answer that question," said Mme. Cornu.* 
 It was she who afterwards recommended the Prince's first tutor, 
 M. Francis Monnier. 
 
 Another remarkable woman who sometimes sat in the 
 Emperor's private room and not only advised, but occasionally 
 chided him, was Queen Sophia of Holland, whom her husband 
 (the father of the present Queen Wilhelmina by his second 
 marriage) neglected for " la belle Madame Musard " and others. 
 
 • She herself told the story to Mrs. M. 0. M. Simpson, the daughter of 
 Nassau Senior, and the author of " Many Memories of Many People," in 
 which we read it several years ago. We have given It, as closely as a note 
 made at the time permits, in Mrs. Simpson's words. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 155 
 
 Queen Sophia, born a Princess of Wurtemberg, was first-cousin 
 to Prince Napoleon Jerome and Princess Mathilde. A woman 
 of great culture and sound political acumen, she corresponded 
 with the Emperor during several years, but he often tried her 
 patience severely by neglecting good advice. With tin abundance 
 of light golden hair, she had been very handsome when young, 
 and she long retained a fine figure. The little money allowed 
 her by her husband was chiefly spent in charity, and whenever 
 she travelled it was usually incognita, attended only by a maid 
 and a single lady-in-waiting. During her sojourns in Paris 
 Queen Sophia often slipped into the Tuileries to chat with the 
 Emperor and criticize what he had been doing or what he 
 intended to do. The rSle she played could hardly be called, 
 however, that of either an Egeria or a Mentor, it was rather 
 the part of a " Candid Friend." 
 
 That private room of the Emperor's, which witnessed so 
 much work and so many interviews, also had its legend — a 
 legend of roguery and blood. One day in 1853, according to 
 one version of the story — it is a story with many variations, as 
 will be seen — Napoleon laid, on the table or the mantelpiece, 
 a sum of ^8000 in banknotes. He had occasion to leave the 
 I'oom, and on returning he found the money gone. Three people 
 had been in the apartment during his absence, and the Chief 
 of the Palace Police, who was summoned, inquired their names. 
 "General Cornemuse" was the first one given. "General 
 Cornemuse," said the official ; " well, it may have been he who 
 took the notes, and yet I am surprised at his doing so. But 
 who else came in .'' " " King Jerome." " Oh, in that case we 
 need not trouble about Cornemuse. But was there nobody 
 else ? " " Yes, St. Arnaud was here." " In that case we need 
 not look further. The money must certainly have been taken 
 by him." 
 
 The upshot of the affair (still according to the story) was 
 that St. Arnaud, being accused of the theft, denied it, that an 
 altercation arose between him and Cornemuse,* that they fought 
 
 * He was born at St. Malo in 1797, enlisted under the first Empire, served 
 under the Duke d'AngouUme in Spain in 1823, and was at the siege of Ant- 
 werp in 1831. He became a General of Brigade in 1849, and in the following 
 year was appointed Chief of the Sta£E of the army of Paris, in which capacity 
 be participated in the Coup d'Etat. 
 
156 THE COURT OF THE TUH.ERIES 
 
 with their swords, and that Cornemuse was killed. According 
 to one version the duel took place in a room of the palace, 
 according to another in a corridor, according to a third in the 
 palace garden in the evening, and by the light of candelabra, 
 which either the seconds or some servants held aloft. But if 
 another account is to be believed, there was no theft at all in 
 the Emperor's private room. Napoleon, it is asserted, sent 
 Comemuse to St. Amaud with a sum of money to pay one of 
 his gambling debts, in return for which assistance St. Arnaud 
 was to hand over certain papers, notably a signed order of the 
 Coup d'Etat period, instructing him to sweep Paris with shot 
 and shell, and even set it on fire if there should be the slightest 
 resistance. Cornemuse went with the money to St. Arnaud, 
 who, it is alleged, contrived to secure it without parting 
 with the documents, though he solemnly promised that he 
 would hand them over at a ball at the Tuileries that same 
 evening. At the ball, however, when Comemuse asked for the 
 papers, St. Amaud made all sorts of excuses, and finally refused 
 to sun-ender them. Angry words were then exchanged, and 
 the two men fought in the garden, as previously mentioned. 
 St. Amaud was twice wounded, once in the body and the second 
 time in the left arm ; but making a last desperate lunge, he 
 finally got home, piercing Cornemuse in the abdomen and kill- 
 ing him. 
 
 That is a resume of a secret police report on the rumours of 
 the time, which adds that people said a perquisition had been 
 made in St. Arnaud's apartments at the War Ministry, but had 
 yielded no result, and that St. Arnaud being badly wounded, 
 had been granted leave of absence on the score of ill health, 
 his post being provisionally assigned to M. Ducos. That 
 certainly happened, but all the rest may be regarded as fable. 
 St. Amaud's ill health was notorious, and it eventually resulted 
 in his death. It was not due to any wound inflicted by Corne- 
 muse or another. Moreover, neither the theft nor the duel took 
 place, though rumours about them certainly circulated in Paris 
 at the time, and even found their way into English and other 
 foreign newspapers. Subsequently the story was repeated in 
 one or another form in several histories, memoirs, French news- 
 papers, and even encyclopsedias, eventually suggesting to Emile 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS PRIVATE CABINET 157 
 
 Gaboriau some part of the plot of his novel " La Degringolade.'" 
 Yet it was all legend, a legend without foundation, concocted, 
 like many other stories, to cast discredit both on St. Amaud 
 personally and on the Empire and its institutions. 
 
 According to members of the Comemuse family who knew 
 the truth, the General, overburdened by great responsibilities 
 and worries, had been ailing for some time when, on the evening 
 of February 19, 1853, he was suddenly attacked by congestion 
 of the lungs. Three medical men attended him, Drs. Chaumel, 
 Cruveilhier, and Coqueret, and immediately opined that the 
 attack would have a fatal issue. The General lingered for 
 about a fortnight, however, expiring on March 7, when the 
 immediate cause of death was a rupture of the neck of the 
 aorta. That statement, put forward at the time, was then 
 scouted by the enemies of the Empire, but nowadays, the 
 vindictive passions of that period having subsided, there is 
 really no reason to question the {iccuracy of the family account. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 
 
 The Empress's Private Apartments — Charles Chaplin's Masterpiece — 
 Dubufe's Beauties of the Tuileries — The Empress's Work-room — The 
 Imperial Correspondence — The Cabinet-de-toilette and the Bedchamber — 
 The Empress's Wardrobe — Pepa, the Head-maid — The Story of the 
 Crinoline — The Cost of the Empress's Gowns — The Crown Jewels — The 
 Empress's Charities — Her Treatment of her Son — Her Intercourse with 
 M6rim4e — Her Travels and Regencies — ^Her Share in Politics — Her 
 Championship of the Pope — Her Opposition to Liberal Reforms — ^Her 
 Visit to Scotland — The Emperor's Decree of November 23, 1860 — Enmity 
 between Persigny and the Empress — Her Presence at Cabinet Councils — 
 Her Failure as a Politician. 
 
 It will have been understood already that the Empress's private 
 apartments at the Tuileries were above the Emperor's, Let us 
 ascend to them by the broad white marble staircase starting from 
 the same vestibule by which we entered the various rooms of 
 the Imperial Private Cabinet. Thick Turkey carpets are spread 
 over the marble slabs, and from the walls hang ancient tapestry, 
 quaintly depicting the transformation of Daphne into a laurel 
 bush. On the right hand of the first-floor landing is the 
 entrance to the Hall of the Marshals, on the left that to the 
 Empress's apartments, a suite of some ten rooms. In the first, 
 a small ante-chamber, we find the sovereign's private ushers in 
 brown and silver coats, black silk stockings, and buckled shoes, 
 together with a couple of footmen in the ordinary palace livery, 
 Biguet, the chief usher, a very devoted, confidential retainer, 
 who followed the Empress to England in 1870, and died there, 
 was known familiarly as the " thirteenth Lady of the Palace," 
 from the fact that whenever a lady who should have been on 
 duty happened to be absent, he undertook to attend to any 
 passing matter in which he could replace her. 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 159 
 
 From the ante-room you passed into the first of the 
 Empress's salons, the one in which her ladies and her chamber- 
 lain were stationed. This was generally itnown as the Salon 
 Vert, the walls being painted a pale green, over which soft 
 ground M. Burette had traced endless arabesques of a darker 
 verdure, picked out with gold, each panel being framed with 
 gilded mouldings. A prodigious basket of flowers by Ghequier 
 was depicted on the ceiling, while in the cartouches above each 
 door were other blooms, with birds of the brightest hues flutter- 
 ing hither and thither. The fine gilded Louis XVI. furniture 
 was upholstered in Beauvais tapestry, figuring bouquets of 
 flowers on a white ground. The ceiling of the second salon, 
 known as the Salon Rose, and serving as visitors' waiting-room, 
 was the masterpiece of Charles Chaplin, who for our delectation 
 transmitted to our times some of the " tradition " of Lemoyne, 
 Boucher, and Fragonard. He and Lefuel, the architect, were, 
 we believe, chiefly responsible for the general scheme of decora- 
 tion adopted for the Empress's private drawing-rooms, but the 
 Salon Rose, as we have mentioned, contained Chaplin's par- 
 ticular chef eCceuvre — annihilated, unfortunately, like all the 
 rest, when the palace was consumed by fire. 
 
 Some descriptions of the apartment say that Chaplin's ceil- 
 ing represented the triumph of Flora ; but if our memory serves 
 us aright, the Flora depicted by the painter was the Empress 
 Eugenie. In the centre of the ceiling there was a medallion 
 portrait of her, enframed by a garland of roses held by the 
 three Graces, around whom were scattered symbolical figures 
 of the Arts, while one of several winged genii appeared bear- 
 ing the infant Imperial Prince in a bfisket of flowers, and 
 otibers either drove away a bank of clouds or roused Aurora, 
 whose roseate flush overspread the heavens, which descended to 
 the cornices, where the painter had depicted some gilded trellis 
 work wreathed with opening flowers. Other blooms poured from 
 medallions at the corners of the ceiling, delicate rosy arabesques 
 adorned the walls, while floral subjects again appeared in each 
 of the six dessus-de-porte. First came the pansy, crowned with 
 stars under a crescent moon ; next a subject introducing a 
 nymph encircling her brow with cornflowers, while beside her 
 slept a companion crowned with poppies ; then the violet was 
 
160 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 shown, growing in the shade cast by a stately laurel. Naiads 
 followed, crowned with water-lilies and reeds, then came the 
 obvious subject of the marguerite — " he loves me a little, dearly, 
 passionately, not at all " — and finally the rose, cleverly typified 
 by Aurora. The white marble chimney-piece of this room was 
 of beautiful workmanship, inlaid in parts with lapis lazuli, 
 serving as a background to golden roses. The furniture was 
 similar to that of the Salon Vert, and four large mirrors framed 
 with wreathing flowers reflected the superb vista of the Tuileries 
 garden and the Champs Elysees. 
 
 Next came the Salon Bleu, where the Empress gave audience, 
 and where the cartouches over the doors contained medallion 
 portraits of six of the greatest beauties of the time. They 
 were the work of Edouard Dubufe, and included three blondes 
 and three brunettes. On one side Sophie Troubetskoi, Duchess 
 de Momy, with her light flaxen hair crowned with the head- 
 dress of her native land, smiled down on you with dark vivacious 
 eyes, sparkling in a somewhat pallid face ; then Anna Murat, 
 Duchess de Mouchy, with fresh bright cheeks added to her fair 
 ringlets, served almost to typify a young English girl ; while 
 Egle de la Moskowa, Duchess de Persigny, shone forth radiant 
 as a goddess amid the glory of her golden fleece. Nor were the 
 brunettes less beautiful. The Countess Walewska, nee Ricci, 
 was garbed appropriately as a Florentine; the Duchess de 
 Cadore typified Haidee, while the young Duchess de Malakoft", 
 the Empress's compatriot, wore the mantilla and the deep red 
 bloom of the genuine Granadina. It is deplorable that those 
 paintings were destroyed. They would nowadays be, in their 
 way, as famous as are the " Beauties of Hampton Court." 
 
 The Empress's three salons, with their white satin curtains, 
 gilded chairs and sofas, marquetry cabinets, crystal chandeliers, 
 and splendid mirrors, clocks, vases, and candelabra of bronze, 
 silver, and porcelain, as well as their profusion of freshly cut 
 flowers, added to all those depicted on walls and ceilings, were 
 well worthy of the wife of the ruler of France. There was, 
 perhaps, rather too much gilding, or at least the gilding was 
 too new, and needed the softening touch of time. Unluckily, 
 there came the Commune. 
 
 The Empress's Cabinet or workroom followed the Salon 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 161 
 
 Bleu. lis walls were hung with a green satin-striped material, 
 the curtains and upholstery were of purple silk, the doors and 
 window framework of mahogany, and the chimney-piece of red 
 marble. A fine old mahogany writing-table occupied the 
 centre of the room, a large sofa and two small tables, with 
 covers embroidered by the Empress herself, being near it. Her 
 favourite armchair was on the left of the fireplace beside a low 
 round table for writing materials, so that while seated in the 
 chair she could take pen, paper, and blotting-pad, place the 
 latter on her knees, and write by the fireside : this being a habit 
 with her. Between the two windows stood a cabinet contain- 
 ing curios of various kinds, including the eagle's quill with 
 which the Peace of Paris was signed after the Crimean War, 
 and the damaged hat which Napoleon III. wore on the night 
 of Orsini's attempt outside the Opera-house. Then, before one 
 of the windows was a table covered with materials for water- 
 colour painting, while in one corner you saw a fine old mahogany 
 grandfather clock, and in others some short columns surmounted 
 by bronze female figures holding candelabra. From the mantel- 
 piece another fine female figure, in white marble, and with a star 
 on the brow, seemed to be soaring aloft attended by a cupid who 
 raised a burning torch, while on either side of this charming piece 
 of statuary some superb bronze vases from the Chinese Summer 
 Palace threw up long curving leaves of a dusky golden hue. 
 
 Against the wall facing the windows was Cabanel's life-size 
 portrait of Napoleon III. in a black Court costume, dress coat, 
 breeches and stockings, and with the star of the Legion of 
 Honour on his breast. It showed the Emperor in his mature 
 prime, with his abundant and somewhat wavy dark chestnut 
 hair, his deep expressionless eyes, colourless cheeks, moustache 
 of a medium brown and imperial of somewhat lighter hue. 
 This was one of the best portraits of Napoleon ever painted, 
 and Cabanel was to have executed one of the Empress also, but 
 the commission was repeatedly postponed, and after the Revolu- 
 tion abandoned. By way, however, of adding to the beauties 
 who smiled down from above the doors, the Empress's work- 
 room was further adorned with portraits of Princesses Mathilde 
 and Clotilde and the Duchess d'Albe. A study of Italian 
 women by Hebert and one of Ruth by Cabanel hung on either 
 
 M 
 
162 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 side of a kind of arch, between whose curtains of violet and 
 gold you passed into a spacious annexe to the Cabinet de Travail. 
 Here you found a number of low bookcases full of French, 
 English, Spanish, and Italian classics, and surmounted by 
 statuettes, vases, busts, and curios, while several small paintings 
 by Wouvermans and others hung from the walls, and photo- 
 graphs and miniatures were scattered over the tables. 
 
 On the right of this second room there was a kind of 
 windowless closet, where a hanging lamp was always kept 
 alight. Beyond this little chamber came the private stairs, by 
 which communication was established between the Emperor's 
 sanctum and the Empress's. In the walls all round the closet 
 were nests of drawers filled with the private correspondence of 
 the Imperial family. In 1870 the Empress, with curious fore- 
 sight and prudence, had this large collection of private papers 
 removed from the Tuileries, in such wise that it escaped seizure 
 at the hands of the officials of the new Republic, who were 
 therefore only able to examine and publish a comparatively 
 limited number of documents which for one or another reason 
 had not passed into the Empress's custody. Curiously enough, 
 among the letters made public at that time was one from the 
 director of the State Archives, asking that old papers of the 
 Imperial Cabinet might be transmitted to him from time to 
 time for safe keeping. He little knew that the Empress was 
 gathering together all she could, and that she, her reader and 
 some of her other ladies spent no little of their time in classi- 
 fying the papers thus obtained. It follows that, so far as the 
 Second Empire is concerned, there are many lacunce in the 
 National Archives of France. By that we do not mean to 
 suggest that official state documents are in the Empress's 
 possession, but she certainly holds a large number of private 
 papers which would cast light on official ones. Some years ago 
 it was more than once hinted that she had it in her power to 
 print some very damaging revelations respecting many of those 
 who, when the Empire had fallen, were among the loudest in 
 denouncing it. She has preferred, however, to cast a veil over 
 the past, and even if the historical student should ever be 
 privileged to consult her collections, it is probable that this 
 will only come to pass after an interval of many years. 
 
THE EMPRESS ; SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 168 
 
 Beyond the Empress's workroom there was another salon, 
 bright and spacious, which, during her earlier years at the 
 Tuileries, served as her Cabinet de Toilette. Adjoining it was 
 a little oratory, where she heard mass from time to time and 
 where Abbe Deguerry of the Madeleine prepared the Imperial 
 Prince for his First Communion. Near at hand, the Empress's 
 spacious bedroom retained an old-world aspect, with its gilded 
 mouldings, its heavy sumptuous hangings, its pompous allegorical 
 paintings, and its great bedstead standing on a platform. 
 Here the Empress kept the Golden Rose sent to her by 
 Pius IX. in 1855, as well as a golden spray of flowers, the 
 Pontifi^s gift to his godson, the Imperial Prince ; while at the 
 head of the bed hung a branch of " palm " which had received 
 the papal blessing. Every year, when Palm Sunday came round, 
 the Empress received such a branch from Rome. 
 
 The Cabinet de Toilette was chiefly remarkable for the 
 number of mirrors it contained. The basins, ewers, dishes, 
 and trays were mostly of porcelain. The bath was not of 
 silver, like Mme. Dubarry's, nor did the Empress imitate that 
 belle impure by using milk for her ablutions. There was just 
 one toilet-table set of silver-gilt, which had belonged to Queen 
 Hortense. Everything else was very simple but appropriate — 
 all the requirements of a woman careful of her beauty being 
 provided for. As for the Empress's wtirdrobe, this was kept in 
 a suite of rooms overhead, with which a small lift communi- 
 cated, whatever articles she might require being sent down to 
 the Cabinet de Toilette by that means. 
 
 Count d'H6risson has told some lively tales of the immense 
 number of gowns which he found in the Empress's wardrobe 
 rooms after the Revolution of 1870, but his assertions must be 
 taken with many grains of salt. His idea that those gowns 
 represented an outlay of several milhons of francs was absolutely 
 preposterous. The Empress's private allowance was ^48,000 a 
 year, and so much of that amount was expended by her in 
 charity that she could never have afforded to accumulate such 
 a wardrobe as M. d'Herisson imagined he beheld. There was, 
 moreover, a rigid system of control. Every article purchased 
 for the wardrobe received a number on its arrival at the 
 Tuileries, and an entry of it was made in one or another 
 
164 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 register, according to its nature. Regularly every three months 
 the registers were inspected, and the wardrobe itself was passed 
 in review. Whenever anything had quite gone out of fashion, 
 or appeared to be really superfluous, it was disposed of, and 
 careful accounts were kept of all those outgoings. It is true 
 that the Empress was very generous with her maids, among 
 whom she distributed twice a year a large number of gowns, 
 bonnets, and other articles. Pepa Narro, her head-maid and 
 private treasurer,* throve on many pickings and perquisites. 
 She was said to be the daughter of a Spanish general, that is, 
 of one of those adventurers who rose to some military position 
 during the civil wars in Spain. Dark and lean, in some respects 
 very devoted to her mistress, but always keeping the main chance 
 before her eyes, and often treating her subordinates with a 
 severity which became tyrannical, Pepa contrived to marry an 
 infantry colonel named PoUet, who, if we remember rightly, was 
 killed during the war of 1870. She followed the Empress to 
 England, but the climate there did not suit her, and she found 
 too that the old days of secret commissions and other pickings 
 were quite past ; so she returned to her native Spain with the 
 handsome fortune which she had accumulated, and which went 
 on her death to some very distant relations. 
 
 There were several maids under Mme. Pollet at the Tuileries, 
 including the daughters of the Emperor's former gaoler at Ham ; 
 and the Empress's private service also included a resident dress- 
 maker and assistants who made many of her less elaborate 
 gowns. She was partial to black velvet, white satin, and 
 various shades of blue. The story that she invented the 
 crinoline is one of those preposterous but deep-rooted legends 
 against which it is only possible to enter a protest without any 
 hope of destroying it. We will just mention, however, that 
 crinoline was originally the name of a hair cloth or stiffening 
 material, largely employed by costumiers in the time of Louis 
 Philippe, who used it notably in connexion with the leg o' 
 mutton and balloon sleeves, to which our grandmothers were 
 
 * At first the post of head fermne-de-chambre was held by the young and 
 pretty Mme. Dupuia, wife of the first mai^e d'hdtel, but she had not the 
 orderly, regular habits needed for the post, and had, therefore, to retire ; 
 whereupon Pepa, previously second, was promoted to be first maid. 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 165 
 
 at one and another moment partial. When, about the time of 
 the re-establishment of the Empire, the distended skirt began 
 to come into fashion once more, this same material, crinoline, 
 was again used for stiffening purposes. Those ladies, however, 
 who emerged from an assembly with their gowns crumpled, 
 found that crinoline, when once " broken," no longer distended 
 their skirts properly. It was then that a Faubourg St. Antoine 
 manufacturer, remembering the old hoops, and thinking of 
 the cost and comparative scarcity of whalebone, conceived the 
 idea of a light, cage-like, metal structure, which he christened 
 crinoline after the virtually discarded material that we have 
 mentioned. For the first year or so the new invention met 
 with little favour, but in 1855 it occurred to the Empress that 
 the circumstance of her being enceinte would be less apparent 
 if she wore one of the new crinolines. This she did, and she 
 thereby certainly gave an immense impetus to the fashion 
 which, once it was in vogue, could not be got rid of for many 
 years. Drapers and mercers, let us add, found it much to their 
 interest to keep the crinoline going. The larger it became, the 
 greater was the amount of material needed for a skirt ; and as 
 ladies of fashion could not afford, for reputation's sake, to have 
 fewer gowns than usual in a season, their expenditure on frocks 
 became enormous. Even when some of the leading costumiers 
 headed a reaction they were unable to kill the monstrosity out- 
 right. It survived in a mitigated form even under the robe- 
 tunique, and threatened a retour offensif with the rohe a panzers 
 of the last years of the Empire. 
 
 At various times the Empress hei-self has made statements 
 respecting the average cost of her gowns. It may be taken, we 
 think, that ^£"50 is about the correct figure, some gowns having 
 cost a great deal less than that amount and others a great deal 
 more. The Empress's morning attire was always remarkably 
 simple. We have seen her wearing plain stuff gowns made for 
 her by her private dressmaker in the palace at a cost of less 
 than ^5, But when she was receiving visitors, or when she 
 appeared in public she was dressed as became her rank. 
 Assuming that she had forty new gowns every year (the 
 highest possible estimate according to our recollection of her 
 habits), at the average cost which has been already stated. 
 
166 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 we should reach a total of ,£2000. To that amount should 
 be added, however, the outlay on bonnets, mantles, shawls, 
 gloves, shoes, underwear, parasols, etc. Good lace, once pur- 
 chased, served over and over again. In shoes the Empress was 
 perhaps extravagant, wearing them very few times, and then 
 sending them to the orphan girls of the asylum under her con- 
 trol. Nevertheless, making all allowances, we do not think that 
 the greatest lady of fashion in Europe spent altogether more 
 than ^"5000 upon her toilette in any one year ; and we believe 
 that there were years when her expenditure was considerably 
 less. Let us say, then, that from first to last, throughout the 
 reign, she spent from eighty to ninety thousand pounds on 
 articles of apparel. In that case it follows that when Count 
 d'Herisson discovered at the Tuileries frocks and frills repre- 
 senting a quarter of a million sterling, he must have been the 
 victim of some optical delusion. He can have understood 
 neither what he saw nor what he was writing about. 
 
 Madame Pollet, the Empress's head-maid, had charge of 
 such of her mistress's private jewellery as was more or less in 
 daily use, the rest, like the crown jewels, being, as previously 
 stated, in the custody of M. Charles Thelin. A large number 
 of the crown jewels were reset in accordance with modern taste 
 soon after the establishment of the Empire. Although there 
 was never any coronation ceremony, crowns were made for both 
 the Emperor and Empress, but the latter preferred to wear a 
 diadem even on the greatest State occasions. Apart from the 
 Regent diamond, the crown jewels which she wore or used the 
 more frequently, were a comb, a berthe, some brooches, a belt, 
 a bouguet-de-corsage, and a fan. The belt, composed almost 
 entirely of diamonds, and popularly styled "the girdle of 
 Venus," was made in 1864, and fetched only ^£"6600 at the 
 sale of the crown jewels in 1887. But then the stones, 2414 
 in number, were very small and not all of the first water. 
 Far finer was the large diamond comb, composed of 208 brilliants 
 weighing 438 carats, and the price it realised in 1887 — nearly 
 £26,000 — was by no means excessive. The diamond shoulder- 
 clasps, which supported the Empress's train or manteau de cour 
 were also remarkably fine, being formed of over 130 brilliants 
 weighing 282 carats. The berthe with its diamonds, rubies, 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 167 
 
 sapphires, and emeralds, formed a very charming jewel, and 
 the aiguillettes in the Marie- Antoinette style were also effective. 
 Further, there was a beautiful chain of over 800 diamonds, 
 which, on being sold, fetched ^"7240 ; while =P4800 were given 
 for the principal brooch, a lovely jewel of more than 300 
 stones. It was the Grecian diadem which the Empress wore 
 the more frequently. Over 600 brilliants were set in it, yet. 
 it sold for no more than £5260 ; while only ^£7200 were 
 given for the Russian diadem with its 1200 brilliants and its 
 440 roses. As a matter of fact, however large may have been 
 the total amount of money realized by the sale of the French 
 crown jewels, many lots were disposed of for much less than 
 they would fetch nowadays when the magnates at the head of 
 the diamond trade neglect no occasion to prevent what they 
 regard as an undue fall in prices. 
 
 The Empress's mornings were largely given to charitable 
 work. In addition to the Eugene-Napoleon asylum for orphan 
 girls, founded with the money which the city of Paris had 
 offered to expend on jewellery at the time of her marriage, and 
 afterwards maintained chiefly by her own resources, there were 
 many other institutions in which she took a close interest. She 
 gave the chateau of Longchene to the city of Lyons to serve as 
 a convalescent home, she extended patronage and considerable 
 pecuniary help to such institutions as the Loan to Labour 
 Society (which provided artisans with tools and raw materials), 
 the Seamen's Orphanage, the Lifeboat Society, the Funds for 
 assisting both old seamen and the families of soldiers killed in 
 warfare (Crimea, Italy, etc.) ; and in addition to the particular 
 solicitude which she evinced in the Children's Hospital in the 
 Faubourg St. Antoine, she became chief patroness of all homes 
 and asylums for the young in France. It is well known, too, 
 thab she constantly visited the poorer districts of Paris, doing 
 good by stealth, leaving money and provisions in humble homes 
 which never learnt the name of their benefactress. Many a time 
 did her little dark one-horse brougham, with its coachman in 
 the plainest of liveries, wait for her at the comer of some street 
 in such revolutionary districts as Montmartre, M^nilmontant, 
 and Belleville, while with a single lady companion, preferably 
 Canoness de Rayneval or Mile. Bouvet, she climbed in her 
 
168 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 plain dark garb to some fifth-floor garret to relieve distress. 
 In the afternoon all would be altered : in silk and satin and 
 velvet she would seat herself in her open carriage drawn a la 
 d'Auitwnt by four horses, with postilions, to drive up the 
 Champs Elysees, and thence round the lake in the Bois de 
 Boulogne. Occasionally she herself drove a pair-horse chaise.* 
 
 No doubt her visits to the victims of the cholera in Paris and 
 at Amiens in 1865 and 1866 were magnified beyond measure 
 by oflicial newspapers and courtiers, but they were kindly actions, 
 not devoid of risk, and it is quite certain that the Empress 
 always showed herself a good-hearted woman. The assertion 
 that she proved a very indifferent mother was simply one of 
 the foolish slanders of the time. She exercised no little super- 
 vision over the rearing of the Imperial Prince, devoting several 
 hours a day to the boy or his requirements and interests. 
 But neither she nor the Emperor would let him be coddled; 
 and it was because their English notions in that respect con- 
 flicted with the absurd views then entertained by so many 
 French mothers, prone to excessive petting and fondling, that 
 the legend of the Empress's indifference to her child found 
 credence. At Compiegne, when the Prince was a little chap of 
 two years old or so, the ladies en visite to the Court were 
 horrified to find that, if he happened to fall down while he 
 was running about, he was left to pick himself up without 
 assistance, and that if he cried without rhyme or reason, he 
 was scolded for doing so. All that was quite foreign to their 
 ideas, and from the idiotic tittle-tattle which ensued came the 
 libellous aspersions on the Empress as a mother. She took a 
 large part in nursing the little Prince during the ailments of 
 his childhood, notably when he was laid up by a severe attack 
 of measles, which he caught from a little girl who was intro- 
 duced to him at a children's party at the Tuileries. 
 
 It was usually in the afternoon before driving out that 
 the Empress granted audiences in the rooms we have already 
 described. On her return home she attended to such corre- 
 spondence as might have been left over since the morning, or 
 
 * The Emperor was partial to phaetons. We saw him mora than once 
 driving about Paris incognito in a vehicle o£ that description, with the Prince 
 of Wales (now Edward VII.) as his companion. See -post, p. 305. 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 169 
 
 spent an hour or two reading either some book of the time or 
 the day's newspapers. It is said that Fustel de Coulanges 
 prepared for her a course of study in French history. We 
 ourselves should hardly have selected the author of " La Cit6 
 Antique," for such a duty, for in spite of all his erudition he 
 was scarcely the man to convey to one occupying the Empress's 
 station the true significance of the history of the country which 
 she helped to rule. Merimee, however, was, to all appearance, 
 her chief literary mentor. He had known her ever since her 
 childhood, and although there is considerable exaggeration in 
 his own accounts of their intercourse, he certainly exercised 
 great influence at Court when questions of literary taste, the 
 choice and the criticism of books, arose. The Emperor did 
 not like Merimee, and the Empress on her side did not like 
 Sainte-Beuve, to whom her husband was rather partial. As it 
 happened, both Sainte-Beuve and M6rim^e were cynics, but 
 Mdrim^e's cynicism was lighter and less offensive to a devout 
 mind than his colleague's. He was also a courtier, which 
 Sainte-Beuve was not, and an adept in frivolity and trifling. 
 Thus he not only made himself acceptable, but even requisite 
 whenever the Court wished to cast care to the winds and look 
 only on the lighter and brighter side of life. 
 
 However, M^rimde added nothing to his reputation, or 
 to French literature, by the verses, the charades, and the 
 "proverbs" which he penned for the passing amusement of 
 the imperial set. The manuscript of a tale of his, called " La 
 Chambre Bleue," was found in the Empress's private rooms 
 after the Revolution of 1870. It subsequently perished in 
 the conflagration of the palace ; but abstracts of it had then 
 been drafted, and from these it seems to have been a story 
 of the Fie PaHsienne, or Gil Bias * type, an account of a 
 vulgar, chance, sexual intrigue in the "blue room" of a 
 country inn. We do not say that Mdrim6e supplied only 
 literature of that description to the Empress, but the circum- 
 stance that he should have presumed to tender her "La 
 Chambre Bleue," shows that she was not in the best hands 
 with respect to literary matters. Perhaps such a proceeding 
 as M^rim6e's would have been resented by her had the culprit 
 ' The newspaper, of course — not the masterpiece of Le Sage. 
 
170 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 been another ; but by reason of their thirty or thirty-five years' 
 intercourse, it was impossible for her to quarrel with the 
 author of "Carmen," as he well knew. And thus he often 
 presumed farther than was seemly. 
 
 After dinner at the Tuileries, when no entertainment there 
 or elsewhere figured in the Court's programme, the Empress 
 usually spent the evening in conversation with the ladies and 
 officers on duty. From time to time, as we mentioned in our 
 previous chapter, the Emperor popped like some " Jack-in-the- 
 box " up the private stairs, in quest of a cup of tea or other 
 refreshment. However innocent the conversation might be, it 
 then abruptly ceased ; but directly Napoleon had returned to 
 his work downstairs, the Empress started a fresh subject, and 
 kept the talk going until a somewhat late hour. At times, 
 indeed, being a poor sleeper herself, she overlooked the 
 sleepiness of others, who were unable to withdraw for the night 
 until she gave the signal. 
 
 She frequently travelled about France, accompanying the 
 Emperor on most of his visits to provincial centres. One year, 
 too, she went with him to Algeria. At another time she 
 visited Corsica with the Imperial Prince, while on a third 
 occasion she represented France at the inauguration of the 
 Suez Canal, her stay in Eg3'pt being preceded by visits to Venice, 
 Athens, and Constantinople. She was then accompanied by 
 her nieces, the daughters of the Duchess d'Albe. They often 
 resided at the Tuileries after their mother's death. 
 
 The Empress acted as Regent of France on three occasions 
 — in 1859, during the Solferino-Magenta campaign; in the 
 summer of 1865, when the Emperor was in Algeria ; and again 
 in 1870, from his departure to join the army of the Rhine until 
 the fall of the Empire. With a romantic attachment for the 
 memory of Marie- Antoinette she was minded, in more than one 
 circumstance, to take that indiscreet and ill-fated Queen as her 
 model. So long as she remained content with studying Marie- 
 Antoinette's correspondence in the company of M. Feuillet de 
 Conches, weeping over her farewell billet to Madame Elizabeth 
 by the side of Viel Castel, at the Musee des Souverains, or 
 turning the historic cell at the Conciergerie into a chapel, no 
 harm was done, but when, in imitation of Marie-Antoinette, she 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 171 
 
 initiated both a foreign and a home policy of her own at 
 variance with the pohcy favoured by her husband and his 
 official advisers, she did the greatest harm, if not to France 
 itself, at least to the regime which had given her a crown. 
 There are some things which must be said. Whatever might 
 be the Empress Eugenie's personal attractions and natural 
 goodness of heart, whatever Scotch blood, too, might flow in 
 her veins, she was in matters of faith and reverence for Rome a 
 Spanish zealot of the most uncompromising type. It was 
 because Pope Pius IX. and Cardinal Antonelli knew that they 
 could rely upon her influence at the Tuileries that they acted so 
 stubbornly, perversely, and foolishly in the various crises in 
 Italian affairs which occurred during the fifties and the sixties. 
 The Empress could not prevent the war of 1859,* which, in 
 spite of its lame conclusion, did so much to accelerate the union 
 of Italy ; but we believe that her influence was one of the two 
 factors which brought about the hastily concluded peace of 
 Villafranca, the other being the fear of Prussian intervention in 
 Austria's favour. As for the legend that Napoleon III. made 
 peace because he had been horrified by the sight of the slaughter 
 in the engagements he had witnessed, one may dismiss it as a 
 fairy tale fit only for children. 
 
 In her husband's absence from France at that period, the 
 Empress, as Regent, neglected no opportunity to further clerical 
 interests. The publication of Edmond About's work, "La 
 Question Romaine," and the controversy it provoked fiUed her 
 with alarm, and it was at her instigation that the Ministers 
 seized the pamphlet and prosecuted its author. She had not 
 even taken the trouble to read it, as is shown by the minutes of 
 the Regency Council at which the prosecution was decided, but 
 " the scandal it created " was enough for her. In the following 
 year her position as Papal champion in France became more 
 and more difficult. Napoleon having decided on a policy of 
 
 ♦ It has been asserted that she did not take any large part in politics until 
 about 1865 ; but it is certain that she privately exerted her influence, par- 
 ticularly in religious questions, from the time of her marriage onward. As 
 the years elapsed, various circumstances tended to make her more and more 
 of a politician. Her taste of authority during her first regency, coupled with 
 the worries of her life when her husband was attracted by other women, had 
 a fatal influence on her after-career. 
 
172 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 neutrality in Italian affairs — and he could hardly have adopted 
 any other after the cession of Savoy and Nice — set out with the 
 Empress to visit the newly acquired territories, and then crossed 
 the Mediterranean to Algeria. It was the great time of 
 Garibaldi and the war of the Two Sicilies, Italy was liberating 
 and redeeming herself, and English public opinion was thoroughly 
 on her side. Such protests as emanated from the Court of the 
 Tuileries, with respect, for instance, to the Piedmontese occupa- 
 tion of the Roman Legations, were more matters of form than 
 anything else, for it was understood that Victor Emmanuel 
 would not enter Rome itself; and the imperial tour was the 
 best proof that Napoleon did not meditate active intervention. 
 But at Algiers news was received of the alarming illness of the 
 Empress's sister, and an immediate return to France ensued. 
 On amving at St. Cloud the Empress learnt that she was too 
 late, that the Duchess d'Albe was dead. 
 
 Her grief was undoubtedly very sincere and deep ; her sister 
 had been her confidante in many respects, notably with regard 
 to incidents which, every now and again, clouded her married 
 life. But whatever her sorrow might be, the political situation 
 was such that she could not neglect it. We do not know what 
 share she may have had in the numerous successive proposals 
 which Napoleon III. made about that time to Pius IX. with 
 the view of adjusting the position of the Papacy in the midst 
 of united Italy. We are only aware that the Pope issued a 
 document rejecting every suggestion, whether it were made by 
 Napoleon or by Cavour, and that by his own obstinacy he was 
 reduced to a minimum of precarious territorial sovereignty. He 
 seems to have imagined until the very last that France would 
 intervene actively to restore to him the full extent of the States 
 of the Church ; and it appears certain that his hopes were 
 centred in the Empress Eugenie, For the moment, however, 
 France did little beyond ensuring to the Papacy the possession 
 of the city of Rome, and, although her fleet long rode at anchor 
 in the Bay of Gaeta, she likewise left Francis of Naples to his 
 fate. As regards the Neapolitan question, whatever may have 
 been the views of the Empress Eugenie, Napoleon III. was too 
 good a Bonapartist to bolster up any Bourbon Prince ; and, 
 besides, his fleet could hardly have intervened with impunity, so 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 173 
 
 strong had the torrent of British opinion in favour of united 
 Italy now become, although, only the previous year, the partial 
 liberation of the northern provinces by the Solferino-Magenta 
 campaign had been viewed by English statesmen with grave 
 distrust. 
 
 The time was a trjnng one for the Empress Eugenie, her 
 influence w£is defeated on all sides, and her very presence in 
 France at such a moment became inconvenient, both for herself 
 and for others. Home affairs, moreover, were about to enter 
 on a new phase. The thrones of Europe which had been 
 severely shaken by the French Revolution of 1848, felt that 
 they were, in hke way, if in a somewhat less marked degree, 
 menaced by the Italian outburst of 1860. The cry of 
 " Freedom ! " is contagious, as rulers well know. Thus, in the 
 autumn of I860, there were signs in various continental 
 countries of concessions to popular feeling and opinion, and 
 Napoleon III. himself realized that he must, at least, make 
 some show of grtinting to his subjects a larger measure of 
 participation in the government of the country than he had 
 hitherto allowed them. While he did not desire to meet with 
 the fate of Francis of Naples, he was in no hurry to give 
 complete liberty to the French ; he was influenced rather by the 
 thought that small concessions might, if well-timed, suffice to 
 prevent any outburst in France. In that respect, however, he 
 again found the Empress's entourage on the other side. 
 
 Even many conservative Imperialists who were not tinged 
 with clericalism then looked to her as to their leader and 
 representative. It was supposed, rightly or wrongly, that she 
 would regard any liberal constitutional changes with distrust, 
 for fear lest her son's prospects might thereby be endangered. 
 The Emperor, however, had come to the conclusion that such 
 changes must be made. Again, then, in this respect, the 
 Empress's presence at Court in the autumn of 1860 was incon- 
 venient. Perhaps she herself was conscious of it. Perhaps, as 
 she found that she could not prevent what was impending 
 either at home or abroad, she was unwilling that her presence 
 should be construed as connivance or assent. Perhaps, on the 
 other hand, it was the Emperor who thought it best that she 
 should not be exposed to importunate and irrealizable appeals 
 
174 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 with regard either to his home or to his foreign policy. In any 
 case, all Court intrigues in favour of the Pope, or the King of 
 Naples, or the maintenance of absolutism in France were cut 
 short or forestalled by a decisive incident. 
 
 On November 14, 1860, the Empress, attended by Mmes. de 
 Montebello and de Saulcy, Colonel Fave, and the Marquis de La 
 Grange, quitted Paris, and after crossing the Channel in the 
 ordinary packet-boat, arrived in a common four-wheeler at 
 Claridge's Hotel in London. For some days the French official 
 journals said no word on the subject, but the Presse published 
 the news on the afternoon of the 14th, while the Bourse was 
 still in full swing, and an immediate fall in Rentes and other 
 securities was the result of the general amazement. 
 
 The Emperor's conjugal fidelity being widely doubted, 
 most people assumed that he was to blame for the Empress's 
 sudden and mysterious flitting. Thus aU kinds of stories were 
 circulated in Paris during the next few days, and the scandal, 
 flashing like lightning across Europe, soon assumed such pro- 
 portions that the Moniteur could no longer keep silent. On 
 the 18th, then, it printed the following announcement : — " The 
 sad blow experienced by her Majesty the Empress in her family 
 afiections [her sister's death] having rendered a change of air 
 necessary for her health, her Majesty left three days ago to 
 make, in the most private manner, a few weeks' tour in England 
 and Scotland. The Emperor accompanied her Majesty to the 
 railway station on her departure on Wednesday morning." 
 
 The motive assigned to the journey by that announcement 
 was very generally discredited by the Parisians, for the death of 
 the Duchess d'Albe had occurred two months previously ; and 
 the English newspapers openly expressed their amazement that 
 Scotland, at that moment enveloped in mist, should have been 
 selected as the spot for the Empress — bom under the sun of 
 Granada — to recruit her health, " particularly," said the Times, 
 " as Nice, with its fine climate, is now French territory." 
 
 In those days the Empress's political role at the Tuileries 
 was not generally known, and the reasons why it might have 
 seemed desirable for her to be out of the way during that 
 European crisis were only recognized by certain diplomatists. 
 To none of those who saw her during her tour in Scotland did 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 175 
 
 she appear to be at all ailing. She visited Edinburgh, Abbots- 
 ford, and Melrose, Perth, Dunkeld, Stirling, Glasgow, and the 
 Lochs, afterwards going south, staying at Manchester and 
 Leamington, and returning to London on December 2. On the 
 4th she went to Windsor, where she and her escort lunched 
 with the Queen and the Prince Consort, Several days were 
 afterwards spent in viewing the sights of London, and, finally, 
 on the night of December 12, the Empress returned to Freuice, 
 being met by her husband at Amiens. 
 
 During her absence the Emperor had effected some notable 
 changes by his famous Decree of November 23, which was the 
 first step towards the transformation of the Personal into the 
 Liberal Empire. This decree gave the Legislative Body 
 the right both to discuss and present addresses in reply to the 
 speeches from the Throne, and the privilege (under certain 
 restrictions) of proposing amendments to laws. It further 
 authorized the publication of reports of the legislative pro- 
 ceedings. The concessions were small, and would nowadays 
 appear ludicrous, but one must remember what the regime had 
 been ever since 1851. Moreover, even those slight concessions 
 created alarm among the more fervent imperialists. 
 
 At the Council at which they were announced the various 
 ministers listened in amazement to the remarks which fell from 
 Napoleon's lips. According to what we were once told by one 
 who was then present, the Emperor declared that he was of 
 opinion that when a Government did not in due time make 
 reasonable concessions and reforms, such as the country might 
 desire, it was fatally destined to collapse, and that he himself 
 was not for unreasoning resistance to national aspirations. He 
 did not like the existing composition of the Legislature. Men 
 of parts ought to be attracted to it, but such would only 
 serve if they were at least free to express opinions and tender 
 advice. Although M. Berryer, for instance, was notoriously 
 a Legitimist, it had, nevertheless, been possible for him to serve 
 as a deputy under the Orleans monarchy, and, moreover, Legiti- 
 mists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists had sat in the various 
 Republican Assemblies. Thus, within the hmits of the Consti- 
 tution, there ought to be free access to the Imperial Legislature. 
 For his part he was heartily tired of a Chamber of nonentities 
 
176 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 (and here he mentioned various names), and wished to see 
 something very different. Finally, he read the decree he had 
 prepared. His words fell like bomb-shells in the midst of his 
 advisers, and Morny, who, as President of the Legislative Body, 
 attended the Council, could not conceal his amazement. What ! 
 the Legislature was to be empowered to discuss and present an 
 address, and thereby pass judgment on the policy of the Govern- 
 ment ! It was inconceivable. Nevertheless, there was the 
 decree, and the Emperor looked resolute enough. Morny tried 
 to expostulate. He earnestly warned the Emperor of the 
 danger of acting too hastily, and inquired what he would do if, 
 under the new conditions, the Chamber should express, in its 
 address to the Throne, disapproval of the imperial policy. 
 " In that case," the Emperor replied, " I should dissolve it, and 
 consult the country." " But what if the next Chamber should 
 also disapprove of your Majesty's policy ? " " In that case," 
 said the Emperor, "I should yield, and adopt the policy 
 recommended by the representatives." The Ministers, Baroche, 
 Billault, and Rouher looked thunderstruck, but felt that sub- 
 mission was their only course. Perhaps if the Empress Eugenie 
 had been present they might have attempted resistance under 
 her leadership, but she vras well out of the way, in Scotland. 
 
 Certain ministerial changes followed, Persigny being sum- 
 moned from the London embassy, and placed once more at the 
 head of the Ministry of the Interior. He and the Empress were 
 far from being on good terms. He dreaded her interference in 
 political matters. Without questioning her right to preside at 
 the Council in times of Regency, he bitterly complained that 
 she made it more and more her practice to attend the Minis- 
 terial gatherings when the Emperor was present. A few years 
 later, after his retirement, he actually submitted the question 
 to the Emperor, questioning whether the Empress had any 
 right to attend the Government Councils. Strictly speaking 
 she had not; and it is true, we believe, that she offered to 
 abstain from attending if the Emperor thought her presence 
 undesirable. But he protested the contrary — ^he owed his wife 
 some compensation for his neglect in other respects — and it 
 thus came to pass that during the latter period of the Empire, 
 the Empress almost invaiiably took her seat at the Ministerial 
 
THE EMPRESS : SOME FEATURES OF HER LIFE 177 
 
 Councils, presided over them if the Emperor were ill or 
 momentarily absent, participated in all the important dis- 
 cussions, and brought her influence to bear on the decisions 
 arrived at. With some of the Ministers she got on very well ; 
 M. Magne, who long held the portfolio of Finances, was one of 
 her particular henchmen, while the bumptious Rouher, becom- 
 ing at the Tuileries very different from what he was in the 
 Chamber, fawningly courted her favour, she in return supporting 
 the authority which he used so often with disastrous results. 
 In Emile Ollivier she seems to have met, in some respects, her 
 match, for he, with his oily, wheedling way, almost converted 
 her to liberalism, and contrived by dint of strategy to hold her 
 former reactionary ideas in check. 
 
 But, however large became the part which the Empress 
 played in politics, she never proved herself an expert politician, 
 perhaps because she never really understood the character of 
 the nation she helped to govern. She was not deficient in 
 moral courage, she could come to a decision promptly, and give 
 orders in accordance with it. But the decision was so often 
 based on faulty judgment, narrowness of views, that its results 
 were unfortunate. One day when she referred to Marie- 
 Antoinette as mon type, she spoke perhaps more truly than she 
 knew, for she had much the same defects of character as that 
 ill-fated queen. 
 
 For our part we have always felt that the great misfortune 
 of the Empress's life was that, having been raised to a 
 throne, she was accorded so considerable a part of the throne's 
 authority. As the wife of a mere millionaire grandee she would 
 have proved a supreme leader of fashion and an ideal " Lady 
 Bountiful." In any case it is to be regretted that she was not 
 strictly confined within the limits of her position as Empress- 
 Consort. At the same time, if she emerged from that position 
 to play so marked a political role, the fault was less hers than 
 the Emperor's. He, of course, was not responsible for her 
 incessant championship of the Pope. That had been initiated 
 by Clericals playing on her deep religious convictions, but we 
 do not think she would have concerned herself so much with 
 politics generally if her married life had been happier than it was. 
 Thereby hangs a tale, to be told in our next chapter. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 
 
 Descendants of Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. — Count Walewski's Posterity — 
 His Son by Eaohel, tlie Tragedienne — Oatherine de la Plaigne and Count 
 Won — Count Leon's Children — Napoleon in.'s First Love Affair — 
 Elfionore Brault, Madame Gordon — Her Devotion at Strasburg — Miss 
 Howard — ^Her Birth and Name — Count Fleury's. Account of her Life in 
 London — Some of her Loans to Napoleon — Was he the Father of her Son ? 
 — His Intrigue with Alexandrine Vergeot and his Sons by her — Miss 
 Howard in Prance — ^Her fresh Services to Napoleon — Odilon-Barrot 
 and the Andr^-Howard Affair — Napoleon's remarkable Letter about it 
 — Miss Howard's Ambition — ^Her Appearance at a Tuileries Reception 
 — She is restrained and pacified by Mooquard — The Compensation 
 granted her — A Letter from her to Mocquard — Her Marriage and her 
 Last Years— Later Intrigues imputed to the Emperor — Viel Castel and 
 Princess Mathilde — Expulsion of a Lady-Scandalmonger from the 
 Tuileries — Cheap Sweetmeats for Imperial Favourites — ^The Affair of 
 the Ooimtess de Castiglione — Viel Castel's Sketch and Pleury's Estimate 
 of her — Her Expulsion from the Tuileries — Her later life — Marguerite 
 Bellanger and her Origin — Her Imposition on the Emperor — Her Letters 
 to him and to President Devienne — Suspension of Devienne from the 
 Bench — He justifies himself and is reinstated — The Empress's Worries 
 — Louis XV. and Napoleon III, 
 
 It is often forgotten that there are people in the world who 
 are lineally descended from Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. It 
 is true that their names do not appear in the " Almanach de 
 Gotha," and that they do not bear the name of Bonaparte. 
 Nevertheless their descent, if left-handed, is quite authentic, 
 and time brings about such strange occurrences that, even as at 
 the present moment (1906) we see the Jerome branch of the 
 Bonapartes prominently represented in the Government of the 
 United States of America, so, at some future date, there may 
 arise some President or Prime Minister of the French Republic 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 179 
 
 in a position to say that the blood of the victor of Austerlitz, 
 or of the vanquished of Sedan, flows in his veins. 
 
 Count Walewski, the first Napoleon's son, had four children 
 by his two marriages, and is still represented by legitimate 
 posterity. In 1844, moreover, after the death of his first 
 wife (Catherine Montagu Sandwich), and before his marriage 
 with Anna Alexandrina Ricci of Florence, who, we believe, is 
 still alive, he became the father of a son by Elizabeth Rachel 
 F61ix — famous as Rachel the tragedienne. This son he formally 
 recognized as his offspring in accordance with the provisions of 
 French law, in such wise that the child became legally entitled 
 to the names of Antoine Jean Colonna Walewski. M. Antoine 
 Jean entered the French consular service, rose to a high position 
 in it, and survived until 1898. Thirty yeais previously he had 
 married Mile, Jeanne Claire Sala, of Paris, by whom he had a 
 son and a daughter. The former. Captain Andre Alexandre 
 Maurice Colonna Walewski, of the French artillery, married 
 Mile, de Molinos in 1901. We do not know whether they 
 have offspring, but the Captain himself is indisputably the 
 great-grandson of Napoleon I. 
 
 The same Emperor also left a son by another mistress, 
 Louise Catherine Denuelle de la Plaigne, who, at the time of 
 the Emperor's intrigue with her, was married to a certain Jean 
 Francois Revel. He, discovering her infidelity, obtained a 
 divorce from her on April 29, 1806. On the following 6th of 
 December she gave birth to a son by the Emperor, which son 
 received at his baptism the Christian names of Charles Leon, 
 and, from his imperial father, the title of Count, with settle- 
 ments representing dfi'3000 a year, and also a right to certain 
 dues on all the wood sold by the State from the forests of the 
 department of the Moselle.* In 1808 the mother married a 
 captain of Cuirassiers named Augier, this marriage being 
 arranged by Napoleon, who then settled on the bride a personal 
 income of ^£"800 a year. Captain Augier, however, died in or 
 about 1812, and two years later his widow took a third husband 
 in the person of Karl August, Count von Luxburg, Minister 
 of State of the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Countess de 
 Luxbourg, as she was called in Paris, lived until 1868 in receipt 
 * Imperial decrees of April SO, May 8 and 31, and June 29, 1815. 
 
180 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 of not merely the income of her settlement but of frequent 
 financial help from Napoleon III., who also did a great deal for 
 her son. There must still be many people able to remember 
 Count L^on, as he was called. His origin was stamped upon 
 his face, he was physically the living portrait of the great 
 captain. He ought never to have known want, having been 
 provided with such a handsome income by Napoleon, who 
 further entrusted him to the guardianship of M. de Mauvieres, 
 with whose sons he was educated with a view to his entering; 
 the magistracy. On completing his twenty-first year Leon came 
 into possession of the fortune which had been accumulating 
 during his minority. Unluckily he had a bad failing, he was 
 a gamester, and no long period elapsed before he had reduced 
 himself to beggary. At the advent of the Second Empire he 
 not unnaturally applied to Napoleon III. for assistance, assert- 
 ing, moreover, a right to a sum of about ^£"35,000, which he 
 alleged was due to him by the State on account of the wood 
 cut in the Moselle forests in 181-0. But in that respect the first 
 Napoleon's decrees had been annulled by the Bourbons. How- 
 ever, the new Emperor at first helped Leon both willingly and 
 handsomely, and, further, put him in the way of making money 
 by procuring him appointments in connection with the plan- 
 ning of new railway lines. Still, no matter what might be 
 done for Leon, he was ever in difficulties, as well as cantan- 
 kerous in disposition, repeatedly quarrelling with the Minister of 
 Public Works over sums which he claimed in connection with 
 railway enterprises. Briefly, the Emperor, after repeatedly 
 paying his debts — ^PSOOO and more at a time — ended by cutting 
 him down to an annual pension of £2,4^0 from the Privy Purse, 
 and turning almost invariably a deaf ear to his appeals for 
 further assistance, which, by the way, never ceased. At one 
 moment he wanted the concession of a railway line from Tours 
 to Montlupon, at another he solicited the privilege of con- 
 structing some of the new boulevards of Paris, while at other 
 times his wife wrote to the Emperor appealing either for small 
 sums or else for orders for a Belgian mining company, in which 
 she was somehow interested. It is uncertain whether these 
 applications (traces of which were found at the Tuileries after 
 the Revolution of 1870) were granted, but Leon's children 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 181 
 
 obtained free schooling at the college of Ste. Barbe. His wife, 
 it may be mentioned, was a Mile. Jouet, of Belgian origin — the 
 offspring of the marriage, which took place in 1862, being a 
 daughter, Charlotte, and three sons, Charles, Gaston, and 
 Fernand, some of whom married and have issue, in such wise 
 that on this side also there exist a number of great-grand- 
 children of Napoleon I. The family calls itself nowadays " De 
 Le'on.'" The original Count Leon died in April, 1881, at 
 Pontoise, near Paris. 
 
 Such then are the descendants of the first Napoleon. Let 
 us now turn to those of the third. His intrigues with women 
 of various nationalities and stations in life were numerous. It 
 is said — we will not vouch for the story, but it is in any case a 
 good one — that when he was a mere stripling, sojoimiing with 
 his mother at Florence, he was seized with a desperate attack 
 of calf-love for an Italian lady of rank, and that in order to 
 obtain an opportunity for declaring his passion he disguised 
 himself as an itinerant flower-boy, in which character he 
 contrived to enter the lady's house. But when a la 
 Trovatore he cast himself pleadingly at her feet, she screamed 
 and summoned her servants, with the result that there was 
 quite a scandal, and Prince Precocious was compelled to 
 quit the city. 
 
 The future Emperor's first mistress of any real note was a 
 Parisienne named E16onore Marie Brault, who was born in 
 September, 1808, became a professional singer, and married, in 
 1831, a certain Archer Gordon, or Gordon Archer, a Colonel of 
 the Foreign Legion in the service of Isabella II. of Spain. 
 This individual died soon after the marriage, and sometime 
 afterwards Mme. Gordon, who travelled about, giving concerts 
 in one and another town, attracted the attention of the young 
 Prince Louis Napoleon, who became her lover. Whether they 
 first met in Germany or Switzerland is doubtful, but it has often 
 been said that Mme. Gordon gave birth to a daughter who 
 died in infancy. In connection with the preparations for the 
 Strasburg attempt of 1836 she proved herself one of the most 
 skilful £ind devoted of the future Emperor's allies. "While he 
 was endeavouring to gain the support of some of the soldiery at 
 the artillery barracks, she remained in her room in the Rue de 
 
182 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 la Nuee Bleue, awaiting the result ; but directly Persigny arrived 
 with the news that the attempt had failed, she cast into the 
 fireplace all the letters, decrees, proclamations, and lists of 
 names which had been prepared in view of a more fortunate 
 issue, and piled the furniture of the room against the door, 
 so that every compromising paper was burnt to ashes before 
 an entry could be effected by the police, who had promptly 
 arrived upon the scene. The Strasburg affair resulted, it will 
 be remembered, in the Prince's enforced voyage to America. 
 Whether he ever met Mme. Gordon again, we cannot say, but 
 in any case there w£is no resumption of the old relations. She 
 died in Paris on March 11, 1849, that is three months after 
 Napoleon's elevation to the Presidency of the Republic. It has 
 been said that her circumstances were much reduced at the time 
 of her death and that her former lover was well aware of it, yet 
 did nothing to help her. Such callousness, however, would be 
 so utterly at variance with all we know of his character that 
 we strongly doubt the story. 
 
 Mme. Gordon's successor in his affections after his return 
 to Europe was the beautiful and notorious Miss Howard, 
 whose exact origin we have not investigated, but who is 
 described in the entry of her death in the registers of the 
 parish of La Celle St. Cloud, near Paris, as " Elizabeth Anne 
 Haryett, called Miss Howard, Countess de Beauregard, bom in 
 England in 1823." We also find her grandson registered at his 
 birth in 1870 as " Richard Martyn Haryett," whence one might 
 infer that Haryett was a surname. In that connection let us add 
 that some English works state that Harnett was Miss Howard's 
 real name. Count Fleury calls her "Miss Harriet Howard," 
 which may be correct, though we ourselves think that she had 
 no more right to the name of Howard as a patronymic than had 
 the famous Mr. Bugg.* 
 
 Count Fleury tells us that at the time when Napoleon made 
 her acquaintance in London she was living there under the 
 protection of Major Mountjoy Martyn of the 2nd Life Guards,t 
 
 * After she had been made a Countesa, she usually signed her letters 
 " E. H. de Beauregard." 
 
 t Francis Mountjoy Martyn (previously Martin), bom in 1809, a brevet 
 colonel in 1858, sold out in 1863, died in London, January 24, 1874. 
 
The emperor and ttis Lo\^ affairs is^ 
 
 having previously been the mistress of a famous steeplechase 
 rider. We ourselves only saw Miss Howard in her last days, 
 when she had become extremely stout, but even then her face 
 retained a good deal of the beauty for which she had been 
 renowned. According to those who knew her in her London 
 days she then had an exquisite figure, at once stately and 
 graceful, with a head and features such as only one of the great 
 Greek sculptors could have chiselled. Among the many 
 members of the aristocracy who met at her house in London 
 were the Duke of Beaufort, the Earl of Chesterfield, the Earl 
 of Malmesbury, and Count d'Orsay. It was the last named, 
 according to Fleury, who presented Louis Napoleon to her, and 
 he was immediately smitten. The intrigue which ensued lasted 
 until the end of 1852, when the Prince decided to marry Mile, 
 de Montijo. It is extremely doubtful whether Miss Howard 
 financed the Boulogne attempt of August, 1840. Count Orsi, 
 who was subsequently pensioned for his services at that time, 
 asserts that he negotiated a loan of d&20,000 for the enterprise ; 
 but, on the other hand, there are many stories of how Miss 
 Howard offered the Prince all she possessed, even proposing to 
 sell her diamonds. It is in any case certain that she gave him 
 much pecuniary assistance at other times, and we know by a 
 document found at the Tuileries that at the period of the 
 establishment of the Empire she still held a mortgage on the 
 estate of Civita Nuova, in the March of Ancona, which 
 Napoleon had inherited from his father — the said mortgage 
 being annulled by the payment to Miss Howard of a sum of 
 =e4!0,000 on March 26, 1853. We think that Napoleon had 
 not waited till the time of the Coup d'Etat to raise money on 
 his Italian property, and that his indebtedness to Miss Howard 
 in that respect as in others was of long standing. 
 
 Some six years of imprisonment at Ham — October, 1840, 
 to May, 1846 — followed the fiasco of Boulogne. During that 
 long interval Miss Howard, it is said, corresponded with the 
 prisoner. But did she visit him in prison? That is a point 
 which we have been unable to solve, yet it is one of some 
 interest, for we find it stated in French ofiicial records that 
 Miss Howard's son, Martin-Constantin, whom the Emperor 
 created Count de B^chevet, was born in London on August 16, 
 
184 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 1842. Now, in the days of the Empire the Count de Bechevet 
 was regarded by everybody as the son of Napoleon III. In 
 that case either Miss Howard went to Ham late in 1841, or 
 there is a voluntary or involuntary error in the recorded date 
 of the Count de Bechevet's birth. If neither of those surmises 
 is correct the Count cannot have been the son of the Emperor.* 
 Of course there is nothing impossible in the supposition that Miss 
 Howard visited Ham. Napoleon certainly applied by letter for 
 permission to receive lady visitors, and may have obtained it ; 
 and we know that his captivity was so far from being rigorous 
 that he contrived to carry on an intrigue with a young person 
 named Alexandrine Eleonore Vergeot, who, according to the 
 most credible account, washed his linen, though some writers 
 have called her a " basket-maker," and others " a maker of 
 wooden shoes." In any case she became the mother of two 
 sons by the Prince, the elder, Alexandre Louis Eugene, being 
 born on February 25, 1843, and the younger, Alexandre Louis 
 Ernest, on March 18, 1845. Curiously enough, in August, 
 1858, Alexandrine Vergeot married none other than M. Pierre 
 Bure, Napoleon's foster-brother, and treasurer to the Crown, f 
 Miss Howard does not appear to have resented the Prince's 
 infidelity at Ham, for subsequently she took temporary charge 
 of Alexandrine Vergeofs children, and made arrangements for 
 their education. This gave rise to the reports that she had 
 not one son but several sons by Napoleon III. 
 
 The elder of the brothers Vergeot entered the French Con- 
 sular Service, and the younger the Department of Finances, 
 becoming eventually a Receiver to the Treasury, a very re- 
 munerative post. By two decrees dated June 11, 1870, and 
 countersigned by M. Emile OUivier, Napoleon bestowed the 
 title of Count d'Orx on the elder, and of Count de Labenne on 
 the younger of these illegitimate sons of his, at the same time 
 presenting them with the aforesaid estates of Orx and Labenne, 
 which formed part of the extensive tract of country reclaimed 
 and planted by him in the Landes. The Emperor had at one 
 
 ' The alleged date of Miss Howard's birth (1828) must be wrong, as it 
 would make her but 17 at the time of the Boulogne affair. 
 
 t Born at EstouiUy, Somme, September 3, 1820, she died at Le Vfcinet, 
 near Paris, in August, 1886. Her husband died in January, 1882. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 185 
 
 time transferred that property to Count Walewski, but after 
 the latter's death he took it over again by arrangement with 
 his cousin's widow. Count d'Orx is, we think, still alive, but 
 Count de Labenne died in 1882, leaving no issue. 
 
 Let us now return to Miss Howard. There is no doubt 
 that she assisted Napoleon from her purse during the last years 
 of his life in England. When he proceeded to Paris after the 
 Revolution of 1848, she followed him thither, and while he 
 installed himself at the Hotel du Rhin in the Place Vendome, 
 which became the headquarters of the Bonapartist agitation, 
 she betook herself to Meurice's, then par excellence the English 
 hotel in Paris. When her lover had been elected President of 
 the Republic, a well-appointed little bouse was rented for IMiss 
 Howard in the Rue du Cirque, close to the Elysee Palace, 
 which had become Napoleon's residence. Whenever he could 
 escape from business at the Elysee he spent his evenings in the 
 Rue du Cirque, where his intimates, Fleury, Mocquard, Edgar 
 Ney, Count de Toulongeon (his orderly officer), and Count 
 Baciocchi also assembled. Various Bonapartist joiurnalists, 
 some artists, and sundry Englishmen — conspicuous among 
 whom was the Marquis of Hertford — also met the Prince at 
 Miss Howard's. Few women were found there, and their 
 positions resembled that of the mistress of the house. 
 
 In spite of the emoluments which the Prince received as 
 President of the Republic, his " struggle for life " continued to 
 be very severe, for the Bonapartist propaganda had to be 
 financed, and few of his acolytes had means of their own. 
 Thus Miss Howard again came to the rescue, on one occasion 
 rendering the Prince a service similar to that of Fould's, 
 recorded in our second chapter * — that is to say, in 1851, 
 when some of Napoleon's promissory notes had been protested 
 by Montaut, a banker of the Palais Royal, Miss Howard 
 spent a part of her remaining resources in discharging the 
 debt. At the same time, whatever her services might be, she 
 gradually became a cause of serious trouble and inconvenience. 
 No nation is more indulgent than the French with respect 
 to a man's affaires de coeur. Nevertheless, the Prince's close 
 connection with Miss Howard and the part she took in his affairs 
 * See ante, p. 37. 
 
186 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 scandalized many people, and thus proved detrimental to his 
 political interests, for various notabilities shrank from joining 
 his cause on account of the looseness of his life. 
 
 Already, in 1849, a very unpleasant episode occurred with 
 respect to Miss Howard. The Prince then made a journey to 
 Tours and Saumur, in which latter town the State Cavalry 
 School gave an entertainment in his honour. Among those 
 who accompanied him was his mistress. On arriving at Tours 
 a question arose of finding lodgings for her, and it occurred to 
 an official, who was approached on the subject, to install her at 
 the house of a M. Andre, Receiver to the Treasury, who was 
 then absent with his wife at some Pyrenean spa. The Andres 
 were Protestants, and when they afterwards heard of what had 
 happened they complained warmly, perhaps over warmly, about 
 the insult offered to them and their house by introducing into 
 it under a false name a woman of bad character. In a letter 
 which M. Andre addressed to Napoleon's chief minister, M. 
 Odilon-Barrot, he inquired : " Have we gone back, then, to the 
 days when the mistresses of our kings exhibited the scandal of 
 their lives in town after town of France ? " M. Barrot was very 
 much upset and embarrassed by the affair. It seemed to him, 
 he tells us in his " Memoirs," that M. Andre attached excessive 
 importance to an incident which could only have been due to 
 some indiscretion or mistake on the part of a subordinate. He 
 therefore did not wish to make a State affair of the matter, though, 
 on the other hand, he says, he " was not sorry that the President 
 should learn that in the high position to which he had been 
 raised, it was no longer allowable for him to lead the free and 
 easy life which he had led in London." Accordingly the Prime 
 Minister arranged matters in such a way that, with the help of 
 his brother (M. Ferdinand Barrot, then Secretary-general to the 
 President), M. Andre's letter might come accidentally, as it 
 were, before the Prince. This plan was carried out, and shortly 
 afterwards Odilon-Barrot received a letter on the subject from 
 Napoleon. It ran as follows : 
 
 " Your brother has shown me a, letter from a Monsieur Andrd, 
 which I should have disdained to answer if it had not contained 
 false allegations, which it is fit that I should refute. A lady in 
 whom I take the greatest interest wished to see the carrousel of 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 187 
 
 Saumur, accompanied by a lady friend of hers and two persons 
 of my household. From Saumur she went to Tours, and fearing 
 that she might not be able to find lodgings there, she asked me to 
 do whatever might be necessary to procure her accommodation. 
 On arriving at Tours, I said to one of the Prefecture Councillors 
 that he would oblige me by finding rooms for Count Baciocchi and 
 some ladies of his acquaintance. It seems that they were led by 
 chance and their evil star to Monsieur Andre's house, where, I 
 know not why, it was imagined that one of the ladies was named 
 Ba/Ciocchi. l^ever did the lady in question assume that name. If 
 an error occurred it was perpetrated by strangers, against my own 
 desire and the lady's also. I should, however, like to know why 
 Monsieur Andr^ without taking the trouble to ascertain the truth, 
 seeks to make me responsible for the selection of his house and the 
 wrongful attribution of a name 1 When a householder makes it his 
 first care to peer into the past life of a person he receives, in order 
 to cry her down — is that a noble way of practising hospitality 1 
 How many women, a hundred times less pure, a hundred times less 
 devoted than the one who lodged at Monsieur Andre's, would have 
 been received by him with all possible honour if they had happened 
 to have at their disposal a husband's name to cast over their guilty 
 intrigues I I detest that pedantic rigorism which ill-conceals a dry 
 heart — a heart indulgent for self but inexorable towards others. 
 True religion is not intolerant, it does not try to stir up a tempest 
 in a glass of water, it does not make much ado about nothing, and 
 turn a(mere accident or excusable mistake into a positive crime. 
 
 "Monsieur Andr^, who is, I am told, a Puritan, has not yet 
 meditated sufficiently on that passage in the Gospel where Christ, 
 addressing people possessed of souls as uncharitable as Monsieur 
 Andre's, says to them, respecting the woman whom they wish to 
 stone : ' Let him who is without sin,' etc. May Monsieur Andrd 
 put that precept into practice ! For my part, I bring charges 
 against nobody, and I own that I am guilty of seeking in illegitimate 
 bonds the affection which my heart requires. As, however, my 
 position has hitherto prevented me from marrying, and as, amid 
 all the cares of government, I possess, alas ! in my native country, 
 from which I was so long absent, neither intimate friends, nor ties 
 of childhood, nor relatives to give me the joys of family life, I may 
 well be forgiven, I think, for an afiection which harms nobody and 
 which I do not seek to make conspicuous. To return to Monsieur 
 Andr^, if, as he declares, he believes that his house has been defiled 
 by the presence of an unmarried woman, I beg you to let him know 
 that, on my side, I deeply regret that a person of such pure devotion 
 
188 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and high character should have alighted by chance at a house, 
 where, under the mask of religion, there reigns only a stiff and 
 ostentatious virtue, devoid of Christian charity. You may put my 
 letter to such use as you please." * 
 
 With that missive, says Odilon-Barrot, there came an order 
 from the Prince-President to send a copy of it to M. Andre. 
 But the Prime Minister wisely refrained from doing so, and the 
 affair blew over. 
 
 To what degree affection for Napoleon and to what degree 
 far-seeing ambition influenced Miss Howard, on the vai-ious 
 occasions when she assisted him financially, is a difficult question 
 to determine. Persons of her condition are seldom disinterested, 
 however ; and in the demands which Miss Howard made after 
 her lover had become master of France, it seems certain that 
 she was not merely claiming her due, but giving rein at last to 
 a grasping nature, previously held in check. However consider- 
 able may have been the wealth she had acquired in England, 
 the amount of money ultimately paid to her by Napoleon was 
 so enormous that, besides embracing the reimbursement of her 
 advances, it obviously included a very lavish indemnity. More- 
 over, whatever may have been her original motives in assisting 
 Napoleon, it is certain that after the success of the Coup d' Etat 
 she aspired to play the part of a Pompadour or a Dubarry. 
 She clung to Napoleon tenaciously, unwilling to allow him out 
 of her sight, and when he took up his residence at the Chateau 
 of St. Cloud during the months preceding the proclamation of 
 the Empire, she insisted on quarters being found for her there 
 in spite of the damaging, scandalous talk to which her presence 
 might give rise. We know, by the admissions of Count Fleury 
 in his " Memoirs," that she was secretly lodged in some of the 
 smaller ground-floor rooms, whence she kept watch upon all that 
 occuri-ed. She was also exacting in other respects, again 
 following Napoleon on his journeys into the provinces, demand- 
 ing a special and conspicuous place for her carriage at reviews 
 and other ceremonies, and generally striving to assume the 
 position of a recognized favourite. All this, be it noted, 
 occurred at the time when Napoleon was feeling more and 
 
 * However strange the letter may Beem, its authenticity is unquestionable. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 189 
 
 more attracted towards Mile, de Montijo. At Compiegne and 
 at Fontainebleau the Prince was surrounded by far too many 
 guests, and notably by too many ladies of recognized position, 
 for Miss Howard's presence to be possible there. Nevertheless, 
 she watched and waited, never abandoning her hopes. 
 
 She made, perhaps, her boldest bid for recognition as 
 imperial favourite at one of the first entertainments given at 
 the Tuileries after the Coup d'Etat. In the very midst of the 
 reception she suddenly entered the palace, exquisitely dressed, 
 and attracting general attention by her remarkable beauty. 
 For the prosecution of her enterprise she had found confederates 
 among her lover's entourage. Colonel Baron de Seville * entered 
 with her, giving her his arm, and behind the pair walked Count 
 Baciocchi with a matronly person, to whom had been aissigned 
 the part played by the Countess de B^arn when La Dubarry 
 was presented at the Court of Louis XV. A good many people 
 who did not know Miss Howard thought she was some fine 
 lady who had just arrived from London, but those of the 
 President's set who knew her and who were opposed to her 
 influence took alarm at the demonstration, rightly opining that 
 the bold Englishwoman might become very dangerous if her 
 proceedings were not promptly checked. Among the serious 
 politicians and the diplomatists present at the gathering, the 
 impression was extremely bad, as the Prefect of Police indicated 
 in a special report which he boldly addressed to Napoleon on 
 the subject. 
 
 When the latter had ultimately made up his mind to marry 
 Mile, de Montijo, the difficult task of restraining and pacifying 
 Miss Howard was assigned to the genial and resourceful 
 Mocquard. It would be curious to know exactly how he 
 accomplished that duty. We are only acquainted with the 
 bare facts — that he contrived to lure Miss Howard to Le 
 Havre, to prevent her from seeing the newspapers and to keep 
 her in ignorance of what was passing in Paris until intervention 
 on her part could be of no avail. True, after storming and 
 raving, and fainting and weeping, she might stiU have attempted 
 some desperate but futile effort, had she not been told that if 
 she evinced any disposition to perpetrate an act of folly, she 
 
 * See ante, p. 48. 
 
190 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 would be immediately taken down to the port and placed on 
 board a ship sailing for America. At last, then, she gave in, 
 accepting the compensation which was tendered to her for the 
 loss of the position she had aspired to fill. 
 
 This compensation comprised, in the first place, the hand- 
 some chateau and estate of Beauregai-d on the road from La 
 Celle St. Cloud to Versailles. The chateau had originally been 
 built by the famous Pere Lachaise, confessor to Louis XIV., 
 whose name has been perpetuated by the most important of 
 all the Parisian cemeteries. It is said too, that Beauregard 
 was the meeting-place of many of the artistic celebrities of le 
 grand siecle, and that the masterpieces of LuUy and Rameau 
 were first performed there. At the close of the eighteenth 
 century the chateau was acquired by Count d'Artois — afterwards 
 Charles X. — and his sons, the Dukes d'Angoul^me and de 
 Berry, spent their childhood there. In purchasing Beauregard 
 and presenting it to Miss Howard, Napoleon III., as we know 
 by a memorandum in his own handwriting, had imagined that 
 the outlay " would be at the utmost .£20,000 ; " but she rebuilt 
 and enlarged the chateau to a considerable extent, and the 
 Emperor appears to have taken all the expense on his shoulders. 
 Together with the estate, he presented his ex-mistress, as pre- 
 viously mentioned, with the title of Countess de Beauregard — 
 a proceeding which offended an existing Beauregard family, 
 with the result that although no change was made respecting 
 Miss Howard personally, a different title, that of Count de 
 Bechevet, was ultimately conferred on her son, Martin Con- 
 stantine, the question of whose paternity is so doubtful.* 
 
 As for the pecuniary payments made to Miss Howard, we 
 learn from the Emperor's memorandum, just referred to, that, 
 apart from the cost of Beauregard, he had originally intended 
 
 * In connection with that matter, it may be observed that Miss Howard's 
 protector at the time when Napoleon made her acquaintance was Major 
 Mountjoy Martyn ; that her son received the Christian name of Martin, and 
 that her grandson was christened Eiohard Martyn. It is quite possible, then, 
 that the Count de BechSvet was not Napoleon's son, however general the 
 belief that he was — a belief strengthened by the bestowal of a title on him. 
 That title, however, was not granted until 1865, and may merely have been a 
 misinterpreted act of favour. Though Napoleon, as some have asserted, may 
 have known Miss Howard from 1840 onward, the actual intrigue may not 
 have begun till after his release from Hnm. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 191 
 
 to present her with sE"! 20,000. Inclusive, however, of the 
 d£'40,000 paid with respect to the estate of Civita Nuova, she 
 had already received at the beginning of 1855 no less than 
 i£'218,000, and, like Oliver Twist, she wanted more. In January, 
 1855, she wrote to M. Mocquard as follows : — * 
 
 "My vert dbab Friend, 
 
 " We are to-day the 24:th of January, and I perceive 
 with grief that the engagements entered into with me are not 
 performed (when I have doubts I feel hurt and I ought not to be 
 left in doubt). As a matter of fact I believed and still believe that 
 it is a mistake ; but why make me suffer ? If things are to be like 
 this I should have done better if I had kept the six millions instead 
 of three million five hundred thousand francs, which, at my request, 
 were to have been paid by the end of the year 1853, and it was for 
 thi8[?] that I begged the Emperor to tear up the first amount 
 (2,500,000 francs). My heart bleeds at having to write this, and 
 if my marriage contract were not drawn up as it is, and if I had 
 not a child, I should not make this application which has become a 
 duty. I rely on you to put an end to all this suffering. The 
 Emperor has too good a heart to leave a woman whom he tenderly 
 loved in a false position, such as he would not hke to be in himself. 
 You know my position, you are my guardian [toteitr] and it is with 
 a twofold claim on you that I apply to you. I made a mistake in 
 writing to his Majesty the other day. In one of his letters dated 
 May, he says, ' I will give GUes f paper for the three million five 
 hundred thousand francs [£140,000] to-morrow.' The only thing 
 to be done, then, is to calculate the payments at the rate of 50,000 
 from June 1, 1853, and 50,000 from January to October. I hope 
 to God there will be no further question of money between me and 
 him for whom my heart has very different feelings. I kiss you 
 tenderly and love you in like way, 
 
 " Your affectionate, 
 
 " E. H. DB B. 
 
 " I implore you not to leave this letter, you may read it if you 
 like to his Majesty, and burn it directly afterwards. I saw Mme. 
 Mocquard on Monday at 4 o'clock, she was very poorly." 
 
 • The letter is written in very faulty Frenoh, and the meaning of one or 
 two sentences ia extremely obscure. The translation we give is, however, as 
 close as possible. The French text wiU be found in the " Papiers et Corre- 
 spondance de la Famille Imperiale," issued by the Government of National 
 Defence, in 1870-71. 
 
 I A banker, through whom many payments were made to Miss Howard. 
 
192 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 The allusion to a marriage contract which will have been 
 noticed in that letter needs explanation. After Mocquard had 
 made the first arrangements with Miss Howard, she was per- 
 suaded to travel for a time, and on going to Italy she there met 
 a young Englishman, named Clarence Trelawny, who held an 
 officer's commission in the Austrian Hussars, and whom she 
 married at Florence on May 16, 1854. The union appears to 
 have been a very unhappy one, and a divorce took place in 
 February, 1865. 
 
 It would appear that Miss Howard never really forgave 
 Napoleon for deserting her, or the Empress Eugenie for sup- 
 planting her in his affections. We had some acquaintance 
 several years ago with an Englishman named Arthur Savile 
 Grant (the illegitimate son of an ex-diplomatist domiciled in 
 Paris) who invented the newspaper kiosks of the boulevards, 
 from which he derived a handsome income, and who knew Miss 
 Howard very well in her last days, when he was often a guest 
 at Beauregard. According to this Mr. Grant the lady was 
 occasionally seized with fits of fury, and would then indulge 
 in extraordinary language respecting the Emperor and his 
 entourage, several members of which she bitterly denounced for 
 their old-time intrigues against her. Grant further asserted 
 that if such large sums were paid by Napoleon to his ex-mistress, 
 it was because she at one time detained a number of documents 
 damaging for his reputation. She had often been heard to 
 declare that the Palace Police had on one occasion ransacked 
 her residence and carried ofi^ every scrap of paper they could 
 lay their hands upon. We do not vouch for that story, but it 
 is curious that the novelist Emile Gaboriau should have intro- 
 duced such an episode into his novel " La Degringolade," even 
 as he included in it the St. Arnaud-Cornemuse duel, of which 
 we spoke in a former chapter. Rumours of the seizure of the 
 lady's papers must therefore have been current. 
 
 After remaining in comparative retirement for some years, 
 Miss Howard was suddenly seized with a desire to show herself 
 once more to the Parisians, and particularly to the Emperor 
 and Empress. During thejeasons of 1864-65, she frequently 
 appeared in the Champs Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne, 
 driving a pair of superb bays, and manoeuvring in such a fashion 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 193 
 
 as to meet their Majesties' equipage as often as possible and 
 stare at them. Again, at theatrical performances, she would 
 turn her glasses with annoying persistency on the imperial box, 
 and it was even said that she received a caution on the subject. 
 But she was near her end. On August 19, 1865, she passed 
 away at the chateau of Beauregard, and although there were 
 people ready to assert that her death could not have been due 
 to natural causes, there does not seem to have been the slightest 
 reason — excepting enmity of the Empire — for any suspicion of 
 foul play. In 1867 Miss Howard's son, the Count de B^ch^vet, 
 married a Mile, de Csuzy, of a noble Hungarian house, by 
 whom he had two daughters and the son we have previously 
 mentioned. 
 
 Although Napoleon III. undoubtedly engaged in various 
 intrigues subsequent to his marriage, some of the stories 
 current on the subject must only be accepted with the pro- 
 verbial grains of salt. Certain anecdotes are so nonsensical, 
 that one wonders how they can ever have obtained credence. 
 Valuable as may be in some respects the " Memoirs of Count 
 Horace de Viel Castel," which created such a sensation on 
 their first appearance some years ago, they are studded with 
 scandalous tittle-tattle, resting at times on very slight, and 
 at others on no foundation whatever. For people of any 
 acumen the editor of the " Memoirs " gave the key to them 
 when he remarked in his introduction, that although Viel 
 Castel was a man fit for the highest posts, he had been con- 
 fined to his duties in connection with the national museums. 
 In other words, he was a disappointed and embittered man, 
 often far too ready to make a note of anything, however 
 improbable, that tended to discredit the regime on which he 
 lived. We came in contact with him more than once, and 
 have no doubt of the accuracy of that estimate. Had Viel 
 Castel been such a high-minded personage as he desired others 
 to think, and had he conscientiously believed things to be as 
 bad as he asserted in his " Memoirs," he would have severed his 
 connection with the Empire after a very brief experience. But 
 he did no such thing. Down to the last years he partook 
 complacently of the hospitality of the Tuileries, never missed 
 an autumn at Compiegne, nor indeed any opportunity to mix 
 
194 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 as a boon companion with those for whom he was preparing a 
 pillory in his " Memoirs." Such a man undoubtedly becomes 
 despicable when he puts on pretensions to personal virtue. 
 Besides, Viel Castel, though a married man with children, 
 lived with another woman by whom he had offspring, as was 
 proved during the litigation to which the publication of the 
 " Memoirs " gave rise. 
 
 There is also another point to be considered. A good 
 many of the more remarkable stories related by Viel Castel 
 are given as emanating, either at first or at second hand, from 
 the Princess Mathilde, with whom he was certainly on terms 
 of close acquaintanceship. So were others; and it was very 
 generally known that whatever might be the Princess's own 
 faults — she was too true a Bonaparte to have none — and what- 
 ever might be her knowledge of the faults of her relatives, she 
 was not given to talking of them. A certain ease and freedom 
 reigned in her circle; men like Goncourt and Gautier and 
 Flaubert would not have belonged to it had the position been 
 otherwise ; but there was a line which nobody was allowed to 
 cross. No remarks reflecting on the morals of the imperial 
 house were tolerated; even political criticism of some action 
 of the Emperor's, or perhaps of Prince Napoleon's, had to be 
 kept within bounds. If ever too outspoken, too personal, a 
 remark was heard, the Princess bristled up. " I will not allow 
 my relations to be attacked," she would say; and the incautious 
 speaker had to apologize immediately. Yet, according to Viel 
 Castel, she was given to narrating enormities ! To her is 
 assigned the story of a certain incident in a railway train, in 
 which the Emperor's name is linked with that of a lady of 
 the Court; and it is she, again, who is said to repeat to a 
 friend Napoleon's saying about the lady of the ground floor 
 whom he wished to get rid of, the lady of the first floor who, 
 although very beautiful, bored him by her insignificance and 
 insipidity, and the lady of the second floor who, consumed by 
 her passion, was always running after him. That anecdote has 
 been repeated a thousand times in books, magazines, and 
 newspapers all the world over. It may have reflected the 
 Emperor's sentiments, but Viel Castel by alleging that it was 
 repeated by the Princess Mathilde, the last woman in the 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 195 
 
 world to retail such a saying, imposes a severe strain on the 
 faith of readers possessed of any sense and knowledge. 
 
 Nevertheless, whatever falsity and exaggeration may be 
 found in the pages either of Viel Castel or of similar writers, 
 it is certain that Napoleon was an unfaithful husband. One 
 may regard as mere odious scandal two alleged intrigues of 
 his, which are frequently referred to by the memoir writers — 
 one with a person of obscure origin, resulting, it is said, in the 
 birth of a daughter who married a Count of the old noblesse, 
 and the other an intrigue with the unmarried daughter of a 
 famous functionary of the Empire, resulting, it was pretended, 
 in the birth of a son in January, 1865. Whatever assertions 
 may have been made respecting those affairs, they have never 
 been substantiated by the slightest authentic evidence. Con- 
 nected with the second case, however, there is a true story 
 which may be repeated. At a ball given at the Tuileries a 
 lady guest of that very undesirable scandal-loving type which 
 was certainly well represented under the Empire, related that 
 the functionary's daughter in question had lately given birth 
 to a child, adding that the accouchement had taken place less 
 than a week previously at the residence of some friends of 
 the narrator's. It so happened that the Mai'chioness de 
 T,atour-Maubourg, one of the Empress's ladies-in-waiting, was 
 present and heard the story, at the conclusion of which she 
 remarked that it was of a nature to ruin the young lady's 
 reputation, and that one ought to be quite certain of one's 
 facts before repeating it. The other retorted that the tale 
 was true, whereupon Mme. de Latour-Maubourg exclaimed : 
 " Then I am vastly astonished — for there is the young lady in 
 question, dancing ! " The scandalmonger was overwhelmed with 
 confiision, and a few minutes afterwards (Mme. de Latour- 
 Maubourg having hurried away to inform the Empress of the 
 incident) a chamberlain approached her, and said: "Madam, 
 your carriage is waiting." On the morrow her name was struck 
 off the list of those received at the Tuileries. 
 
 There are reasons for thinking that some truth may 
 attach to one or another of the various stories respecting 
 the Emperor's alleged gallantries with ladies of the Court, 
 but in these cases again there is a lack of conclusivs evidence, 
 
196 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and more than once appearances may have been deceptive. 
 In one instance the lady named by the anecdotiers certainly 
 enjoyed high favour, and we have an independent witness. 
 Lord Malmesbury, drawing very unfavourable conclusions from 
 what he saw. But, on the other hand, we find various writers, 
 including even Viel Castel, who repeated all the rumours 
 against the lady in question, relating that when she heard she 
 was accused by the Court of being the Emperor's mistress, she 
 hurried to the Empress to protest against the charge, and that 
 the Empress believed and comforted her. This lady retained 
 her position at the Tuileries for some years afterwards, and in 
 that connection it should be remembered that the Empress 
 Eugenie was no Catherine of Braganza willing to tolerate 
 the presence of a Lady Castlemaine beside her. Whatever 
 intrigues occurred at the palace were carried on there without 
 her knowledge. 
 
 When the papers found at the Tuileries were published by 
 the Government of National Defence in 1870, no little ado 
 was made about a certain invoice for sweetmeats, which was 
 supposed to prove that the Emperor had employed his aides- 
 de-camp and orderlies to carry bonbons to his favourites. This 
 invoice was as follows : — 
 
 " GoDACHB, Confectioner, Purveyor to H.M. the Empeeoe. 
 
 " Paris, May 20, 1858. 
 « Supplied to H.M. the Emperor : 
 
 " Twelve dozen half-boxes of dragees, at 18 frs. — 216 frs. 
 " Forwarded to General de Failly, 20 Rue de Ponthieu. 
 
 " Paid, L. Gouache." 
 
 Below the bill was a memorandum in pencil recapitulating 
 other accounts for similar sweetmeats, the total amount paid 
 to Gouache being ^£"51 8*. lOd. So wild were the passions of 
 the time when this "document" was brought to light, that 
 nobody paused to reflect that dragees, otherwise sugared 
 almonds, were sweets chiefly associated in France with christen- 
 ings, that each half-box supplied by Gouache represented the 
 huge sum of Is. ^d., and that it was nonsensical to imagine 
 that M. de Failly, M. de Galliffet, and the other aides-de-camp 
 or orderlies had been in the habit of taking one-and-twopenny 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 197 
 
 packets of sugared almonds to the Countess de Castiglione, 
 Mile. Bellanger, and the other ladies on whom their imperial 
 master deigned to smile ! The memorandum at the foot of the 
 invoice indicated that 72 dozen, that is 864 half-boxes of 
 dragSes had been supplied in all, over a period of about twelve 
 months. We are not able to say with certainty for what purpose 
 so large a number was required, but we have a suspicion, and 
 perhaps a shrewd one, on the subject. After the Emperor 
 and Empress had become sponsors to all the children bom 
 on the same day as the Imperial Prince in 1856, fervent 
 imperialists often applied to them to act likewise in other 
 instances ; and we think it quite possible that the dragees were 
 ordered of Gouache for distribution at the christenings of the 
 offspring of members of the Court, officials, and other adherents. 
 In any case we decline to believe that those 864 half-boxes of 
 cheap sweets were procured to regale the imperial favourites. 
 
 Let us now pass to the well-authenticated cases of conjugal 
 infidelity on the part of the Emperor, the cases of the two 
 women we have just mentioned, Countess Virginia Verasis di 
 Castiglione and Mile. Marguerite Bellanger. We referred to 
 the Countess in a previous chapter,* pointing out what we 
 believe to have been her real motive in coming to France — that 
 is, a desire to captivate the Emperor and secure some such 
 position as that to which Miss Howard had vainly aspired. 
 We have mentioned also that in the opinion of most of those 
 who met the Countess she was not fit for the rok she wished to 
 play, by reason of her lack of intellectual ability. Some have 
 urged that she reserved her wit for Tintimite, but we do not 
 believe that she was a woman to hide her wit (if she had any) 
 from the public any more than she hid her beauty. However, 
 Count Fleury, the Emperor's confidant in most of his love affairs, 
 held a somewhat different view, as we shall see. In coming to 
 Paris from Florence the Countess, apart from the question of 
 any diplomatic introduction, was assured of an entree into high 
 society by the friendship existing between the Oldoini family, 
 to which she belonged by birth, and the Riccis, of whom the 
 Countess Walewska was one. It was under the wing of the 
 Walewskis that the Castigliones first made their appearance in 
 
 ♦ See cmte, p. 110. 
 
198 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Parisian drawing-rooms. That was late in 1855 or early in 
 1 856, the Countess then being about twenty years of age.* In 
 March of the latter year Marshal de Castellane was introduced 
 to her at the house of one of his relatives, and while recognizing 
 her beauty he was greatly disappointed by what he regarded as 
 her lack of esprit. Even her beauty did not pass unchallenged. 
 In November, 1857^ she was a guest at Compiegne at the same 
 time as the Duchess of Manchester, now Duchess of Devonshire, 
 by whose radiant charm she was altogether eclipsed. The 
 Marchioness de Contades, referring to the Duchess in a letter to 
 Marshal de [Castellane, remarked : " She is as beautiful as day- 
 light, she quite surpasses Mme. de Castiglione . . . she has a 
 profile like an antique cameo, and it is quite a treat to look 
 at her." 
 
 Nevertheless, in her own particular style, the Countess 
 Virginia remained unexcelled. Viel Castel, whom one may 
 follow when, instead of collecting miscellaneous tittle-tattle, he 
 describes what he actually witnessed, gives a lively account of 
 the sensation the Countess created at a fancy-dress ball given 
 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs f in February, 1857. Her 
 costume, devised in part according to the Louis XV. style and 
 in part according to the fashions of the day, was that of " Queen 
 of Hearts'" — the hearts being outlined by a number of gold 
 chains which wound around her, and the sight of which inspired 
 some simple-minded folk with much admiration for her talent 
 in being able to aiTay herself in such a costly fashion, when, 
 having already squandered the fine fortune of her infatuated 
 husband, she had but a paltry income of about £QOQ a year. 
 Dressed as we have said, she wore her hair loose, streaming over 
 her neck and shoulders. Her corsage was reduced to the 
 simplest expression, and it was evident to all beholders that she 
 scorned to wear anything so commonplace as a corset. She 
 was extremely proud of her beauty, and, as Viel Castel says, only 
 veiled it so far as was necessary to obtain admittance to a 
 drawing-room. At subsequent entertainments of the period 
 
 • She was only fifteen when she married. She already had a son at the 
 time of her arrival in Prance. 
 
 t Not at the Tuileries, as some accounts have it. Many legends have 
 sprung up respecting Mme. de Castiglione, but few are really based on fact. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 199 
 
 she surpassed her previous performances by appearing in almost 
 transparent draperies, once as a Roman lady of the Decline, 
 and later as the Salammbo immortalized by Flaubert. 
 
 It was no difficult task for the Countess to fascinate the 
 Emperor, but she altogether failed in her endeavours to attain 
 the position of a gramde maitresse. The liaison lasted about a 
 year — 1857 — and as it was never renewed, those writers who, 
 regardless of dates, have tried to connect the Emperor's passion 
 for the Countess with the Empress's journey to Scotland in 
 1860 have blundered egregiously. At the time of Mme. de 
 Castiglione's arrival in France her means, as already indicated, 
 were very slender. Her first residence (with her husband) was 
 a small flat situated, curiously enough, in the Rue Castiglione, 
 near the Place Vend6me, She could not receive the Emperor 
 there, and at the outset of the liaison a small house was taken 
 in the Rue de la Pompe at Passy. Thanks to Napoleon's 
 liberality, the Countess was afterwards able to install herself in 
 the Rue Montaigne, where, as mentioned in a previous chapter, 
 Tibaldi and his confederates proposed to waylay and assassinate 
 the Emperor during the summer of 1857.* 
 
 It was not, however, fear for his personal safety that induced 
 the latter to break off the connection. Whether he gave 
 utterance or not to the alleged saying about his lady friends of 
 the ground floor, first floor, and second floor, the account of the 
 one who, although very beautiful, bored him by her insignificance 
 and insipidity would seem to have been extremely well suited to 
 Mme. de Castiglione. Still we must not forget Count Fleury's 
 view of the matter, and as he is well entitled to a hearing, let 
 us give it to him. He contends, then, in his " Souvenirs " that 
 whatever some may have thought, the Countess was in reality 
 no fool, and he ascribes her failure to retain any mastery over 
 the Emperor to another cause — her absolute lack of charm. 
 While Viel Castel christens her Aspasia, Fleury calls her a 
 female Narcissus, always in adoration before her own beauty, 
 lacking both suppleness and gentleness of disposition, "ambitious 
 without grace and haughty without reason " — in such wise that 
 she soon wearied the man whom she hoped to hold. " Infatuated 
 with herself," Fleury continues, " and always draped a Tantique, 
 
 * See omte, p. 111. 
 
200 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 strange in both her person and her manners, she made her 
 appearance at the assemblies of the time like a goddess just 
 descended from the clouds. She bade her husband lead her to 
 some secluded part of the room, where she allowed herself to be 
 admired as if she were a reliquary . . . boldly facing every 
 glance and never allowing the icy calmness of her demeanour to 
 be in the slightest degree disturbed by the indiscreet admiration 
 which she inspired. She scarcely ever spoke to women.* Just 
 a few admirers were accorded the alms of a smile, a word, or a 
 return bow. Like some great artiste who has just sung in an 
 assembly where she knows nobody, she waited patiently and 
 with indifference until the master and mistress of the house 
 came to compliment her. Directly the Emperor and Empress 
 drew near her physiognomy became transformed. Her mouth, 
 hitherto so expressive of disdain, opened with a smile, disclosing 
 her admirable teeth, her eyes glittered, expressing her feeling of 
 triumph, her gratified vanity. To everybody else she seemed 
 to say : ' I am not here for you ; I am of a superior essence to 
 you. I know but the sovereigns.' That style of behaviour, 
 which at the utmost would only be acceptable in a Sultan's 
 harem, was not calculated to win her either sympathy or 
 friends." t 
 
 Fleury next relates that during a stay at Compiegne the 
 Countess had a nasty fall among the ruins of the then unrestored 
 castle of Pierrefonds, with the result that she dislocated a wrist. 
 A doctor attended her, but when the question arose of escorting 
 her back to the chateau of Compiegne nobody was willing to 
 undertake the duty, and he, Fleury, had to intervene and place 
 her in a char-a-bancs under the protection of two footmen. 
 
 When the Countess's liaison with the Emperor ceased (early, 
 we think, in 1858) she left Paris, but she was there again after 
 the Solferino-Magenta campaign; and Madame Carette, the 
 Empress's reader, relates that at one of the last entertainments 
 given in 1860 by old Prince Jerome at the Palais Royal, she 
 arrived there about one o'clock in the morning, just as the 
 
 • She had reason to dislike the ladies of the Imperial Court, for they did 
 not hide their dislike of her. A few so far forgot themselves as to send her 
 insulting anonymous letters, which embittered her greatly. 
 
 t Count Fleuiy's " Souvenirs," vol. i. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFI'AIRS 201 
 
 Emperor and Empress were leaving. They met on the stairs. 
 " You arrive very late, Madame la Comtesse," Napoleon said to 
 her. "It is you, Sire, who leave very early," she retorted, 
 passing on and entering the rooms with her usual scornful air. 
 There was, perhaps, in her retort, a touch of the bravado of a 
 woman who has played her cards and lost the game, but is 
 resolved that none shall think her downhearted.* 
 
 Nevertheless, she retired for a while to a convent, either by 
 way of doing penance for her sins or in imitation of the course 
 taken by the tearful La Vallifere, As, however, the Emperor 
 was not Louis XIV., he refrained from attempting to lure the 
 fair penitent from her cell. She emerged from it of her own 
 accord. Time passed, and every now and again she made a 
 sudden brief appearance in society. In 1865, when Prince, 
 later King, Humbert of Italy visited the French Court at St. 
 Cloud, Mme. de Castiglione was present at a lunch there, it 
 being requisite to invite her, as her husband was in attendance 
 on the Prince. But eventually she received her congi. The 
 occasion was a great fancy ball at the Tuileries, at which the 
 Empress appeared as Marie Antoinette, her costume in red 
 velvet being copied from that worn by the Queen in one of the 
 portraits by Mme. Vigee-Lebrun. For some time past Mme. 
 de Castiglione had not appeared at Court, and when she 
 arrived on this occasion it was in black, in fact, in widow's 
 garb, as Marie de' Medici. We cannot say whether, as some 
 supposed, this was resented as an allusion to her widowhood 
 with respect to the Emperor. According to one account, she 
 had received no invitation to that particular fete. In any case, 
 she had scarcely entered the palace when a chamberlain appeared, 
 and, offering her his arm, conducted her back to her caniage. 
 
 It should be added that when this occurred all sorts of 
 scandfJous rumours had been for a considerable time associated 
 with her name. Paris had talked of her in connection notably 
 with Count Nieuwerkerke, whose position with regard to 
 
 • Mme. Oarette's anecdote has been repeated in moat of the worka on the 
 men and women of the Second Empire, and it may be thought superfluoios on 
 our part to give it here. But we do not wish to be unfair to la belle Comtesse, 
 and her retort to the Emperor being one of her few recorded attempts at wit, 
 we have thought it as well to reproduce it yet again. 
 
202 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Princess Mathilde was a secret for nobody. An old beau as 
 well as a clever man, Nieuwerkerke had been flattered, it seems, 
 by the Countess's sudden partiality for him, but it does not 
 appear that he actually compromised himself. There had also 
 been, however, an outrageous story about an eccentric English 
 peer and the Countess, and although that might be untrue, 
 there could be no doubt of her liaison with the elderly Charles 
 Laffitte, the father of the Marchioness de Galliflet. Facilis 
 descensus Averni. The beautiful Countess had fallen from an 
 empire to a banker's money bag ! . . . All that need be added 
 is that Mme. de Castiglione lost in turn both her husband and 
 her son, — the first being killed in 1867 by a fall from his horse 
 while he was escorting Prince Humbert,* the second dying in 
 his twentieth year — and that after a good many of those ups 
 and downs that occur in the life of an adventuress, this strange, 
 almost enigmatical, woman spent her last years in melancholy 
 seclusion in a little flat on the Place Vendome, the shutters of 
 which were always kept closed. It was even said that the 
 mirrors of the rooms were covered, in order that she might 
 not see the wreck of her once marvellous beauty. Of Southern 
 birth, she had matured precociously, and, as happens so often 
 in such cases, she became betimes an old woman in appearance. 
 She died in 1899.t 
 
 Napoleon's liaison with Marguerite Bellanger was of much 
 later date than the Castiglione affair, having begun in 1863 or 
 1864. This person's real name was Justine Marie Lebceuf, and 
 she was a native of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where she was born in 
 1838. Of modest parentage, and earning her living as a.femme 
 de chanibre, she ran away to Paris with a commercial traveller, 
 who deserted her there. An actor of the Ambigu Theatre 
 secured for her, however, an engagement s& jigwrante at the 
 little Theatre Beaumarchais, and she subsequently obtained 
 
 * The fatality occurred on the day following the Prince's marriage with 
 the present Dowager-Queen Margherita of Italy, and oast gloom over the 
 wedding festivities. 
 
 t Those interested in Mme. de Oastiglione cannot do better than read the 
 account of her in M. F. Loli^e's " Femmes du Second Empire." It is 
 compiled from many sources, and embodies some very good — if often very 
 doubtful — stories about her. M. Loli^e's view of her is not the same as ours, 
 to which, however, we adhere. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 203 
 
 employment in a similar capacity at the Opera-house. Being 
 clever, she soon rose in her profession, and appeared in various 
 pieces at the Folies Draraatiques as an mgenue. Not content, 
 however, with playing that kind of role on the stage, she 
 attempted it in real life, and, for a time, not unsuccessfully, 
 so far as Napoleon III. was concerned.* 
 
 There is no truth in a remarkable account of her which 
 appeared in the French press several years ago, and according 
 to which her mother was a younger sister of Heindereich, 
 the famous Paris headsman, who guillotined the odious 
 Troppmann, Dr. Lapommerais, and so many others. A great 
 many genealogical particulars respecting the Heindereichs were 
 printed in support of that theory, but it rested on the assump- 
 tion that Bellanger was this person's real name, which it was 
 not. The Emperor met her during a stay at Plombieres, or 
 it may have been Vichy, and on his return to Paris he took a 
 house for her, No. 27, in the Rue des Vignes at Passy. There, 
 in 1864, she gave birth to a son, who received the Christian 
 names of Charles Jules, and on whom Napoleon bestowed the 
 chateau and estate of Monchy (not Mouchy, as so many have 
 said) at Liancourt-Rantigny, in the department of the Oise, at 
 no very great distance from Compiegne. In reality the child 
 was not the Emperor's. The latter had bieen imposed upon, 
 as is conclusively shown by two letters, which were found among 
 his private papers at the Tuileries in 1870. They were together 
 in an envelope, bearing the imperial monogram and the super- 
 scription in Napoleon's handwriting : " Letters to be kept." In 
 one of them, addressed to M. Devienne, First President of the 
 Court of Cassation, the supreme tribunal of France, Mile. 
 Bellanger openly admitted that she had deceived the Emperor 
 with respect to the child referred to ; while the other missive, 
 addressed to Napoleon himself, ran as follows : — 
 
 "Chkb Seigneue [Deab Loed], 
 
 " I have not written to you since my departure, fearing 
 lest I should annoy you, but after Monsieur Devienne'a visit, I 
 
 ♦ She was tail, with an attractive figure and graceful carriage. She had 
 light, smooth hair, and an oval face, with somewhat irregular features. The 
 eyes had a candid expression, suited to the parts she played. The mouth, 
 however, was somewhat large and sensual. 
 
204 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 think it my duty to do so, first to implore you not to despise me, 
 for without your esteem I do not know what would become of me, 
 and secondly to beg your pardon. I was guilty, it is true, but I 
 assure you that I had my doubts. Tell me, cher Seigneur, if there 
 is a means by which I may redeem my fault ? I shall recoil from 
 nothing. If a whole life of devotion can restore to me your esteem, 
 mine belongs to you, and there is no sacrifice you may ask that I 
 am not ready to make. If it be necessary for your quietude that 
 I should exile myself and go abroad, say but the word, and I will 
 start. My heart is so full of gratitude for all you have done for 
 me that to suffer for you would be happiness still. Thus, the only 
 thing that, in any case, I do not wish you to doubt is the sincerity 
 and depth of my love for you. I beg you therefore to write me a 
 few lines to tell me that you forgive me. My address is : Mme. 
 Bellanger, Rue de Launay, Commune of Vilbernier, near Saumur. 
 Awaiting your reply, cher Seigneur, receive the farewell of your all 
 devoted, but most unhappy 
 
 " Mabgueeitk." * 
 
 The discovery of this correspondence after the Revolution 
 of 1870 caused the Government of National Defence to issue 
 a decree ordering the prosecution of M. Devienne before the 
 Court of Cassation, sitting as a Chamber of Discipline, for 
 having seriously compromised the dignity of the magistracy in 
 scandalous negotiations, he having been summoned to give 
 explanations but having failed to comply with the request, 
 besides absenting himself from Pai'is at the hour of the national 
 peril, although he was the head of the first judicial body of the 
 State.f This decree was signed by Emmanuel Arago as delegate 
 of the Minister of Justice. 
 
 M. Devienne, it may be explained, had fled to Brussels at 
 the fall of the Empire, and from that city he wrote first to 
 M. Cremieux, Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice, who 
 had taken up his quarters at Tours with other members of 
 the new Republican Government, and secondly to Emmanuel 
 Arago who had remained in the capital. In his first letter 
 M. Devienne declared that he should be the first to ask for a 
 decision when it became possible. His explanations would be 
 
 * From the " Papiers et Oorreepondanoe de la Pamille Impfiriale," Paris 
 Imprimerie Nationale, 1870. 
 
 t The siege by the Germans was then impending. 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 205 
 
 neither long nor difficult, said he, and they would show that 
 the allegations and imputations contained in the newspapers 
 (there were many slanderous articles at the time) were absolutely 
 erroneous. " I am certain," he added, " that I did not forget 
 my dignity on an occasion when I undertook what I considered, 
 and still consider, to have been a duty." Again, in writing to 
 Arago, Devienne protested that he had done nothing wrong : 
 " When the situation of the country admits of free discussion 
 in proper form I will prove that I did not compromise my 
 dignity in negotiations of a scandalous character. ... I will 
 prove that your police, your newspapers, and you yourself, 
 carried away by delight at the opportunity of striking a 
 political adversary, have blindly libelled me with respect to a 
 matter which was very diffei-ent from what you allege. You 
 appeal to the law. I in my turn invoke it also, and far more 
 energetically. The day of justice will come, and it is with 
 impatience that I await it." 
 
 It was only in July, 1871, after the insurrection of the Com- 
 mune had been suppressed, that M. Devienne appeared before 
 the Court over which he had so long presided. He then stated 
 to the judges that if he had intervened in the affair of the 
 relations of the Emperor Napoleon with Mile. Bellanger, he 
 had done so at the express request of the Empress Eugenie, 
 who, having discovered her husband's infidelity, was sorely 
 afflicted by it and threatened to leave him. To prevent not 
 only a public scandal but a complete rupture between husband 
 and wife, he, Devienne, had inquired into the affair, with 
 the result already known, and had obtained the dismissal 
 {ehignement) of Mile. Bellanger. On July 21, 1871, the Court, 
 having considered M. Devienne's statement and the proofs 
 adduced in support of it, delivered judgment to the effect 
 that he had been guilty of no misconduct, but that his action 
 had been, on the contrary, a good and honourable one.* 
 
 The result was that Devienne was reinstated in his position 
 as First President of the Court, and held that post until his 
 age compelled him to retire in March, 1877. When a First 
 President retires it is usual for the authorities to confer on him 
 the title of Honorary First President, but the Government of 
 * See La Qaaette des Tribwnauz of the period. 
 
206 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the time refused to do this in Devienne's case, far less, however, 
 on account of his conduct in connection with the Bellanger 
 affair than on account of the part he had played at Bordeaux at 
 the time of the Coup d'Etat, when he had sat on one of the 
 Mixed Commissions which expelled so many people from France 
 without due trial. Marguerite Bellanger, let us add, survived 
 until November 23, 1886, when she died at Dommartin in 
 the department of the Somme. She became very pious and 
 charitable in her last years, and bequeathed all she possessed for 
 the benefit of the Church or of associations connected with it. 
 
 It is well known that in 1864 and the earlier part of 1865 
 the Emperor and Empress were by no means on good terms. 
 Several of the latter's intimates have described her as being 
 very sad, deeply conscious of her husband's neglect. We do 
 not think that there is any reason to doubt M. Devienne's 
 statements to the Court of Cassation. They are of considerable 
 importance, as they help to explain various things which occurred 
 during the last years of the Empire. 
 
 The Empress may certainly have been somewhat worried 
 by the turn which events were taking politically, about the time 
 we have mentioned. It is true that there was as yet no sign of 
 the collapse of the hazardous Mexican expedition which she 
 appears to have favoured. Maximilian of Austria entered 
 Mexico city as Emperor in July, 1864, and the Tuileries, con- 
 fronted by the glowing despatches of the French commanders, 
 did not as yet imagine either that they would fail to impose the 
 new regime on the Mexican people, or that this mushroom 
 transatlantic Empire could at the utmost only last so long as 
 the United States, then in the throes of the War of Secession, 
 remained disunited. On the other hand, however, the new 
 phase upon which the Roman question entered in the autumn 
 of 1864 was of a nature to give the Empress anxiety. By a 
 convention signed in September it was agreed that the French 
 troops should quit Rome at the expiration of two years, and 
 that the maintenance of the integrity of the Papal dominions 
 should afterwards be entrusted to the Italian Government. 
 That measure had raised the ire of Pius IX., who, early in 
 December, and apparently in a spirit of revenge, issued an 
 Encyclical Letter in which several of the chief principles, not 
 
THE EMPEROR AND HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 207 
 
 only of modem civilization generally, but of the very organiza- 
 tion of France, were condemned as heretical An angry contro- 
 versy at once arose in the French press, and on January 1, 
 1865, the Imperial Government notified the bishops that the 
 publication of the Papal Encyclical was prohibited, as it con- 
 tained propositions contrary to the Constitution of the Empire. 
 Some thirty of the bishops protested against this prohibition, 
 and the relations between the Government and the clergy 
 became extremely strained. In that affair the Emperor was 
 on one side and the Empress on the other — thus even in that 
 respect some personal estrangement was inevitable, but the 
 Emperor's private conduct about this period was certainly the 
 chief cause of the trouble apparent to the whole Court. 
 
 In our account of Napoleon's gallantries we have striven to 
 express ourselves temperately. We have set down naught in 
 malice, but have refrained from chronicling many scandalous 
 rumours of the period, only giving particulars respecting those 
 affairs which are thoroughly well authenticated. The Gordon, 
 Howard, and Vergeot episodes were antecedent to the imperial 
 marriage, and of them the Empress Eugenie could not complain. 
 She was no mere child when she consented to link her destiny 
 with that of Napoleon III. ; she must have known at least 
 something of his past. Perhaps she imagined, as other women 
 have done in similar situations, that her beauty and charm 
 would suflRce to keep her husband in the path of marital duty ; 
 but she should have remembered that he belonged to a race 
 devoid in certain respects of moral sense. That reminds us that 
 we omitted to mention previously that while Napoleon III. had 
 an illegitimate half-brother, Momy, on his mother's side, he 
 also had another, the Count de Castelvecchio, on his father's. 
 That little touch will serve to complete the picture. That 
 the Emperor wronged his wife in the case of the Countess de 
 Castiglione and that of Marguerite Bellanger is indisputable, 
 and those instances alone would suffice to constitute serious 
 grievances, even if there were no others, as there may have 
 been, though, for lack of conclusive evidence, we have refrained 
 from insisting on that side of the question. 
 
 There was, we think, something of the nature of Louis XV. 
 in Napoleon III. Like the Well Beloved, he had his secret 
 
208 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 diplomacy; like him he was partial to the perusal of police 
 reports and the private correspondence of his entourage; like 
 him, again, he was fond of women. To those who did not know 
 the Emperor in that respect, it was a revelation to see him at 
 some evening gathering — at Compiegne, for instance — walking 
 slowly down a room between two long lines of radiant 
 courtesying beauties. The right hand was raised in the 
 familiar fashion to twirl the pointed moustache, the eyes 
 glanced almost stealthily to right and left, momentarily 
 glittering as every now and then they espied some vision 
 of particularly attractive loveliness. Again and again the 
 simile which that spectacle suggested to the mind was that 
 of a Sultan passing his odalisques in review. Thus, even if 
 the Emperor's actual lapses were far fewer than was rumoured, 
 one could well understand such rumours arising, and spreading 
 from the Court to the city, and thence through the world at 
 large. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 
 
 Branches of the House of Bonaparte and their Bank at Court — The Emperor's 
 Civil Family — The Lucien Bonapartes — The Murats — Table of Allowances 
 to the Imperial Family — Additional special Grants — Sums secured by 
 various Branches — Baron Jerome David— Emoluments of the Jerome 
 Bonapartes — The Bonaparte-Faterson Lawsuit — Prince Jerome's last 
 Marriage — ^His Protest to Napoleon in. — Curious Letter from Prince 
 Napoleon to Mr. Jerome (Paterson) Bonaparte — Jerome Bonaparte fils, 
 Cassagnao and Bochefort — Belationship of the Jerome Bonapartes to the 
 British Boyal House — Prince Napoleon (Jerome) — His early career and 
 Character — His Marriage with Princess Clotilde and their Home at the 
 Palais Boyal — The Prince's Love Afiairs — Edmond About's famous Sketch 
 of him — His later career and his sons, Princes Victor and Louis — Princess 
 MathUde — Her Character, Marriage, and Entourage — The Head of the 
 Murats — Prince Pierre Bonaparte. 
 
 At the establishment of the Second Empire nearly all the 
 branches of the Bonaparte family existing at the beginning 
 of the century still numbered representatives. The line of 
 Napoleon I. was, of course, extinct, but his brother Lucien, 
 Prince of Canino, had left numerous descendants, one of whom 
 was married to a still surviving daughter of Joseph, King 
 of Spain. Further, Napoleon's sister Elisa, sometime Grand 
 Duchess of Tuscany, was represented by her daughter, the 
 Princess Baciocchi, and there were several descendants of 
 Caroline Bonaparte and her husband Murat, King of Naples. 
 The great Emperor's brother. Prince Jerome, sometime King 
 of Westphalia, was still ahve, with a son and a daughter by 
 Catherine of Wurtemberg, in addition to the offspring of his 
 contested marriage with Miss Paterson of Baltimore. Finally, 
 Napoleon III. himself represented the line of Louis King of 
 Holland. 
 
210 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Failing direct male descent from Napoleon IH. (and, later, 
 from the Imperial Prince), the succession to the throne, as 
 indicated in a previous chapter, was vested " in Prince Jerome 
 and his direct, natural, and legitimate descendants, proceeding 
 from his marriage with Princess Catherine of Wurtemberg by 
 order of primogeniture, from male to male, and to the per- 
 petual exclusion of women." The Senatus Consultum and the 
 Organic Decree of 1852 containing that provision were con- 
 firmed by Clause 4 of the Constitution of May 21, 1870, and 
 as a result of the stipulations. Prince Jerome, his son Napoleon, 
 and his daughter Mathilde ranked as Imperial Highnesses, 
 and, with the Empress and Imperial Prince, constituted 
 what was strictly the Imperial Family. In 1855 the so-called 
 " Civil Family of the Emperor " was formed, it being provided 
 that "the sons of the brothers and sisters of the Emperor 
 Napoleon I., who do not belong to the Imperial Family, shall 
 bear the titles of Prince and Highness {i.e. without the adjunc- 
 tion of the word " Imperial "), together with their family name. 
 At the second generation only the eldest sons shall bear the 
 titles of Prince and Highness, the others having the title of 
 Prince only. Until their marriage the daughters of Princes 
 related to the Emperor shall enjoy the title of Princess, but 
 after marriage they shall bear only the names and titles 
 that may belong to their respective husbands, unless there be 
 a special decision of the Crown to a contrary effect. The 
 Princesses of the Emperor's family who have married Frenchmen 
 or foreigners do not take at Court any other rank than that of 
 their husbands." 
 
 The numerous descendants of the first Napoleon's brother 
 Lucien, against whom the above stipulations seem to have been 
 chiefly directed, were obliged to submit to them, but they 
 always contested their equity, and claimed that Napoleon III. 
 had no right to deprive them of the title of Prince or Princess 
 of the Imperial Family, as it had been granted to them by the 
 first Napoleon's decree of March 22, 1815. As a matter of fact. 
 Napoleon III.'s stipulations were not enforced with absolute 
 rigidity. For instance, three of Lucien's daughters, the 
 Marchioness Roccagiovine, the Countess Primoli, and the 
 Princess Gabrielli, were, by courtesy, generally known and 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 211 
 
 addressed at the Tuileries as the Princesses Julie, Charlotte, 
 and Augusta. 
 
 At the advent of the Second Empire there were four sons 
 of Napoleon I.'s brother Lucien living. Those were the Princes 
 Charles Lucien of Canino and Musignano,* Louis Lucien,t 
 Pierre Napoleon,^ and Antoine.§ Louis Lucien and Pierre 
 Napoleon were included in the civil family of Napoleon III. 
 in 1855, Antoine gained access to it at a later date, but the 
 eldest brother, Charles Lucien — a distinguished ornithologist — 
 was excluded, in spite of a decree of February 21, 1853, declaring 
 him a French Prince. His three sons were admitted at succes- 
 sive dates — first. Prince Joseph Lucien Bonaparte,|| in 1855; 
 secondly, Prince Napoleon Charles,1f in 1860 ; and thirdly. Prince 
 Lucien Louis,** best isnown as Cardinal Bonaparte, in 1865. 
 The Murats were also represented in the civil family, at first 
 merely by the former King of Naples' surviving son. Napoleon 
 Lucien Charles, Prince Murat and Prince of Pontecorvo ; ft and 
 afterwards by the latter's sons, the Princes Joachim H and 
 Achille Murat.§§ Their sister, the Princess Anna,|| |1 who married 
 Antoine de Noailles, Duke de Mouchy and Prince-Duke de 
 
 * Born in Paris in 1803 ; married in 1822 to Lsetitia-Julie, daughter of 
 King Joseph of Spain, by whom he had twelve children, four boys and eight 
 girls. He died in 1857. 
 
 t Born in England in 1813, married Maria GeocM of Lucca in 1833, was 
 separated from her in 1850, and died in 1891. 
 
 X Bom at Bome in 1815, died at Versailles in 1881. We shall deal with 
 him hereafter in more detail, 
 
 § Born at Frasoati in 1816, married Caroline Maria Oardinall of Lucca in 
 1823, and died at Florence in 1877. 
 
 II Bom at Philadelphia, U.S.A., in February, 1824 ; died at Rome in 1865. 
 
 if Born at Eome in 1839, and died there in 1899 ; married in 1859 Maria 
 Christina, daughter of Prince Buspoli, by whom he had three daughters. 
 
 ** Born at Borne in 1828, and died there in 1895. Created a Cardinal- 
 priest of the Holy Boman Church in March, 1868. 
 
 tt Born at Milan in 1808, died in Paris in 1878 ; married at Bordentown, 
 U.S.A., in 1831, Carolina Georglna Fraser, of Charlestown, by whom he had 
 three sons and two daughters. She was descended from the Lords Lovat. 
 
 It Bom at Bordentown in 1834 ; married first Malcy Louise Carolinp, 
 daughter of Napoleon Alexandre Berthier, Prince of Wagram, in 1854, and 
 secondly, Lydia Hervey, of Brighton, widow of Baron Arthur Hainguerlot, in 
 1894. One son and two daughters by the first marriage. 
 
 §§ Born at Bordentown in January, 1847; died in Mingrelia, Southern 
 Bussia, in 1895 ; married, in 1868, Salome', daughter of David Dadiani, Prince 
 of Mingrelia, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. 
 
 nil Bom at Bordentown in 1841. 
 
212 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Poix, in 1865, did not belong to the civil family, not did her 
 elder sister, the Baroness de Chassiron, who had lost her title 
 of Princess by her marriage with an official of the Council of 
 State; but their mother, Princess Lucien Murat, and their 
 sisters-in-law, Princesses Joachim and Achille, were included 
 in it. The other female members of the civil family were the 
 Princess Baciocchi, daughter of the first Napoleon's sister 
 Elisa, and the Princess Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, rwe 
 Ruspoli.* 
 
 All the members of the civil family were more or less pro- 
 vided for out of Napoleon III.'s civil list, and his munificence 
 extended also to a number of more or less distant relations. 
 Some idea of the annual outlay, apart from endowments con- 
 stituted at the establishment of the Empire, will be gathered 
 from the list we print on our next page. We have included in 
 it the special State allowances to Prince Napoleon and Princess 
 Mathilde, which allowances did not come out of the civil 
 list ; but it will be found that in 1868 the latter alone contri- 
 buted over d&52,000 to the support of members of the imperial 
 family. At that date, too, some who had been pensioned in 
 earlier years were dead; while, in addition to the aforesaid 
 i&52,000 from the general civil list fund, there were many 
 special grants from the privy purse.f Not only were the debts 
 of young Prince Achille Murat paid on various occasions, but 
 he secured a special grant at the time of his marriage, his 
 takings during the Empire amounting to quite ^£"30,000 ; while 
 Princess Anna, Duchess de Mouchy, obtained more than three 
 times that amount. In round figures, the first five Murats in 
 our table secured about half a million sterling. Further, the 
 Countess Rasponi, n^e Murat, netted, in one way or another, 
 about £ii5,000, and the Pepoli Murats were allotted a like sum. 
 The payments from the general fund of the civil list to the 
 many members of the Lucien branch of the Bonaparte family 
 were well over d&500,000, and yet the keeper of the privy purse 
 was constantly being badgered for extra allowances or loans. 
 On one occasion Sir Thomas Wyse, as the husband of Letizia 
 Bonaparte, secured a privy purse grant of .£'16,000, in addition 
 to what his wife was receiving regularly. On the other hand, 
 * See note ^, p. 211. t See tableB on pp. 160, 151, 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 
 
 213 
 
 STATE ALLOWANCES AND CIVIL LIST GRANTS TO THE 
 IMPERIAL FAMILY IN 1868. 
 
 Names. 
 
 Amounts. 
 
 Bona/partes— Jerome hrwnch: 
 
 Francs. 
 
 Franca. 
 
 H.I.H. Prince Napoleon 
 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 H.I.H. PrinoesB Mathilde 
 
 
 
 500,000 
 
 EUsa branch : 
 
 
 
 PrincGBS Baoiocchi 
 
 150,000 
 
 
 Item Life Annuity for the redemption 
 
 
 250,000 
 
 of the Majorat of Bologna 
 
 100,000 
 
 
 Lucien bramch : 
 
 
 
 Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte 
 
 
 
 100,000 
 
 Prince Pierre Bonaparte 
 
 — 
 
 100,000 
 
 Prince Antoine Bonaparte 
 
 — 
 
 100,000 
 
 Prince Lucien Bonaparte 
 
 — 
 
 20,000 
 
 Prince Napoleon Charles Bonaparte ... 
 
 50,000\ 
 20,000, 
 
 
 For rent of mansion 
 
 70,000 
 
 Princess Marianne Bonaparte 
 
 
 6,000 
 
 Marchioness RoocagioTine 
 
 20,000\ 
 20,000/ 
 
 40,000 
 
 For residence 
 
 Countess PrimoU 
 
 20,000\ 
 20,000/ 
 
 
 For residence 
 
 40,000 
 
 Countess Campella 
 
 — 
 
 20,000 
 
 Princess Gabrielli 
 
 20,000\ 
 20,000/ 
 
 
 For residence 
 
 40,000 
 
 Prince Oabrielli, son 
 
 
 6,250 
 
 Marchioness Christina Stephanoni ... 
 
 Marchioness Amelia Parisani 
 
 Countess Lavinia Aventi 
 
 (Daughters of 
 Prmcess Gabrielli) 
 
 6,250 
 6,250 
 6,250 
 
 Mme. Valentini 
 
 — 
 
 25,500 
 
 Mme. [Lady ?] Bonaparte- Wyse 
 
 40,000\ 
 6,975/ 
 
 46,976 
 
 Item for life insurance 
 
 Mme. Rattazzi, n^ Wyse 
 
 — 
 
 24,000 
 
 Mme. Turr, n^e Wyse 
 
 — 
 
 24,000 
 
 M. Lucien N. Bonaparte- Wyse 
 
 — 
 
 2,000 
 
 Mrs. A. Booker 
 
 — 
 
 6,000 
 
 Mme. 0. Honorati-Romagnoli 
 
 — 
 
 6,000 
 
 Murat branch : 
 
 
 
 Prince Lucien Murat 
 
 (Originally 100,000) 
 
 60,000 
 
 Princess Lucien Murat 
 
 — 
 
 100,000 
 
 Prince AchiUe Murat 
 
 — 
 
 24,000 
 
 Princess Joachim Murat 
 
 — 
 
 20,000 
 
 Baroness de Ohassiron, n^ Murat 
 
 — 
 
 30,000 
 
 Countess Rasponi, n4e Murat 
 
 — 
 
 60,000 
 
 Marquis Pepoli 
 
 — 
 
 25,000 
 
 Countess Mosti, n^ Pepoli 
 
 — 
 
 8,333 
 
 Countess Ruspoli, n^ Pepoli 
 
 — 
 
 8,333 
 
 Countess Tattini, rUe Pepoli 
 
 — 
 
 8,334 
 
 Paterson branch : 
 
 
 
 M. Jerome Bonaparte, /i2s 
 
 — 
 
 30,000 
 
 Morganatic wife of King Jerome : 
 
 
 
 Marohionesa Bartholoni 
 
 "^ 
 
 12,000 
 
 Total 
 
 . £112,437 = Francs 
 
 2,810,975 
 
214 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the allowance to Mme. Rattazzi, nee Wyse, and sometime 
 Countess de Solms, was at one moment suspended. Early in 
 1865 she gave great offence at Court by the publication of a 
 book entitled "Les Manages d'une Creole," in which she 
 seriously libelled M. Schneider, the owner of the Creusot iron 
 and steel works, who succeeded Walewski as President of the 
 Legislative Body ; the result being that Mme. Rattazzi was 
 struck off the list of the Emperor's annuitants and ordered to 
 quit France. A couple of years later, however, she again 
 secured her former allowance.* 
 
 It should also be mentioned that there was Mme. Bona- 
 parte-Centamori, dead apparently in 1868 (the date of our 
 list), who had enjoyed, in earlier years, allowances amounting 
 altogether to .fSljOOO. One might include, too, among the 
 payments to members of the imperial family the special grants 
 and the annuity secured by Baron Jerome David, as, although 
 he was legally the son of Charles Louis David, the son of David 
 the great painter, it was generally admitted that his real father 
 was none other than old Prince Jerome, the ex-King of West- 
 phalia. Baron David''s mother was a beautiful Greek, named 
 Maria Capinaki, whom Jerome, the Don Juari par excellence of 
 the Bonapartes, met at Rome. He became godfather to his 
 own child, and that sponsorship subsequently served as an 
 official explanation for the high favour to which Baron Jerome 
 David gradually attained at the Tuileries. From being a 
 deputy he rose in time to such positions as Vice-President of 
 the Legislative Body and Minister of Public Works. For those 
 duties he naturally received emoluments apart from the allow- 
 ance made him by the Emperor,t and that was also the case 
 with respect to several of the Bonapartes and Murats. One 
 was a senator, another director of the Jardin des Plantes, 
 another a general of brigade, another a cavalry captain, and so 
 forth, in such wise that civil list and privy purse grants by no 
 
 * Some further partioulare respecting Mme. Eattazzi will be found in a 
 note on p. 292. 
 
 t The Baron died at Langon (Gironde), in 1822, having been predeceased 
 by both the children of his marriage with Mile. Jeanne-O&ile Merle, in such 
 wise that the family, which may be regarded almost as an illegitimate branch 
 of the Bonapartes, is extinct. The Baroness Jerome David was a lady of the 
 greatest beauty, distinction, and virtue. 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 215 
 
 means represented the total amount of money which the minor 
 members of the Imperial House drew from France. 
 
 The State allowance to the Jerome branch of the family 
 was fixed originally at ^£"60,000 per annum, and apportioned 
 as follows: — Prince Jerome, J'40,000; Prince Napoleon, 
 .£12,000 ; and Princess Mathilde, ^8000. When, however, 
 Prince Napoleon married Princess Clotilda of Savoy, the 
 above amount was increased to .£'88,000 a year, apart from 
 a special wedding grant of .£20,000, and it was provided 
 that the Princess should receive an annual allowance of 
 £8000 from the French exchequer if she should survive her 
 husband. In 1860, however, old Prince Jerome died, and 
 £60,000 a year again became the allowance of his branch of 
 the family, two-thirds of the amount then going to Prince 
 Napoleon, and one-third to Princess Mathilde. Moreover, 
 already at an earlier date, the Palais Royal and the Chateau 
 of Meudon had been diverted from the actual dotation of the 
 Crown and transferred to Prince Jerome, passing afterwards to 
 his son, Prince Napoleon. The last named, in addition to his 
 State allowance, drew annual sums of £1200 as a senator, 
 £200 as a grand cross of the Legion of Honour, and £400 as a 
 general officer on the unemployed list, besides receiving payment 
 at various times for certain special duties, such as Minister for 
 Algeria, Vice-President of the Council of State, Vice-President 
 of various international exhibitions, envoy abroad, and so forth. 
 It has been calculated that the total receipts of the Jerome 
 branch of the Bonapartes from 1852 to 1870 exceeded a million 
 and a half sterling, of which amount about a million was taken 
 by Prince Napoleon alone. 
 
 In 1861, the year following the death of old Jerome, 
 proceedings were instituted before the Paris Court of First 
 Instance for a declaration of the validity of the marriage which 
 he contracted at Baltimore in December, 1803, with Miss 
 Elizabeth Paterson, of that city. It wiU be remembered that 
 this marriage was protested against by the Prince's mother 
 (" Madame Mere), and annulled by two decrees of Napoleon I. 
 Shortly after the establishment of the Second Empire, Mr. 
 Jerome Paterson-Bonaparte, the issue of the marriage, arrived in 
 France, and was well received by Napoleon III., who granted him 
 
216 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 by decree the nationality of a French subject, and authorized 
 him to bear the name of Bonaparte, besides giving his eldest 
 son, a young man of five and twenty, who had served in the 
 American forces, a commission in the French army, which 
 subsequently enabled him to serve with distinction in the 
 Crimea. In July, 1856, however, the Imperial Family Council, 
 after inquiring into the Baltimore marriage and the decrees of 
 Napoleon I., upheld the view that the former was null and void. 
 The object of the proceedings instituted in 1861 before the 
 Paris Court by Mrs. Bonaparte, nee Paterson, and her son was 
 to set that decision of the family council aside. The great 
 advocate Berryer, who appeared for the plaintiffs, laboured 
 hard to show that the family council had no authority to 
 adjudicate upon the case, and that the decrees of Napoleon I. 
 were void, as he had not the power to annul a marriage con- 
 tracted before he became Emperor. Quite different were the 
 views held by Prince Napoleon's counsel, Maitre AUou, who 
 in the course of years became a great authority on marriage 
 procedure, figuring, we believe, in more "judicial separation" 
 cases than any other advocate of his time. He claimed that 
 the whole question had been settled by the decrees of the first 
 and the family council of the third Napoleon. Davignon, the 
 Public Advocate, representing the State, favoured Berryer's 
 view in some respects, and not in others. For instance, he held 
 that the decrees of Napoleon I. did not affect the validity of the 
 Baltimore marriage, but were in many respects illegal and un- 
 constitutional. Further, he discarded the plea that the marriage 
 had been in any degree clandestine, or that it had been nullified 
 by the non-publication of the banns in France. But, passing 
 to the two sentences of the family council in 1856, which had 
 pronounced against the validity of the marriage while declaring 
 that Mr. Jerome Bonaparte was entitled to bear that name, 
 Davignon argued that the family council was sovereign in all 
 matters pertaining to the imperial family ; that the case was 
 therefore res judicata, the court being bound by the council's 
 decision and debarred from further action. The court's finding 
 (February 15, 1861) was in accordance with Davignon's views. 
 The judgment contained no expression of opinion on the merits 
 of the case, but was based entirely on the ground that the 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 217 
 
 Imperial Family Council had finally and conclusively adjudi- 
 cated upon the question submitted to the court. Briefly, the 
 Bonapartes were above the law ! 
 
 Various interesting matters came to light during the pro- 
 ceedings. It was shown, for instance, that Prince Jerome had 
 contracted in his old age a clandestine marriage with the 
 Marchioness Bartholoni, who by reason of her wit and sculptural 
 beauty was one of the most admired women of the time. In 
 his will, dated July 6, 1852, Jerome declared that he had 
 married her " in presence of the Church," thereby signifying 
 that the civil ceremony had not been performed, and he left 
 her an annuity, which was generously supplemented by the 
 Emperor.* 
 
 Further, a very curious letter addressed by Jerome to 
 Napoleon III. was read during the judicial proceedings. It 
 protested against the decrees in favour of " the son and grand- 
 son of Miss Paterson," which decrees, said Jerome, " dispose of 
 my name without my consent, introduce into my family, without 
 even my being consulted, persons that have never belonged to 
 it, cast a doubt on the legitimacy of my children, and prepare 
 for them [here he was a true prophet] a scandalous lawsuit. . . . 
 They constitute an attack upon my honour and that of the 
 Emperor, my brother [Napoleon I.], by annulling the solemn 
 engagements into which we entered with the King of Wurtem- 
 berg and the Emperor of Russia, as a condition of my marriage 
 with the Princess Catherine." Jerome therefore appealed for a 
 prompt and final decision, saying that he was fast drawing to 
 the close of his career, and that he regarded it as a sacred duty 
 to see that a question which compromised his dearest interests 
 should be settled in his lifetime. There can be little doubt 
 
 • See the table on p. 213. It may be added that when Jerome, while 
 playing cards with M. de Damas, his aide-de-camp, was suddenly stricken with 
 paralysis, which seizure was followed by his death, Mme. Bartholoni was 
 immediately summoned, and nursed the unfortunate old man while he 
 lingered, unable to move or to speak, but hearing and seeing everything. His 
 son. Prince Napoleon, behaved at that time in a most abominable manner, 
 showing no respect whatever for his father's terrible condition. Further, he 
 flatly refused to attend the funeral, which took place at Vilgenis, the 
 Emperor, Empress, and Princess Mathilde being present. The reason given 
 by Prince Napoleon for absenting himself was that he could not con- 
 scientiously attend the religious ceremony. 
 
218 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 that it was this urgent appeal which led to the decision of the 
 Imperial Family Council. 
 
 But a yet stranger letter produced during the trial was one 
 written by Jerome's son, Prince Napoleon, to his half-brother, 
 the son of Miss Paterson. The sentiments it displayed were 
 very different from those of the father. Dated July 25, 1854, 
 the letter ran as follows : — 
 
 "My dear Brother, 
 
 " I have gone through a great deal, but am glad to find 
 that your kind sentiments remain unchanged. It is with real 
 satisfaction that I hail the blending of those family sentiments with 
 personal sympathy. I appreciate them the more as I cannot say as 
 much of all my relations. As for my sister [Princess Mathilde], she 
 in particular is a stranger to me. But those sad reflections ought 
 not to proceed from my pen now that I feel genuine delight in 
 recalling myself to your fraternal souvenir. I know not what fate 
 the war may have in store for me [he was already in the Crimea, 
 we think]. I hope something will be decided before the winter. A 
 thousand good wishes to your son, whom I embrace and love already 
 by reason of all the good reports I have heard of him. 
 
 " Your affectionate brother, 
 
 " Napoleon Bonaparte.'' 
 
 As it happened, all the cordiality of that " fraternal " letter 
 did not prevent Prince Napoleon from contesting in open court, 
 seven years later, the validity of his father's marriage to his 
 "dear brother's" mother. The Paterson Bonapartes never 
 succeeded in gaining their point (the judgment of 1861 was 
 subsequently confirmed by the Paris Appeal Court), and some 
 kind of compromise was ultimately arrived at. Miss Paterson's 
 grandson, who had served in the Crimea — M. Jerome Bonaparte 
 fls, as he was called — remained resident in France, and was 
 often seen at the Tuileries, sometimes also at the Palais Royal. 
 As our table on p. 213 will have shown, he received from 
 Napoleon III. an annual allowance of ^^1200. It so chanced 
 that he acted as one of the seconds of the well-remembered 
 Paul de Cassagnac of Le Pays when the latter fought his famous 
 duel with Henri Rochefort on January 1, 1867. Cassagnac had 
 called Rochefort out for slandering the memory of Joan of 
 Arc, and thus, while most Parisians were exchanging visiting 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 219 
 
 cards and sweetmeats ki honour of the New Year, those two 
 firebrands of the press met in a snowstorm on the plain of St. 
 Denis for the purpose of exchanging four bullets. At the first 
 shot fired by Cassagnac, Rochefort was hit on the left side, near 
 the waist, and staggered and fell. For a moment there was 
 great anxiety, it being thought that he had received a fatal 
 wound, but it was found that he was only suffering from shock. 
 The bullet had glanced off him after striking something hard, 
 concealed in the waistband of his trousers. He himself was 
 anxious to know what it might be, and on the waistband being 
 cut open a consecrated medal of the Virgin was found inside it. 
 Great was the amazement of Cassagnac and Jerome Bonaparte 
 on discovering that a professed free-thinker carried a consecrated 
 medal about him, and they were equally astonished that the 
 Virgin should have protected a slanderer of the Maid of Orleans. 
 On the other hand, Rochefort himself could in no way account 
 for the presence of the medal. Only afterwards did he learn 
 that it had been secretly sewn in his waistband by one who, 
 loving him, had thereby hoped to ensure his safety. She was 
 the mother of his children, and, some four years later, after the 
 Commune of Paris, when he was about to be transpoited to 
 New Caledonia, he married her as she lay on her death-bed in 
 the hospital of Versailles. 
 
 But let us now pass to Prince Jerome's so-called legitimate 
 children. In August, 1807, he espoused Princess Frederika 
 Catherine Sophia (usually known as Catherine), daughter of 
 Duke Frederick of Wurtemberg (in whose favour that State was 
 first raised to the rank of a kingdom) by the Princess Augusta 
 Caroline of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel. The last named was 
 a daughter of Princess Augusta of Great Britain, sister of 
 George III., whence it followed that Catherine, the wife of 
 Jerome Bonaparte, was a great-granddaughter of Frederick, 
 Prince of Wales. Moreover, her father's sister married the 
 Emperor Paul of Russia, and her brother, Prince Royal and 
 later King of Wurtemberg, allied himself first to a Bavarian 
 Princess and later to a Russian Grand Duchess, in such wise 
 that by Catherine's marriage with Napoleon's brother Jerome 
 the Bonapartes became connected with some of the chief reigning 
 houses of Europe. 
 
220 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Catherine of Wurtemberg was a clever, high-minded, and 
 devoted woman, who clung to her husband however volatile 
 his conduct might be. Three children were bom to them— a 
 son who died when young ; a second one, the Prince Napoleon 
 we have frequently mentioned; and a daughter, the Princess 
 Mathilda. Prince Napoleon,* an Imperial Prince of France 
 (December 2, 1852), designated as successor to the Empire, Count 
 of Meudon in France and of Moncalieri in Italy, Napoleon V. in 
 the eyes of the French imperialists after the death of the son of 
 Napoleon III. in Zululand, was born in September, 1822, at 
 Trieste, while his parents were living there in exile. They 
 subsequently removed to Rome, where their son was reared until 
 he had completed his ninth year. He then went to a college 
 at Geneva, which he quitted in 1837 to enter the military 
 school of Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart. He subsequently spent 
 some years in travel, in Germany, Spain, England, and even 
 France, where he was more than once permitted to stay by the 
 Government of Louis Philippe. Both he and his father were 
 there at the time of the Revolution of 1848, and Prince 
 Napoleon, offering himself as a candidate in Corsica, was elected 
 a member first of the Constituent and later of the National 
 Assembly. 
 
 He did not, however, support the cause of his cousin, the 
 future Napoleon III. On the contrary, he identified himself 
 with the extreme Radicals, the "Mountain Party "t of the 
 Legislature, repeatedly opposing the measures of his cousin's 
 administration, and on one occasion even voting for the 
 impeachment of his ministers. Nevertheless, the future Emperor 
 evinced the greatest patience and forbearance towards Jerome's 
 son, contrasting which with the latter's reckless violence, Odilon 
 Barrot was of opinion that the only possible explanation lay in 
 certain mysterious family secrets, which gave the radical Prince 
 a certain hold over his ambitious cousin. At one moment, to 
 get rid of this thorn in his side, the Prince President appointed 
 Prince Napoleon ambassador at Madrid — a strange ambassador, 
 who all along his route gathered the most advanced democrats 
 
 * Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul. His usual signature, however, was 
 " Napoleon (Jerome)." 
 
 t So called because it sat on the highest row of benches in the Assembly. 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 221 
 
 around him, and denounced in the bitterest terms the govern- 
 ment by which he was employed. So bad was his conduct in 
 that respect that it became necessary to recall him before he 
 even reached Spain ! He afterwards plunged more and more 
 into opposition courses, and at the Coup d'Etat he was among 
 those who signed the first protests against it. 
 
 While willingly accepting the honours and emoluments 
 showered upon him at the re-establishment of the Empire, 
 Prince Napoleon persevered in more or less fractious conduct 
 throughout the reign. How far he was sincere in the profession 
 of radical views, and how far he merely gave them expression 
 in order to annoy and baulk his cousin and win a certain 
 reputation for independence of character, must, we think, 
 always remain uncertain. His alacrity in accepting honours 
 and wealth from the sovereign whom he so constantly opposed, 
 and even denounced, did not redound to his credit. Even as 
 the Empress Eugenie claimed to play the part of Marie 
 Antoinette, so Prince Napoleon assumed a role akin to that 
 of Philippe Egalit6, a comparison which suggested itself the 
 more readily as he resided, like the Duke of Orleans, at the 
 Palais Royal, while the Emperor, like Louis XVI., occupied 
 the Tuileries. 
 
 Although Prince Napoleon had never served in any army, 
 he was, as we mentioned previously, made a general officer by 
 the Emperor, and sent to the Crimea in command of the 
 third division of St. Arnaud's forces. The accounts of his 
 share in the battle of the Alma are conflicting. According 
 to some he behaved right gallantly, according to others he 
 covered himself with disgrace. His early return from the war 
 certainly indisposed the Parisians against him, not for a while, 
 but for the rest of his life. Detested already by the genuine 
 imperialists for his affectation of radicalism, distrusted by true 
 democrats on account of his alacrity in accepting the Emperor's 
 favours, he utterly failed to win any measure of popularity, 
 and it was in vain that a small coterie of adherents praised his 
 talents — which were considerable — and tried to induce the 
 public to take him seriously. 
 
 In point of fact, the Prince lacked those qualities which 
 are essentially requisite in every man of ambition, be he 
 
222 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 either politician or soldier, that is, the qualities of patience 
 and perseverance. He could command neither his will nor his 
 tongue. A fluent but unequal speaker, he frequently became 
 intoxicated with his own words, and lost the power of con- 
 trolling his utterances. He often began by saying that he 
 intended to remain calm^ but a moment later you could detect 
 passion growling in his resonant, domineering voice. He would 
 also express his intention of respecting the proprieties, and yet 
 immediately afterwards galling epithets would leap from his 
 lips. Disturbed thereby, he would then try to beat a retreat, 
 and fail. Annoyed with himself for having let his tongue run 
 on, and annoyed with his hearers because he had thus given 
 them an opportunity of judging him, he would finally break off 
 in the midst of a sentence, leaving his discourse unfinished, save 
 for the angry gesture in which he usually indulged before sitting 
 down. Such was Prince Napoleon in the Senate and the 
 Council of State, at Ajaccio, and elsewhere. 
 
 After one of those explosions there often came a fit of 
 dejection, perhaps of repentance, which carried him off to his 
 estate of Prangins, in Switzerland, where, deserting political 
 life for months at a stretch, he remained, ploughing in silence 
 " his lonely furrow." More than once he proved himself to be, 
 politically, something like the Lord Rosebery of the Empire. 
 Further, he dreamt rather than he conceived. He began a 
 thing and never finished it. Ambassador, general, functionary, 
 minister, whatever post he might hold, it lasted no longer than 
 a fragile toy in the hands of a self-willed child. It was his 
 constant practice to throw the helve after the hatchet ; he broke 
 down every steed that was offered to him before he was even 
 well in the saddle. 
 
 His few partisans used to say that he was fit only for the 
 first rank, and could not serve in the second. But even as 
 the earlier period of his life showed that he could not obey, 
 so the last period showed that he was not fit for command. 
 Thus it is principally by way of presenting the reader with 
 a curiosity that we will quote the description of the Prince, 
 which, apropos of his portrait by Flandrin, was penned in 1861 
 by Edmond About — a description which created an extra- 
 ordinary sensation when it first appeared in print, and drew 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 223 
 
 down upon the Opinion NationaJe, in which it was issued,* an 
 official warning that the journal would be suppressed should it 
 ever dare to print anything similar. This, then, is what About 
 wrote — 
 
 " This portrait is not merely a good painting, it is a great work, 
 the fruit of a superior mind, a high intellect. If every scrap of 
 contemporary history were to be lost, this canvas alone could tell 
 posterity what Prince Napoleon was. Here we see the man him- 
 self, this misplaced Csesar.f whom nature cast in the mould of the 
 Roman emperors, but whom fate has hitherto condemned to stand 
 with folded arms at the foot of a throne. We see him, proud of 
 the name he bears and of the talent he has revealed, visibly cut 
 to the heart by, and nobly impatient of, a fatality which, doubtless, 
 will not always prevail against him. We see him, then, an aristocrat 
 by education, a democrat by instinct, the legitimate, not the bastard, 
 son of the French Revolution ; born for action, but condemned for 
 a time to aimless agitation and sterile motion ; thirsting for glory, 
 scornful of common popularity, caring nothing for common report, 
 and too high-hearted to court either the masses or the middle 
 classes pursuant to the old traditions of the Palais Royal. Yes, 
 this is the man who solicited the honour of leading the French 
 columns to the assault of Sebastopol, and returned to Paris shrugging 
 his shoulders because of the delays of a siege which seemed to him 
 to be stupid. This is the man who, from mere curiosity and to 
 relieve the ennid of an active mind, went on a promenade, with his 
 hands in his pockets, among the polar icebergs where Sir John 
 FrankHn lost his Ufe. This is the man who, with vigorous arm, 
 undertook the government of Algeria, and threw it up in disgust 
 because he had not sufficient freedom of action. This is he who 
 recently stood forth in the Senate ; placed himself ^er saltern in the 
 front rank of the most illustrious orators, crushing the Papacy as 
 a lion of the Sahel crushes some trembling victim ; and that done, 
 turned on his heel and strolled back to his viUa in the Avenue 
 Montaigne, where he is surrounded by the exquisite atmosphere of 
 elegant antiquity. If there be one characteristic of that noble and 
 remarkable face which M. Flandrin has not quite conveyed, it is 
 the delicate, acute, Florentine expression which makes the Prince 
 
 * The Prince financed that journal, which was then edited by Adolphe 
 Gu^roult. He had previously financed La Presse, which Nefitzer and Peyrat 
 conducted. 
 
 ■)■ Cisar diclassi— the name stuck, but not in the sense in which About 
 intended it. 
 
224 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 so like a member of the Medici family. It should be possible, I 
 think, to cast upon canvas some reflection of the graces of that 
 powerful, delicate, and versatile mind, which astonishes, attracts 
 and overawes, captivates without seeking to captivate, and rivets 
 without effort the devotion of his friends." 
 
 Looking back, that portrait seems to us like a caricature ; 
 and although Edmond About, like Emile de Girardin, the 
 Gueroults, Edmond Texier, and various other "Liberals" of 
 the day, was an habitue of the Palais Royal, one of those who 
 dined and wined and hobnobbed with Prince Napoleon, he 
 assuredly had his tongue in his cheek while penning so 
 extravagant, so exaggerated an effusion. It was taken 
 seriously enough, however, by the powers of the day. 
 
 Girardin, whom we have just named, was an extremely 
 self-opinionated individual, who frequented the Palais Royal 
 more for an opportunity to air his own paradoxical views than 
 from any feeling of regard for or belief in Prince Napoleon. 
 One evening he expounded a favourite political system of his, 
 a kind of mitigated anarchism, in which the unlimited liberty 
 of the citizens had, as its counterweight, the absolute indepen- 
 dence of the authorities. 
 
 " Let me see if I understand you," said the Prince at last. 
 "I represent authority, you represent liberty. You say and 
 do whatever you choose against me, both in your newspapers 
 and at your public meetings, in the streets, and so forth. That 
 is the portion of liberty. On my side, I set batteries of artillery 
 at every street corner in Paris, and if you annoy me I shoot 
 you down. That's my independence. Is that your idea .'' " 
 
 " Quite so." 
 
 "Then I'm perfectly ready to adopt your system," the 
 Prince retorted gaily. 
 
 " Don't trust him," said one who knew him well in those 
 days ; " if he should ever reign, he would be a modern Tiberius, 
 not from motives of cruelty, but from egotism. He is blasi 
 and bored." 
 
 About's account of the Prince's exploits, in the description 
 we have quoted, was in some respects grotesque. Leaving 
 aside the debatable question of the Alma, his voyage to the 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 225 
 
 polar circle, made in June, 1856, was a very commonplace 
 affair, which, although undertaken, according to official accounts, 
 for " scientific purposes," yielded no results of scientific value. 
 It amounted, in fact, to little more than a sojourn in Green- 
 land among the Esquimaux, followed, as a finale, by a series of 
 visits to Christiania, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. As for the 
 post of Minister of Algeria, this was merely given to the Prince 
 by way of supplying him with a little routine occupation. He 
 threw it up, undoubtedly, but any man of sense would have 
 known beforehand that the Ministry was bound to clash with 
 the Governorship of the colony, and could at the utmost prove 
 little more than an ornamental post. 
 
 The Prince's marriage on January SO, 1859, with the 
 Princess Clotilda Maria ITieresa of Savoy, daughter of King 
 Victor Emmanuel II., was contracted for political reasons, and 
 proved as unhappy as such marriages usually do. It is even 
 astonishing that the Prince should have assented to it when it 
 was suggested to him by Napoleon III. In any case his assent 
 showed that, much as he laid claim to independence of 
 character, he could put that aside when a large increase of 
 income was offered him. Directly the match was made public 
 it was expedited with a haste which astonished Europe, as it 
 seemed little short of indecent. It is true the marriage had 
 been secretly arranged some time previously, being one of the 
 consequences of the conference of Plombiferes (July '58), when 
 Count Cavour and Chevalier Nigra met Napoleon III., Count 
 Walewski, Baron de Billing, and M. Mocquard to settle the 
 question of " United Italy." However, immediately the 
 Princess was deemed old enough to marry. Prince Napoleon 
 swooped down on Turin like a burglar. He was then over 
 thirty-seven, while the poor little bride was but fifteen years 
 and ten months old. The marriage was compared not unaptly 
 to that of an elephant and a gazelle : the bridegroom, with his 
 marked Napoleonic features, being broad and bulky and 
 ponderous, the bride short, slight, and frail looking, with fair 
 hair and the chaiacteristic tip-tilted nose of the Royal House 
 of Savoy. She seemed indeed, as she really was, a delicately 
 nurtured child, fresh from the nursery. 
 
 The mai-riage followed the Emperor Napoleon's memorable 
 
226 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 public warning to Baron Hiibner, the Austrian Ambassador, 
 at the New Year reception at the Tuileries ; but although that 
 warning presaged hostilities on the part of France in support 
 of Italian independence, the Piedmontese by no means favoured 
 the union into which their King's daughter was forced. They 
 regarded it, in fact, almost as a mesalliance. It was useless 
 to protest however. Prince Napoleon hurried his child-wife 
 away to France. As in those days there was no Cenis, or 
 Simplon, or Gothard tunnel, the journey was made by way of 
 Genoa, and thence by sea to Marseilles ; and when the bridal 
 couple made their state entry into Paris on February 4, every 
 one noticed how tired and sad and shy was the juvenile 
 countenance of the poor young lady, whom " Plon-Plon " had 
 brought back with him. The reception was distinctly cold, 
 but that was on account of the husband's personality; the 
 silence of the crowd meant no disrespect for the daughter of 
 Victor Emmanuel. She, indeed, was spoken of with no little 
 sympathy; and it may here be added that throughout the 
 remainder of the Empire no voice was ever raised in criticism 
 or disparagement of the retiring, charitable, pious, and un- 
 happily mated lady of the Palais Royal. Even at the Revo- 
 lution of 1870 she was treated with the utmost respect and 
 deference. Three children were born of the marriage, as 
 follows : Firstly, Prince Napoleon Victor Jerome Frederic, who 
 came into the world at the Palais Royal, on July 18, 1862, and 
 who is now the Head of the House of Bonaparte; secondly, 
 Prince Napoleon Louis Joseph Jerome, who was born at the 
 chateau of Meudon on July 16, 1864, and is now a general 
 officer in the Russian service ; thirdly. Princess Marie Laetitia 
 Eugenie Catherine Adelaide, born at the Palais Royal on 
 December 20, 1866, and married in 1888 to her uncle, 
 Amadeo, Duke of Aosta, and sometime King of Spain. He 
 died in 1890. 
 
 Prince Napoleon had the customary vice of the Bonapartes. 
 Both before and after his marriage his name figured in the 
 scandals of the time. It was associated notably with those of 
 two actresses, Rachel and Mile. Judith. By the last named he 
 had, in 1853, a son, who died in 1885. Another illegitimate 
 son by an Englishwoman is said to be still alive. But the 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 227 
 
 most discreditable of all the intrigues in which Prince Napoleon, 
 or indeed any Bonaparte, ever engaged, was that with the 
 notorious Cora Pearl, It was matter of common notoriety, 
 and so little pains were taken to conceal it that we can 
 remember seeing the woman's brougham waiting in the Rue de 
 Montpensier, and she herself slipping out of the Palais Royal 
 and springing into the vehicle. She left him, it seems, because 
 he did not open his purse often enough to suit her. 
 
 As most people are aware, the Palais Royal was originally 
 built by Richelieu, and called in his honour the Palais Cardinal. 
 It passed into the possession of Louis XIII., and later, while 
 Anne of Austria was Regent of France, it became her residence, 
 afterwards going to her younger son, the Duke of Orleans. 
 From that time onward the palace underwent so many changes 
 architecturally, that little remained of the original structure. 
 Twice in the eighteenth century it was badly damaged by fire, 
 which led to much rebuilding. It was in 1780 that, for purposes 
 of gain, the Duke of Orleans, subsequently known as Philippe 
 Egalite, raised the rows of houses with arcaded shops around 
 the palace garden. Lack of money prevented him from com- 
 pleting his plans, and for many years some of the galleries were 
 mere wooden structures. The garden, the coffee-houses, and 
 the underground circus in the centre of the garden were, it 
 will be remembered, associated with notable events of the 
 French Revolution. Later the palace galleries were largely 
 given over to gamblers and harlots, the spot becoming the 
 centre of the fast life of Paris. Under the Consulate the palace 
 itself was the quarters of the "Tribunat," but Napoleon 
 eventually attached it to the domains of the Crown. In 1815 
 his brother Lucien resided at the Palais Royal, which after- 
 wards reverted to the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe. It was 
 there, indeed, that he was officially notified of the legislative 
 decision which declared him "King of the French." The 
 palace was pillaged in 1848, and was subsequently used as mili- 
 tary headquarters and for fine art shows. After the Coup 
 d'Etat, Napoleon III. assigned it as a residence to his uncle. 
 Prince Jerome, but so much money was spent in renovating the 
 Tuileries and perfecting the Louvre that until Prince Napoleon's 
 marriage with Princess Clotilde only urgent repairs were carried 
 
2^8 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 out at the Palais Royal. A little later came important changes. 
 The grand staircase was entirely rebuilt, and most of the 
 apartments were redecorated. The rooms were very numerous ; 
 there were, if we remember rightly, over a score of salons, but 
 they were mostly rather small. Very fine, however, was the 
 Salle des Fetes, with its oval sky- ceiling, gilded cornices, central 
 marble fountain, and lofty chimney-piece, surmounted by a bust 
 of Napoleon III., with attendant female figures upholding the 
 imperial escutcheon. The prevailing style of decoration was a 
 kind of modernized Renaissance, in which the emblems of the 
 Empire were blended with ornamentation characteristic of the 
 Francis I. and Medici periods. For instance, in the magnificent 
 Salle des Colonnes, a crowned imperial eagle appeared in each 
 of the intercolumniatory compartments, above female demi- 
 figures which raised baskets of fruit and flowers beside busts 
 of such celebrities as Buffon, Voltaire, Machiavelli, Moliere, 
 Comeille, and Descartes. From the Salle des Colonnes an 
 arcade led to the Salle des Batailles, where the panels were 
 hung with some fine old tapestry representing the victories of 
 Louis XIV., the general effect being somewhat spoilt, however, 
 by the garnet velvet upholstery of the furniture. 
 
 Perhaps the most satisfactory apartment was the so-called 
 morning reception room, in which Prince Napoleon usually 
 gave audience. Here again the imperial eagle figured in the 
 friezes above the walls, but all the rest was of late Renaissance 
 style. Very striking was the lofty chimney-piece with its large 
 white marble medallion of Venus rising from the waves. The 
 picture-gallery, hung in red silk damask, contained some good 
 paintings, notably family portraits, and a wonderful one of 
 Rachel the tragedienne. There was also a salon effectively 
 fitted with green marble, and another hung with superb 
 Gobelins. The old chapel of Louis Philippe's time was turned 
 by Prince Napoleon into a kind of museum (he was, we may 
 mention, a collector of considerable taste), a new chapel being 
 fitted up near the private apartments of Princess Clotilde in 
 the right-hand wing of the palace. This new chapel, lighted 
 by armorial windows and having a vaulted ceiling, all azure 
 and golden stars, contained a curious little altar formed of a 
 slab of marble resting on small pillars of massive gold, and 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 229 
 
 surmounted by a statuette ot Our Lady of Victory. Princess 
 Clotilde's rooms, which extended as far back as the palace 
 garden, and included two salons, a boudoir, a private library, 
 and a bedroom, were furnished and decorated throughout in a 
 clear blue, in keeping with the Princess's complexion ; but the 
 bedroom of the Prince was hung with dazzling orange silk. 
 " At all events, he knows himself," a visitor remarked one day. 
 "That yellowish hue is very appropriate. Yellow is the 
 colour of jealousy, and in nearly all his actions the Prince 
 betrays his jealousy of the Emperor." 
 
 It was not often, as the years went by, that grand entertain- 
 ments were given at the Palais Royal, for Princess Clotilde 
 gradually led a more and more retired life. But the few balls 
 which took place were marked by magnificence and taste. 
 Dinner-parties were much more frequent. When the Prince 
 was in Paris, not a week elapsed without one of those petits 
 diners at which he gathered together the politicians, journalists, 
 literary men, and artists of his coterie. Some of these were 
 epicures in their way, and the cuisine was excellent, much more 
 refined than at the Tuileries. But although there was no 
 appearance of a scramble, everything was served and consumed 
 with a rapidity which was scarcely an aid to digestion. For 
 instance, you sat down at eight o'clock, and at a quarter to 
 nine, after ten or a dozen dishes and eight kinds of wine, you 
 found yourself in the smoking-room finishing your Turkish 
 coffee. The system was the same at the Tuileries, where the 
 Emperor declared that three-quarters of an hour was ample 
 time for dinner, coffee included. 
 
 Besides the use of the Palais Royal, Prince Napoleon enjoyed 
 that of the historic chateau of Meudon, erected by the " Great 
 Dauphin " at the close of the seventeenth century,* and over- 
 looking the valley of the Seine from the heights between 
 Clamart and Sevres. The Germans destroyed it by fire during 
 the siege of Paris in 1870. Here Piince Napoleon at one time 
 kept a pack of hounds, with which he was accustomed to go 
 buck-hunting on Sunday mornings while his wife was at her 
 
 ♦ The older one, built by Cardinal de Lorraine, after Philibert Delorme'a 
 designs, was in a state of ruin at the time of Napoleon I., who caused it to be 
 demolished. 
 
230 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 prayers. The Emperor also placed the woods of Villefermoy 
 in Seine-et-Marne (2500 acres in extent) at his disposal for 
 shooting purposes. The Prince's name was associated, too, with 
 another place, a model of a Pompeian house, which he erected 
 in the late fifties at the Champs Elysees end of the Avenue 
 Montaigne, and called the Villa Dioraede. It was not simply 
 intended as a toy, but fitted with all modem requisites, al- 
 though it exhibited the characteristics of Pompeian architecture. 
 Entering by a portico supported by yellow pillars and columns, 
 you found bronze statues of Minerva and Achilles on either 
 side of the peristyle, while, in mosaic work on the walls, 
 appeared two huge dogs tugging at their chains as if to spring 
 upon intruders, and justifying the inscription of Cave Canem, 
 which was set beside them. The atrium of the villa was a real 
 Napoleonic conceit. The light fell from the impluvium on some 
 half-fluted purple columns of the Ionic order, between two of 
 which was an altar adorned with garlands and bearing a large 
 white marble bust of the first Napoleon, who appeared there as 
 the senior tutelary deity of the abode. All around, between the 
 columns and the marble couches, on which you might recline 
 while listening to the murmur of scented water falling from a 
 head of Minerva into a basin of porphyry, were ranged busts 
 of many other members of the House of Bonaparte, figuring as 
 subordinate or attendant lares. The misfortune was that the 
 libations to those family gods were poured forth too frequently 
 by Cora Pearl. Already in 1864 Prince Napoleon had grown 
 tired of that "exquisite atmosphere of elegant antiquity," as 
 About phrased it, but he did not find a purchaser for the villa 
 till a couple of years later, when he parted with the building 
 and its contents — there were many fine bronzes — for about 
 £70,000. 
 
 In 1 863 the Prince, accompanied by his wife, went officially 
 to Egypt, to inspect the progress which was being made with 
 the Suez Canal. Other missions and appointments followed, 
 but in the spring of 1865 came the most serious of his ruptures 
 with his cousin the Emperor. The latter was then in Algeria, 
 the Empress remaining in Paris as Regent ; and the Prince was 
 deputed to proceed to Corsica to inaugurate at Ajaccio some 
 memorials to the glory of the first Napoleon and his brothers. 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 231 
 
 He profited by this opportunity to deliver what for the period 
 was a somewhat revolutionary speech, in which, besides personally 
 advocating the widest liberty, he claimed that the mission of 
 the first Napoleon, and by inheritance that of his successor, was 
 merely to use dictatorship as a means of emancipation. A similar 
 opinion had been expressed long previously by Napoleon III., 
 who had promised liberty as the crowning of the edifice, and 
 had departed, for some four years already, from the strict 
 principle of personal rule, which had been observed during the 
 first period of the Empire. But Prince Napoleon's reckless, 
 almost violent phraseology gave offence, and in the result the 
 Emperor wrote his cousin a severe letter, which was published 
 in the Moniteur. After declaring in this missive that the 
 progi-amme placed under the aegis of the first Emperor could 
 only serve the enemies of the imperial government, Napoleon III. 
 added : " What is clear to all is that, in order to prevent anarchy 
 of opinion — true liberty's most formidable foe — the Emperor 
 established, first in his family and then in his government, so 
 severe a discipline that it admitted of but one source of will and 
 action. In future I shall not depart from that line of conduct." 
 To that covert threat of disciplinary measures if he should 
 venture to speak his mind again. Prince Napoleon retorted by 
 resigning his posts as Vice-President of the Council of State and 
 President of the Commission for the Paris Exhibition of 1867, 
 and it was not until more than two years had elapsed that 
 he would accept any other official functions.* 
 
 Meantime he never went to the Tuileries unless he was 
 absolutely compelled to do so, as, for instance, to attend the 
 opening of a parliamentary session ; and the antagonism between 
 the Tuileries and the Palais Royal was acute. In the end, 
 curiously enough, the latter virtually won the day. The 
 Emperoi-'s views gradually inclined more and more towards the 
 Prince's, and the experiment of real and fairly liberal parlia- 
 mentary rule was tried. If its execution had been confided to 
 
 ♦ The Prmoe also got into trouble with the Duke d'Aumale for attempt- 
 ing to criticize some passages reflecting on the Bonaparte family which 
 figured in the Duke's " Histoire de la Maison de Conde'." The Duke answered 
 the Prince in a slashing pamphlet entitled " Lettre sur I'Histoire de Prance," 
 and if any other man but Prince Napoleon had been concerned in the afiair 
 a duel would certainly have ensued. 
 
232 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 some new man — could such have been found — a man who had 
 compromised himself neither in connection with the origin of 
 the Empire nor in connection with the anti-dynastic opposition, 
 the experiment might possibly have succeeded ; but it was 
 entrusted to M. Emile Ollivier, whom the democratic party 
 regarded as a renegade, and whom most imperialists distrusted, 
 holding that as he had betrayed the Republican cause he might 
 well betray that of the Empire. It was an unfortunate position, 
 and even if there had been no Franco-German war we think 
 that the Empire could only have been saved by the early retire- 
 ment of Emile Ollivier, for in spite of the result of the last 
 Plebiscitum (May, 1870), he, personally, was a very unpopular 
 man — one whose antecedents placed powerful weapons in the 
 hands of the anti-dynastic opposition. At the most he could 
 only serve for a time as a stop-gap, or a kind of bridge, over 
 which the Empire might pass from the old men of the Coup 
 d'Etat to the younger and as yet untried generation. 
 
 But we are anticipating. Whether Prince Napoleon was 
 sincere in advocating unrestricted freedom of the press and 
 right of public meeting, or whether, as there are real grounds 
 for thinking, his outbursts on those subjects were simply 
 dictated by his detestation of his cousin's right-hand man, 
 Rouher, the powerful " Vice-Emperor," he saw some attempts 
 made to give effect to his preachings. The war came, however, 
 and the Empire fell. For a time the Prince sought a refuge 
 in Italy. The letters patent by which his father-in-law, Victor 
 Emmanuel, created him Count of Moncalieri, are dated Novem- 
 ber 1, 1870. Later he was able to return to France, not being 
 in the direct line of succession to the Empire, which was still 
 represented by Napoleon III. and the Imperial Prince. In 
 1873 he was even elected President of the Conseil general 
 (County Council) of Corsica, but he intrigued against the 
 Imperial Prince even as he had intrigued against the Emperor. 
 In 1874 the very men who had elected him refused to attend 
 the sittings at Ajaccio, in order to avoid assembling under his 
 chairmanship. So he failed again, missed even that chance of 
 establishing a footing in public life, even as he had missed all 
 his other chances, or failed in all his dreams. He never secured 
 the crown of France any more than he secured that of Poland 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 233 
 
 or Hungary or Tuscany, as he had at one or another moment 
 di-eamt of doing. After the death of the Imperial Prince he 
 was a Pretender in little more than name. Though the Re- 
 public took measures against him on various occasions, he was 
 never a danger; he was too unpopular, too much distrusted. 
 In 1884 the Bonapartist party actually renounced his leader- 
 ship, and his son Victor broke away from him. Briefly, in 
 spite of undoubted gifts, culture, taste, wit, and talent, Prince 
 Napoleon left behind him nothing save a record of failure, 
 instability, and foolish opiniativeness, with that portrait by 
 Flandrin, which, according to Edmund About, was to supply 
 all deficiencies. If we remember rightly, the Prince's cir- 
 cumstances were greatly reduced when he died at Rome in 
 March, 1891. Of his two sons, Prince Victor, though now 
 nominally the head of the Bonapartes, is, like his father, no 
 danger for the French Republic. He has taken little part in 
 politics beyond issuing an occasional manifesto, to which few 
 have accorded attention ; and even if by some extraordinary 
 revulsion of feeling the imperialist cause should ever again 
 appeal to Frenchmen, the Prince's private circumstances would 
 virtually pi'event his elevation to the throne. Living in retire- 
 ment at Brussels, he has chosen, perhaps, the better part of 
 life — a quiet home and attendant affections. His brother, 
 Prince Louis, the Russian general, has often been mentioned, 
 however, as a possible pretender, and is, perhaps, better placed 
 for the assumption of such a rdle. But personally he has made 
 no sign, and, when all is said, the French imperialist party 
 dwindles year by year, day by day, in such wise that there 
 seems to be little likelihood of any Bonaparte ever again 
 obtaining an opportunity to come forward as the saviour of 
 the nation. 
 
 Let us pass to Princess Mathilde, the daughter of old 
 Jerome, and Prince Napoleon's sister. The artistic taste and 
 perception which, it may readily be admitted, were possessed 
 by both her father and her brother, were found in a yet higher 
 degree in her. She was probably the most cultured, and in 
 her sphere the most talented, of all the Bonapartes. Of fine 
 physique, very good looking when young, she always remained 
 a woman of dignified presence, in spite of the corpulent figure 
 
234 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and the pendent cheeks of advancing years. She cultivated art 
 in several of its branches, her ability as a painter was real, 
 and, from the establishment of the Empire until her death in 
 January, 1904, she surrounded herself with artists and literary 
 men, gathering at her residence — first in the Rue de Courcelles, 
 and later in the Rue de Berri, as well as at St. Gratien, in the 
 northern environs of Paris — a large company of talented and 
 eminent people, many of whom she reconciled to the imperial 
 regime, while others were at least induced to tolerate it by the 
 influence of her personality, which attracted, pacified, and dis- 
 armed. Prince Napoleon's coterie seldom gained recruits, 
 whereas the circle of Princess Mathilde was always expanding. 
 If we were called upon to name all those who met at her house, 
 we should have to enumerate two-thirds of the men who made 
 any reputation in literature, science, journalism, painting, 
 sculpture, and music in the days of the Empire. We prefer to 
 send the reader to all the social chronicles of that time, notably 
 to the Goncourt Memoirs, and even to Viel Castel. 
 
 The Sunday soirees in the Rue de Courcelles were always 
 attended by a crowd of notabilities. Some gathered in the 
 large Salon de Conversation, which was hung with ancient and 
 modern paintings, and displayed on either side of its chimney- 
 piece some absolutely colossal Chinese vases adapted to support 
 candelabra. Facing the fireplace, and reflected in the lofty 
 mirror above it, rose the famous life-size statue of the young 
 Florentine singer fingering his mandoline — a statue familiar to 
 all by the many small reproductions in bronze popularized by 
 Barbedienne. If you preferred music to conversation you passed 
 on, through other rooms, to a spacious semicircular salon, 
 where you might listen to Miolan-Carvalho singing an air 
 from the " Huguenots," or Christine Nilsson repeating some 
 dreamy Swedish song, or Gardoni interpreting Verdi. At times 
 that gifted amateur, Mme. Conneau, whose voice was worth a 
 hundred thousand crowns a year, would sing "Son vergine 
 vezzosa" with a sweetness and power such as only Grisi had 
 excelled. At another time the Princess's chamber-musicians, 
 directed by M. Sauzay, would execute some learned concerto; 
 and at yet another moment Bressant and Madeleine Brohan, 
 taking their stand near the chimney-piece, would act, with that 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 235 
 
 restraint of voice and gesture which is needful in a drawing- 
 room, some little two-part comedy by Octave Feuillet ; or else 
 Coquelin and some pretty soubrette would play one of the 
 sprightly Neapolitan yan^oyjoj of Theodore de Banville. 
 
 If there came a pause in the music or the playing, you 
 passed through one of three doorways into the Princess's 
 wonderful conservatory, or winter garden, where you found a 
 surprising wealth of tropical plants and beautiful statuary. 
 Truncated columns, adorned with enamelwork, served as stands 
 for lamps and candelabra; Eastern rugs were spread over 
 the paths, rare Chinese and Japanese cabinets, vases, and curios 
 peeped from among the verdure ; armchairs and ottomans and 
 sofas stood invitingly here and there ; and in one corner you 
 noticed the little writing-table at which the Princess usually 
 attended to her correspondence in the morning, surrounded by 
 her four pet dogs, Phil, Tom, Miss, and Lolotte, whom Jadin 
 portrayed on canvas. The Princess's customary place at the 
 Sunday soirees was near the chimney-piece in the Salon de 
 Conversation, but from time to time she passed through the 
 various rooms, and whenever she paused among a group of 
 guests the conversation sparkled, for she was gifted with no 
 little natural wit. 
 
 When she was young there had been some question of her 
 marrying her cousin, the future Napoleon III. She was a 
 woman fit for a throne, but, given her sense of personal dignity 
 and her independence of character, her union with a man of the 
 Emperor's disposition would hardly have proved, we think, a 
 satisfactory one. As it happened, she made a most unhappy 
 marriage. Bom at Trieste in May, 1820, she was wedded at 
 Florence, on November 1, 1840, to Prince Anatole Nicolaiewitch 
 Demidoff, of San Donato, who was her senior by seven years.* 
 One is reminded of the irony of life on reading the effusive 
 letters by which that young Russian millionaire announced the 
 consent of the Princess's father to other members of the Bona- 
 parte family. His dearest wish was about to be gratified, his 
 happiness knew no bounds ! Five years later he and his wife 
 
 * He had been created Prince of San Donato by the Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany. His father had been the Russian diplomatic representative at Borne 
 and Florence. 
 
236 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 were separated. He had treated her with great cruelty, and it 
 was the Emperor Nicholas who insisted on the separation. 
 According to one account, the Czar discovered the situation 
 during a stay he made at Florence — probably after his visit to 
 London in 1844<. In any case the separation was effected by 
 his authority, and Prince Demidoff, whose income was then 
 about ^eQOjOOO a year, was ordered to pay his wife ^£"20,000 
 annually, and to abstain from going at any time to any place 
 within a hundred miles of where she might be living. Demidoff 
 was compelled to obey, for fear lest all his property in Russia 
 should be confiscated. It is thus that an autocrat is able to 
 enforce his decision, which, in the case in point, was a just one. 
 Prince Demidoff survived until May, 1870, and for a good 
 many years Princess Mathilde enjoyed the jointure fixed by the 
 Czar, in addition to her French civil-list allowance. This 
 enabled her to live in dignity, entertain freely, assist many 
 struggling artists and writers, and do no little good unosten- 
 tatiously in various ways. She was long the providence of the 
 village of St. Gratien, where she had her country seat. 
 
 At the same time she was a Bonaparte, the daughter of old 
 Jerome, the hero of a hundred gallantries ; and after brushing 
 mere scandal aside, it must be said that her name was associated 
 with those of two men of her time, first Alfred Emilien, Count 
 de Nieuwerkerke, and secondly Claudius Popelin. Nieuwerkerke, 
 Superintendent of Fine Arts under the Empire, a tall, hand- 
 some, bearded man, was of Dutch origin, but was born in Paris 
 in 1811. He married a Mile, de Montessuy (who predeceased 
 him), and survived until 1892, when he died at Lucca. During 
 the Empire his relations with Princess Mathilde were matter of 
 common notoriety. His official functions frequently exposed 
 him to attack, but she upheld him against all comers, and at 
 one time had a very serious dispute respecting him with her 
 brother. Prince Napoleon, who, in order to annoy her, had 
 omitted Nieuwerkerke's name from some artistic commission 
 which he had been selected to appoint. 
 
 Later, Claudius Popelin, the painter, engraver, and enam- 
 eller, took Nieuwerkerke's place beside the Princess. The son of 
 a Paris merchant, and bom in 1825, Popelin was a widower at 
 the time, having lost his wife in 1869. Ten years later the 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 237 
 
 Almanack de Gotha staled that Princess Mathilde and M. Paupe- 
 lin (sic) had been married in England in December, 1871. It is 
 certain that the Princess was in England at the date mentioned, 
 but subsequent to the statement of the Ahmiuich de Gotha a 
 paragraph signed A. Rdnal was published in Le Figaro declar- 
 ing, on the Princess's behalf, that the assertions respecting 
 the marriage were untrue. Nevertheless, down to the time of 
 Popelin's death in 1892, the Princess's intimates were certainly 
 under the impression that he was at least morganatically her 
 husband. On the whole, whatever lapses there may have been 
 in the Princess Mathilde's life, we feel that they may be more 
 readily condoned than those of any other member of the 
 imperial family. Bearing in mind that she was a Bonaparte, 
 with all the temperament of that race, one must recollect that, 
 after a most unhappy period of wedlock, she was separated 
 from her husband when only five and twenty years old, and 
 that there was no possibility of her marrying again while he 
 lived — which he did, as already mentioned, until 1870. Thus, 
 after the separation, the only prospect before the young 
 Princess was one of long lonely years. That may not be 
 excuse, but it will serve to explain her position, and why she 
 accepted such consolation as she found. For our part we do 
 not feel inclined to throw stones at anybody, either man or 
 woman, who is debarred by the rigour of laws or the dogmas 
 of churches from living in that marital state for which all of us 
 are intended. 
 
 Earlier in this chapter we referred to the Murat family,* 
 which in social matters often figured prominently during the 
 Empire. It will have been noticed that the head of the house. 
 Prince Lucien, married an American lady of Scotch descent, and 
 that their children were bom at Bordentown, in the United 
 States. The story of the union in its earlier period is interesting. 
 Until Prince Lucien — the second son of the great Murat — was 
 twelve years old he saw his father occupying the throne of 
 Naples, but in 1815 he became an exile, going with his mother 
 to Trieste, and thence to Venice, where he lived till 1825. He 
 then started for the United States, intending to join his elder 
 brother and his uncle Joseph there, but unfortunately his ship 
 • See ante, p. 211. 
 
238 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 ran aground off the coast of Spain, and, his identity being 
 discovered, he was for some time kept a prisoner by the Spanish 
 Bourbons. Ultimately he contrived to reach America, where 
 he manied Miss Eraser and settled down to commercial pursuits. 
 In these, however, he was so unlucky that his means were soon 
 exhausted, and the situation was only saved by his wife, a 
 woman of high character. Calling herself simply Madame 
 Murat, she opened at Bordentown a school for girls, by which 
 means and in spite of many difficulties she contrived to support 
 herself, her husband, and their children — there being in all five, 
 one of whom died before the departure of the family for France, 
 This occurred about the time of the election of Louis Napoleon 
 as President of the Republic. Prince Murat then became a 
 deputy, exerted himself on his cousin's behalf, and after the 
 Coup d'Etat was created a senator and confirmed in his rank 
 and titles. Napoleon IH. had a high opinion of the Princess, 
 and it will have been observed that her personal allowance from 
 the civil list was £4000 a year. We believe that she received 
 that sum direct because the Prince was extravagantly inclined. 
 All his children were favoured by the Emperor and Empress, 
 the latter of whom was particularly attached to the tall and 
 beautiful Princess Anna, who married the high-born but 
 diminutive Duke de Mouchy. 
 
 In 1861, after Garibaldi had driven Francis II. from Naples, 
 it occurred to Prince Murat that his chance had come, and 
 not only were certain letters published in which he asserted a 
 claim to the Neapolitan throne, but a ridiculous attempt was 
 even made to form a Murat party in Southern Italy. It would 
 certainly have failed even if it had not been promptly stopped 
 by the intervention of Napoleon III. We do not recall any 
 other noteworthy excursion of Prince Murat's into politics 
 during the Empire, but the marriages of his younger son and 
 his daughter were social events of importance in the eyes of the 
 fashionable Paris of that time. On each occasion there was a 
 ceremony at the chapel of the Tuileries, and in the case of 
 Prince Achille Murat, his bride being of the Greek faith, a 
 second and gorgeous one took place at the Russian chui'ch 
 near the Pare Monceau. Prince Joachim Murat (Achille's 
 elder brother) figured very conspicuously at Court. His 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 239 
 
 marriage, in 1854, with the daughter of the Prince de Wagram 
 had enhanced his social importance, and he was a soldier of 
 some ability, besides being a very handsome one, superb in his 
 uniform as Colonel of the Guides — that semi-hussar regiment 
 originally formed by Count Fleury. Physically, Prince Joachim 
 may not have resembled his grandfather — he certainly displayed 
 neither his whiskers nor his mane of curly hair — but he had all 
 the dash of a light cavalryman, and this and the picturesqueness 
 of his uniform often conjured up a memory of those swift 
 squadrons, brave alike in heart and apparel, at whose head the 
 great Murat so often swept the legions of the foe from the 
 battlefield. 
 
 In his old age. Prince Lucien, the head of the family, led a 
 somewhat singular life. His circumstances had been greatly 
 reduced by the fall of the Empire, and he had also become very 
 unwieldy, gouty, and uncertain on his legs. One evening in 
 1876 or 1877 we saw him alight with difficulty from a vehicle 
 outside the Paris music-hall known as the Folies-Bergere, and, 
 assisted by a valet, enter that house of entertainment and take 
 a seat in the stalls. On inquiry, we ascertained that this was 
 his practice every evening. He engaged a stall by the month, 
 crawled to it with his valet's help night after night, and remained 
 till the ballet was over, when, having feasted his eyes on the 
 agility of the legs of the danseuses, he once more tried to use 
 his own and shuffle out of the house. It was a curious ending 
 to a career of many vicissitudes. The Prince died in Paris in 
 April, 1878, and less than a year afterwards his devoted wife 
 followed him to the grave. 
 
 Her Scotch descent reminds us of the similar origii^ of 
 another connection of the Bonaparte family. This was Lord 
 Dudley Coutts Stuart, the eighth son of the first Marquess of 
 Bute — in fact, his only son by his second marriage, which was 
 with Frances, daughter of Thomas Coutts, the banker. In 1824 
 Lord Dudley Stuart married Christiane Egypta Bonaparte, a 
 daughter of the first Napoleon's brother Lucien by his marriage 
 with Catherine Boyer. The Princess Christiane had divorced 
 Prince Arved Posse of Sweden a year before her marriage with 
 Lord Dudley Stuart, to whom in 1826 she bore a son, who 
 became a captain in the 68th Regiment of Foot, and died at 
 
240 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Brompton in 1889, leaving, we think, no issue. Both Lord 
 Dudley and Captain Dudley Stuart were well known to 
 Napoleon IH. The former passed away in 1854, but for some 
 years afterwards the latter was invited to the Tuileries and 
 Compiegne whenever he came to France. 
 
 It remains for us to say something respecting a Prince who, 
 in one or another way, frequently proved himself a thorn in the 
 Emperor's side. This was Prince Pierre Napoleon, a younger 
 son of the original Lucien Bonaparte. Pierre was a man of 
 violent character and particularly pugnacious instincts. In 
 1832, when about seventeen years old, he joined his uncle, 
 ex- King Joseph of Spain, in the United States, and afterwards 
 took service in Columbia under Santander, the Republican 
 general. Returning to Italy, he there embroiled himself with 
 the Papal authorities, who ordered him to quit the States of 
 the Church. This he refused to do, and on the arrival of some 
 gendarmes to expel him he resisted and wounded two of them. 
 Nevertheless he was apprehended and imprisoned for a time in 
 the castle of St. Angelo. On his release he returned to America, 
 and was there about the time when, after the Strasburg exploit, 
 his cousin the future Napoleon III. was shipped across the 
 Atlantic by order of Louis Philippe. However, they saw 
 comparatively little of each other at that time, as Pierre's violent 
 disposition was in no wise to Louis Napoleon's liking. The 
 former, on returning to Europe, sought service in Turkey, fell 
 out with some Albanian Palikares, and had to leave the country. 
 After the French revolution of 1848 he contrived to secure 
 election as a deputy, but he frequently displayed the utmost 
 violence in the Assembly, often insulting his colleagues, and on 
 one occasion brutally assaulting one of them, a man much older 
 than himself. To get rid of this quarrelsome cousin, the Prince 
 President at last procured him a commission in the Foreign 
 Legion, and sent him to Algeria. He was present at the 
 operations against Zaatcha, but again misconducted himself, 
 returned to France without leave, and was thereupon cashiered. 
 Nevertheless, after the establishment of the Empire Pierre 
 Bonaparte was recognized as a Prince of the imperial house, 
 included in the Emperor's civil family, and allotted an annual 
 civil-list allowance of £4000. He repeatedly applied for an 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 241 
 
 official post, but Napoleon III., knowing his disposition, was 
 unwilling to give him public employment. Prince Pierre then 
 pestered his cousin year after year for loans, advances, and 
 extra allowances. At one time he wished the Emperor to buy 
 some unproductive property which he owned in Corsica, at 
 another he needed money to go shooting in the Ardennes, and 
 so forth. 
 
 At last on January 10, 1870, his violent temperament led 
 him to the perpetration of a crime which scandalized the whole 
 world and shook the Empire severely. He had wi'itten some 
 heated articles for a Corsican journal, UAvenir, in reply to 
 an attack on the memory of Napoleon I. which had appeared in 
 La Revanche, another newspaper of the island, and one which 
 represented the democratic party there. The quarrel was taken 
 up by a Paris journal, La Marseillaise, the organ of Henri 
 Rochefort, who had risen to fame with La Lanterne ; and one 
 of La Marseillaise's contributors. Paschal Grousset — later of 
 the Paris Commune, and also one of the founders of the 
 Corsican print La Revanche — deeming himself to be insulted 
 by the Prince, sent him a challenge. The seconds who carried 
 it were Ulrich de Fonvielle, a well-known journalist of the time, 
 and a young man of about one and twenty who contributed 
 to La Marseillaise under the nam de plume of Victor Noir. 
 His real name was Salmon, a contraction of Salomon, and he 
 was of Jewish blood. His father had been a watchmaker, and 
 he himself a linendraper's assistant before taking to journalism, 
 to which he seems to have turned in imitation of his elder 
 brother, Louis Noir, who, in course of time, became fairly well 
 known as a writer of serial stories. 
 
 On the arrival of Fonvielle and Victor Noir at Prince 
 Pierre's residence in the chief street of the virtually suburban 
 district of Auteuil, an unfortunate altercation arose. The 
 Prince subsequently alleged that he had been provoked and 
 even struck by Noir, but it does not really appear that any 
 such blow was dealt. What is certain is that the Prince refused 
 the challenge handed to him, declaring that he would not fight 
 M. Grousset, whom he held to be a mere subordinate of Roche- 
 fort's, £uid, according to Fonvielle's account, he added: "I 
 challenged Rochefort because he is the champion of la crapule 
 
242 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 [i.e. the lowest of the low]. As for M. Grousset, I have nothing 
 to say to him. Are you jointly responsible for those carrion .'''" 
 "Sir," replied Fonvielle, "we have come here loyally and 
 courteously to fulfil the commission entrusted to us by our 
 friend." " Do you accept responsibility for those scoundrels ? " 
 the Prince reiterated. "We are responsible for our friends," 
 answered Noir. Thereupon Prince Pierre, suddenly stepping 
 forward, drew a revolver from his pocket and fired at Noir, 
 who, pressing both hands to his breast, staggered back through 
 bhe doorway by which he and Fonvielle had entered the room. 
 Fonvielle, according to his own account, would also have been 
 shot had he not produced a pistol, which momentarily checked 
 the Prince. As it happened, the latter fired after him without 
 effect as he was escaping into the street, where he found Noir, 
 who had mustered sufiicient strength to descend the stairs, but 
 was now near death — the Prince's bullet having injured his 
 heart and entered his lungs. He soon afterwards expired in a 
 chemist's shop. 
 
 The sensation which the affair created was profound, and 
 serious were the troubles in which it involved the Government. 
 There were tumultuous scenes at Noir's funeral, the democratic 
 agitation grew apace, and but for the strength and vigilance of 
 the police and the military. Revolution might have broken out 
 in Paris. Prince Pierre was arrested — so also was Fonvielle — 
 lodged in the Conciergerie, and finally sent for trial before the 
 High Court of Justice assembled at Tours. That tribunal, as 
 its composition foreshadowed, contrived to acquit him, but not 
 even in the days of the Dreyfus case was res judicata more 
 liable to criticism.* At the same time, outside the ranks of the 
 extreme anti-dynastic party, there were not wanting people who 
 expressed sympathy with the Emperor on account of the trouble 
 in which he was involved by members of his family — trouble 
 brought to a climax by the impetuous violence of that " Corsican 
 wild boar," as Prince Pierre was not unaptly called. 
 
 The Prince's matrimonial entanglement had also long been 
 a source of some annoyance to Napoleon III. On March 22, 
 1853, he had contracted in Paris a morganatic marriaoe 
 
 * The Prince, though acquitted of murder, was sentenced to pay £1000 as 
 pompensation to the Nori family. 
 
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 243 
 
 (a religious ceremony alone being performed) with a person of 
 modest condition named Justine El^onore RufEn, who, having 
 been born in 1832, was seventeen years younger than himself. 
 Under the circumstances she was not received at Court, where 
 by the way, the Prince himself seldom put in an appearance ; 
 and although, at the time of the Noir affair in 1870, the news- 
 papers generally alluded to her as the " Princess Pierre," it is a 
 question (having regard to the family discipline of the imperial 
 house) whether she then had any real right to the title, not- 
 withstanding the fact that the Prince had married her a second 
 time, on October 2, 1867, at La Cuisine, in the Florenville 
 canton of Belgian Luxemburg. That marriage legitimated the 
 children of the union, a boy and girl, in Belgium, but not, 
 apparently, in France, for after the fall of the Empire Prince 
 Pierre (to whom we would give all possible credit for stead- 
 fastness in his affections) married Mile. Ruffin yet a third time 
 — that is, at the French Legation at Brussels on November 11, 
 1871. The private decisions and enactments of the Imperial 
 Family Council respecting the marriages of the Bonaparte 
 Princes were then null and void ; and Pierre Bonaparte's wife 
 fully acquired by this last union a right to style herself Princess, 
 while, in accordance with the common law of France, her 
 children undoubtedly became legitimate there, with a right to 
 the titles of Prince and Princess — though without the qualification 
 of either Imperial Highness or Highness.* 
 
 The son of the union. Prince Roland Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 was born in Paris on May 19, 1858. Educated for the military 
 profession, he served at one time in the army of the present 
 Republic, holding a commission in the 36th Regiment of the 
 Line ; but in later years he took, with infinite credit to him- 
 self, to serious scientific pursuits. He married, in November, 
 1880, Mile. Marie Felice Blanc, daughter of Franpois Blanc, 
 the miUionaii-e founder of the famous gaming tables of Monte 
 Carlo. The wedding was the occasion of a great mustering of 
 the French imperialist party. The Prince's mother was present, 
 
 • In the case of French citizens, those qualifications are not recognized by 
 French law any more than is that of Excellency, formerly used in addressing 
 French Ministers of State and Ambassadors. Nevertheless, it is occasionally 
 given, in courtesy, by foreigners to the French envoys abroad. 
 
244 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 we remember ; but his father, who by reason of his antecedents 
 would scarcely have been persona grata in that assemblage, did 
 not attend.* It was currently reported at the time that in 
 addition to a mansion in Paris and a palace in Italy, the bride 
 had brought her husband a million sterling. The union was, 
 unfortunately, brief; Princess Roland died at St. Cloud in 
 1882, some four weeks after giving birth to a daughter. 
 Princess Marie. 
 
 Prince Roland's sister. Princess Jeanne, was born on 
 September 25, 1861, at L'Abbaye-d'Orval, in Belgian Luxem- 
 burg, and in 1882 she married Christian, Marquis de Villeneuve, 
 a former deputy for Corsica, whom, in course of years, she 
 presented with two sons and four daughters. 
 
 ♦ Prince Pierre Bonaparte died at Versailles, in April, 1881. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 BANQUETS, BALLS, AND OTHER COURT FESTIVITIES — 
 THE GREAT YEAR, 1867 
 
 Family Dinners at the Tuileries — The Grand Surtout — The servioea of Plate, 
 China, and Glass — The Losses and Breakages — Maillard's curious Reports 
 — The Cur^e of the Liberal Empire — Maillard at the Bevolution — Dupuy, 
 the chief Comptroller of the Table — The Maltres d'H6tel — Benolt, the 
 Head Cook and his Assistants — Composition of the Kitchen Service — Table 
 and Kitchen Salaries — State and other Dinners at the Tuileries — The 
 Dinner of the Beauties — The Palace Receptions — The great Balls — The 
 Empress's Mondays — Masked and Fancy-dress Balls of the Beign — 
 The Ballet of the Bees — Strange Costumes at Court — The Pageant of the 
 World — A Triumph of American Beauty — Some of Mme. de Mettemioh's 
 Pleasantries — A Jockey Club Ball — One of the Emperor's Riddles — Home 
 the Medium at Court and afterwards — Some Parisian Festivities — The 
 Great Year 1867 — A Political Survey — All the Sovereigns in Paris — The 
 Attempt on the Czar — The Shooting of Maximilian — The Year ends 
 ominously. 
 
 Every Monday when the Court was at the Tuileries there was a 
 family dinner there, which certain Princes, Princesses, and other 
 connections of the imperial house usually attended when they 
 were in Paris. In the first years of the reign this dinner took 
 place on Sundays, but as the Emperor often had to devote several 
 hours to audiences on Sunday afternoons, and afterwards felt 
 tired, Monday finally prevailed as the day for the dinner. Those 
 who usually attended the family dinners were Prince Jerome (with 
 an aide-de-camp) whenever his health allowed. Prince Napoleon 
 (also with an aide-de-camp, but not during his brouilleries with 
 the Emperor), Princess Clotilde (with a lady of honour). Princess 
 Mathilde (with a lady in waiting and her chevalier d'honneur). 
 Prince and Princess Murat, Prince and Princess Joachim 
 Murat, the Duke and Duchess de Mouchy, Prince and Princess 
 Gabrielli, Marquis and Marchioness Roccagiovine, Count and 
 
246 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Countess Primoli, and the Duke and Duchess de Cambaceres, 
 as well as the Colonel of the Cent-Gardes, and the officers and 
 ladies in attendance that day on the Emperor and Empress. 
 The guests were received in the Empress's private apartments, 
 and at table Princess Clotilde invariably sat on the Emperor's 
 right hand and Princess Mathilde on his left ; while to the 
 Empress's right was Prince Jerome or Prince Napoleon, and to 
 her left either the last-named or Prince Murat. The menus of 
 these dinners did not differ much from those of ordinary days, 
 but silver-gilt plate and fine Sevi-es porcelain appeared on 
 the table. 
 
 The " Grand Surtout de Table," in the execution of which 
 eight skilful artists had co-operated under the direction of 
 Messrs. Christofle, included four principal pieces, partly cast, 
 partly ciseles, and in a few respects of galvanic work. The 
 centre-piece represented France, standing between allegorical 
 figures of religion, justice, concord, and strength, and distribut- 
 ing crowns both to the glory of war and to the glory of peace. 
 The former was represented by a warrior urging on the four 
 fiery steeds of his chariot, the latter by a woman whose car was 
 drawn by four quiet oxen. There were also four large cups 
 with figures typifying the north, east, west, and south of France, 
 and four candelabra with figures emblematical of science, art, 
 industry, and agriculture, together with ten dishes of Sevres 
 porcelain mounted on stands of silvered bronze. All the plate 
 displayed the finest chiselled repousse work, and the surtout 
 was altogether very remarkable. When the question of 
 ordering it arose early in the reign, it was suggested to the 
 Emperor that it ought to be of massive silver, but he rejected 
 the idea, saying, with a smile, that one never knew what vicissi- 
 tudes history might bring in its train, and that, if the surtout 
 should be of massive precious metal, somebody might be 
 tempted some day to have it melted down. He desired a fine 
 work of comparatively small intrinsic value, which might be 
 preserved for the sake of its artistic merit and not destroyed 
 for the sake of its substance. His wishes were respected, and 
 it so happened that in later years, the principal pieces, after 
 being somewhat badly damaged in the conflagration of the 
 Tuileries, but repaired by Messrs. Christofle, were sent to the 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 247 
 
 Mus^e des Arts d^coratifs as splendid examples of the art to 
 which they belonged. 
 
 The plate at the Tuileries also comprised four dinner 
 services ; first, a silver one of a hundred covers decorated 
 with the imperial eagle, and known accordingly ; next a silver- 
 gilt service of forty covers, which was the one used at the 
 family dinners and at those attended by foreign royalties ; next 
 an elegant silver forty-cover Louis XVI. service, which was 
 used on ordinary occasions ; and, finally, a silver service by 
 Froment-Meurice, in which all the tureen and dish covers 
 were surmounted by finely-chiselled natures mortea : pheasants, 
 partridges, hares, turkeys, fowls, vegetables of various kinds, 
 and so forth. There was also a dessert service of vermeil with 
 the eagle and crown in relief on every piece. All the plate, 
 china, and glass were in the keeping of an official named 
 Maillard, who was lodged in the palace and received a salary 
 of d£'240 a year. To him also the table-linen was delivered by 
 the Lingerie imperiale, according to the quantity he speci- 
 fied. On the occasion of a great ball at the palace (a ball, 
 of course, meant supper) he would apply for a hundred and 
 twenty table-cloths, and a hundred and thirty dozens of nap- 
 kins, that is sufficient for about one thousand five hundred 
 people. 
 
 The porcelain in M. Maillard''s charge was chiefly Sevres. 
 The plates, dishes, and stands of the finest dessert service had 
 borders of a light grey with arabesque work in gold. Land- 
 scapes with figures were painted in the centre of the plates, the 
 actual cost of production of each of which was £1^. There 
 was next a service with the well-known Sevres-blue border, 
 golden arabesque work and golden stars spangling the plates. 
 The third service was of white Sevres, with golden bands and 
 the imperial crown and monogram in the centre of the pieces. 
 Sets of soup-plates were adjoined to each of the services we have 
 described. For the ball suppers there was a very large service 
 of a good quality of " commercial china," decorated in the same 
 style as the white Sfevres set. The glass comprised a service 
 in verre mousseline with engraved and gilded monograms and 
 bands, this being used in conjunction with the vermeil plate, 
 next a larger and simpler set decorated in corresponding style ; 
 
248 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and a third and yet larger one, engraved without gilding. This 
 last was used at the ball suppers. 
 
 M. Maillard, who had immediate charge of all those things, 
 was, according to every account, a painstaking, orderly, and 
 reliable man, but the loss and breakage, particularly during the 
 last year of the Empire, was very large, and more than once the 
 " Chef de I'Argenterie " tore his hair in despair. Here is a 
 report of his, addressed to the Adjutant-general of the Tuileries 
 about the time of the declaration of the Franco-German War : 
 
 " General, — ^There are the following deficiencies in the linen used at 
 the balls : — 
 
 Ball of January 16 
 
 ... 26 napkins 
 
 „ „ 30 ... 
 
 ... 22 „ 
 
 „ February 13 ... 
 
 . ... 27 „ 
 
 „ 27 ... . 
 
 ... 21 „ 
 
 „ May 18 ... 
 
 ... 28 „ 
 
 „ June 10 
 
 ... 40 „ 
 
 " Every possible search and endeavour has been made to find them, 
 but has yielded no result, and it is at the last extremityj General, that I 
 make this declaration of the loss." 
 
 On April 1, 1870, moreover, Maillard is found reporting 
 that the breakages at recent palace dinners and ball suppers 
 have amounted to no less than 474 pieces of china (plates, 
 cups, etc.) and 183 pieces of glass. The period, it will be 
 remembered, was that of Emile OUivier's brief spell of power, 
 when, while the democratic revolutionaries were howling and 
 demonstrating at the Belleville public meetings, a motley crew of 
 new parliamentarians, who claimed to support the " reformed " 
 regime, rushed upon the Tuileries to feast and enjoy themselves 
 at the imperial expense. It was again a Curee, not that of the 
 Coup d'Etat, but that of L'Empire Liberal. Those who had 
 participated in the earlier Curee may have been men of little 
 principle, but, with few exceptions, they were possessed of 
 manners ; whereas those of the last Curee, whatever might be 
 their moral value, had no manners at all. While their leader, 
 Olhvier, beamed on them benignly from behind his glasses, they 
 smashed the china of the Tuileries and carried off the napkins 
 in their pockets. When an Irish peer, who strayed into one 
 of those last entertainments at the palace, was asked his opinion 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 249 
 
 of it, he replied, " Oh, Donnybrook Fair — only more so ! " The 
 disorder, the lack of propriety, the loud, vulgar criticism, the 
 mobbing of the Emperor and Empress, the scrambling for 
 supper, the jeering laughter when anything was damaged or 
 broken — all those little incidents were premonitory signs of the 
 approaching debacle. 
 
 When the Revolution came at last, Maillard inserted a final 
 and pathetic little entry in his register: — "September 4, 1870. 
 Her Majesty the Empress left at half-past one, by way of the 
 Palace of the Louvre. All the pe7-sonnel left about four o'clock 
 in the afternoon after the occupation of the Palace of the 
 Tuileries by the National Guards. They wrote up, ' Death to 
 Thieves,' on all sides. I have been unable to put things away 
 in their proper places ; they have not allowed me time to do 
 so." That cri du cceur of a good servant will appeal to us all, 
 whatever opinion we may entertain of the Empire. 
 
 The chief Comptroller of the Service de Bouche, or Table 
 Service, was M. Dupuy, son of an employe in the household of 
 Charles X. He had served the Duchess of Orleans as a rnaitre 
 d'hotel, and was chosen in 1848 to co-operate in the organization 
 of the Prince President's household. In a gold-laced coat, with 
 a cocked hat under his arm and a sword at his side, Dupuy 
 attended all the official dinners and f^tes, exercising a watchful 
 supervision over everything. Subsequent to the fall of the 
 Empire, Thiers, on becoming Chief of the Executive Power, 
 also employed Dupuy to organize his household. At the 
 Tuileries there were two sub-comptrollers under Dupuy, and, 
 subject to the instructions of the Adjutant-general, he was 
 supreme over the table, pantry, plate, and cellar services. 
 
 There were four chief maitres d'hotel at the palace, two for 
 the Emperor, one for the Empress, and one for the Imperial 
 Prince. Next there were four table-layers, and two principal 
 carvers, one of the latter having been cook to the Prince de 
 Joinville on his voyage to St. Helena to fetch the remains of 
 Napoleon I. When there were many guests at table a certain 
 number of ushers and valets-de-chambre served as additional 
 maitres dhStel. Felix, the Emperor's chief usher, always carved 
 for him personally. The ordinary uniforms, or liveries, of the 
 maitres d'hdtel were of brown cloth, with velvet collars, and 
 
250 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 gold eagle buttons ; but on gala occasions these table officers 
 appeared in sky-blue habits a lafranqaise, with tails lined with 
 white satin, collars embroidered with white silk, bright cut- 
 steel buttons, white waistcoats, black silk breeches, white silk 
 stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. Swords in white scab- 
 bards dangled beside them, and cocked hats with black plumes 
 and steel galoon-work were carried under their arms. 
 
 M. Benoit, the head cook of the palace, had previously 
 served the Duke de Noailles. He entered the imperial house- 
 hold as successor to an Englishman, Evans, whose cookery, 
 perhaps, may have inclined Napoleon III. to the plain sub- 
 stantial fare which he preferred during the last five-and-twenty 
 years of his life. Under M. Benoit were two sous-chefs, Meurice, 
 who, like Evans, had served the Emperor in England, and 
 Brot, who had held a post in Louis-Philippe's kitchen. The 
 kitchen service further included : — 
 
 1 chief larder-man with 6 assistants. 
 
 1 „ roaster „ 4 „ 
 
 1 „ sauce cook jj 4 „ 
 
 1 „ stewer jj 2 ,, 
 
 1 „ entremets cook „ 8 „ 
 
 1 „ pastrycook „ 6 „ 
 
 1 general cook „ 4 „ 
 6 kitchen men. 
 
 All roasting was done at wood fires, and all grilling and frying 
 were included in the roasting service. The pantry department 
 comprised a chef, sous-chef, and twelve assistants. Maillard, who 
 really belonged to this section of the household, had sixteen 
 assistants under him. Further, there was the cellar service 
 under M. Boule, with six assistants. Every day dinner was 
 served at the Tuileries for 130 domestics, inclusive of the 
 kitchen, pantry, and cellar services. The menus comprised 
 soup, three dishes of meat, inclusive of fish, one of vegetables, 
 and dessert, with a half-bottle of vin ordinaire for each man. 
 
 The principal salaries of the table, kitchen, and pantry 
 services were as foUo^vs : — 
 
 Classes. Amounts per annum. 
 
 Chief comptroller (Dupuy) £400 
 
 Sub-comptrollers with rent money 254 
 
 Empress's mo?<re d'/idie! 120 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 251 
 
 GlaBSf B. Amounts per annmn, 
 
 lilaitres d'hdtel with rent money £112 
 
 Table-layers 72 
 
 Carvers 80 
 
 Head cook (Benoit) 200 
 
 Assistant c/w/s 120 
 
 Chief larder-man 72 
 
 Assistants ... from £48 to 66 
 
 Chief roaster 60 
 
 Assistants from £40 to 48 
 
 Chief sauce-cook 60 
 
 Assistants 48 
 
 Chief pastrycook 66 
 
 Assistants 48 
 
 General cook 60 
 
 Assistants 48 
 
 All the employes of the table-service, and indeed all domestics 
 of the household, received as a New Year's gift double wages 
 each time that the month of January came round. It was 
 known to them as " the Emperor's month." The extra pay- 
 ments in question are not included in the above list. It should 
 further be mentioned that all servants who did not sleep at 
 the palace received allowances for rent, varying from ^8 to 
 £18, a year — a small sum, it should be said, when one remembers 
 how largely rents increased in Paris under the Empire owing 
 to the Haussmanization of the city. 
 
 Every morning the heads of the various departments 
 presented their reports to the Adjutant-general of the Palace, 
 to whom the chief cook also submitted menus for the meals of 
 the following day. Besides the table of the Emperor and 
 Empress, several others had to be served — for instance that of 
 General Rolin, which included six covers, that of Madame 
 Pollet, also of six covers, that of Bure, the Crown treasurer, 
 that of Pietri, the Emperor's secretary, that of Thelin, of the 
 Privy Purse, that of Dupuy, the chief comptroller, etc. Every 
 year, early in January, a grand dinner w£is offered to the 
 principd officers of the household and their wives. A little 
 later came the so-called Dinner of the Marshals, which the War 
 Minister, and the general officers holding great commands like- 
 wise attended. Next there was a grand dinner given to the 
 ministers in office and their wives, followed by dinners to the 
 
252 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 senators, the councillors of state, the chief judges, the deputies, 
 the head officials of charitable societies under the imperial 
 patronage, and so forth. Each of those repasts was a banquet 
 of from sixty to one hundred and thirty covers, the wives of those 
 male guests who were married men being invariably included 
 in the invitations. At that time, indeed, Frenchmen seldom 
 if ever herded together by themselves to gorge and guzzle 
 a TAnglaise. They did not think of sitting down to table 
 without the company of ladies, but in these Republican days 
 they have become infected with English egotism, and the 
 exclusion of women, which once would have been regarded as a 
 gross insult to the fair sex is now considered a mere matter 
 of course in Paris. 
 
 On arriving at the Tuileries for one of the grand dinners, 
 the gentlemen ranged themselves in a row on one side of the 
 salon where they awaited the coming of the Emperor and 
 Empress. The ladies formed another row on the other side, 
 and the sovereigns passed down those lines of guests, who were 
 presented to them in turn by the chamberlains and ladies of 
 honour. It was the Prefect of the Palace who allotted the 
 seats at the table, in accordance with a list which had been 
 previously submitted to the Emperor. One of the bands of the 
 Imperial Guard usually played during the repast. At a grand 
 dinner of an average number of covers there would be about 
 thirty large silver candelabra on the huge horseshoe table, as 
 well as numerous plants in vases, baskets of flowers, and some 
 six dozen dessert stands and dishes. The menu generally com- 
 prised a choice of two soups, two dishes of fish, eight entrees, 
 three or four roasts, four sorts of vegetables, and half a dozen 
 different entremets, together with a succession of fine wines. 
 
 Somewhat late in the reign the Empress secured the services 
 of a young African attendant, who was generally called her 
 Abyssinian page, though we believe that he came from the 
 Egyptian Soudan, and had been brought or sent to Paris by 
 M. de Lesseps. The young fellow answered to the name of 
 Scander, and at grand dinners he usually stood behind the 
 Empress's chair, garbed in splendid brocade, in a semi-Venetian, 
 semi-Oriental style. But although Scander helped to enhance 
 the decorative aspect of the banquets, he was by no means a 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 253 
 
 satisfactory servant, for he only obeyed orders when he felt 
 inclined to do so, and was often insolent with other domestics. 
 What became of him we cannot say, but we think that he was 
 no longer at the Tuileries at the Revolution. 
 
 One of the most memorable of the palace banquets was that 
 given after the Crimean War, when the Emperor, suddenly 
 rising from his chair, raised his glass and exclaimed : " Gentle- 
 men, I drink to the health of two men whom I hold in the 
 highest esteem — Marshal Canrobert and Marshal Bosquet." 
 There had been no previous indication that the Emperor 
 intended to raise those officers to the highest rank in the 
 army, and the surprise at the announcement was very great. 
 Canrobert expressed his gratitude in his usual effusive way; 
 while Bosquet, a grave, taciturn man, who, unhappily, had 
 already contracted the pulmonary complaint which carried him 
 off betimes, said merely a few words, and then despatched a 
 telegram to his mother. Another very interesting Tuileries 
 dinner was offered by the Empress to the Emperor in fulfilment 
 of a wager she had lost. It has passed virtually into history as 
 the Dinner of the Twenty Beauties, the invitations being con- 
 fined, so far as the ladies were concerned, to the most beautiful 
 women whom the Empress could find in her Court. They 
 included ten Frenchwomen : the Duchesses de Persigny, de 
 Cadore, and de Montmorency, the Marchionesses de Canizy and 
 de Las Marismas, the Countesses de Pourtales and de Monte- 
 bello, and the Baronesses de Bourgoing and de Pienebourg, 
 There were also two Russians, the Duchess de Morny and 
 Mme. Leopold Magnan ; two Italians, the Countess Waiewska 
 and Mme. Bartholoni ; a Jewess, the Baroness Alphonse de 
 Rothschild; a Scotchwoman, the Marechale Canrobert; a 
 Creole, the Marchioness de Chasseloup-Laubat ; together with 
 the Princess Anna Murat, a semi-American, the Marchioness de 
 Galliffet, a semi-Englishwoman, and the Princess de Mettemich, 
 a Hungarian, who, of course, was included less for the beauty 
 of her person than for that of her esprit. Finally, the Empress 
 herself, who was a Spaniard, completed the score. 
 
 As a rule the grand dinners at the Tuileries were followed 
 by receptions, often open ones so far as officials and their wives 
 were concerned. At certain periods of the year came solemn 
 
254 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 State receptions. Each 1st of January, for instance, there was 
 an imposing gathering of the Corps Diplomatique and all 
 the chief services of the Administration. Napoleon III. then 
 often delivered himself of those oracular pronouncements on 
 European affairs which alternately alarmed or tranquillized the 
 world. Further, he generally contrived to be at the Tuileries 
 on St. Napoleon's Day, August 15, to receive congratulations ; 
 and, again, at the opening and closing of legislative sessions 
 there were usually gatherings of senators and deputies to hear 
 the speeches from the throne. On those occasions, as at the 
 concerts during Lent, light refreshments, such as tea, ices, 
 sorbets, coffee and pastry, were offered to the company. 
 
 The balls were of various kinds — first the great State balls, 
 then the masked and fancy ones, then the smaller Monday 
 balls given by the Empress, and finally the children's balls in 
 honour of the Imperial Prince. Paris danced in those days — 
 on a volcano, if you like, but none the less right merrily. 
 Public dancing halls were scattered all over the city, from the 
 Quartier Latin to the haunts of the rag-pickers. With each 
 ensuing Carnival there came numerous masked balls, not only 
 at the Opera house and a score of other public establishments, 
 but also at the palace itself, and at one and another ministry 
 and embassy. Even clubs, like the Jockey and the Union, gave 
 balls of that description in those days. Then, too, the balls of 
 the Hotel de Ville were famous; and although the noble 
 Faubourg St. Germain, the abode of the Legitimist society, was 
 supposed to be sulking because the Count de Chambord was not 
 upon the throne, some splendid entertainments were given from 
 time to time in its spacious drawing-rooms; while in the 
 Bonapartist districts of Monceau, Beaujon, the Champs Elysees, 
 and the Faubourg St. Honore, fete followed fete throughout 
 the Paris season. 
 
 On the nights of a great ball at the Tuileries the Place du 
 Carrousel was illumined by the huge bonfires lighted there for 
 the benefit of the many waiting carriage-servants, and by the 
 blaze streaming from all the first-floor windows of the palace, 
 from the Salle des Travees to the Galerie de Diane. Up 
 the grand staircase went the guests, past the motionless 
 Cent-Gardes in their resplendent uniforms. The Emperor and 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 255 
 
 Empress received the Diplomatic Body and other prominent 
 personages in the Salon Louis XIV., under the picture which 
 showed the Grand Monarque designating the Duke d'Anjou to 
 the Spanish envoys, and saying to them, " Gentlemen, here is 
 your King." The Emperor wore the uniform of a general, with 
 the ribbon and star of the Legion of Honour on his breast, the 
 Empress was in silk and lace, with a diadem on her head, the 
 " Regent " on her bosom, and a belt of brilliants around her 
 waist. The presentations over, the imperial cortege was formed, 
 the officers of the Cent-Gardes opening the march, while in 
 attendance were all the splendidly attired state and court 
 officials. Their breeches and stockings were uniformly of white 
 silk, but the coats of the masters of ceremonies were violet and 
 gold, those of the prefects of the palace amaranth and gold, 
 those of the chamberlains scarlet and gold, those of the equerries 
 green and gold, those of the orderlies pale blue and silver, and 
 those of the officers of the hunt green and silver. Then the 
 aides-de-camp were in full military uniform ; and there was also 
 the army of domestics — the ushers in brown and gold, the 
 footmen in green and gold and scarlet, and the beadles or 
 Suisses with plumed hats and broad red baldricks embroidered 
 with imperial eagles. In the train, too, of the Sovereigns were 
 Princes and Princesses of their house, foreign Ambassadors and 
 envoys. Marshals of France, the Presidents of the Senate and 
 the Legislative Body, and other high and mighty personages in 
 more or less splendid uniforms, with ribbons and stars and 
 crosses galore. 
 
 Through the Salle du Trone, the Salon d'ApoUon, and the 
 Salon du Premier Consul went the pompous procession, the 
 Empress with glittering eyes and smiling lips, the Emperor with 
 his far-away or his moody look, and the usual occasional twirl 
 of his moustache. As tiiey reached the entrance of the Salle 
 des Marechaux, the chief usher cried aloud, " The Emperor ! 
 The Empress!" The Cent-Gardes at the door stood at 
 attention, and the beadles stationed there struck the floor 
 with their staves, and repeated the cry, " The Emperor ! The 
 Empress ! " Whereupon, passing between the hangings of gold 
 and crimson, their Majesties entered the huge, lofty haU, 
 where the great chandelier and the many tall candelabra cast 
 
256 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the most brilliant light over the wonderful assemblage of 
 uniforms, court coats, fair shoulders, jewels, and gowns of well- 
 nigh every hue. The orchestra struck up " Bartant pour la 
 Syrie " while down the hall, past the life-size portraits of the 
 mighty marshals and the many busts of distinguished generals, 
 their Majesties went towards a raised platform where chairs of 
 state were set. When they had taken their seats the dancing 
 began. 
 
 In the earlier years of the reign there was always a quadrille 
 d'honneur, in which the Emperor and Empress, Princess 
 Mathilde, Prince Napoleon, and Princess Clotilde participated, 
 with, at times, Morny or Walewski. The last named was a 
 born dancer (dancing, in his time, was considered a necessary 
 accomplishment in the diplomatic profession), and it was with 
 a very courtly grace that he went through the stepa of a 
 cavalier seul.* Foreign royalties, when any were present, and 
 certain foreign ambassadors also participated in the quadrille 
 d'honneur ; but in the later years of the Empire — if we except 
 1867, when Paris was crowded with crowned heads — the 
 Emperor and Empress seldom, if ever, danced. After a time 
 they quitted their seats on the raised platform and strolled 
 through the various rooms, watching the evolutions of their 
 guests or chatting with one or another of them. There were 
 always at least two orchestras, one in the Salle des Mar^chaux, 
 another in the Galerie de la Paix. Waldteufel and Strauss 
 (not Johann) conducted, and the music varied according to 
 the fashion of the time. From the earlier Viennese waltzes one 
 came to " II Bacio," and then to the dance airs of " La Belle 
 Helene," " La Grande Duchesse," and " Chilp^ric." 
 
 The scene in the Salle des Marechaux was a dazzling one 
 on the night of a great ball. Stands were sometimes ranged 
 around it for the convenience of the great throng of onlookers. 
 It was the fashion, too, for lovers to make appointments under 
 the portrait of one or another marshal. When some enamoured 
 young man of position learnt that the lady of his heart would 
 be at the next Tuileries ball, he would say to her : " Be under 
 
 * Even Bismarck could waltz, and it was at the Tuileries, in 1867, and in 
 his " White Cuirassier " uniform, that he waltzed for the last time. His 
 partner was the beautiful Mme. Carette. He was then in his fifty-third year. 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 257 
 
 Augereau, or Massena, or Berthier, at midnight." That witch- 
 ing hour was the favourite one for such assignations, as it was 
 also the supper-hour when the imperial party quitted the 
 scene and the dancing flagged. Love, of course, was in no 
 hurry to go to supper; and, besides, from the opening till 
 the close of the ball a refreshment buffet was installed in the 
 Salle des Trav^es — a buffet at which ices, sorbets, tea, coffee, 
 claret-cup, lemonade, syrups, pastry, and cakes were freely 
 dispensed, the Service de Bouche providing 1000 cups and 
 saucers and like numbers of ice-glasses, coffee-glasses and 
 tumblers. On an average, 8000 ices and from 160 to 200 
 gallons of liquid refreshment were consumed at a grand ball, 
 the lemonade and syrups being prepared in earthen pitchers, 
 which kept them delightfully cool. Supper was served in the 
 Galerie de Diane, first for the Emperor, the Empress, their family, 
 the Corps diplomatique and other important guests, others 
 being admitted afterwards in batches of about one hundred at 
 a time, when the chamberlains and other officials zealously gave 
 preference to ladies. It was a standing supper, served at 
 a huge buflfet decorated with the gramd surtout and other 
 ornamental plate. At one of the fetes offered to foreign 
 sovereigns in 1867, the guests were so numerous that the 
 palace playhouse had to be turned into a supper-room. At the 
 'Empress's petits beds, for which only some 600 invitations were 
 issued (whereas there were often 3000 to a grand ball) the 
 guests took supper seated at thirty tables in the Galerie de la 
 Paix and the Salon Louis XIV. 
 
 Those petits bah, which were given on Monday evenings, 
 and therefore became known as the Empress's Mondays, were 
 far more enjoyable than the State affairs. The ladies were as 
 bravely airayed as ever, but the men, the Emperor included, 
 wore merely evening dress, with knee-breeches, no uniforms 
 being displayed. The guests, on arriving at the palace, went 
 straight to the Empress's apartments, whence they proceeded 
 to the Salon d'Apollon and the Salon du Premier Consul, in 
 the last of which the orchestra was stationed under a portrait 
 of Napoleon I., which gave the room its name — a remarkable 
 portrait, by the way, lost unfortunately in the conflagration 
 of 1871. The young Consul of France appeared in it with a 
 
258 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 fine classical profile, and long hair falling over the collar of 
 a red uniform, as he passed on horseback before a veteran 
 grenadier, who presented arms to him.* 
 
 At the petits hols it was chiefly in that Salon du Premier 
 Consul that dancing took place, but before it began the Empress 
 entered the room in State, preceded by the ofiicers of her 
 Household and attended by her ladies-in-waiting. The lady 
 guests were drawn up on either side, with the gentlemen behind 
 them, but once this review was over, there was no further 
 formality. The Emperor, for his part, slipped into the rooms 
 without ceremony, as his wife's private guest. She, as a rule, 
 did not dance at those Monday gatherings, but flitted for 
 a while about the salons, and then retired to her private 
 apartments, with one or two foreign diplomatists or other per- 
 sonages, until the time came for the cotillon, which she always 
 witnessed. We mentioned in an earlier chapter that the 
 cotillon was led for several seasons by that smart, curly-haired 
 equerry (who, to the disgust of others, would ride a Tanglaise, 
 and not in French military fashion), the Marquis de Caux, 
 Madame Patti's first husband. After his marriage, there was 
 no conducteur attitre of the cotillon, but the Empress personally 
 designated one or another younger guest for the duty. One night 
 her choice feU on an Englishman, Mr. Hubert Jerningham,t 
 who, although confronted by the most critical Parisian audience 
 that could have been collected together, acquitted himself right 
 brilliantly of the task. 
 
 During the earlier years of the Empire, Carnival time was 
 always celebrated at the Tuileries by a grand fancy-dress ball — 
 at times a masked one. Abbe Deguerry, of the Madeleine, did 
 not object so much to fancy costumes, but he did seriously 
 object to masks, as they allowed, said he, of a good deal of 
 impropriety which would not otherwise take place. Accordingly, 
 he did not hesitate to censure the practice of masking, even 
 denouncing it in a sermon which he preached before the 
 
 • The composition undoubtedly inspired that of Miiller'a equestrian 
 portrait of Napoleon III. In this a grenadier of the Second Empire was 
 shown presenting arms to the Emperor as he rode under the entrance arch of 
 the Ttiileries. It was a good painting, of both artistic and historical value. 
 
 t Later Sir Hubert, and Governor of Mauritius — a far cry from the 
 Tuileries, 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 259 
 
 Emperor and Empress. As it happened, in the last years of 
 the reign the fancy balls were mostly given for the entertain- 
 ment of the Imperial Prince and his young friends — that is, 
 they became children's parties, at which the little Prince figured, 
 now in the revolutionary character of Massaniello, now as a 
 juvenile mediaeval knight wearing chain armour. At an earlier 
 period, however, when those balls were reserved to " grown-ups,"' 
 the Emperor (who in his younger days had figured as a 
 troubadour at the Eglinton tournament) frequently assumed 
 fancy dress — swathing himself in an Arab burnous, or else 
 displaying a £200 " costume Henri 11.," with a short mantle 
 hanging from his shoulder and a rapier at his side. At one 
 ball of the time the Empress was seen in her favourite 
 character, that of Marie Antoinette,* at another as a Titian- 
 esque patrician lady of Venice — her costume then being of 
 crimson and black, spangled with sequins interspersed with 
 diamonds. The Jete on that occasion (March, 1863) was 
 remarkably brilliant. The Emperor, in order to be in keep- 
 ing with his consort, had also donned a Venetian costume, 
 white and crimson. Princess Mathilde represented Anne of 
 Cleves, after Holbein's picture at the Louvre, while Princess 
 Clotilde wore gold brocade, after a figure in a painting by 
 Paul Veronese. The Duchess de Persigny, whose hot temper 
 was notorious, appeared, appropriately enough, as Fire ; Mme. 
 Alphonse de Rothschild was a bird of paradise, and the 
 Countess Aguado a pack of cards, while the Princess de Metter- 
 nich flaunted the attire of an " Incroyable " of the Directory. 
 The most startling costume, however, was that of La Castiglione, 
 who came as Flaubert's Salammbo, with her marvellous hair 
 streaming around her, a golden diadem circling her brow, her 
 bosom virtually as bare as her arms, and her feet likewise bare, 
 in golden sandals. With one hand, the Count de Choiseul, 
 who impersonated a negro, upheld her train of some gossamer- 
 like fabric, while with the other he bore aloft a strange antique- 
 looking parasol, such as might have been used, indeed, to shade 
 some beauty of olden Carthage. 
 
 The great entertainment of that evening had been devised 
 by Countess Stephanie Tascher de la Pagerie, who, for all her 
 
 • See ante, p. 201. 
 
260 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 services in matters of that kind, ought to have been appointed 
 " Directrice des Menus Plaisirs." Her invention on the occasion 
 we refer to, was the famous " Ballet of the Bees," for which 
 Merante, the ballet-master of the Opera, had trained twelve 
 of the most beautiful and ablest dancers of the Court. At a 
 given signal four huge beehives, festooned with flowers, were 
 carried on litters into the Salle des Marechaux by servants 
 attired as seventeenth-century gardeners. As soon as the hives 
 were set in position and the first strains of the orchestra sounded, 
 three beautiful women, winged and wearing short-skirted 
 costumes, which simulated as closely as possible the appearance 
 of bees, emerged from each hive, carrying garlands of violets. 
 Among the ladies were Princess Lise Troubetskoi, Mile. 
 de NelidolF, Mme. Leopold Magnan, Baroness Molitor, and 
 Mme. Brincard; and again and again, with a skill rivalling 
 that of professional dancers, they executed the various charming 
 and difficult terpsichorean feats which Merante and the 
 Countess Stephanie had assigned to them. The very nature of 
 the ballet was, of course, a clever compliment to the Emperor, 
 who, with the Empress, sat on his throne admiring and 
 applauding it, for the bee is the family emblem of the 
 Bonapartes and the violet their chosen flower. 
 
 Another year, the Countess Stephanie planned a difierent 
 entertainment — a gipsy quadrille, with her brother, the ugly 
 chamberlain, Count Charles,* as the gipsy king, and a number 
 of ladies and gentlemen of title as his subjects. At other 
 times still stranger figures appeared at the Tuileries masked 
 balls. A gigantic flageolet, which careered about the rooms in 
 eccentric fashion, turned out to be the gallant Marquis de 
 GallifFet, a horrid-looking black devil proved to be the beautiful 
 Baroness Alphonse de Rothschild, an obelisk was none other 
 than a very tall officer of the Cent-Gardes ; while a quartette 
 of four sphinxes, who propounded impossible riddles, was found 
 to consist . of the Duchess d'Isly, the Marechale Canrobert, 
 Countess Fleury, and Baroness de Bourgoing. 
 
 • He is often alluded to by the memoir writers as " Duke Tasoher de la 
 Pagerie," and waa so styled oooasionally by his contemporaries ; but, in point 
 of fact, his duoal title was the Bavarian one of Waldburg, which the Emperor 
 allowed him to assume. 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 261 
 
 But the fancy balls at the Tuileries had several serious rivals, 
 for similar entertainments often took place at the ministries 
 and the foreign embassies. We recall one given by Morny, 
 at which the Princess Mathilde, for once casting her dignity 
 a^ide, appeared in tatters as a beggar-maid — whether Tenny- 
 son's, we cannot say, but in any case no King Cophetua " sware 
 a royal oath," on that occasion, vowing that she should be his 
 queen. It would, by the way, have been a futile oath, the 
 Princess being bound already by the yihains of matrimony. 
 Again, there was a ball given by Marshal Randon at which, to 
 the mingled delight and dread of the fair guests, four young 
 African lions were introduced into some of the pageantry of the 
 entertainment. One year, too, at the Ministry of Foreign 
 Affairs, Count Walewski provided a " Quadrille des Patineurs," 
 the participants in which, clad in Polish costumes, went skating 
 in couples round an ornamental staff, whence radiated cherry- 
 coloured ribbons which they held. 
 
 At another time there was a wonderful pageant at the 
 Ministry of Marine, a pageant emblematical of all the countries 
 in the world, France coming first, clad in white, with a tricolour 
 scarf about her, and an olive branch in her hand. Then 
 Europe, personified by Mme. Bartholoni, appeared in a triumphal 
 chariot, escorted by ladies representative of various countries, 
 and followed by Mme. Rimsky-Korsakoff as Asia, with attendant 
 crocodiles, houris, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian maids. 
 Next, to the strains of the overture of " L'Africaine," came the 
 Princess Jablonowska, garbed as Cleopatra, with a lion cub at 
 her feet, and flanked by Mme. de Montaut arrayed as a 
 Soudanese warrior, mounted on a dromedary. But "Yankee 
 Doodle " sounded, and then, under garlands of flowers, America 
 was seen in a hammock hanging between palm trees, and 
 attended by typical " uncle Sams," Califomian miners, Peruvian 
 incas, and Mexicans a la Montezuma. 
 
 Ah ! those pageants and those balls, it would be diflicult to 
 exhaust the list of them. There was a ball given by Mme. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys at the Foreign Oifice when Mme. de 
 Metternich appeared as a Spanish bull-fighter, Mme. de Galliffet 
 as a tulip, and Princess Lise Troubetskoi as a butterfly, while 
 the Emperor and Empress, muffled in dominoes and closely 
 
262 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 masked, went hither and thither to ascertain, perhaps, what 
 good, and particularly what ill, might be said of them. Then, 
 again at the Foreign Office, but in the Marquis de Moustier's 
 time, there was a ball at which young America carried all before 
 her. She was rising rapidly in Parisian society, which, following 
 the example of the Tuileries itself, gave a cordial welcome to 
 the new transatlantic aristocracy, the Noblesse of the Dollar. 
 The Miss Slidells, as War and Peace, Miss Dix as the 
 Marguerite of "Faust," Miss Hitchcock as a jockey, the lovely 
 Miss Beckwith as Aurora — they were the young ladies whose 
 charm and tastefulness triumphed at the " Foreign AflFairs " in 
 1867, that year of the Empire's apogee. Elsewhere France 
 held her own. We recall an entertainment at the Prince de la 
 Moskowa's residence in the Rue de Marignan, when a most 
 amusing village wedding-party appeared in the salons, the 
 blushing bride being impersonated by a distinguished senator, 
 the amorous bridegroom by the staidest of judges, and the 
 mayor, gendarmes, and peasant guests by a series of princes, 
 dukes, and counts. 
 
 Then there were the balls given by Princess Pauline 
 Metternich at the Austrian embassy in the Rue de Varennes. 
 One time the palm for effectiveness went to Mme. de Morny 
 and Mme. de Girardin for their impersonation of white roses 
 sprinkled with dewdrops of diamonds. But Princess Pauline 
 (of whom we shall have more to say a little later) was possessed 
 of no little eccentricity as well as wit. One Thursday night — 
 her night, as a rule — she put a crowning touch to a farcical 
 entertainment by lighting a cigar. And as thirty lady-guests 
 did likewise, the soiree suddenly became a tabagie. Another 
 time the Princess announced her intention of giving a dance 
 during Lent. Everybody was lost in amazement at the idea, 
 some even spoke severely of such an infraction of both religious 
 duty and good taste. Nevertheless, all who were fortunate 
 enough to secure invitations accepted them. Dancing went on 
 till nearly midnight, by which time supper was very generally 
 expected. But all at once the orchestra ceased playing, and 
 the Princess, taking her stand in the middle of the room, 
 exclaimed: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Lenten ball. 
 Lent means fasting, as you are aware ; 50 I warn you that you 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 263 
 
 must not expect supper here to-night. Pray stay as long as 
 you please, but I should be sorry if you were to stay so long 
 as to be unable to get supper elsewhere, should you desire it." 
 The guests listened, stared, and finally laughed, deeming it 
 best to face the situation with good countenances, though the 
 laugh was, we fancy, on the wrong side of their mouths. Some 
 imagined, however, that the Princess's speech was a mere joke, 
 and that supper would be duly provided, as otherwise the 
 Austrian embassy's reputation for hospitality might be seriously 
 compromised. But they were quite mistaken, no supper was 
 served, and one and all withdrew, tired and hungry on a bleak 
 March night. 
 
 That little episode reminds us of a contretemps that occurred 
 at a fancy ball given one year at the Prussian embassy. So far 
 as dancing and costumes were concerned it was a very brilliant 
 affair, to the success of which La Castiglione contributed by 
 appearing in the costume of a Red Indian "brave," with an 
 aureola of feathers about her head. Unfortunately the supper 
 arrangements were defective. Prussian parsimony had pre- 
 supposed that a very limited number of guests would require 
 food, and even the appetites of the Corps diplomatique were 
 overlooked. Turkey, having found no seat at table, went 
 home famished and furious, with the result that war raged 
 between the Sublime Porte and Berlin for several weeks after- 
 wards. Spain was even more angry than Turkey, regarding its 
 failure to secure any supper as a direct insult to its grandeeship, 
 and proclaiming urbi et orbi that there was no truth whatever 
 in the old story that it subsisted entirely on cigarettes and 
 chocolate. 
 
 A propoa, however, of the Princess Mettemich to whom we 
 were referring just now, it was she, we think (may we be 
 forgiven if we are in error !), who on one occasion invited a 
 number of Court and diplomatic guests to a dinner, when 
 they were vastly amazed by the behaviour of some half-dozen 
 servants, who not only pronounced their names all amiss when 
 announcing them, but indulged in various strange pranks, such 
 as flunkeys usually reserve for the servants' hall. The climax 
 came directly dinner was served, for the aforesaid menials 
 rushed into the dining-room, seated themselves at table, and 
 
264 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 raised their knives and forks as if in eagerness to despatch 
 the various viands. The startled guests wondered if they were 
 dreaming, and some testy folk among them were already 
 turning on their heels when the laughter of the hostess, 
 mingling with that of the servants, restrained them. Briefly, 
 those servants were all young men of good position, " got up " 
 to act the parts assigned to them. Some, not content with 
 assuming powdered wigs and all necessary maguillage, had even 
 been brave enough to sacrifice their moustaches and whiskers 
 the better to disguise their identity. 
 
 Reverting to the balls of the time, there was yet another 
 one, deserving of mention here, although it was not attended 
 by ladies of society. It was given, indeed, in March 1865, to 
 persons of the demi-monde by the younger and more frivolous 
 members of the French Jockey Club. The gilded saloons of 
 Les Trois Freres Provenpaux were selected as the scene of the 
 entertainment, and there was no question at all of anybody 
 being sent home supperless. Bat a serious question of costume 
 arose. It was feared that there might be some very unpleasant 
 bickering and jealousy if Mile. Chose — "protected" at the rate 
 of ■£'1000 a month — should fliaunt all her diamonds and other 
 finery before Mile. Machin, who derived but a quarter of the 
 aforesaid amount from her own particular protectorate, and had 
 very few diamonds to show. So the word went forth that all 
 the invitees were to appear as grisettes. But if man proposes, 
 woman disposes, and her ingenuity is never at a loss. The 
 more opulent " ladies of the lake," as they were called in those 
 days — after the lake in the Bois de Boulogne, round which 
 they drove every afternoon — arrived on the scene in great 
 splendour, wearing Manon Lescaut, Pompadour, and Camargo 
 costumes, with no lack of powder in their hair or diamonds 
 either. When the organizers of the entertainment expressed 
 their surprise at this magnificence, they were quietly answered : 
 " Oh ! I am a grisette Louis Quatorze," — or Louis Quinze, as 
 the case might be. Briefly, the gathering did not include a 
 single grisette after the fashion of those in Murger's " Vie de 
 Boh^me." 
 
 It was at Compi^gne (we shall speak hereafter of the Court's 
 annual sojourn there) that there was most indulgence in 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 265 
 
 " drawing-room games " and private theatricals ; but something 
 of the kind was also witnessed, now and then, at the Tuileries. 
 There was no card-playing at the palace — except on the 
 occasion of the grand balls, when a few tables were set out 
 for whist ; but the Emperor, the Empress and their familiars 
 sat down now and then to a quiet family game of " loto," or 
 even "consequences." The Emperor, moreover, sometimes 
 roused himself from his ruminations to ask a riddle. One night 
 he put the following question to his entourage : " Why is it 
 that in winter we usually feel the cold more in our feet, 
 although they are protected by boots, than we do on our faces 
 which are bare ? " Some pedant, who was present, wished to 
 supply a scientific explanation of the phenomenon, but the 
 Emperor restrained him. The others "gave it up," as the 
 saying goes. " Well," said Napoleon, as gravely as if he had 
 been warning Austria or Prussia, or promising France the 
 long-delayed " crowning of the edifice," " it is like this : The 
 temperature being low naturally affects the base more than it 
 does the summit." That may not be a particularly good joke, 
 but Napoleon III. was certainly not destitute of wit or power 
 of repartee. Unluckily, his jests more frequently took the form 
 of play upon words, double entente, as it is called, and in that 
 case all point is usually lost in a translation. For instance, 
 one day, when, greatly to the Empress's annoyance, some 
 impossible person indulged in sundry Voltairean remarks 
 respecting the Holy Ghost {UEsprit Saint) and Pentecost, 
 the Emperor quietly remarked : " As it is certain that that 
 gentleman does not possess Fesprit sain (a sound mind) he 
 would do best to say nothing more on the subject." 
 
 At times, notably as the Imperial Prince grew older, there 
 were conjuring entertainments at the Tuileries. If we remember 
 rightly, too, the Davenport brothers gave a seance there before 
 they succumbed to the ridicule with which the exposures of 
 Viscount Alfred de Caston inspired the Parisians. Subsequently 
 a very notable wizard appeared on the scene, none other than 
 David Dunglas Home, whom Robert Browning satirized as 
 "Sludge." It was, we think, a Russian ambassador. Count 
 Kisseleff, who introduced Home to the Tuileries, where he 
 turned tables, practised crystal gazing, and conjured up spirits. 
 
266 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 To some it may seem surprising that so orthodox a Catholic 
 as the Empress Eugenie should have shown any favour to a man 
 like Home, but it must be remembered that the superstitions 
 of the Churches often induce others. Moreover, the Emperor 
 himself was more or less of a fatalist, and thus Home became for 
 a time persona gratissima at the Tuileries. Sceptical courtiers 
 looked on and wondered at the infatuation of the sovereigns for 
 that long, lanky, lion-maned individual, who before giving any 
 grand seance lived, according to his own account, for days together 
 on nothing more substantial than sugared water. Ministers, it 
 has been said, even became perturbed at the influence which 
 Home began to exercise ; and, according to one account, he was 
 denounced as a foreign spy, and as such expelled from France 
 at the instigation of Count Walewski. But many years ago, 
 Baron de Billing, who, from being Walewski's secretary, rose to 
 a high position in the French diplomatic world, assured us that 
 Home did not quit France for any political reason. According 
 to M, de Billing it seems that so long as Home was content to 
 conjure up the spirits of certain historical personages, such as 
 Napoleon I. and Marie Antoinette, and ascribe to them 
 language of an oracular vagueness, appropriate to the spirit- 
 world, all went well with him. He followed the Court from the 
 Tuileries to St. Cloud, and thence to Biarritz, where, however, 
 he received his conge. It appears that the proximity of 
 Biarritz to Spain turned his thoughts to cosas de Espana with 
 which he was by no means well acquainted, though they were, 
 of course, familiar enough to the Empress. Thus Home for 
 the first time began to blunder, and finally, on an occasion 
 when, imperfectly informed respecting the Empress's childhood, 
 he nevertheless presumed to evoke the spirit of her father, the 
 Count de Montijo, he perpetrated a series of very ridiculous 
 mistakes. The Empress's eyes were then opened, she realized 
 that the man in whom she had foolishly begun to believe was 
 merely a charlatan, and he was promptly turned out of the 
 Villa Eugenie. 
 
 He went to Russia (where, we think, he had been before), 
 and the Russian Court, which has often yielded to ridiculous 
 superstitions — the more recent case of Philippe will be re- 
 membered — gave him a cordial welcome. In 1870, however, 
 
COURT FESTIVITIES 267 
 
 he followed the German armies to France, and, ostensibly as 
 the correspondent of a Califomian newspaper, installed himself 
 at Versailles, where he gave seances for the entertainment of 
 the princelings of the ornamental staff. We remember that he 
 subsequently showed us a little Sevres cup or vase which he had 
 taken from the chateau of St. Cloud during the conflagration 
 there, and that, descanting on the fate of the Second Empire, 
 he declared he had been treated with base ingratitude by 
 Napoleon III. and his consort, for he had generously warned 
 them of the danger of downfall. They, however, refusing, in 
 their pride, to believe him, had dismissed him from their 
 presence. However the " Ides of March " had come, and swept 
 them away. 
 
 The policy of the Empire towards the Parisian working- 
 classes was to give them, first, plenty of employment, such as the 
 Haussmannization of the city provided, and, secondly, plenty 
 of amusement. The bourgeoisie of various degrees was treated in 
 a similar manner. We have alluded to the multiplicity of the 
 Parisian dancing-halls in those days. Theatres, circuses, and 
 concert-rooms were likewise more numerous than they had ever 
 been before ; while each year brought in its train a succession 
 of pageants and fetes, either in the city itself or its immediate 
 vicinity. There was the New Year Fair on the Boulevards, the 
 Carnival procession of the Fat Ox, the Mid-Lent or Washer- 
 women's Festival, the Ham Fair and the Gingerbread Fair at 
 the Barriere du Trone, the Promenade of Longchamp, the Fete 
 Napoleon on August 15, the fetes of St. Cloud, Les Loges 
 and Sceaux, the annual crowning of the Rosiere of Nanterre, 
 and many other celebrations. Both the Fat Ox and the 
 Washerwomen's processions went the round of Paris, visiting 
 the various ministries, the embassies, and even the Tuileries. 
 In 1869, when the prize ox of the Paris cattle-show was 
 christened Chilperic, in honour of Herve's opera-bouffe of that 
 name, a wag wrote some verses respecting the doomed beast's 
 progress through the city, and a few of them may be quoted 
 
 here: 
 
 H visite sur sa route 
 
 Les ministres d'aujourd'hui, 
 Qui demain seront, sans doute, 
 
 Moins d la mode ^ne lui. 
 
268 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Puis, par un autre caprice, 
 
 On introduit Ohilp6rio 
 Pr^s la graude ambassadrioe, 
 
 Madame de Mettetuioh. 
 
 La oliente noble et riche, 
 
 Que Worth habille de neuf, 
 Oublie un instant I'Autriclie 
 
 Au spectacle du bceuf. 
 
 It * il; * )|E 
 
 H desire peu de chose : 
 
 Voir I'Empereur et mourir, 
 II le voit, et Ton suppose 
 
 Que cela lui fait plaisir. 
 
 On coining to the Tuileries the Fat Ox procession passed 
 under the triumphal arch into the reserved part of the Place 
 du Carrousel, and the Emperor, the Empress, and the Imperial 
 Prince stationed themselves on the palace balcony to inspect 
 it, while both largesse and refreshment were distributed among 
 the masqueraders by the officers and servants. Much the same 
 reception greeted the arrival of the Washerwomen's procession, 
 only then the Emperor came into the courtyard to kiss the 
 queen of the day, and present her with a jewel. When the 
 Court was at St. Cloud in the early autumn, the Emperor 
 and Empress often strolled through the local fete, visiting 
 the various booths, admiring in turn the bearded and the 
 colossal lady, the sword-swallower, and the two-headed calf, 
 to say nothing of the familiar "live lion stuffed with straw, 
 and the dead eagle picking his eyes out." But the day of days 
 for the Paris populace was the F^e Napoleon, that precursor 
 of the Fete Nationale of present times. There was the inevitable 
 review, usually of the Army of Paris, sometimes 80,000 strong, 
 and occasionally of the National Guard, as it was then con- 
 stituted. There were also performances " gratis " at the theatres 
 by imperial command ; there were fairs on the Place de la 
 Bastille, the Place du Trone, and the Trocadero; balloon 
 ascents on the Champ de Mars ; and water-jousts on the Seine ; 
 together with the march of the old surviving veterans of " La 
 Grande Armee," from their asylum at the Invalides to the Place 
 Vend6me, whither they went to deposit wreaths on the railings 
 around the column raised to that same army's glory by the 
 great captain, whose effigy arose above it. By day the streets 
 
THE GREAT YEAR, 1867 269 
 
 of Paris were bright with bunting, at night they blazed with 
 illuminations, and there were fireworks galore — everything being 
 done better than it is done now, because it was so largely 
 undertaken by the Parisian authorities, in such wise that 
 harmonious schemes of decoration and illumination were carried 
 out, often on a very large scale indeed. Of course, ihej'ete 
 had its purely official side, such as the great reception at the 
 Tuileries, when congratulatory addresses and telegrams poured 
 in without cessation, the special prayers, too, for the Emperor 
 and his family in all the churches, and the banquets and soirees 
 given in connection with the departments of the State. 
 
 One year stands out prominently in the annals of the time 
 as the year of both Imperial and Parisian splendour. That 
 was 1867. It is true that, since we last glanced at the political 
 situation — in or about 1860 — the Empire had received many 
 blows, met with many losses and reverses. Its most able men 
 in the spheres of politics and finance were dead or in retire- 
 ment. Its Mexican policy had encountered a terrible rebuff, 
 the United States having compelled the withdrawal of the 
 French forces of occupation. Again, the imperial prestige had 
 suffered badly both with regard to Poland and to Denmark, in 
 the last case largely through the refusal of England to join in 
 intervention. Then, too, the crash of Sadowa — or Koniggratz, 
 if that name be preferred — had re-echoed far and wide, to the 
 serious damtige of the Emperor's reputation. Prussia was now 
 supreme in Germany, and none of the secretly anticipated com- 
 pensations, either on the Rhine or in Belgium, had been secured 
 by France. The menace of war with Prussia hovered over the 
 land, for it seemed as if the difficulties of the Luxemburg 
 question could only be solved by gun and sword. Further, there 
 was trouble imminent with Italy, although the interposition 
 of Napoleon III. had secured that country the possession of 
 Venetia, for, in one or another way, she still demanded Rome, 
 and the French troops, previously withdrawn from the Eternal 
 City, had to be despatched there afresh to check the designs of 
 Garibaldi. 
 
 Over home affairs hung several ominous clouds. The year 
 opened with the Emperor's decision of January 19, cancelling 
 the Legislature's right to present addresses to the Crown, but 
 
270 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 granting it, instead, the right of interpellating Ministers. 
 Braggart Rouher, the so-called Vice-Emperor, was more power- 
 ful than ever, being now both Minister of State and Minister of 
 Finances; but other officials had lost their posts. The 
 Marquis de Chasseloap-Laubat had been dismissed from the 
 Ministry of Marine, and replaced by Admiral Rigault de 
 Genouilly ; Marshal Randon had rightly been compelled to 
 surrender the Ministry of War to Marshal Niel, who had, 
 however, a formidable task of army reorganization before him. 
 And the portfolio of Finances, now assigned to Rouher, had 
 been relinquished by Fould. The latter's departure was a 
 serious loss to France, for if her military forces needed to be 
 strengthened, her finances also required the strictest supervision, 
 the most careful handling. Fould's retirement was hailed with 
 applause, however. He might be an expert financier, but he 
 was a close-fisted one, and such as he were not liked in those 
 spendthrift days. When his few friends claimed that he had 
 served the Empire well, they were answered : " Oh, he need not 
 go without reward, Jews never do ; and doubtless the Emperor 
 will be pleased to create him Duke de Villejuif." * 
 
 But there were other notable features in home aflPairs at 
 that period. Both the anti-dynastic and the constitutional 
 Oppositions in the Legislative Body were gradually growing 
 stronger. The Republican cause, in particular, was making 
 steady progress in Paris and other large cities. Further, owing 
 in part to the check which the Haussmannization of the capital 
 had already received on account of the great outlay it entailed, 
 there was less contentment than formerly among the working- 
 classes. There had been many strikes, and great was the 
 dissatisfaction with the high rents prevailing in the city. The 
 Emperor knew that grievance to be genuine, and although he 
 was inadequately seconded, he had been studying it seriously 
 for some time past, devising or examining plans for the erection 
 of workmen's dwellings in the immediate vicinity of Paris. He 
 himself set up a row of them near the Avenue Daumesnil at 
 Vincennes, and also showed some pattern cottages at the Ex- 
 hibition of 1867. Of late years his ideas on this subject have 
 found some favour in France. Instead of workmen being 
 
 • A play on the word — vile juif signifying " vile Jew." 
 
THE GREAT YEAR, 1867 271 
 
 invariably herded in huge tenements inside Pains, many now 
 have cottage-and-garden abodes, notably in the south-west 
 suburbs. That, of course, has been facilitated by the vast 
 improvement in means of communication since the days of the 
 Empire. 
 
 The great Exhibition of 1867 naturally gave impetus to 
 trade, money still seemed to be plentiful enough ; and whatever 
 ruins might lie, whatever crumbling might be going on, behind 
 the facade of the Empire, that fapade still remained imposing, 
 and displayed itself in all its magnificence during that remark- 
 able year — a year of festivity unparalleled in the history of 
 any other nation. The huge Exhibition building on the Champ 
 de Mars may not have been outwardly beautiful, but it was 
 extremely well arranged, and the display in its galleries and 
 in the pavilions of the grounds, surpassed everything of a 
 similar nature seen at previous world-shows. From April until 
 mid-October Paris was crowded with foreigners from all parts 
 of the world ; and emperors, kings, princes, viceroys and other 
 potentates responded with alacrity to the invitations of the 
 Court of the Tuileries. A full recital of all the entertain- 
 ments and pageants of the time, banquets, receptions, balls, 
 gala theatrical performances, concerts, reviews, and what not 
 besides, would make a volume; and here we can only treat 
 the subject briefly. One entertainment, however, was often 
 much like another, and thus a detailed nsurrative might prove 
 tedious. 
 
 Altogether over eighty royalties — crowned heads, princes, 
 princesses, grand and arch dukes and duchesses, reigning dukes, 
 etc., etc. — flocked to Paris in that year of jubilee. The very 
 first to arrive was Prince, now King Oscar of Sweden, whom 
 Baron de Billing used jocularly to call the King of the Jews 
 on account of his descent from Bernadotte. Years ago, during 
 some of the early talk respecting Zionism, the Baron was wont 
 to remark : " Nonsense, we need not go to war with Turkey to 
 give Palestine back to the Jews — let them emigrate to Sweden, 
 they will find a king of their race on the throne there." After 
 Prince Oscar came the young Prince of Orange, the unfortunate 
 Citron, as he was called. Then, in tui-n appeared the King 
 and Queen of the Belgians, the King and Queen of the Hellenes, 
 
272 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Queen Pia of Portugal, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, the Grand 
 Duchess Marie of Russia, a Prince of Japan, the Prince of 
 Wales, and the Duke of Edinburgh. The month of June 
 brought both the Czar Alexander II., accompanied by his sons 
 and other grand-dukes, and the King of Prussia, with his son 
 (later the Emperor Frederick) and Bismarck and Moltke also. 
 Subsequently came the Crown Prince, later King of Saxony, 
 Prince, later King, Humbert of Italy, his brother, the Duke of 
 Aosta (later Amadeo of Spain), the Crown Prince, now King of 
 Denmark, the Count and Countess of Flanders, and a crowd 
 of German and other princelings. Next we saw the Khedive, 
 Ismail the Lavish, who fell desperately in love with Hortense 
 Schneider, Offenbach's " Grande Duchesse ; " and Sultan Abdul 
 Aziz the Murdered, with whom were both his future successors, 
 Murad the Madman and Abdul the Damned, Not a week, 
 hardly a day, elapsed without bringing a royalty to Paris, where 
 spring, summer, and autumn were all Shrove Tuesday and 
 Carnival time. Lent arriving later — in 1870. 
 
 The Exhibition was opened on April 1 ; the political clouds 
 lifted on May 11, when the neutralization of the Grand-duchy 
 of Luxemburg was at last agreed upon. Then Tout a la j'oie / 
 became the cry of Paris. Nevertheless, the summer brought 
 some unpleasant incidents. On June 6, when the Czar and the 
 Emperor Napoleon were returning together from Longchamp, 
 after passing, in company with the King of Prussia, some forty 
 battalions, sixty squadrons and twenty batteries of the army 
 of Paris in review, the first-named was fired upon by a Polish 
 refugee named Berezowski. The only injury inflicted on the 
 occasion was experienced by an unfortunate horse, which a 
 zealous equerry, M. Raimbeaux, spurred forward to cover the 
 menaced monarch; and the Czar, like all the other royalties, 
 attended a great ball at the Russian embassy that same evening 
 as though nothing unpleasant had happened. But a day or 
 two later, when he visited the Palais de Justice, some young 
 advocates of the Republican party, more zealous than v^ell-bred, 
 made a demonstration against him, and one of them, Charles 
 Floquet (subsequently a pitiable prime minister of the Republic), 
 shouted " Long live Poland ! " in his face. Thus, in spite of all 
 the courtesy of the Tuileries, the splendour of the hospitality 
 
THE GREAT YEAR, 1867 273 
 
 extended both there and at the Elysee, where the Czar actually 
 resided, and the unparalleled magnificence of the ball which 
 Baron Haussmann gave at the Hotel de Ville at a cost of 
 ^£"30,000 (8000 persons being present), the Russian visit ended 
 very badly. The King of Prussia remained in Paris some days 
 longer, and while Moltke quietly went hither and thither, 
 taking note of all things military, the equally wily Bismarck 
 gratified Napoleon with some private confabulations in the 
 imperial cabinet, even as he had favoured him with previous 
 ones on the sands of Biarritz in October, 1865. At that time 
 Napoleon had deemed Bismarck to be a madman, and Bismarck 
 had regarded Napoleon as a fool. What were their respective 
 thoughts of each other in 1867 — when Koniggratz had come 
 and gone ? 
 
 But let us proceed. Trouble again arose to dismay the 
 Court of the Tuileries at the time of the Sultan's visit in 
 August and the great distribution of the exhibition prizes 
 at the Palais de I'lndustrie. This was a gorgeous, crowded 
 ceremony, when Princes and Princesses of many nations mustered 
 beside the Emperor, the Empress, and the Sultan, on the great 
 throne, all gold and crimson. Two guests, however, who were 
 to have been present at the pageant were conspicuously absent. 
 They were the Count and Countess of Flanders, brother and 
 sister-in-law of the unhappy Empress Charlotte of Mexico. The 
 news had come, indeed, that Maximilian, her husband, had been 
 shot at Queretaro by the Mexican Republicans. The blow was 
 a severe one for the proud Empire of France, which had set 
 him on his precarious throne. The " greatest scheme of the 
 reign " was quite ended now. And it was of little use to point 
 out that Maximilian had brought the death-penalty on himself 
 by decreeing it for his adversaries. The Queretaro execution 
 recoiled on both Napoleon and his consort, who had conjointly 
 sent the unlucky Archduke on the maddest of enterprises across 
 the seas. 
 
 A little later, after remaining in Paris to entertain the Kings 
 of Sweden and Portugal, who, in their turn, participated in the 
 procession of royalties, the Emperor and Empress journeyed to 
 Salzburg, there to meet Maximilian's brother, the Emperor 
 Francis Joseph of Austria, and express, perhaps, their belated 
 
 T 
 
274 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 penitence. Subsequently the Austrian ruler came to Paris, 
 going thence to Compiegne ; and possibly one might trace back to 
 the long conversations which took place there between him and 
 Napoleon III., the first idea of a compact which might enable 
 them to revenge themselves on Prussia — Prussia which had 
 driven Austria out of Germany, and denied France all com- 
 pensation for her neutrality. In any case that great year, 1867, 
 ended inauspiciously. Marshal Niel brought forward his scheme 
 for the creation of a Garde Mobile, by which means it was hoped 
 to give France an army of 1,200,000 men ; and the atmosphere 
 was on all sides heavy with rumours of approaching war. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE — SOME STATESMEN 
 AND DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 Mesdames do Galliffet, PovirtaUs and Metternioh— Their Husbands also — The 
 Gambling Countess Kisselefi — Other Russian Ladies — Marshal Magnan'a 
 Son and Daughters — The Duchess de Morny — Countess Lehon — Morny 
 as President of the Chamber — His Death and Fortune — The Walewskis — 
 Schneider — Mme. Rattazzi — Billault — The Sandon Scandal — Vice- 
 Emperor Rouher — Some last Ministers of the Interior — Pinard and 
 " Madame Bovary " — Magne, Delangle and Baroohe — Baron Haussmann 
 — Ministers for Foreign Affairs — Thouvenel, Drouyn de Lhuys and others 
 — Foreign Ambassadors — Baron Goltz and Napoleon HI. — "The Fatal 
 Ambassador " — Dix and Washburne — Lord Cowley and Lord Lyons. 
 
 Theee ladies, whom we have already had occasion to mention 
 incidentally, have virtually passed into history as the Graces of 
 the Second Empire, The Court of the Tuileries included so 
 many beautiful, charming and witty women that perhaps some 
 injustice has been done in raising any particular trio to a 
 pedestal. Nevertheless, the ladies in question, Mesdames de 
 GallifFet, de Pourtales, and de Metternich, were undoubtedly, in 
 one or another way, fascinating figures of the reign. The two 
 first were beautiful in different styles, the third was distinguished 
 by her wit, sprightly vivacity and elegance ; and, after all, the 
 appellation bestowed upon them was in a measure justified, 
 because taken conjointly they embodied all that can make their 
 sex attractive. 
 
 The Marchioness de Galliffet, who bore the Christian names 
 of Florence Georgina, was the daughter of Charles Laffitte — the 
 banker and sportsman, once well known on the turf as "Major 
 Fridolin " — by his wife Florence Anna Cunningham, an English 
 lady. Mile. Laffitte was still in her teens when in November, 
 1859, she was wedded, at Maisons-Laffitte, to Gaston Alexandre 
 Auguste, the present Marquis de Galliffet and Prince de 
 
276 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Martigues. He, born in January, 1830, and now therefore in 
 his seventy-eighth year, is the son of Alexandre, Marquis de 
 Galliffet and Prince de Martigues, by his second wife m^e 
 Baulde de Vieuville. By a first marriage with Mile. Adelaide 
 des Roys d'Asport, Marquis Alexandre had a daughter, now 
 deceased, who married the Marquis de Barbentane ; and the 
 first offspring of his second union was also a girl, who espoused 
 Count de Vassinhac dTmdcourt, and who, if still alive, which 
 we doubt, must be over eighty years of age. 
 
 The Galliffet family is a very ancient one, originally of 
 Dauphin^, whence the still existing branch passed into Provence 
 in or about 1540. It can trace its descent back to Jean de 
 Galliffet, damoiseau, who held the Dauphinese lordships of La 
 Galliffetiere and Savoyroux in 1380 ; and it claims that it would 
 have been able to prove a yet remoter ancestry had not many 
 early title-deeds been destroyed during the League and Huguenot 
 wars. The principality of Martigues (near Marseilles and Aix- 
 en-Provence) dates from 1580, when it was created by Henri 
 III. in favour of Emmanuel of Lorraine, Duke de Mercoeur, and 
 his heirs and assigns. It passed by acquisition to Marshal 
 Villars in 1714, then to the Vogii^ family in 1764, and finally 
 to the Galliffets eight years later. The arms of the latter are 
 gules, charged with a chevron argent and three trefles or. A 
 ducal coronet surmounts the shield, and the family motto is 
 " Bien faire et laisser dire," which may be Anglicized bluntly as 
 " Do right and let folk chatter." 
 
 Gaston, Marquis de Galliffet, enlisted as a "private" in 
 1848, and has thus risen from the ranks to the highest position 
 that is nowadays attainable in the French army. His early 
 career was marked by certain episodes on which we will not 
 insist, as they were of the kind commonly known as youthful 
 indiscretions.* In 1853 young Galliffet had become a Sub- 
 Lieutenant in the Guides, and it was as such that he went to 
 
 • The police documents concerning them have been published, first by M. 
 Millerand, the Bepublican politician, in La Petite BipubUgue, June, 1891, 
 and secondly in L'Aurore, February 22, 1900. Briefly put, the affair was 
 this : The young man fell into the clutches of a designing and predatory 
 woman, and was rescued from her by the police at the intervention of his 
 family. 
 
THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE 277 
 
 the Crimea, where, under the walls of Sebastopol, he gained the 
 cross of the Legion of Honour and was for the first time 
 mentioned in an " order of the day." In 1856 he was attached 
 to Momy's embassy to St. Petersburg for the coronation of the 
 Czar, and in the following year he was promoted to the rank 
 of Lieutenant, which he still held at the period of his marriage ; 
 but, by that time, he had already exchanged from the Guides 
 to the Spahis, and seen some service in Algeria. His father 
 was then dead, and whether what has been written about the 
 state of his fortune at that moment be true or not, it is certain 
 that his charming bride brought with her a very handsome 
 dowry. The mamage was followed by M. de Galliffet's pro- 
 motion to a Captaincy and his appointment as an orderly officer 
 to the Emperor, which post he held from February, 1860, till 
 July, 1863,* when he returned to Algeria as a Major {chef 
 d'escadron) in the 1st Hussars. It was, then, between 1860 and 
 1863 that M. de Galliifet first figured at the Imperial Court, 
 where both he and his young wife soon became conspicuous, 
 he by reason of his vivacity, his flow of spirits, his occasional 
 eccentricities, and his brilliant horsemanship ; she by reason of 
 her blonde beauty, the indescribable grace and charm of a 
 figure which was perhaps too slender to be altogether perfect, 
 the readiness and spirit of her conversational powei-s, and the 
 exquisite taste which she displayed in the art of dress. Two 
 sons and a daughter were born of the marriage, which, as we 
 have previously mentioned,t did not turn out satisfactory, in 
 some measure perhaps by reason of the many occasional 
 separations which the husband's profession necessarily entailed, 
 before the final one was arrived at. 
 
 On quitting his post as orderly officer to the Emperor, 
 M. de GallifFet, as we have said, returned to Algeria, but soon 
 afterwards he proceeded to Mexico with the 12th Chasseurs-a- 
 cheval. At the battle of Puebla he was wounded in a terrible 
 manner and few expected that he would survive; but he 
 
 • Many misstatements have appeared in print on that subject. We have 
 even read that the Emperor never saw M. de Gallifiet till his return from 
 Mexico ; but we write this brief account with a full official list of M. de 
 GalliSet's promotions and appointments before us. That is better than 
 trusting to memory, 
 
 t See ante, p. 49. 
 
278 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 fortunately did so, and was selected to convey some flags taken 
 from the Mexican Republicans to France, and to present them 
 to the Emperor. Napoleon, who was at Vichy, received 
 M. de Galliffet with gi'eat kindness, and promoted him to the 
 rank of Lieutenant-colonel (June, 1865). For a while, the 
 injured officer lingered at Vichy, and was often to be seen 
 either hobbling about the park on his crutches, or resting 
 there under the shade of the fine old trees. Those who then 
 happened to be visiting the famous spa occasionally heard him 
 relate in his customary picturesque and realistic style the story 
 of his terrible injuries. 
 
 " How it happened ? " he would say. " Oh ! we were 
 charging. A shell exploded, and I was thrown to the ground. 
 But that does not stop a charge, and the comrades went on 
 fast enough. When I recovered consciousness I found that a 
 part of my hip had been carried away, and that my abdomen 
 had been cut open. My entrails were coming out. But what 
 of that ? When we go boar-hunting, and a hound is ripped 
 up, we don't let it die ; we put its entrails back, gather the 
 flesh together and sew it up. Well, for my part, I tried to 
 get on my feet again. At first I could only struggle on to my 
 knees. Still that was something, and at last, holding my Mpi 
 in front of me to prevent my inside from coming out altogether, 
 I managed to stand up. That done, I made my way somehow 
 to the ambulance, and — well, here I am." 
 
 At the ambulance, as it happened, M. de Galliffet remained 
 for a considerable time in a very precarious condition. Ice was 
 particularly needed for the treatment of his case, and at first 
 none could be procured. Tidings of his dangerous state were 
 sent to France, and many sympathetic remarks on the subject 
 were addressed to Mme. de Galliffet by her friends. But she 
 reassured them. " Oh, he will recover," said she, " he is such 
 a lucky man!" At that same period it so chanced that the 
 story of the lack of ice was related one evening at the imperial 
 dinner-table at the Tuileries, just as the Empress had asked a 
 servant for some ice to cool her wine. She listened, hon-or- 
 stricken, to the story which was told, and then turning to the 
 valet, exclaimed, " No, take it away — I can't bear the thought 
 of ice now that I know there is none for our wounded soldiers." 
 
THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE 279 
 
 In the case of M. de Galliffet's injuries, it became necessary 
 to replace missing flesh by anatomical appliances, notably a 
 kind of shield, which he has worn ever since. As is well known, 
 his misadventure by no means impaired his military capabilities. 
 He even returned to Mexico and commanded the French 
 Contra-guerilla at Orizaba and Medellin. In 1867 he became 
 a Colonel, and still held that rank at the outbreak of the 
 Franco-German War of 1870. Almost on the eve of Sedan, 
 that is on August 30, he was made a General of Brigade, 
 and as such he commanded the 2nd Brigade of Margueritte's 
 Division of light cavalry * in the famous if unsuccessful 
 charge which was one of the redeeming episodes of the 
 engagement which sealed the fate of the Empire. Mean- 
 time Mme. de GallifFet had remained in Paris, seconding the 
 Marechales de MacMahon and Canrobert in their solicitude 
 for the French wounded, all three being prominently connected 
 with the Socidte de Secours aux Blessds which had its head- 
 quarters at the Palais de Tlndustrie. We often saw them 
 there, Mme. de GallifFet and the Mar6chale Canrobert — 
 the beautiful dark, slim, queenly Flora Macdonald — simply 
 dressed in slate grey, and Mme. de MacMahon in more solemn 
 black. The last named, dark like Mme. de Canrobert but 
 short and over buxom, did not strike one at first as looking 
 particularly aristocratic, though as a daughter of the house 
 of Castries she belonged to the most authentic old noblesse of 
 France; but the ring of her voice, the flash of her eyes, 
 the readiness and good sense of her decisions at committee 
 meetings, and the untiring energy which she ever displayed in 
 connection with the ambulance services, revealed her to be a 
 maitresse fenime, the fit spouse of one who had already risen to 
 the highest military rank, and was yet destined to become the 
 Chief of the State. 
 
 Mme. de Canrobert, leaving Paris after the fall of the 
 Empire, obtained Prince Frederick Charles's permission to 
 enter Metz and join her husband at the time of that strong- 
 hold's surrender ; but the Marchioness de GallifFet (while the 
 
 • The 2nd Brigade was composed principally of Chasseurs d'Afriijue. The 
 Ist was commanded by General Tillard, who, like Margueritte, was killed at 
 Sedan. 
 
280 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Marquis, as one of the prisoners of Sedan, shared the captivity 
 of his comrades at Coblenz) remained in Paris, heedless of 
 the change of regime, and quietly and unobtrusively devoted 
 herself to ambulance work throughout the bitter days of the 
 German siege. We also remember seeing her at some charity 
 sales which took place at that time for the benefit of destitute 
 women — notably one at the Gare du Nord, when she disposed 
 of eggs (not guaranteed to be fresh) at five shillings apiece, 
 butter at £1 the tiny pat, and pieces of gruyfere cheese at £Q 
 each — only people like Baron Alphonse de •Rothschild, Sir 
 Richard Wallace, the Prince de Sagan, and the Duke de 
 Castries being able to afford those rare and costly luxuries of 
 the siege days. 
 
 Later, under Marshal MacMahon's presidency of the 
 Republic, Mme. de GallifFet again appeared in society, though 
 in a less prominent manner than in former years. The last 
 time we saw her was, we think, at a great charity j^fe given 
 in the Tuileries garden in or about 1880. She contributed 
 largely to the success of that enterprise, and her unexpected 
 reappearance in public seemed something like a resurrection. 
 Many who had merely heard of her, who knew her only by 
 name, flocked inquisitively to her stall. She had aged un- 
 doubtedly, but all the grace of former years was still there, 
 together with all that taste in matters of dress which had 
 helped to make her famous. 
 
 Another zealous worker at that same gathering was Mme. 
 de GallifFet's friend the Countess de Pourtales, over whom the 
 years had passed, leaving little, if any, trace of their flight. 
 Melanie de Bussieres had barely completed her seventeenth 
 year when she married Count Edmond de Pourtales. She was 
 by birth an Alsatian, her father, Alfred Renouard de Bussieres, 
 belonging to a wealthy family of manufacturers of the Colmar 
 district, with fine seats at Schoppenwihr and Robertsau, while 
 her mother was a daughter of the Baron de Franck. As for 
 M. de Pourtales, he was descended from a French Huguenot 
 family, which had emigrated to Switzerland at the time of the 
 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but which established a 
 banking house in Paris during the reign of Napoleon I., when 
 the principality of Neufchatel, to which the family belonged. 
 
THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE 281 
 
 after being ceded by Prassia to France, was bestowed by the 
 Emperor on Berthier. A certain Jeremie Pourtales had been 
 ennobled by Frederick the Great, and his three grandsons by 
 his son Jacques were created Counts by Frederick William III. 
 of Prussia in December, 1815, at which time, as may be 
 remembered, the Prussian suzerainty over Neufchatel was with 
 certain limitations revived. It was, indeed, only brought to 
 an end by the intervention of France and Great Britain in 
 1856-67, when war seemed imminent between Prussia and 
 Switzerland — the result being that the Prussian ruler retained 
 the title of Prince of Neufchatel, and accepted pecuniary 
 compensation for the loss of his political rights. Whatever 
 might be her husband's nationality, Mme." de Pourtales herself 
 always remained tres Frangaise de cceur, and in 1870 she 
 protested more than once that she was not a German but an 
 Alsatian. After the fall of the Empire she was repeatedly 
 subjected to insult and annoyance, being denounced as a 
 German spy. Other ladies had a similar experience, notably 
 the Countess de Behague, the Duchess de Waldburg and Countess 
 Stephanie Tascher de la Pagerie. At one moment a repoit 
 even circulated that Mme. de Pourtales had been imprisoned in 
 the fortress of Vincennes, but it was merely one of the canards 
 of the time. 
 
 Under the Empire she and her husband resided in the Rue 
 Tronchet, where Count Edmond's father had gathered together 
 a famous collection of paintings and other works of art. When 
 family arrangements necessitated the sale of that collection in 
 April, 1865, it produced £113,000, or about £60,000 more 
 than the original outlay. Several of the pictures were then 
 purchased by Baron Seillieres, Baron James de Rothschild, and 
 Lord Hertford — the latter's acquisitions figuring nowadays in 
 the famous Wallace collection ; while Count Edmond, for his 
 own part, bought in some fine examples of Rembrandt, Philippe 
 de Champaigne, Quentin Matsys, and others, which still con- 
 tinued to adorn the walls of the mansion, where, prior to the 
 sale, you could scarcely pass along the passages or cross the 
 rooms, so large was the assemblage of artistic treasures, bronze, 
 marble, glass, china, and what not besides. The very knocker of 
 the porte-cochere was a striking curio, representing a Virgin and 
 
28S THE COUItT OF THE TUlLERIES 
 
 Child in a basin of holy watei", and we often wondered that 
 it was never stolen by some collector carried away by that 
 passionate craving which some of the class are unable to resist. 
 
 Count and Countess de Pourtales entertained in the Rue 
 Tronchet on a lavish scale. They were not merely society 
 folk, but people of culture also. Of late years several of the 
 Countess's letters have been published, showing that she was the 
 active collaboratrice of the Marquis Philippe de Massa in some 
 of the amusing sketches which he wrote for the private 
 theatricals at Compiegne and elsewhere. At the same time, 
 perhaps because she was, like her husband, a Protestant, Mme. 
 de Pourtales knew where to draw the line in matters of social 
 frivolity. Her personal beauty was remarkable. Above an 
 exquisitely proportioned figure, with perfect arms and shoulders, 
 her head, poised on a graceful, swan-like neck, was crowned with 
 an abundance of fair hair falling in what one may nowadays 
 call, perhaps, the Edna May style, on either side of a low brow. 
 The cheeks and chin were lull ; the complexion ever remained 
 that of an English girl in her first season ; the mouth was finely 
 shaped, and the large liquid eyes were beautifully blue. And, 
 as we have said, time seemed to pass and pass without impairing 
 the Countess's charms. 
 
 Fifteen years after the Franco-German war, when she was 
 again residing in Paris, trying, so it seemed, to effect a recon- 
 ciliation between the Legitimist and Bonapartist aristocracies, 
 and mixing no little in cosmopolitan society, particularly among 
 Americans, in whom she appeared to take an especial interest, 
 she was still for everybody la belle Mme, de Pourtales. 
 
 Her friend, the Princess Pauline Metternich, was not a 
 beauty. Somebody styled her cette jolie laide, she styled herself 
 the monkey a la mode. The brow was good, distinctly in- 
 tellectual, and the dark, sparkling, laughing eyes had a charm 
 peculiarly their own. But the nose was bad, the nostrils were 
 too open, and the ears elongated, almost pointed, a defect 
 which the Princess scorned to conceal. The worst, however, 
 was the mouth, whose defects were plainly due to a malformation 
 of the upper jaw. Yet even that was forgotten when the 
 Princess spoke, for she was the wittiest woman of the age. Of 
 average height, she originally had a very slim figure, and could 
 
THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE 283 
 
 assume, whenever necessary, the most aristocratic bearing in the 
 worid. With advancing years, however, she became somewhat 
 stout. If she were occasionally eccentric, too vivacious or 
 free spoken, in the old Tuileries days, there could be no question 
 of her talents ; and though she was not personally the Austrian 
 ambassador, but simply that ambassador's wife, she undoubtedly 
 exercised no little political as well as social influence at the 
 Court of the Empire. 
 
 Daughter of a Hungarian magnate, Count Sandor, who was 
 renowned for his breakneck feats of horsemanship, she married 
 Prince Richard Metternich, son of the great Austrian Chan- 
 cellor, when she was in her twenty-second year, her husband 
 being eight years her senior. He was appointed Austrian 
 ambassador to France in 1860, that is, after the Solferino- 
 Magenta campaign. It seemed, therefore, as if his position in 
 Paris might be for some time rather delicate. Besides, the 
 brusquerie with which Baron Hiibner, his predecessor, had been 
 treated by Napoleon III. was not easily forgotten. However, 
 the Prince and his wife were received with the greatest cordiality, 
 and were soon quite at home at the Tuileries. Fully a head 
 taller than his wife, and inclined to be burly, Prince Richard 
 had a broad, open, smiling face, with a moustache and whiskers 
 which suggested a cross between the orthodox Austrian style 
 and the Lord Dundreary pattern. He was a born musician, 
 having all the waltzes of Lanner and Gungl and Strauss at his 
 fingers' tips ; and many a time, en petit oomite at the Tuileries, 
 he would seat himself at the grand piano in the Salon d'ApoUon 
 and play air after air to the delight of all who were present. 
 The Princess, for her part, was a fervent partisan of Wagner, and 
 it is well known that it was she who prevailed on Walewski to 
 allow the performance of " Tannhauser " at the Paris Opera in 
 1861. She had previously tried to obtain the authorization from 
 Fould, but he, possibly foreseeing the result, had refused it. 
 There were only three performances, we think. At the second 
 Princess Metternich broke her fan in vexation and left the house. 
 The third was a perfect charivari, and a good many years 
 elapsed before Wagner's music became acceptable to the 
 Parisieins generally. Mme. de Metternich was more successful 
 in introducing Liszt to the Tuileries. 
 
284 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 It has sometimes been claimed that she invented Worth, the 
 famous English costumier. It seems better to say that she 
 speedily recognized the great talents of the man who waged war 
 against the crinoline, but who was obliged to compromise with 
 it, accepting it in an attenuated form in his jupe houffcmte — 
 Anglicized at the time as the " puffed skirt ^ — and other 
 creations. Worth had already been in business a couple of 
 years when Mme. de Metternich became his customer, but her 
 patronage undoubtedly helped him on to fame and fortune. 
 Still she was not exclusively Parisienne, she remembered Vienna, 
 whence she occasionally imported some novelty in dress. Her 
 taste may not have been always impeccable, but her innate 
 elegance, her grand air, enabled her to wear things unsuited to 
 others. That was a point too often forgotten by those who 
 took her as their pattern. Besides, it often happened that when 
 she set a mode imitators exaggerated and thereby disfigured 
 it, in such a way that what was alleged to be the Metternich 
 style was not really that style at all. At times the Princess's 
 ideas were quite charming, as, for instance, when she appeared 
 one evening at a Court entertainment in a robe of white satin 
 festooned with ivy leaves, with others serving for a girdle, and 
 others again for both necklace and bracelets, the whole shimmer- 
 ing with diamond dewdrops cunningly set in their midst. She 
 put her brilliants, and indeed all her jewels, to many uses, con- 
 stantly having them reset, in such wise' that folk who were not 
 in the secret imagined her casket to be inexhaustible. 
 
 Yellow, being the Austrian colour, figured prominently in 
 the Princess's equipages when she first came to Paris, the 
 wheels and a part of the body of her carriages being of 
 that conspicuous hue, even as her livery also was black and 
 yellow. But for some reason, perhaps on account of the start- 
 ling yellow chariots in which the " dead and dyed " Duke of 
 Brunswick displayed his painted cheeks and flaxen wig, she at 
 one time adopted a particular shade of green. Now it 
 happened that one afternoon, when a carriage of that tint 
 was seen in the Bois de Boulogne, several gentlemen, imagining 
 that it must be the Princess's, hastened to uncover. But a 
 moment afterwards they found, to their horror and amazement, 
 that they had bowed to a notorious woman, whom they were 
 
THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE 285 
 
 by no means desirous of saluting. When this person's imper- 
 tinence in adopting her colour came to Mme. de Metternich's 
 knowledge, she was momentarily dumfounded. But with 
 sudden resolution she gave orders that her carriages were to 
 be painted black, and imtil that was done she would not stir 
 from the Embassy in the Faubourg St. Germain.* 
 
 She was particularly fond of private theatricals, tableaux, 
 charades, short comedies, and other little pieces, and frequently 
 appeared in one or another character on the drawing-room 
 stage at Compiegne,t thereby contributing largely to the gaiety 
 of the Court's annual sojourn there. In the famous " Review of 
 1865" — "Les Commentaires de Cesar" — while the Prince de 
 Metternich acted as orchestra, that is, by accompanying the 
 entire performance on a cottage piano, the Princess appeared 
 in three of the thirty roles which the piece comprised, first 
 in a blue " uniform " as a vivandiere of Turcos, secondly in a 
 " carrick " as a Paris cabman, and thirdly in a fancy costume 
 of white satin trimmed with " notes of music " in black velvet, 
 as the personification of Song. She was the soul of that per- 
 formance of which we shall have more to say when we deal 
 with the Court amusements at Compiegne. At tinother time 
 she figured with Princess Czartoryska and others in a short- 
 skirted " Diable a quatre " ballet ; at another she danced in a 
 ballet called "La Couronne Enchant^e"; at another she 
 appeared in a charade signifying Eugenie. She also collaborated 
 with Octave Feuillet, Massa, and others in devising charades 
 and other short pieces. On one occasion when the word 
 adopted was anniversaire she assigned the interpretation of 
 the second and third syllables (iver = hiver) to M. de Galliffet, 
 who amused everybody by the manner in which he kept on 
 falling down and trying to pick himself up on what was 
 supposed to be ice. That was after his severe injuries in 
 Mexico, and some concern was expressed lest he should hurt 
 himself. " Oh ! I'm plated," he rejoined ; adding in memory of 
 his ambulance experiences, " Besides, there is plenty of ice here." 
 
 • In the last years of the Empire it was removed to the Champa Elys^ea 
 district. 
 
 t Not, as some have supposed, in the theatre of the ch&teau. The private 
 performances never took place there, but on a stage erected at the end of a 
 salon on the right of the long GaUery of Maps, 
 
286 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 M. de GallifFet, be it said, was en tout bien, tout honneur, a 
 very great admirer of Princess Metternich ; and whenever he 
 heard or read any disparaging remark concerning her, he called 
 the offender to account with a promptness which left the Prince 
 no opportunity to intervene, even if he had been so minded. 
 In the same way as Paul de Cassagnac became known as the 
 champion of the Empress, so was M. de Galliffet the Princess's, 
 He fought various duels on her account, notably one with 
 M. de Charnace which made a stir. M. de Metternich also 
 on one occasion fought a duel, but not on account of his wife. 
 The affair occurred in October, 1869, and the Prince's adversary 
 was Count de Beaumont, who, not content with having a very 
 charming wife (a near relation of Mme. de MacMahon's), was 
 also foolishly, inordinately, morbidly jealous. Nobody could 
 glance at, nobody could say a word to la belle Mme. de Beau- 
 mont without incurring the Count's displeasure and suspicion. 
 It was monomania which became so bad that in the autumn of 
 1869 he called out no fewer than four gentlemen in succession, one, 
 as we have mentioned, being M. de Metternich. The duel was 
 fought at Kehl with cavalry sabres, and resulted in the Prince 
 receiving an ugly gash in the right arm. For the rest, what- 
 ever remarks malicious people may have indulged in, it need 
 only be said that M. and Mme. de Metternich were greatly 
 attached to each other, and that the affair was, from beginning 
 to end, an extremely stupid one. 
 
 The Princess's occasional eccentricities were counterbalanced 
 by many good qualities. Her life was no mere whirl of amuse- 
 ment, as some have imagined, she was a devoted wife and mother, 
 and a first-rate manageress in her home. She also dispensed 
 no little charity privately, and readily helped in any public 
 work of benevolence. There was, however, one very strange 
 character among the ambassadresses of those days. This was 
 Countess Kisseleff, wife of the Russian representative in France 
 after the Peace of Paris in 1856 : a man who, before turning to 
 diplomacy, had distinguished himself as a general officer against 
 the Turks. He suffered from insomnia, and his wife, who 
 ought to have lived in this age of " bridge," was a born gamester. 
 Now, some time in the early sixties, the embassy was installed 
 in the Champs Elysees, that is in the Countess Lehon's former 
 
THE GRACES OF THE EMPIRE 287 
 
 abode, the little house adjoining which, once tenanted by M. de 
 Momy,* had also been secured as a kind of annexe. Count 
 Kisseleff, keeping very late hours, although he was a septua- 
 genarian, and often walking up and down the Champs Elysees 
 before he turned in for the night, noticed after a time that 
 whatever the hour might be there were always lights burning 
 on the ground floor of the little house. Further, by peeping 
 through the shutters he was able to detect that nocturnal card- 
 play went on there. On one occasion, just as he had vainly 
 tried to ascertain who the players might be, and was about to 
 enter the adjoining mansion, a policeman happened to come up. 
 So he inquired of him : " Do you know who it is that plays 
 cards in there all night and every night ? " " Oh yes," said 
 the policeman, cheerfully, " it is Countess Kisseleff." " Ah ! my 
 wife," the ambassador replied. " Thanks. Good night." He, 
 not long afterwards, shuffled off this mortal coil, but the 
 Countess went on shuffling cards and losing money till the 
 downfall of the Empire. "Of course I regret my husband," 
 she was once reported to have said ; " but now that he is dead 
 there is no further necessity for me to go to Court. That gives 
 me more time to amuse myself. When the Count was alive, I 
 could only play cards at night, but now, you see, I can play all 
 day as well." 
 
 Eccentric also, but in a different way, was Mme. Rimsky- 
 Korsakoff, another Russian, and one who in the matter of costumes 
 did her utmost to outvie both Princess Mettemich and La 
 Castiglione. Yet another prominent lady of Muscovite origin was 
 Mile. Helen Haritoff, niece of M. Garfunkel, the banker, who, 
 for her Dart, was content to be lively and charming. After her 
 marriage to Captain Leopold Magnan, the Marshal's son, in 
 1861, she was received with marked favour by the Empress 
 Eugenie. Four of her sisters-in-law, Marshal Magnan's 
 daughters, figured at Court, where during their earlier seasons 
 they were known as "the Dresden chinas." They often took 
 part in the private theatricals of the time, and speedily finding 
 suitors they became respectively Mesdames Barrachin, Cottreau, 
 Haentjens, and Legendre. Reverting, however, to the Russian 
 ^Ugantes, we must not omit from our list the Duchess de 
 
 * See ante, p. 26. 
 
288 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Momy, previously Princess Troubetskoi,* for during several 
 years her position in France was of the highest. 
 
 Reared at the court of St. Petersburg among the Maids of 
 Honour, and said to be really a natural daughter of the 
 Emperor Nicholas, she was still in her teens in February, 1857, 
 — the date of her marriage with Morny — a marriage which was 
 distinctly favoured by Alexander II., who, after it had been 
 arranged, settled, according to some accounts, a considerable sum 
 of money on the charming but portionless bride. Nevertheless, 
 the marriage did not take place without difficulty and delay, 
 owing largely to Morny's position with respect to the Countess 
 Zoe Lehon, that greatly admired "blue-eyed Iris," whom we 
 previously had occasion to mention.! The daughter of the 
 Flemish financier Mosselman, and bom at his Paris establish- 
 ment in the Chaussee d'Antin, she married in 1827 Charles 
 Aime Lehon of Tournay, one of the founders of the Belgian 
 monarchy. Nine years later Leopold I. created Lehon a Count, 
 and subsequently appointed him Belgian Minister in Paris, 
 which post he retained for a dozen years. In 1842, however, 
 when the Count had lost a good deal of money, owing to the 
 frauds of his brother, a notary, the court of Tournay decreed a 
 judicial separation between him and his wife with regard to 
 their respective property, which separation soon extended, 
 de facto if not legally, to their marital relations also. The 
 Countess Lehon's wealth, with which she so largely assisted her 
 lover Morny in his earlier career, was derived chiefly from the 
 large interest which her father had bequeathed to her in the 
 famous mines of La Vieille Montague, near Moresnet, north- 
 east of Liege — mines renowned in those days for their deposits 
 of coal, iron, copper, and lead, as well as zinc, in such forms 
 as blende and calamine. The Countess's salon in Paris was 
 distinctly an Orleanist one, being frequented notably by the 
 sons of Louis Philippe, as well as by Van Praet, the Belgian 
 politician, Thouvenel, subsequently one of Napoleon III.'s 
 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and most of the diplomatists of 
 the time. Count Lehon, born in 1792, was some seventeen 
 years older than his wife, who, it is certain, long hoped that 
 Momy would marry her as soon as she should be free. It so 
 » See also ante, p. 29. t See ante, p. 26, 
 
SOME STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATISTS 289 
 
 happened that in 1856 the Count was very ill and not expected 
 to recover,* and thus the Countess could not control her 
 indignation on hearing of Momy's projected marriage with 
 the youthful Princess Troubetskoi. Dramatic incidents marked 
 the negotiations which ensued, and it was only by a payment 
 of about .flOOjOOO that Morny was able to free himself from 
 his long entanglement. The Countess Lehon had two sons 
 and a daughter. One of the former, Count Leopold, became 
 a naturalized French subject and sat in the Legislative Body 
 of the Empire as a deputy for the Ain.t His wife, a beautiful 
 woman, often figured at Court, and some ill-informed writers 
 have more than once confounded her with her mother-in-law. 
 The latter's daughter, Mile. Louise Lehon, married Prince 
 Stanislas Poniatowski, son of Prince Joseph, the senator of 
 the Second Empire, in June, 1856 ; and after Momy's marriage 
 early in the following year, the Countess Lehon, her children 
 being established in life, withdrew altogether from society. 
 She was almost forgotten when she passed away in the Rue de 
 Tilsitt, Paris, early in March, 1880. 
 
 The half-brother of Napoleon III. found a devoted wife in 
 the Princess Troubetskoi. We have previously referred to her 
 beauty — she was a Greuze — and it may be added that her 
 training at the Court of Russia had qualified her for the 
 highest position. Her husband was conspicuous in society and 
 powerful in politics. It has been said of Momy that he did 
 most things, and did them well. Certainly nobody was more 
 skilful in making money, nobody more lavish in spending it. 
 Some have asserted that he presided over the Legislative Body 
 of the Empire with an elegance and distinction unequalled 
 by any other parliamentary president; but his amiability, 
 his smiles, and his jests were, in reality, similar to those 
 of a wild beast tamer, whose belles tnanieres are assumed 
 to curry favour with the gallery, and who, in dealing with 
 his beasts, neither forgets that he has a whip in his hand nor 
 hesitates, when occasion arises, to use it. At heart Momy 
 detested parliamentary institutions, and felt no little scorn for 
 the men who sat under him. Yet he certainly managed the 
 
 ♦ He did recover, however, and survived until April 30, 1868. 
 t He died, Ootobor 31, 1879. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Legislative Body with skill, and when tact became necessary he 
 could show it. His political roh was by no means confined to 
 his duties as President of the Chamber. That position gave 
 him access to the Council of Ministers, and he did no little 
 work behind the scenes, either in the council or in private 
 conferences with the Emperor. 
 
 His death, in March, 1865, was a great surprise, both to the 
 Court and the general public. He had been suffering for a 
 month past from neuralgic trouble, coupled with symptoms 
 suggestive of the influenza of these later days. He frequently 
 complained of feeling run-down, exhausted, feverish, and sleepy. 
 Nevertheless, Trousseau, Ricord, and other medical men, whom 
 he consulted, detected nothing serious. Indeed, at the end 
 of February the Duke seemed to be much better, and on the 
 28th, Shrove Tuesday, he drove out. But on his return home 
 he complained that he felt as if he were on fire. Bronchitis 
 supervened, but did not cause much anxiety. Preparations 
 for a grand mid-Lent fete at the Palais Bourbon went on as a 
 matter of course. But all at once an ardent fever again came 
 upon the Duke, delirium followed, and the doctors declared 
 that there was little hope of saving his life. He could no 
 longer take food, his throat contracted till it was almost 
 closed, and it was even difiicult for him to speak. He was 
 dying of a form of pancreatitis, a complaint of which medical 
 science knew little or nothing before the discoveries of Claude 
 Bernard. It must be said that he died bravely. Aware 
 that his case was hopeless, he gave instructions about his will, 
 and took leave of a number of his friends, as well as of his wife 
 and their four young children. On the evening of March 9, 
 news reached the Tuileries that he was sinking fast. Thereupon 
 the Emperor and Empress drove to his residence, but on 
 their arrival they found that he was delirious and unable to 
 recognize them. Napoleon seated himself at the bedside, and 
 took hold of his brother's hand, while the Empress fell upon 
 her knees and prayed. After remaining there about half an 
 hour, they withdrew to an adjoining room. A little later 
 lucidity returned to Morny, and Count de Flahault (his father), 
 who had arrived, told him of the Emperor's visit, adding: 
 " He is still in the house. Shall he come back .? " " Yes, 
 
SOME STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATISTS 291 
 
 yes," gasped the dying man, " let him come to me." Napoleon 
 then returned to the sick-room, but only a few words were 
 exchanged, for delirium speedily reappeared. The Emperor 
 then finally retired, shaken by convulsive sobs, and holding 
 his hands to his face. 
 
 About one o'clock in the morning the last agony seemed 
 imminent, and a messenger was sent for the Aichbishop of 
 Paris, who came and administered the viaticum. Some six 
 or seven hours later, when the doctor in attendance entered 
 the room, the valet who had devotedly nursed the Duke 
 throughout his illness, said to him : " Monsieur le Due is 
 going fast." "Oh, the end will not come for some hours 
 yet," the doctor answered ; " but that blister makes him suffer 
 without doing him any good. We must remove it." They 
 then went to turn the Duke on his side, but at that same 
 moment he gave a slight sigh and expired. Thus died the 
 man who made Napoleon III., Emperor of the French.* 
 
 The young Duchess displayed great grief. In accordance 
 with the Russian custom, she had her splendid hair cut off close 
 to the head, and laid the long, fair tresses between her husband's 
 hands in his coffin. For a long time, by her instructions, a 
 cover was laid for him at every meal, as if he were still alive. 
 But sorrow is seldom eternal, and, in 1867, Mme. de Morny 
 became the wife of the Duke de Sesto.f 
 
 Very pompous were the obsequies of Napoleon's half-brother. 
 The entry of his birth in the register of Versailles had been 
 attested merely by a cobbler and a jobbing tailor, but all the 
 great officers of state, thousands of troops, and half the 
 population of Paris witnessed his funeral. He left a fairly 
 large fortune for that period, but he had long lived in a 
 style which had precluded the saving of money. For instance, 
 there was his stud, which, at the time of his death, numbered 
 145 horses, and cost £60 a day, or nearly ^£"22,000 per annum. 
 Yet the total proceeds of the sale of those animals at Chantilly 
 were under ^"13,000. It is true that the Duke's pictures and 
 other ce-uvres cTart fetched better prices, amounting to about 
 
 • Private narrative of the Duke's valet. 
 
 t Three of her four ohUdren are, we believe, still alive — the Duke and the 
 Marquis da Morny, as well as the daughter who became Marchioness de 
 BelboBuf. 
 
292 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 ,£100,000, or, roughly, a quarter of his fortune. On the 
 other hand, during the last decade of his life he had spent 
 quite ,£4<0,000 a year. 
 
 He was succeeded for a while in the Presidency of the 
 Chamber by Count Walewski, who cut a poor figure in the 
 post, being far better suited to diplomacy, and, one may add, 
 far more of a gentleman than Morny ; for, whatever might 
 have been the latter's grand seigneur manner, the insolence of 
 a grand seigneur towards inferiors had been blended with it 
 too often. Walewski, however, was uniformly urbane and 
 considerate. He amassed no fortune. When he died, in 1868, 
 Mme. Walewski was left with perhaps £1000 a year, and was 
 glad of her appointment as Lady of Honour to the Empress. 
 She willingly surrendered the Landes property given to her 
 husband by the Emperor, for numerous expenses attached 
 to it, expenses for which there could be little or no return for 
 several years. In writing previously concerning this lady,* 
 we should have said that, in 1877, she contracted a second 
 marriage — one with Signor Guiseppe Alessandro of Palermo. 
 She was pensioned by the present Republic. 
 
 Walewski's successor at the Chamber was the great iron- 
 master of Le Creusot, M. Schneider,t who had long been one 
 of the Vice-Presidents, in such wise that on occasions when 
 he had taken the chair, jocular deputies had remarked : " See 
 what an aristocrat M. de Morny is. He can't come himself, 
 so he has sent us his tailor." The reader may remember that 
 it was for attacking M. Schneider as M. Tailleur, that Mme. 
 Rattazzi was exiled from France.l That play on the meaning 
 of M. Schneider's name was not, perhaps, in the best of taste. 
 A more amusing appellation, however, was found for him as 
 
 * See cmU, pp. 70, 154, 160, 179. 
 
 t Eugtoe Schneider, born in 1805, died in 1875. President of the 
 Legislative Body from 1865 till September 4, 1870. 
 
 X See ante, p. 214. She was, in her way, a wonderful woman — one, 
 too, who contrived to dispose of three husbands of different nationalities; 
 first, Count Priedrioh Solms, a German, next Urbano Eattazzi, the eminent 
 Italian statesman, and finally Senor Luis de Eute, an ex-Secretary of State in 
 Spain. At one time. La Eattazzi's declared ambition was to become the 
 Mme. de Stael of the Second Empire, but it was in vain that she piled up 
 volumes of history, poetry, romance, politics, and travels. Pew were read 
 and all are now forgotten. 
 
SOME STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATISTS 293 
 
 time went on. Age did not deprive him of his hair, but the 
 latter's hue turned from red to a snowy whiteness, which 
 circumstance, combined with certain gestures to which M. 
 Schneider was addicted when he occupied the presidential 
 chair, procured him the name of the White Rabbit, as if, 
 indeed, he had been one of those toy, drum-beating rabbits 
 beloved of childhood. Schneider was a very shrewd man, with 
 but one defect as President of the Chamber: he talked too 
 much, he explained too much, he always seemed to fear that 
 the deputies did not understand him. However, he retained 
 his post till the end — the bitter end — doing, vainly, of course, 
 all he could do to save the Empire. 
 
 , The death of Morny had been preceded by that of Billault,* 
 the most dexterous of all Napoleon IIL's ministers, a skilful and 
 resolute man, one who was never at a loss in a difficulty, who 
 was always prepared to assume an amiable expression even when 
 he was acting most despotically — in fact, the very man the 
 regime needed. Short and slight, with a shrewd face and 
 courtly manners, he was a Breton by birth, married to a 
 daughter of one of the chief shipowners of Nantes ; and he had 
 come to the front very rapidly in his original profession, that 
 of the bar. Moreover, at the age of thirty-five he was already 
 under-secretary of State to Thiers. But his Liberalism did not 
 survive the success of the Coup d'Etat. Taking the tide at 
 its flood, he caused it to bear him to the highest position as 
 Minister of State and speaker for the Imperial Government. 
 He was often taunted with his earlier career. One day in the 
 Senate, while he was singing the praises of the Coup d'Etat, 
 Prince Napoleon suddenly exclaimed : " That's why you voted 
 against Napoleon when I voted for him ! " And amidst the 
 general uproar the Prince added : "Yes, you voted for Cavaignac ; 
 I know it ! " TTie Minister could only stammer in reply : " But 
 for ten years past, having seen the Emperor at work, I have 
 served him with fidelity and honour." 
 
 " Honour " was perhaps de trop, for Billault had been guilty 
 
 of an infamous action ; he had sent a former friend, an advocate 
 
 named Sandon, to the madhouse of Charenton on the pretext 
 
 that he was insane. It is true that Sandon had tried to 
 
 * Augusts Adolphe Billault ; born November, 1805. 
 
294 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 blackmail him by threatening to divulge certain letters in which 
 Billault, before the Coup d'Etat, had written what he really 
 thought of Napoleon III. Nevertheless, the man was not mad, 
 and Billault's action, in which medical practitioners of standing 
 and officers of the law acted as his accomplices, was a gross 
 abuse of authority, a revival, so to say, of the old lettre-de- 
 cachet system. There was some little scandal about the affair 
 already in Billault's lifetime, a petition on Sandon's behalf 
 being addressed to the Senate, but it was only after the Minister's 
 sudden death in 1863 that the spurious madman recovered his 
 liberty. Three years later Persigny wrote to Conti, the 
 Emperor's Chef-de-cabinet, " M. Billault's conduct was beyond 
 belief. The man whom he victimized is on the point of 
 surrendering himself into the hands of the Opposition. We 
 may have a frightful scandal. It seems that everything might be 
 arranged for 20,000 or 30,000 francs which Conneau would under- 
 take to draw from the funds (i.e. the Privy Purse). Besides, a 
 frightful iniquity was committed and must be repaired." The 
 Emperor, however, though he had given Billault a fine mansion 
 near the Boulevards, refused to pay for his sins ; and, though 
 Sandon ultimately brought the affair before the courts, he 
 obtained no compensation. 
 
 After the death of Billault came the pre-eminence of M. 
 Rouher,* that vastly over-rated Auvergnat advocate, unparalleled 
 for haughtiness and insolence by any statesman of any period 
 and any country. That " Vice-Emperor," as he became from 
 1866 to 1869, did much harm to the Empire. His utterances 
 were often most unlucky, his predictions almost invariably 
 falsified by events. His meddling in foreign affairs had deplor- 
 able consequences. It is well known that Benedetti, the 
 French representative at Berlin, communicated with Rouher 
 over the head of his hierarchical chief, Drouyn de Lhuys, in 
 moments of vital importance, such as the Prusso-Austrian 
 war of 1866. Rouher was at that time one of the dupes of 
 Bismarck ; like the Palais Royal party, he favoured an under- 
 standing with Prussia; he opposed in the council all idea of 
 intervention or demonstration ; he thwarted the sensible policy 
 
 * Eugene Kouher, born at Riom, November, 1814 ; died at Paris, February, 
 188i. 
 
SOME STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATISTS 295 
 
 of Drouyn de Lhuys, and scorned the statesmanlike advice of 
 the Queen of Holland ; he played a leading part in the pro- 
 posals that France should obtain, with Prussian connivance, 
 " compensation " on the Rhine or in Belgium ; and it was at 
 his chateau of Cerpay that the invaders of 1870 discovered 
 confirmatory evidence respecting the damnifying documents 
 on the subject of that " compensation," which Benedetti so 
 foolishly left in Bismarck's hands. Rouher lacked, indeed, even 
 the common-sense and foresight to destroy the proofs he held of 
 the unscrupulous imbecility of the imperial policy in 1866, for 
 which policy he was so largely responsible. 
 
 For the rest, there was a good deal of Bamum and some- 
 thing of Legree in Rouher's composition. He could bluster 
 well enough when he felt himself the stronger. But, like most 
 bullies, he was a coward at heart. He had behaved as one at 
 the Coup d'Etat, and it followed, as a matter of course, that he 
 could muster no courage at the Revolution. On the other 
 hand, in minor offices of state, he showed himself a hard 
 worker. He was also a ready, fluent speaker, with a gift of 
 alternately pompous and vulgar eloquence. He possessed, 
 moreover, a decorative presence which deceived superficial 
 observers as to the real extent of his capabilities. He had a 
 fine head set on a broad-shouldered frame, which unluckily 
 became over-stout in his last years. He was married to a 
 dark, plump, little woman of his own part of France, who seldom 
 appeared at Court, but who was nicknamed La petite Prune by 
 that lively " lady of the palace," Mme. de Sancy de Parabere, 
 who, on her side, and by reason of her disputatious nature, 
 received the nickname of Corse entetee from the Empress. 
 
 We cannot pass every one of Napoleon's ministers in review. 
 After aU, they were for the most part but secondary figures at 
 the Court, and a glance at a few of them will suffice. The last 
 Ministers of the Interior, Ernest Pinard, Forcade de la Roquette, 
 Chevandier de Valdrome (nicknamed " the white horse " because 
 he cantered about on horseback at popular demonstrations) and 
 Chevreau (for a while Haussmann's successor as Prefect in Paris) 
 were all failures. The personality of Pinard, who has left an 
 interesting " Journal " throwing light on the home-policy of 
 the Empire, and who came to grief over all the newspaper 
 
296 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 prosecutions, the Baudin subscriptions and demonstrations in 
 
 1868, is of interest to students of Gustave Flaubert's writings. 
 It was Pinard who spoke for the prosecution when proceedings 
 were instituted against " Mme. Bovary ; " and his " Journal " * 
 shows that he went into the affair with distaste and distrust, 
 but that having been designated as prosecuting counsel, he 
 thought it would be cowardly to decline the duty. He seems 
 also to have had a real grievance respecting the report of his 
 speech as given in editions of " Mme. Bovary " issued seventeen 
 years after the proceedings. 
 
 As for Forcade de la Roquette, Marshal St. Arnaud's step- 
 brother, he served as chief minister during the latter part of 
 
 1869, when the Emperor's inclination towards a more liberal 
 policy (consequent on the result of the general elections) led to 
 the resignation of Rouher and others. After Forcade de la 
 Roquette came Emile Ollivier, of whom we shall speak in due 
 course, but another prominent minister of the reign we may 
 mention here was Magne, who, like Rouher, had a belle tete, 
 who like him dabbled disastrously in foreign politics, and 
 who managed yet more disastrously his own particular depart- 
 ment of Finance. Fould had struggled bravely, if often 
 unsuccessfully, against the ever-growing extravagance of the 
 Empire, but his successor accepted, even encouraged it. If 
 the Empress was the Marie Antoinette, then Magne was 
 certainly the Calonne of the Empire. His administration of 
 French finances may be summed up in few words : it was a mere 
 policy of loans. There was also Delangle, a Minister of the 
 Interior (later of Justice) who was possessed of some capacity 
 and liberalism, and came as welcome relief after the horrible 
 General Espinasse and the law of public safety (1859-60). 
 Again, there was the sententious law-twisting Baroche, whose 
 last appointment was that of President of the Council of State 
 and expounder of Government measures to the Chamber. He 
 came into violent collision with Rochefort and the other 
 adversaries of the Empire, and fell with Rouher. 
 
 Then, long a Minister de facto if not in name, there was 
 Baron Haussmann, the famous Prefect of the Seine, who purified 
 
 * Pierre Ernest Pinard (born 1822, died 1896), "Mon Journal," 3 vols., 
 Paris, 1892, 1898. 
 
SOME STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATISTS 297 
 
 and embellished the city of Paris, but at the same time plunged 
 it into debt. It was shown by the parliamentary debates in 
 1869 that some £90,000,000 had then been actually paid for 
 the Paris improvements, and that over £40,000,000 were owing 
 on account of them. Onerous loans also had been contracted 
 with the Credit Foncier, which, in order to save its governor, 
 Fr^my, from prosecution, had to reimburse some £700,000. 
 However, to enable the city to continue its work, and pay 
 interest on its debts, it was authorized to borrow another 
 £18,600,000. Since then Republican administrations have spent 
 over £100,000,000 in perfecting Paris. In Haussmann's days 
 there was undoubtedly great financial mismanagement, but, 
 if the work was done regardless of expense it was also done 
 well ; and in these later times a more indulgent view has 
 been taken of the Baron's administration. In twelve years he 
 achieved more than his predecessors had achieved in a century. 
 And, whatever might be the illicit gains of certain speculators, 
 his own hands, as we remarked once before, remained clean. A 
 Parisian by birth, vigorous, handsome, with a beardless face 
 and laughing eyes, he was a man who cared nothing for money. 
 His despotic, enthusiastic, all-absorbing passion was to build 
 his native city afresh, cleanse it, beautify it, make it the wonder 
 of the world. And, as the Emperor — lavish on his own side as 
 Haussmann was on his — shared that same passion, the Baron, 
 until the days of Ollivier, remained persona gratMsima at court. 
 He had a charming and beautiful daughter, who figured promi- 
 nently at the Tuileries both before and after her marriage to 
 Viscount Pernetty. Those who libelled her father did not 
 scruple to libel her also, and in a particularly abominable 
 manner. But passons. 
 
 Probably the Ministers of the Empire most frequently 
 seen at the Tuileries were those who were entrusted with the 
 department of Foreign Affairs, for they constantly worked 
 with the Emperor. Among them was Walewski, of whom 
 we have repeatedly spoken, and who, like Marshal Randon and 
 the Duke de Padoue, ranked among the " elegant " ministers of 
 the reign. There was also Thouvenel, Walewski's successor, an 
 ex-ambassador at Constantinople and a man of uncommon 
 ability, who was sacrificed because he failed to effect an 
 
298 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 impossible modus Vivendi between Italy and the Bope. There was, 
 too, in particular, Drouj'n de Lhuys, who served as Foreign 
 Minister at various periods, and who, had he been allowed a 
 free hand, might possibly have extricated France from her 
 difficulties, with regard both to Mexico, the Schleswig-Holstein 
 question, and the predominance of Prussia in Germany. He, at 
 all events, distrusted Bismarck from the outset, as many 
 documents show, but he was thwarted by Rouher, Benedetti, 
 and others, overruled by his imperial master, and finally threw 
 up his post in disgust. Then came the Marquis de Moustier, 
 the Marquis de La Valette, Count Napoleon Daru, Duke Agenor 
 de Gramont, and the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, all nominally 
 at the head of a foreign policy which became more and more 
 incoherent as the influence of Rouher or the Empress Eugenie 
 predominated. 
 
 With respect to the foreign ambassadors at the Court of the 
 Tuileries, we have already spoken of Prince Metternich, Count 
 Nigra, and Count Kisseleff. Prussia (and later the North 
 German Confederation) was represented in Paris during the 
 greater part of the reign by Baron Goltz, an expert diplo- 
 matist, in whom Bismarck had much confidence, and who for 
 several years contributed powerfully to ward off war between his 
 own country and France. He was, by the way, both by his 
 birth and his death, somewhat of a Frenchman, for he had come 
 into the world at the Prussian embassy in Paris, and he died at 
 a Biarritz hotel. He had a very pleasant, tactful way, with 
 some wit. On one occasion in 1866, during the Brusso-Austrian 
 war, when the victors were levying large contributions on all 
 the German cities they entered, the Emperor Napoleon remarked 
 to Goltz that he regarded such treatment as very oppressive. 
 And he instanced the case of Frankfort, where Vogel von 
 Falkenstein and Manteufifel had levied between them over 
 thirty millions of florins. " Surely that is too harsh," said the 
 Emperor. " Oh dear no," replied Baron Goltz, smiling, " your 
 Majesty forgets that Frankfort is the city of the Rothschilds." 
 What would he have said had he lived to witness the German 
 exactions in France in 1870-71? One can picture him 
 remarking, with a chuckle, that the war levy of eight millions 
 sterling paid by Paris was by no means too large for the city on 
 which Haussmann had spent twenty times that sum. 
 
SOME STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATISTS 299 
 
 Count Solms took charge of the North German embassy 
 after Goltz's death in 1869. Then came Baron von Werther, 
 whose nomination to the post, though nobody noticed it, was 
 very inauspicious. The war of 1866 had followed his appoint- 
 ment to Vienna, and that of 1870 followed his appointment to 
 Paris. He was Tambassadeur fatal. Russia's representative in 
 France after KisselefTs time was Baron Budberg, who fought 
 a savage duel with his colleague. Baron MeyendorfF, and was 
 succeeded by Count Stackelberg. Belgium long entrusted her 
 interests to spruce little Baron Beyens, of whom it was said: 
 " If ever you see Beyens near a petticoat you may be sure that 
 it has a very pretty face." There were also occasional gorgeous 
 embassies from distant lands, such as Persia and Siam and 
 Japan, embassies which afforded no little entertainment at 
 Court, where not even the Japanese were taken au sSrieux. The 
 American diplomatists in Paris had a trying time during 
 the Civil War and the Mexican affair, but at a later date 
 General Dix achieved considerable social success, it being under 
 his patronage that the Court was first really invaded by a host 
 of American beauties. Mr. Washbume, the last of the 
 American envoys to the Empire, was, perhaps, too sincere a 
 Republican to be altogether suitable to the Tuileries. 
 
 As for Great Britain, her representatives. Lord Cowley and 
 Lord Lyons, were both men of high ability. It was said they did 
 not entertain sufficiently, but the salary attached to the Paris 
 embassy was not adequate for the time — nor is it now — and 
 Cowley had reasons for husbanding his fortune, while Lord 
 Lyons's was small. Cowley's task as a diplomatist was often 
 most arduous, and great credit attaches to him for the manner 
 in which he contrived to prevent any rupture between France 
 and Great Britain amid the many difficultfes which arose. 
 Lord Lyons appeared on the scene at a much later date, and his 
 career in Paris belongs, perhaps, more to the third Republic 
 than to the Empire. Still, as we all know, both by suggestions 
 to his own government and suggestions to the imperial govern- 
 ment, he did all that lay in his power to prevent the war which 
 swept the Empire away and mutilated France. Here let us 
 pause in our survey of the men and women of the time, and pass 
 to another phase of the Coui't life. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE IMPERIAL STABLES — FEMININE FASHIONS — SOME 
 FEATURES OP PARIS LIFE 
 
 The Imperial Stables — The appointments of Meury and Ney — The cost of the 
 stables — ^The grand Gala Carriages — The Empress's Gift to the Duke 
 d'Amnale — The Head Piquemr and others — Some of the Wages — The 
 Posting Service — The "Petit Service" and Mr. Bridges — The Estafette 
 Service — The Preliminary Ceremonial to a Drive — The Emperor's Phaeton 
 Horses — ^His Speed and his Mishaps v?hile Driving — The Saddle Service 
 and Mr. Gamble — The Emperor's favourite Saddle Horses — Lizzy, the 
 English Mare of the Coup d'Etat — The Emperor's Chargers — The 
 Empress's Service — Her " Duo " and her favourite Horses — The Imperial 
 Equerries — The Emperor and Count Lagrange — Life in Paris — Feminine 
 Fashions — Great Costumiers and Milliners — A Peep into Worth's — The 
 Crinoline and Principles of Dress— Colours of the Empire — The famous 
 Bismarck Hue — Some striking Gowns — The Jargon of Fashion — The 
 Chignon and the Bonnet — Strange Boots and Wonderful Garters- 
 Eccentric Jewellery — Seven Toilettes a Day — Court Trains — Fashions for 
 Men — The Boulevards, their Restaurants, Clubs, and Cafes — The Hour of 
 Absinthe — The Drive in the Bois — A great Gambling Scandal — Journalism, 
 Literature, Science, and Fads. 
 
 We mentioned in an early section of this work that the 
 Imperial Stables were organized by Count Fleury, just as the 
 Hunt was organized by the Prince de la Moskowa, Edgar Ney.* 
 There was at first some difficulty respecting the appointments. 
 At the period immediately following the Coup d'Etat, Fleury 
 was neither a Count nor Ney a Prince, and the Emperor felt 
 that he could not appoint them as Great Equerry and Great 
 Huntsman. Wishing to assemble around the new throne as 
 many as possible of the famous names of the First Empire, he 
 proposed to give the former post to Caulaincourt Duke de 
 Vicence, and the second to Berthier Prince de Wagram, and 
 he fancied that Fleury and Ney would be willing to serve 
 under them as First Equerry and First Huntsman respectively 
 * See ante, pp. 50 and 52. 
 
THE IMPERIAL STABLES 301 
 
 But Fleury, who rightly felt that he knew a great deal more 
 about horses thau Caulaincourt did, and Ney, who rightly held 
 that his name and origin were fully equal to Berthier's, were 
 greatly offended by the suggestion. Besides, there was the 
 question of giving high Court offices to men who had taken no 
 part in the Coup d'Etat, when others had staked their lives and 
 fortunes. That was the objection which Fleury, conscious of 
 the fact that he could not himself as yet claim the highest rank, 
 laid before the Emperor, who met it by proposing Marshals 
 St. Arnaud and Magnan for the chief offices, or rather the 
 ornamental dignity attaching to them. That arrangement was 
 accepted by Fleury and Ney, as they were quite disposed to 
 serve under the Marshals, whom, as we previously said, they 
 ultimately succeeded. They were the very men for the duties 
 they undertook, and in their respective spheres they contributed 
 in no small degree to the splendour or enjoyment of the 
 Imperial Court. 
 
 The reader may wonder what an Emperor's stables may cost. 
 We will at least tell him what Napoleon III. spent on his. The 
 average number of horses which the stables contained was 
 320, whose food alone, at the rate of .£38 per head per 
 annum, cost £1^,160. But that was merely an item. There 
 was a large staff, and scores of salaries, amounting altogether to 
 ^32,400 a year ; while the total annual outlay for the purchase 
 and keep of horses, the purchase and upkeep of carriages, 
 the repair, warming, and lighting of stables and coachhouses, 
 the liveries, office expenses, stable appliances, litter, medicine 
 etc. — briefly everything classed as materiel — was, on an average, 
 £4:2,100. The total annual cost, then, was d£74,500, in return 
 for which expenditure Napoleon III., the Empress Eugenie, and 
 the Imperial Prince (whose minor establishments are included 
 in our figures) had many of the finest horses and carriages, 
 as well as some of the most efficient equerries, trainers, grooms, 
 and coachmen then to be found in the world. Perhaps even an 
 American millionaire might contrive to spend rather less on his 
 service d'ecurie. But there is no gainsaying the fact that Count 
 Fleury did things well. Like Haussmann, he cared nothing for 
 money, he was only interested in what money could procure. 
 You gave him carte blanche, and he in return gave you full 
 
302 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 value for it. As it happened, large as the total outlay may 
 have been, many of the stable salaries were really small, and 
 from time to time Napoleon III. had to make special grants 
 from the Privy Purse. 
 
 But let us consider the carriages, particularly the gala ones, 
 which were kept at Trianon, and only brought to Paris on 
 grand occasions. There was the so-called Coronation Coach, a 
 masterpiece in its way, built for the coronation of Charles X., 
 and completely restored — in fact modified — in 1852. The 
 upholstery was of superb crimson velvet, with embroidery and 
 tassels of gold. The eight glass panels were separated from 
 each other by gilded caryatides and figures of fame ; round the 
 roof there was a gallery of gilded bronze ; at each corner an 
 eagle, also of gilded bronze; and on the summit a dazzling 
 imperial crown. The body was richly carved and gilded, 
 ornamented, too, with chiselled and gilded bronze work ; and 
 the harness was of red morocco with gilded ornaments. Before 
 the coach was restored it had been valued at £24100. In 
 restoring and modifying it Fleury spent ^£"3640. And through- 
 out the whole period of the Empire it was used on only one 
 occasion — the baptism of the Imperial Prince. 
 
 The second coach, known as the "Voiture du Bapteme," 
 served both then and at the marriage of Napoleon III., as well 
 as at Queen Victoria's departure from Paris in 1855 and on 
 other special occasions. It had seven glass panels, was richly 
 carved and gilded, and lined with white satin. Then came the 
 Topaz, the Turquoise, the Diamond, the Opal, the Amethyst, 
 the Cornaline, and the Victory coaches, all superbly decorated 
 and gilded, several thousands of pounds being spent upon them 
 under Fleury's orders. Further, he provided, for the gala and 
 semi-gala services, eighteen berlines built by Ehrler of Paris. 
 These also displayed no little gilding and bronze work, corner 
 eagles, imperial escutcheons, and linings of white, green, and 
 red satin. Finally, there was a very striking caliche de gala, 
 called La Cybele, which, after being built for Napoleon I., had 
 passed into the possession of Louis Philippe's consort. Queen 
 Marie Amelie. At the time of the restoration of the Empire, 
 this coach was purchased by Napoleon III. for the small sum 
 of dfi'400, and was duly restored. No use, however, was made 
 
THE IMPERIAL STABLES 303 
 
 of it ; like the coronation coach, it simply remained on show at 
 Trianon. Some years subsequent to the fall of the Empire, 
 when nearly all those vehicles which were not state property 
 had been disposed of, it occurred to the Empress Eugenie to 
 offer La Cybele to the Duke d'Aumale, who, she thought, might 
 be glad to find room for it in his splendid coachhouses at 
 Chantilly. With this offer was coupled a request that the 
 Duke would refrain from thanking her. Made in an indirect 
 manner, the offer was accepted, and the Duke d'Aumale 
 requested Queen Victoria to express to the Empress his 
 appreciation of this gift of a carriage which his mother had 
 frequently used. Two years later the Empress was spending 
 the winter in the environs of Naples when the Duke, on his 
 way to his Sicilian vineyards, made a short stay in that city. 
 Hearing that the Empress was in the neighbourhood, he decided 
 to call upon her, taking her gift of La Cybele as his pretext. 
 It thus came to pass that these representatives of two dynasties 
 which had once reigned over France, met for the first time. 
 The Empress, be it added, was then already a widow, and her 
 son was dead. 
 
 The head " Piqueur " of the imperial carriage service was 
 M. Thuillier, who had previously been in the employment of 
 the Marquis de Las Marismas, and who retained his post under 
 Fleury until the fall of the Empire. With Thuillier there 
 were several subordinate piqueurs, who had served Louis Philippe 
 and the Duchess de Berry. Some of the imperial coachmen 
 and postilions had had a similar experience. One of the latter 
 had even overturned Louis Philippe and his family into a ditch 
 one day, in the environs of Treport — an accident which did not 
 prevent Fleury from engaging him. Among the coachmen, 
 Chapelle had received as a lad his first training in the stables of 
 Napoleon I., and had driven both Louis XVIII. and Charles X. 
 As we have already indicated, the wages of these men were not 
 high. The head piqueur received £M0 a year, the second ^^144, 
 three othei-s ,£120 apiece, while each of the remaining four had 
 to be content with from ^^80 to ,£90. The coachmen's wages 
 were as follows : Six of the first-class, £77 each ; seven of the 
 second-class, £72 each ; four of the third-class, ^60 each, and 
 four others, £53 each ; while the remuneration of the twenty 
 
304 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 postilions varied from .f'^^ to ■f'SO. However, the mere personnel 
 of the carriage service comprised another eighty men of various 
 categories, with salaries ranging from .f^S to d&lSO — the last 
 figures representing the emoluments of the chefde carrosserie et 
 sellerie. 
 
 There was also a posting service organized by Fleury in 
 conjunction with Baron de Pierres. At that time, it must be 
 remembered, railway communication was still very imperfect in 
 some parts of the country, and when the Court was sojourning 
 in the provinces, it often became necessary to post from place 
 to place. Baron de Pierres, a native of the west of France, 
 secured for the posting service, when it was first started, some 
 forty Norman bay mares, which cost, on an average, £28 apiece, 
 and he also recruited in Normandy the first dozen postilions. 
 The number of the latter was subsequently raised to twenty, 
 and that of the mares to seventy. It had become known, how- 
 ever, that the animals were required for the Emperor, and the 
 prices consequently went up to about ^48. In the last years 
 of the Empire, when, apparently, mares of the required class 
 were no longer so plentiful as formerly, as much as ^£"56 was 
 paid for one of them. The chief head-quarters of the posting 
 service was at St. Cloud, but in the winter a " brigade " was 
 quartered at the imperial stables near the Pont de TAlma in 
 Paris, for the Emperor's use whenever he went hunting or 
 shooting in the immediate environs of the capital. Brigades 
 of the posting service always followed the Court to Compiegne, 
 Fontainebleau, and its other places of sojourn in the provinces, 
 the postilions being employed for the large four and six horse 
 chars-a-bancs occupied by the Court guests. 
 
 One brigade of the carriage service (that of the petit service, 
 in fact) was lodged at the Tuileries. It included the Emperor's 
 brougham and phaeton horses, the Empress's blue landau 
 horses, and the brougham horses of the officials on duty. At 
 the head of this service was an Englishman, named, we think. 
 Bridges, or Briggs, who, in later years, when Marshal MacMahon 
 became President of the Republic, was engaged to direct the 
 stables at the Elysee Palace, and who finally entered the service 
 of the Count de Paris. Bridges trained and exercised all the 
 Emperor's phaeton and brougham horses. Under his orders 
 
THE IMPERIAL STABLES 305 
 
 were Cerf, the Emperor's special brougham-coachman, and 
 others who drove the broughams assigned to the aides-de-camp, 
 orderlies, and chamberlains. Several horses were always kept 
 harnessed in the palace stables, in such wise that whenever the 
 Emperor wished to send any officer to one or another part of 
 Paris, the envoy was able to start at once. It should also be 
 mentioned that there was an imperial estafette service of five 
 men, one of whom was always in attendance in an ante-room 
 at the Tuileries, ready, at a moment's notice, to mount on 
 horseback and carry any letter or despatch to its destination. 
 These estafettes had a courier-like uniform, that is, a short 
 green and gold jacket, a red waistcoat, white leather breeches, 
 long boots, a gold-braided hat with the tricolour cockade, and 
 a gold belt from which a long hunting-knife depended. They 
 rode fast Norman mares, and in the streets of Paris everybody 
 had to make way for them, as is done in London for the royal 
 mail and the fire brigade. 
 
 Whenever the Emperor was at the Tuileries it was, for 
 several years, his habit to drive out almost every day in a 
 phaeton, accompanied by an aide-de-camp. As a rule the 
 equerry on duty presented himself every morning at eleven 
 o'clock to take the sovereign's orders, and at the hour appointed 
 for the drive (or ride, as the case might be) he returned to 
 announce that the horses were ready. AU the officers on duty 
 that day, the aide-de-camp, the chamberlain, the prefect of the 
 palace, and the orderlies, then mustered in the chamberlains' 
 salon, through which the Emperor passed on his way out, every- 
 thing which he might require, hat, overcoat, gloves, cane or 
 riding-whip, being deposited on a table there. The Emperor 
 came in, exchanged a few words with the officers, and put on or 
 took up whatever he might want. The ushers then threw the 
 folding doors open, and, preceded by the chamberlain and the 
 equerry, the Emperor passed through the ante-rooms, on either 
 side of which the footmen were drawn up at attention. At the 
 moment the sovereign reached the vestibule the Suisse on duty 
 there struck the marble flooring with his staff, crying aloud, 
 " The Emperor ! " Then, while Napoleon was mounting on 
 horseback or getting into his carriage, the guard turned out, 
 the drums beat, and the colours saluted, the same ceremony 
 taking place on the return to the palace. 
 
 X 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 There were always some seven or eight pairs of phaeton 
 horses at the Tuileries. Those which the Emperor preferred 
 were two American bays, Good Hope and American, which had 
 cost £600, and two English bays. Flick and Flock, for which 
 the same amount had been paid by Count Fleury. They were 
 remarkably fast and even trotters and were never known to 
 break into a gallop. Among the other pairs were Commodore 
 and General, Pretty and Fulton — all English, and costing ^£"600 
 a pair — and Ohio and Santana, Jerry and Jackson, Jersey and 
 Cob — all American, and costing from £360 to £480 a pair. 
 Nearly all the brougham horses were Russian, the finest ones, 
 Peterhof and Dnieper, having been given to Napoleon by 
 Czar Alexander II. There were also two fine pairs from the 
 famous OrloS' stud, the prices of which ranged from £500 to 
 £720. 
 
 To give an idea of the speed at which Napoleon drove, it 
 may be stated as a fact that he invariably covered the distance 
 between the chateau of St. Cloud and the Tuileries — six miles 
 — in less than twenty minutes, that on some occasions he did so 
 in fifteen minutes, and once or twice in thirteen. He was not 
 a perfect driver, for he was almost invariably too severe on the 
 off-side horse, and unpleasant, even disastrous, consequences 
 occasionally ensued. The Duke de Conegliano recollects that 
 one afternoon at Compiegne, after a ministerial council. Napo- 
 leon, accompanied by an aide-de-camp, set off in his due* to 
 which the American trotters Jersey and Cob were that day 
 harnessed, in order to join the Empress, who had accompanied 
 the court guests on an excursion to Pierrefonds. The Emperor 
 cut through the forest, forcing the pace, and driving in his 
 usual impetuous and defective style, in such wise that Jersey, 
 the offside horse, who was both brave and fast, drew his comrade 
 Cob along as well as the carriage, until on turning into the 
 Pierrefonds road, he suddenly stifled and dropped dead upon 
 a heap of stones. Fortunately the Empress was near at hand 
 and was able to give the Emperor and the aide-de-camp a lift 
 in her char-a-bancs. On another occasion while Napoleon was 
 driving in Paris at his customary speed, one of the reins broke 
 ?.nd the position appeared very critical, but, fortunately, 
 » A low park phaeton. 
 
THE IMPERIAL STABLES 307 
 
 on drawing near to some palings, the horses stopped short of 
 their own accord. From that time forward a pair of safety-reins 
 was always provided, and attached to the splash-board of the 
 carriage. 
 
 The saddle-horse service was under the orders of our old 
 acquaintance the famous Mr. Gamble, who had already been in 
 Napoleon's employment in England, and retained office in the 
 exiled household until the funeral of the Imperial Prince, whose 
 horse he led in the procession. Gamble, who rode in much the 
 same style as the Emperor, was the only man who could train a 
 horse to suit him. At one moment some clever French riding- 
 masters were engaged for the purpose, but their horsemanship 
 was far too classical. As a rule the Emperor allowed his mounts 
 considerable freedom of action and rode very little with the legs, 
 but at times he suddenly and vigorously tightened his hold and 
 used his horse severely. Under Mr. Gamble were two French 
 piqueurs, MM. Bonigal and Glatron, well known for their fine 
 horsemanship ; and at one time considerable assistance was 
 rendered to the service by Count Czernowitz, a Hungarian 
 exile, who accompanied the Emperor on the Solferino-Magenta 
 campaign, and subsequently (at Count Fleury's recommendation) 
 entered the service of the present King of Greece, organizing 
 the latter's stables and becoming his first equerry. 
 
 The Emperor's saddle-horses were almost invariably English, 
 well formed and with good action. There were a few bays 
 among them, but Napoleon's preference was for chestnuts. It 
 was on an English chestnut mare, Lizzy, that he rode out of the 
 Elysee Palace followed by his staff, to review the troops on the 
 afternoon of the Coup d'Etat. He had previously ridden Lizzy 
 in High Park, and after his election to the Presidency of the 
 Republic, Gamble brought her to France, where she lived to a 
 considerable age, well cared for in her decline, like a particular 
 favourite of the Emperor's. 
 
 During his earlier years of sovereignty, when Napoleon did 
 not drive out in his phaeton, he rode out attended by an aide- 
 de-camp, an equerry, and two grooms, proceeding, as a rule, by 
 way of the Champs Elys6es to the Bois de Boulogne. On those 
 occasions he sometimes rode a hack, sometimes a charger. He 
 was on a favourite English charger, Philip, when Pianori 
 
308 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 attempted his life,* and Philip was also his mount at the battle 
 of Solferino, but on that occasion the unlucky horse was so 
 severely punished that he died on the morrow. There were, 
 however, other chargers, Ajax and Walter Scott, at the 
 Emperor's disposal at the time. In 1870 four English chargers 
 were provided for him, Hero, Bolero, Nabob, and Sultan ; and 
 Hero was his mount at Sedan on the occasion when, before 
 ordering the white flag to be hoisted, he vainly courted death 
 near the brick-works of La Moncelle.t 
 
 Except when the Empress quitted the Tuileries, incognita, 
 in the morning, for some charitable purpose, her departure for 
 a drive was marked by a ceremonial similar to that observed in 
 the Emperor's case. Her ladies of the palace, her equerry 
 and her chamberlain came down to the chamberlains' salon, 
 where they were joined by all the Emperor's officers on duty, 
 the two services combining to escort her Majesty to her carriage. 
 The guard also turned out, and the drums beat as when the 
 Emperor left the palace. At the morning drives to hospitals, 
 asylums, and the homes of poor folk in whom the Empress took 
 an interest, she used either a dark brougham or a blue landau, 
 in any case a carriage bearing neither arms nor monogram ; 
 while the coachman and footman wore long putty-coloured 
 overcoats in lieu of the imperial livery. As a rule the Empress 
 was only accompanied on those occasions by a lady, but now 
 and then a chamberlain also went with her. At other times 
 she used the Emperor's berlines and D'Aumonts, but she had 
 a due of her own, which she drove a few times in the Bois de 
 Boulogne, though it was usually reserved for her sojourns in 
 the country. A pair of little thoroughbred mares, Hdlene and 
 Isaure, or a four-hundred guinea pair of English ponies. Dove 
 and Vingt-Mars, were specially assigned to that carriage. It 
 should be added that the Empress's establishment was included 
 in the Emperor's with respect to its expenses and all other 
 matters excepting one, that is, her saddle-horses were under the 
 direct control of her first equerry. Baron de Pierres. Of those 
 horses there were about a score, not that the Empress personally 
 used that number, the majority being kept for the benefit of 
 the ladies of the palace and the lady guests at Compiegne, 
 * See ante, p. 104, 105. t See ante, p. 54. 
 
THE IMPERIAL STABLES 309 
 
 Fontainebleau, and other places. When the Empress went 
 riding she was always attended by an equerry and by Baroness 
 de Pierres, a fine horsewoman, of whom we spoke in an earlier 
 chapter.* Her Majesty's first piqueur, who had served Louis- 
 Philippe, like so many of the stable officials and domestics, only 
 followed her at reviews and hunts. She had four favourite 
 horses, Phoebus, Langiewicz, Elastic, and Chevreuil, the last- 
 named being a capital hunter. 
 
 Except in time of war (Italy, 1859, and France, 1870) the 
 duties of the imperial equerries were light. Each had two 
 horses at his disposal, which he could ride as he pleased whenever 
 he was off duty. In accompanying the Emperor the aide-de- 
 camp in attendance rode on the right, and the equerry on the 
 left. In hunting, however, or on a country-ride, if the road 
 became bad or darkness fell, it was the equerry's duty to go 
 ahead and point out the right way, or anything in the nature 
 of the ground that called for caution. If the Emperor were 
 driving in a carriage harnessed k la d'Aumont, the equerry rode 
 on the right side. Though the ordinary equerries were some- 
 times numerous, they were not a source of great expense to the 
 civil list, for the salary of the post was but £4iOO a year, and 
 they personally bore the cost of their various handsome undress, 
 full-dress, and campaigning uniforms, in which green and gold 
 predominated. The Service des Ecuries included, however, in 
 addition to the Great Equerry, the First Equerry, and the 
 others, a complete office-stafF of secretaries and book-keepers, 
 as well as a foreign correspondence clerk £md an interpreter — 
 the two last named being requisite on account both of the 
 department's constant relations with foreign countries, notably 
 with England, and the number of foreigners, chiefly English- 
 men, in its employment. 
 
 It is well known that the Emperor's interest in man's noblest 
 conquest was not limited to his stables. He was fully alive to 
 the necessity of improving the various French breeds of horses, 
 and he promoted the establishment of several State stud-farms 
 under the control of Fleury and others. He was also, in the 
 matter of prizes, a very liberal patron of the turf, and the 
 establishment of the racecourse of Longchamp was due as much 
 * See ante, p. 71. 
 
SIO THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 to his initiative as to Morny's. He always repaired there on 
 the days when the race for the Grand Prix de Paris was run, 
 and now and then at other times. We confess that we are not 
 acquainted with the exact circumstances of his connection with 
 the racing stable of Count Frederic Lagrange, the famous owner 
 of Fille de I'Air, Gladiateur, and other horses renowned in turf 
 annals ; but there is little doubt, we think, that at one and 
 another time the Count, although a large landowner possessed 
 of considerable means, received financial support from the 
 Emperor. Count Lagrange was often at the Tuileries and at 
 Compiegne. The son of a general officer of the first Napoleon, 
 he does not appear to have been really entitled to the " de " so 
 often set before his name, but he was connected by marriage 
 with several great houses, notably that of the Princes de Chimay ; 
 and throughout the Empire he sat in the Legislative Body for 
 his native department, the Gers. Still, he did not take any 
 very active part in politics until 1870, when he became a 
 member of the Central Committee organized in view of the last 
 Plebiscitum, his services in that matter leading to his appoint- 
 ment as a senator virtually on the eve of the Franco-German 
 war, in such wise that he did not long enjoy the dignity. He 
 survived, however, until the close of 1883. 
 
 The general life of Paris under the Empire scarcely comes 
 within the scope of this work. It embraces, too, so many 
 features that anything approaching a complete survey would 
 require more pages than we can allow. It should be studied 
 in the newspapers of the period, in the volumes in which clever 
 journalists gathered their chroniques together, in serious works 
 like that of Maxime Ducamp, and in some of the lighter ones 
 such as the entertaining " Vie et Opinions de M. Graindorge," 
 by Taine, and the sprightly " Monsieur, Madame et Bebe " by 
 Gustave Droz. Here we can only glance at a few features of 
 la vie parisienne of those days. We will take first a matter in 
 which it was certainly influenced by the example of the Court — 
 that of the feminine fashions of the reign, which were set by 
 the Tuileries in conjunction with one or two foreign embassies, 
 a few aristocratic mansions, and half a dozen costumiers and 
 milliners. 
 
 At the time of the imperial wedding, it was Mme. Palmyre 
 
FEMININE FASHIONS 311 
 
 who made the twenty toilettes de soiree and Mme. Vignon the 
 thirty-two toilettes de jour (inclusive of the wedding gowns) 
 which figured in the Empress's corbeUle de mariage.* Later 
 came the ascendency of the Englishman Worth, particularly in 
 respect to evening gowns, and the rise of Laferriere as an artist 
 in promenade and visiting toilettes. Mme. Felicie long reigned 
 supreme in the domain of mantles and coats, while Virot and 
 Lebel triumphed in bonnets and hats. Moreover, as the shawl 
 was still worn during the earlier years of the Empire, and at 
 least continued to be for many years a necessary adjunct to a 
 corheiUe de mariage, there was also the famous Compagnie des 
 Indes in the Rue de Richelieu. Then, among the best ladies' 
 bootmakers we recall the name of Massez, while Leroy and 
 Bysterveld rivalled each other in the art of dressing and 
 adorning the hair, and Piver excelled in the preparation of 
 perfumes and cosmetics. 
 
 Worth, Laferriere, Virot, and others waited on the Empress, 
 Princess Metternich, and a few other grandes dames, but most 
 of their customers went to them ; and there were afternoons 
 when half the Elegantes of Paris might be seen in the Rue de 
 la Paix and adjoining thoroughfares. The stairs at Worth's 
 were likened to Jacob's ladder: an angel was to be met on 
 every step. You fancied, too, that you were entering a hot- 
 house, such was the pleasant warmth on quitting the cold street 
 and such the wealth of camelias, dracaenas, and other plants 
 displayed both on the stairs and the landing, across which flitted 
 one or another of the great costumier's jolies demoiselles, in- 
 variably wearing a gown and a chignon of the style which 
 would be fashionable next day. On the right-hand of the 
 landing was the " Secretary's Office," where orders and addresses 
 were noted, but on turning to the left you found a succession 
 of salons with large oak tables, on which lay pieces of silk, 
 satin and other materials, with some of the finest artificial 
 flowers that Paris could produce and an infinity of elegant 
 chiffons. Handsome young men, cravatted a la colin, and wear- 
 ing tightly-buttoned frockcoats, stood here and there prepared 
 to minister to the ladies' choice ; but they did so in an easy, 
 nonchalant way, without any of that terrible persuasiveness 
 • The number was fixed by the Emperor himself. 
 
312 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 characteristic of the young man of the magasin de nouveautes 
 who is consumed by a desire to " sell." Yet they were always 
 ready with an appropriate answer when they were questioned 
 respecting any combination of different shades or materials, any 
 question of trimmings or measurements. Again, passing hither 
 and thither, there were young girls whose gowns, though black, 
 represented the latest styles invented by the master, in such 
 wise that by pointing to one or another of them a customer 
 could at once indicate what kind of corsage, or sash, or " puff" 
 she desired. The first-hand, elegant, but looking tired, was 
 there also, welcoming the customers with great dignity. 
 
 On some stands in the fourth room, you saw a few of the 
 master's very last creations, finished and ready for delivery, but 
 shown to you just as a painter shows a picture in his studio 
 before sending it to the Salon or the Academy. They stood there, 
 those wonderful robes, three or four in a row, and admirably 
 lighted — the wall behind them being, moreover, all "looking 
 glass," so that you at once perceived how the sash was arranged, 
 how the tunic fell, and the train flowed. They were, too, often 
 as intricate as five-act plays, they were elaborate, carefully 
 studied compositions ; and even as the value of a picture is not 
 estimated according to the cost of the pigments which the 
 artist may have employed, so the value of those gowns did not 
 depend on the cost of the materials used in making them. The 
 latter might not exceed two hundred francs, but the amount of 
 genius lavished on the design and the making might represent 
 two thousand. 
 
 The fair clients gathered in ecstasy in front of those new 
 creations, and while a little cry of admiration escaped from one 
 of them, and a sigh or a purr of delight from another, something 
 like a whirlwind of tulle and lace and Crepe de chine would sud- 
 denly flit by and vanish into a room, whence, as the door opened, 
 there came a stream of pale light. That was the salon de 
 lumiere, where the windows were hermetically sealed and the 
 walls were all huge mirrors. By the light of a dozen gas-jets 
 with movable shades, the lady who there tried on her new 
 toilette de bal was seen as she would be seen the following night 
 at the Tuileries. And now it was that the master made his 
 appearance — a man rather below the average height, with a 
 
FEMININE FASHIONS 313 
 
 full, shiny face, all pink and white, his fair hair parted in the 
 middle, his whiskers closely cropped, his moustaches drooping 
 and glittering like gold. He wore a perpetual smile, he seemed 
 to bow without bending, perhaps because his short frock- 
 coat was so very tightly buttoned. As a rule it was only 
 with customers that he spoke French — and then with a marked 
 accent. His subordinates in the salon de lumiere were usually 
 English girls. Miss Mary, Miss Esther. And he always re- 
 mained quite calm, he never made a fuss, never addressed an 
 angry word to a subordinate. But his coup d'oeil was Napo- 
 leonic. He immediately detected a fault, and indicated in very 
 few words what should be done to repair it. Not only did he 
 fight against the crinoline, succeeding by 1868 in reducing it 
 to something like a vertugadin, but he also opposed the exces- 
 sively decollete bodice. " I dress ladies," he remarked one day 
 to a journalist. " Let the demi-monde go elsewhere ! " Such 
 was Mr. Worth, the King of Fashion. 
 
 The taste of the Second Empire in matters of dress has 
 often been bitterly assailed. The styles of the period are still, 
 perhaps, too near to us to be judged impartially. As time 
 elapses a fairer estimate may be formed. It must be confessed, 
 however, that anything which tends to expand and stiffen the 
 skirt of the female costume necessarily engenders monstrosity, 
 alien alike to nature and true art. Such was undoubtedly the 
 effect of the crinoline, the battle against whose tyranny was so 
 prolonged and, for years, so uncertain. In court circles, at one 
 period, the contrivance assumed such huge proportions that, for 
 the convenience of the Empress and her ladies sailing from 
 Cherbourg or arriving there in the imperial yacht, it became 
 necessary to widen all the landing-stages. At a visit paid 
 by Napoleon and his consort to Osborne, in August, 1857, old 
 Lord Palmerston was both fascinated and annoyed bjt the 
 appearance of the ladies of the party. It was a case of " so near 
 and yet so far." How could you possibly flirt with a pretty 
 woman when you could not get within three yards of her. J" 
 How could a tete-a-tete have any charm whatever, under such 
 conditions.? There was an entente cordiak in those days, but 
 it was not marked by the kissing which has distinguished the 
 entente cordiale of the present time. Perhaps that was the 
 
314 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 fault of the crinoline, whose sway was so despotic that when 
 Hortense Schneider performed in Offenbach's " Belle Helene," 
 taking, as will be remembered, the title rdle, she actually wore 
 one of those hateful cages. It was certainly much smaller than 
 the prevailing fashion, but it was, none the less, a crinoline. How 
 Paris and Menelaus and Helen herself must have turned in their 
 graves at the thought of it ! If the reader doubt our statement 
 let him look at the portraits taken of Schneider at the time. 
 
 One may well wonder that the reign of the " cage " should 
 have lasted so long, in spite of all artistic feeling and percep- 
 tion. It is true, however, that nobody had as yet set out 
 tersely and plainly, so as to be understood by one and all, 
 those elementary principles which Charles Blanc subsequently 
 recapitulated in his famous essay on feminine dress. Chevreul's 
 learned work on colours certainly contained a short section on 
 the hues most appropriate to one and another complexion, 
 and the advantages to be derived now from harmony and now 
 from contrast ; but those few pages were scarcely known to the 
 average Parisienne, who relied almost entirely on her instinct, 
 an instinct which, in spite of the lavish praise and admiration 
 of innumerable writers, was not infrequently at fault. The 
 reign of the crinoline showed, moreover, that she had little or 
 no appreciation of that simple science of lines, which Blanc re- 
 stated so well in the early years of the present Republic, and 
 which at last brought home to many a thoughtless woman the 
 fact that she would increase her height and reduce her bulk by 
 vertical lines, reduce her height and add ampleur to a spare 
 figure by horizontal ones ; while in certain instances the diagonal 
 line might prove an advantage. 
 
 In the matter of colours, the fashions of the Second Empire 
 were often daring. The most abominable innovation of the 
 period was that variety of purple which, coming into fashion 
 about the time of the Italian war, was patriotically christened 
 " magenta." Some famous hues of the period were the Eugenie 
 blue, the Mathilde pearl-white, the Pompadour green, the 
 Benoiton green,* the frog-green, the nuance Teba, the avantu- 
 rine yellow, the vin de Bordeaux, the Ispahan pink, and the 
 Ueu des blondes. Then there were more or less startling 
 * So called after Sardou's comedy, " La Famille Benoiton." 
 
FEMININE FASHIONS 315 
 
 combinations of tints, primrose and blue, lavender and maize, 
 mauve and white, pink and pearl grey, but, after all, a fairly 
 sober colour proved the great one of the reign — that, of course, 
 being the unforgettable Bismarck. It came upon Paris in 1866, 
 it flourished throughout 1867, it was still en vogue at the end 
 of 1868. Never, in all the annals of fashion, has a colour had 
 so long and popular a run. It was, after all, merely a kind of 
 Havannah brown, and owed its fortune solely to its name. But 
 in the days of Sadowa that was a name to conjure with. At 
 first this fashionable colour appeared in a fairly warm shade, 
 known simply as Bismarck — written " Bismark," by the way ; 
 but it suddenly took a duller tone, and became known as 
 Bismarck malade, until at last, assuming yet warmer tints than 
 before, it was christened successively Bismarck content and 
 Bismarck en coTere. There were also such varieties as Bismarck 
 glace and Bismarck scintillant. And it was Bismarck of one or 
 another shade everywhere ; there were Bismarck silks, satins, 
 and velvets, woollen stuffs and cotton fabrics, Bismarck boots, 
 Bismarck gloves, Bismarck parasols, and Bismarck bonnets. 
 The last were naturally of Bismarck straw, trimmed with 
 Bismarck lace, the only relief from the various shades of the 
 all-prevailing colour being supplied by gold and scarlet berries. 
 But even the Bismarck bonnet was not the " last cry," for there 
 came the Bismarck chignon, which compelled ladies to dye their 
 hair the fashionable hue. 
 
 About the time of Queen Victoria's visit to Paris in 1855, 
 the flounced skirt was " all the rage," four or five flounces of 
 varying depths succeeding each other from the hips to the hem 
 of the gown. But that mode passed, and the great balloon-like 
 skirts became trimmed with huge bows, or chotuv of ribbon, or 
 lozenges of velvet, or elaborate and, at times, medallion-like 
 ornaments of passementerie. At last we reached the robe a 
 deux jupes, the roie a tunique, the puffed skirt, the costume 
 Watteau, the jupe a la chinoise, and other styles. Picture the 
 overskirt of a gown caught up at the sides with strap-like 
 bands or ribbons ; picture tunics falling in sharp tasselled 
 points, basques edged with fringes or feathers. Pompadour 
 bodices all velvet, lace, ribbons, and flowers. Picture also a 
 gown of white satin, with the skirt embroidered from top to 
 
S16 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 bottom with long peacock-feathers, placed so closely that the 
 wearer appeared to be garbed in those feathers from her waist 
 downwards. Add thereto long open sleeves embroidered with 
 rather smaller feathers, and a corsage with yet smaller ones. 
 Imagine also a costume all ton sur ton, scalloped, pinked, 
 decoupe in such wise as to suggest fretwork. Think of a soft 
 white skirt, puiFed in the style of cet^s a la neige and adorned 
 with diagonal bands of amber satin, and wreathed at the bottom 
 with flowers of that shade. Think also of a Court dress of white 
 satin, trimmed with transverse bands of green velvet (edged 
 with gold), which met V-like behind, descending towards a long 
 train of lace and gold embroidery, over which fell the ends of 
 an interminable velvet sash, all green and gold like the bands 
 of the skirt. And, speaking of sashes, imagine a gold-chain 
 waistband, having in the rear a large pendant ring, from which 
 the sash fell to the bottom of the skirt. 
 
 But in addition to all the gros de Naples, the gros de 
 Navarre, the poults-de-soie, the rose and blue moires antigties, 
 the tarlatans, the grenadines, the crepes de Chine, and the fayes, 
 here are the famous Lyons brocades, displaying narcissi, crimson 
 carnations, variegated tulips, and bunches of lilac on grey 
 grounds ; while on maize grounds you will find hearfs-eases, 
 damask roses, and bluebells. You will even perceive brocaded 
 Bismarck, whose brown favours the yellow iris and the daffodil. 
 " Save us from all this ! " was virtually one of the " notes " of 
 Sardou's " Famille Benoiton," in which Mile. Fargueil exclaimed 
 so fervently, " Protect us, holy Muslin ! " But muslin did no 
 such thing; it appeared covered with coloured medallions of 
 Daphne, Chloe, and Amaryllis, after the style of Watteau and 
 Boucher. It seemed to know that unless it were thus adorned 
 the Parisienne would not wear it. 
 
 Leave Paris and go to the seaside — to Trouville or Deauville, 
 Yonder elegante in the Japanese hat, the short scarlet skirt, 
 and the dark-blue yachting jacket with scarlet collar and cuffs 
 may not be very wonderful to look at ; but here you will also 
 see Mile. Anonyma garbed in white, though not with a sweet 
 simplicity, for her skirt is festooned with black death's heads, 
 linked one to another by true-lovers' knots of pink ribbon ! 
 The Zouave jacket, the Breton jacket (nowadays called a 
 
FEMININE FASHIONS 317 
 
 bolero), and the Garibaldi will be recollected, the fichu Marie 
 Antoinette, if not the^cAw Letta, is still often with us, but we 
 confess that we do not exactly recall the styles, even if we 
 remember the names, of the Vespertina opera-wrap, or the 
 Lamballe pufF, or the paletot-chale. That is the worst of 
 fashion's jargon, a great deal of which soon becomes obsolete 
 and suggests little or no meaning at all. Yet, in that respect, 
 matters were not quite so bad under the Empire as they 
 were towards the close of the eighteenth century, when some 
 mysterious, semi-poetical name was bestowed on every kind 
 of fabric, trimming, and cut. Open the Marquis de Valfons' 
 memoirs and interpret, if you can, his description of the 
 costume of La Duthe, the famous courtesan-actress. "She 
 was attired," says the Marquis, "in a robe of stifled sighs, 
 adorned with superfluous regrets, the point edged with perfect 
 candour, trimmed with indiscreet complaints. She wore ribbons 
 of marked attentions and shoes of the colour of Queen's hair,* 
 embroidered with diamonds in treacherous stripes. Above her 
 curls of elevated sentiments was a head-dress of certain con- 
 quest, trimmed with fickle feathers, while over her shoulder 
 fell an Absolom tress of momentary agitation." Now all that, 
 though much of it is absolute gibberish to us, in 1907, was 
 perfectly well understood by the last gi-eat ladies of the old 
 regivie. 
 
 But, returning to the Empire's fashions, let us just mention 
 all those wonderful mantles of green, blue, puce, grey, and violet 
 velvet, which often assumed such extraordinary shapes, and say 
 a few words respecting the bonnets, which passed from the 
 coal-scuttle to the peaked and thence to the famchon or 
 small inverted-platter style. It was the gradual growth of 
 the chignon, the Empire's last word in the matter of hair- 
 dressing, that killed the coal-scuttle and peaked bonnets, for 
 which good work the chignon deserved much thanks. But the 
 chignon itself assumed eccentric forms and proportions. The 
 Empress long clung to her own particular style of coiffure, and 
 the pendant Eugenie curls did not abdicate their sway until 
 the chignon had repeatedly attacked them. At the Tuileries 
 
 * Marie Antoinette's hair. Count d'Aitois sent a look of it to Lyons, in 
 order that the exaot hue might be imitated by the silk-workers. 
 
318 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the chignon's chief pioneer was probably the charming Baroness 
 de Poilly, wife of Baron Henri de Poilly, the great sportsman 
 of Follembray and Coucy-le-Chateau. The Baroness was assailed 
 and derided ; she was asked whether she would next show her- 
 self with a monkey clinging to her head, but she went her way 
 and gained the victory. 
 
 The fanchon, or inverted straw-platter bonnet, which 
 favoured the display of the chignon, was followed by a mere 
 tuft of tulle, or crape, whose strings were simply of narrow 
 ribbon, or else of small trailing leaves. An attempt to intro- 
 duce so-called Marie Antoinette and Trianon hats came to 
 nothing, but in winter various fur toques and feather hats 
 were often much in favour. As for the boots of the Empire 
 they were such as are now only seen upon the stage. The 
 Parisienne of those days wore morocco and russia leather, and 
 the colour of her boots harmonized or contrasted effectively 
 with the colour of her frock. The short skirt, not a mere 
 trotteuse, but something quite three inches shorter, became at 
 one time fashionable wear at the promenade in Paris as well as 
 in the country and at the seaside, and this led to the so-called 
 bottine a mi-jamhe — that is, a boot reaching halfway up the calf 
 of the leg. Sometimes the ordinary tan boot was to be seen, 
 but it generally had a facing and top trimming of the same hue 
 as the skirt. The bronze boot was somewhat common, the 
 violet one was more fashionable ; the scarlet one belonged to 
 the demi-monde. Russia leather boots were embroidered with 
 gold and coloured silks, and ornamented with tassels, rosettes, 
 beads of crystal, jet, and gold. When shoes were worn the 
 stockings were elaborately embroidered. The black stocking 
 was then virtually unknown ; white ones were still worn by 
 the bourgeoisie and the masses, while the elegante displayed 
 one or another bright or delicate hue in keeping with her 
 toilette. Again, the stocking-suspender was unknown, the garter 
 flourished, and was a thing of beauty. Sometimes it was an 
 ohjet d'art,Bja. elaborate piece of jewellery, designed by Froment- 
 Meurice, at others it was of gold or silver filigree, at others 
 of either velvet or moire. In the last case it was enriched with 
 lace and pendant ribbons. It usually bore a crest or emblem, 
 and a motto, sometimes figured in precious stones, at others 
 
FEMININE FASHIONS 319 
 
 beautifully embroidered.* That was the age of embroidery 
 in gold and silver thread and coloured silks. There were 
 exquisitely embroidered parasols, and quaintly embroidered 
 gloves, whose gauntlets displayed birds, butterflies, and flowers, 
 or, if the wearer were going to the races, a few horseshoes or a 
 jockey's cap and whip. 
 
 In the last years of the Empire there came a passion for 
 eccentric jewellery. After the victories of Fille de I'Air and 
 Gladiateur all jewellery emblematical of the turf became very 
 popular. Birds, too, of many kinds — swallows, swans, eagles, 
 and robins, dangled from the ears of the Parisiennes. There 
 were also tambourine, zither, and padlock earrings. We 
 remember, too, a lady of nautical tastes from whose ears 
 depended a couple of miniature yachts, while at one moment 
 there was as great a rage for dragonflies, butterflies, and beetles 
 as there ever was for miniature guillotines in the days of the 
 great Revolution. The little hats or bonnets were sometimes 
 literally spangled with beetles of various hues, among which 
 there appeared, perhaps, a dragonfly all aglitter with its real 
 or its imitation stones. Again, those beetles and dr£igonflies 
 figured as earrings or brooches ; but when a lady had no 
 entomological inclinations she could wear in her ears a pair 
 of tiny gold baskets containing little flowers formed of pearls, 
 rubies, brilliants, and turquoises, or, if that were too elaborate, 
 she might content herself with a couple of gold pea-pods 
 containing emerald peas, or else with mere cherries of coral. 
 
 It was the Empire that witnessed the foundation and rise 
 of " the great bazaars," the Louvre, the Bon March^, the 
 St. Thomas, and so forth, all those Temples of Perdition which 
 popularized the love of finery and fostered the spirit of imitation 
 among women, inspiring the Parisienne of limited means with a 
 more and more ardent desire to array herself like the great 
 lady of wealth. Still it was only the leaders of fashion who 
 could manage to dress six and seven times a day, assuming first 
 
 * A pair of jewelled garterg by Proment-Meurice bora in diamonds the 
 motto, Soni soit qui point n'ypense. Other garter mottoes of the time were 
 Goethe'a Persistance en amour, Montaigne's Que Sfais-je, and Charles I. 'a 
 Bemember. For widow ladies there were garters embroidered with pansies 
 and silver tears. 
 
320 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the dressing-gown, next the ridmg-habit, then the neglig& 
 elegant for dejeuner, then the toilette de mile or de visite for 
 " morning calls," then the toilette de Bois for the orthodox 
 di'ive, then the toilette de diner, then the toilette de bal, and 
 finally the toilette de nuit. 
 
 Soon after the imperial marriage society was fluttered by 
 the great question of the Court trains (manteaux de cour falling 
 from the shoulders), which it was decreed that ladies should 
 wear at State receptions at the Tuileries. The subject was 
 carefully studied by the Empress and Emperor in council with 
 Mme. Roger, and sumptuary regulations ensued, specifying the 
 colours which those trains should assume, the materials they 
 should consist of, the amount of trimming they should have, 
 and the length to which they might extend. The more splendid 
 trains were reserved for Princesses of the Imperial House, then 
 came the trains of the wives of high functionaries, marshals, 
 senators, and so forth, while mere invitees, even if they were the 
 wives of millionaires, were not entitled to wear trains above a 
 certain length and value. The joke was that many ladies did 
 not know how to wear such trains at all, and there was a great 
 rush to secure the advice of Cellarius and the other leading dancing 
 masters of Paris. It was, however, a clever actress, Augustine 
 Brohan, of the Comedie Franpaise, who schooled the lady train- 
 wearers most effectively, teaching them how to walk and how 
 to give, when occasion required, the elegant little kick by which 
 the train was brought into the required position. For the trifle 
 of three huis (£2 8s.) a lesson — and a course of not more than 
 four or five lessons was required — Mile. Brohan charitably saved 
 some scores of her sex from making themselves ridiculous on 
 their first appearance at the Tuileries. 
 
 The foregoing remarks on the subject of feminine fashions 
 may have helped the reader to understand how the Parisienne 
 of Gavami became gradually transformed into the Parisienne 
 of Gr6vin. Of masculine fashions we have not space to speak 
 at length. The height of the silk hat — the orthodox headgear 
 of civilization — varied exceedingly ; at times it was more than 
 two inches above that of the silk hat of to-day (1907), at others 
 it decreased till it corresponded with that of a " bowler ; " and 
 it was amusing, indeed, to see the Boulevardiers of 1866 and 
 
SOME FEATURES OF PARIS LIFE 321 
 
 1867 wearing, at the same time as those diminutive silk hats, 
 which suggested the "cut-downs" of a slop-shop, both the 
 tightest of trousers and the shortest of jackets — the last leaving 
 the seat of the trousers fully exposed. Then the straw hat 
 for men was also somewhat quaint. It vaguely resembled the 
 "boater" of to-day, but the ribbon was fastened behind, and 
 its ends dangled some inches below the brim. As for the frock- 
 coat it underwent repeated modifications ; at times its sleeves 
 were very tight, at others most awkwardly full, while the skirts 
 generally ended above the knees. With respect to trousers, 
 virtually every huge check-pattern that could be devised, figured 
 for years on the Boulevards. 
 
 The Boulevards — from the Madeleine to the Faubourg 
 Montmartre — were then in many respects the real centre of 
 Parisian life. Nearly all the greatest restaurants, the Cafe 
 Anglais, the Maison Dorde, the Caf6 Riche, Durand's, Brebant- 
 Vachette's were there ; the Trois Freres and Vefour's being the 
 only really first-class establishments left at the Palais Royal. 
 Excepting the Cercle Imperial, at the corner of the Avenue 
 Gabriel, all the great clubs, too, were either on or near the 
 Boulevards — the Union and the Agricole patronized by the old 
 noblesse, the Jockey by sportsmen and men of fashion,* the 
 Chemins de Fer by stockbrokers, great engineers, and directors 
 of public companies, the Union artistique by men who practised 
 or dabbled in the arts,t the Ganaches by a great variety of 
 old fogeys, both civil and military, the Baby and the Sporting 
 by very young men intent on sowing their wild oats, the 
 Americain by gamblers, the St. Hubert by devotees of la 
 chasse, and the Cercle des Arts by notaries, commercial people, 
 and other good bourgeois. In those days, too, there were real 
 cafes on the Boulevards, for the Parisian had not yet taken to 
 lager beer. Virtually each cafe had its habitues, its special 
 class of customers, and if you wished to find an actor, a govern- 
 ment journalist, an opposition one, an officer on leave, a 
 boursier, a merchant or commission agent in some particular 
 line of business, you knew precisely where to go. 
 
 • Through Momy, the Jookey Club had virtually been captured by the 
 Empire. 
 
 f Its real founder was the father of Guy de Maupassant. 
 
 y 
 
322 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Passing along the Boulevards during that hour before dinner 
 time, which was called the Hour of Absinthe, you would meet 
 or see seated outside one or another cafe two-thirds of the men 
 whose names had been mentioned in that day's newspapers. 
 There was Auber, the youthful septuagenarian, talking to 
 Offenbach, there was Timothee Trimm airing his importance 
 to a tribe of smaller journalists, there was Leonce of the 
 Varietes cracking jokes with Cham the caricaturist. A bored- 
 looking elderly Englishman passed, and you recognized Lord 
 Hertford. Turning the corner of the Rue Laffitte you espied 
 old Baron James de Rothschild, followed by the eternal foot- 
 man carrying his overcoat. Just inside the Librairie Nouvelle 
 stood Prince Metternich purchasing books for the Princess. 
 The mysterious Persian who haunted the Imperial Library 
 strolled by. There went Mustapha Pasha in converse with 
 Khalil Bey. Yonder, sundered by politics but drawn together 
 again by art, sat Courbet in the company of Carpeaux. 
 Then, all at once, loud-voiced and exuberant, Dumas of the 
 Musketeers appeared, attended by some of the sycophants on 
 whom he lavished his last napoleons. All the men of the 
 reign might be met at one time or another on those Boulevards, 
 Ponsard, SchoU, Henri de Pene, Dr. V^ron, Bressant, Goncourt, 
 Baron Brisse, Villemessant, M. de Foy, Siraudin, Valles, 
 Barriere, Banville, Sardou, Pereire, Gramont - Caderousse, 
 Frederick Lemaitre, Nadar, Girardin, Rossini, Houssaye, Paul 
 de Kock, Paul Feval, About, Roqueplan, young Rochefort and 
 young Gambetta, mediums Home and Squire, Paul Baudry 
 and Manet, Mai-kowski and Cellarius, Millaud and Mires, 
 and so on, and so on. And as time elapsed vocalists and 
 actresses went by in their victorias and broughams — Patti, 
 Nilsson, Alboni, Hortense Schneider, Zulma BouiFar, Ldonide 
 Leblanc, Madeleine Brohan, Rose Cheri, La Desclee, Fargueil, 
 and all the others — pending the time when processions of 
 carriages would halt outside the theatres, and ladies alight 
 from them in all the glory of their toilettes de spectacle. 
 
 An hour or two ago those ladies were in the Bois de 
 Boulogne. " Round the lake," and not the Allee des Acacias, 
 was then the fashionable drive, and great was the mustering of 
 equipages, wonderful the display of frocks. At times, at a 
 
SOME FEATURES OF PARIS LIFE 
 
 word from some mounted guard, the procession would suddenly 
 be stopped, and a piqueur wearing the imperial livery would 
 appear, preceding an open carriage with horses harnessed a la 
 D'Aumont and ridden by postilions. Then you would see the 
 Empress, sometimes accompanied by the Emperor, at others by 
 her nieces Miles. d'Albe, or else attended by one or two of her 
 ladies of the palace. The gentlemen, riding on the left side of 
 the road (reserved for equestrians), would then muster in a line 
 near the Rond des Cascades, and a couple of hundred heads 
 would be uncovered as the imperial equipage went by at a slow 
 trot, the Empress gracefully acknowledging the salutations. 
 
 But among the carriages in which ladies of rank and 
 position reclined, there were others, often the showiest of all, 
 occupied by women of another kind. There went Cora Pearl, 
 there Giulia Barucci, there Anna Deslions, there La Paiva, 
 not far from her old acquaintance, Esther Guimond. All 
 the " Dames aux Camelias," the " Filles de Marbre," the 
 "Madelons" of the period mingled with the highest in the 
 land, displaying their painted charms and costly costumes. 
 
 If, by-and-by, after dinner and the theatre, you had peeped 
 into the mansion of one of those women, that of La Barucci, 
 whose real name, by the way, was Julie Benin, you would have 
 seen a strange sight. It was a night early in 1863, the mansion 
 was in the Champs Ely sees, and had just been taken by La 
 Barucci, who was giving a " house-warming " party. Among 
 her guests were Prince Paul DemidofF, Count Tolstoy, the 
 young Duke de Gramont-Caderousse (the great plunger of 
 the period), the Marquis de Vimeux, Count de Chambrun, 
 Viscount de Poix, Viscount de Brimeux, M. de Feuilhade- 
 Chauvin, Herr von Schouen of the Prussian embassy, and a 
 gentleman of the Queen of Spain's household, Senor Angelo de 
 Miranda. La Barucci had also invited Signor Calzado, the 
 director of the Theatre Italien (where Patti was singing), but 
 the affair was to be a very quiet one — a cup of tea, a little 
 music, and then supper. Calzado, however, arrived accompanied 
 by a friend, Garcia, a notorious gambler, famous for having 
 " broken the bank," both at Wiesbaden and Homburg, And, 
 
 briefly, cards were produced and a game of baccarat began • 
 
 J'SOO, ^000, ,£'5000, and even larger amounts figuring on 
 
324 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the table at one or another moment. Garcia held the bank 
 and carried all before him, Miranda, who staiied large sums, 
 losing heavily ; until at last his suspicions and those of others 
 being aroused, Garcia was watched and detected in the act of 
 cheating. A terrific fracas ensued. Both Garcia and Calzado 
 were seized, and prepared cards being found in their possession, 
 aU the money they had stolen was taken from them, and they 
 were kicked out of the house. At Miranda's suit Calzado was 
 tried and sentenced to fine and imprisonment, but Garcia 
 managed to escape from France. 
 
 The affair caused no little stir in Paris, notably by reason 
 of Calzado's position there ; but before long some other mal- 
 practices diverted public attention. The age was a gambling 
 one, and financial scandals were as frequent then as they are 
 now. There were the affairs of the Docks Napoleon, the Credit 
 Mobilier, the Caisse des Chemins de Fer — with which the names 
 of Millaud, Pereire and Mires were associated — and others of but 
 slighter magnitude. Yet Paris was no more all corruption in 
 those days than it has been at other periods of its history. 
 Stones have been often flung at the journalism, the literature, 
 the stage, the music, the art of the Empire, but though some 
 severe strictures have been deserved, partisanship has often 
 supplied a very one-sided view of the period. It is true 
 that there was distinct danger at times. The regime in its 
 vain endeavour to prevent people from intruding into politics 
 seemed to have appropriated Rabelais' motto — Vivez joyeux ! 
 — and those who denounced that enthronement of pleasure 
 as a deity did good work. But let us be fair. If we had 
 space at our command, it would be easy to show that things 
 were not so black as some have painted them. In the sphere 
 of journalism there arose some of the ablest, wittiest, most 
 cultured chroniqiieurs known to the French press, men like 
 Villemot and Noriac, Audebrand and Scholl, Adrien Marx, 
 and Henri de Pene, followed by Sarcey, Wolff, Monselet, 
 Pierre Veron, Rochefort in his premiere maniere, and Claretie, 
 then also making his debut. The field of literature is too vast 
 to be surveyed here, but among the writers of the time were 
 Ste. Beuve, Janin, Taine, Cousin, Littre, Renan, Michelet, 
 Mignet, Toqueville, St. Marc-Girardin, Henri Martin, Havet, 
 
SOME FEATURES OF PARIS LIFE 325 
 
 Paulin Paris, Laboulaye, Baudrillart, Wolowski. As for the 
 novel in those days, if Feydeau and Belot achieved, by mere 
 pruriency, success with such works as " Fanny " and " Mile. 
 Giraud," Flaubert gave to the world his epoch-making master- 
 piece, while his friends the Goncourts strove in fiction, history 
 and biography alternately. Again, Alphonse Daudet, thanks, 
 be it remembered, to the generosity of his patron Morny, was 
 able to pen both "Tartarin" and the "Lettres de mon Moulin." 
 Let us also recall the names of FeuiUet, George Sand, Gautier, 
 Banville, Prevost-Paradol, Erckmann-Chatrian. Among poets, 
 the Parnassians arose with Leconte de Lisle, Heredia and Sully 
 Prudhomme, while Coppee wrote "Le Passant", which intro- 
 duced Sarah Bernhardt to celebrity. The stage was not all 
 Meilhac and Halevy, Clairville, and Ernest Blum, amusing as 
 these often were. It was also Augier and Dumas fils, Ponsard 
 and Barriere, Cadol and Sardou. All Sardou's best work was 
 done under the Empire, and nearly all of Dumas'. And the 
 actors and actresses of that time might well challenge comparison 
 with those of this. They were Regnier, Bressant, Delaunay, 
 Febvre, Got, Coquelin, St. Germain, Mounet-Sully, Rachel, 
 Ristori, Favart, Arnould-Plessy, Judith, the sisters Brohan, 
 Fargueil, Reichemberg, and many others famous in theatrical 
 annals. 
 
 Again, dancing was not all Rigolboche, Clodoche, and 
 cancan. In the ballroom it was the graceful mazurka introduced 
 to the Parisians by Markowski; on the stage, after Livry had 
 been unhappily burnt to death, it was the art of Ferraris, 
 Cerito, Rosati, St. Leon, Merante. Nor was music all 
 Offenbach, Herv^, and Jonas. It was also Gounod, Auber, 
 Ambroise Thomas, Felicien David, Halevy, Berlioz, Bizet, 
 Verdi, Rossini, and Meyerbeer. The three last named might 
 be foreigners, but two of them were Parisians also. And 
 if the period was that of "La Belle Helene," "La Grande 
 Duchesse," "Chilperic," "Le Canard a trois Bees," and "Le 
 Petit Faust," it was also that of the other "Faust," and of 
 " L'Africaine," " Romeo et Juliette," " Le Pardon de Ploermel," 
 " Le Prophete," and " L'Etoile du Nord." Our vocalists were 
 Patti, Alboni, Cruvelli, Nilsson, Viardot, Miolan-Carvalho, 
 Sass, Gardoni, Tamberlick, Nicolini, Faure, Tagliafico — toute 
 
326 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 la lyre ! Then, too, great men laboured in various branches of 
 science : Pasteur, Berthelot, Leven-ier, Bernard, Flourens, 
 Chevreul, Milne-Edwards, Quatrefages, St. Hilaire, Tresca, 
 Tr61at. In painting and sculpture and architecture,* also, 
 famous names and famous works might be enumerated, and if the 
 whole field were surveyed with fairness, it would be found that 
 during the eighteen years of the Empire the genius of France 
 never abdicated. 
 
 The period had its failings, its frivolities, its foibles, its 
 fads, like all others. Much that was evil might be traced, 
 however, to the cosmopolitan element which mingled with the 
 population. Paris became crowded with foreigners, some of 
 them men of rank and substance, others mere adventurers, but 
 nearly all of them folk of little morality. It has generally 
 been assumed that they were debauched by Parisian life, but 
 it is a question whether they did not debauch Paris. At times 
 of course the Parisian himself was largely to blame. Shut out 
 from healthy participation in politics (and that was the regime's 
 particular sin), he turned far too readily to whatever might 
 present itself to fill the void in his life. Thus pleasure, frivolity, 
 folly, secured only too many votaries. At one time you saw 
 half Paris rushing in a kind of delirium to consult an extra- 
 ordinary quack, the Zouave Jacob, who claimed to cure every 
 possible disease ; at another you found thousands of people 
 absolutely believing that the Emperor had paid the cruel 
 assassin Tropmann to murder the Kinck family, in order to 
 divert attention from politics, and that some "dummy" or 
 other had really been executed in Tropmann's place — ^he being 
 discreetly sent abroad with his pockets full of secret-service 
 money ! The Parisian was far better inspired when, in the 
 late sixties, he helped to resuscitate the "velocipede" — that fore- 
 runner of to-day's bicycle — in spite of all the derision heaped 
 upon the appliance by flippant correspondents of the foreign 
 press, who did not foresee its possibilities. One may still smile, 
 perhaps, at the thought of velocipedes de luxe mounted in rose- 
 wood and aluminium bronze, nevertheless the "fad "was one 
 that yielded fruit in later years. 
 
 » Notably as regards the Grand Opera and the additions to the Louvre. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COXTRT — THE EMPEROR's 
 ILLNESS — CHALONS — THE MARSHALS — THE HXJNT 
 
 The Chateau of St. Cloud— The Empress Charlotte of Mexico— The Malady 
 of Napoleon in.— His Sojourns at Plombi^res and Vichy — His visits to 
 the Camp of Chftlons — The Zouaves in Camp — Napoleon's Illness and 
 Baron Larrey — Military High Mass — The Marshals of France, Bandon, 
 Pilissier, MaoMahon, Bazaine, and others — Mesdames les Mare'chales — 
 The Court at Pontainebleau — Biarritz and the Villa Euginie — A Victory of 
 the Crinoline — The Empress and Imperial Prince in Peril — Compiigne — 
 The Imperial Hunt and its Organization — St. Hubert's Day — Despatching 
 the Stag — Serious Accidents — The Curte by Torchlight — Boar-hunting and 
 Hawking — The Shooting Grounds — The Battues — The Emperor a good 
 shot — Prince Napoleon and the Pelicans — Some bad Shots — Boar or 
 Badger 7 — ^Life at the Chateau — The Series of Guests — The Day's Routine 
 — Evening Recreations — Pasteur and the Progs — A few of the Guests — 
 Nero and Tita — Napoleon and the Nicaraguan Canal — Soma Ladies at 
 CompiAgne — Theatrical Performances — The " Commentaires de C^sar " — 
 The Emperor and the Invalide — France, England, and the Channel Bridge. 
 
 Only part of the time of the ImperisJ Court was spent at the 
 Tuileries ; it was often elsewhere. It installed itself at the 
 chateau of St. Cloud during the spring, and then returned for 
 a short time to Paris. Later the Emperor went to Flombieres 
 or Vichy to drink the waters ; next he betook himself to the 
 camp of Chalons ; then, after returning to St. Cloud, where it 
 often happened that the Empress had remained in the interval, 
 he repaired with her to Fontainebleau. A stay at Biarritz 
 ensued, but towards the close of October the Court was again in 
 Paris, whence, immediately after All Saints' Day, it stai-ted for 
 Compifegne, its sojourn at that "residence" lasting until the 
 end of the year. 
 
 Apart from the peregrinations we have just enumerated, 
 there was no little travelling to various parts of France, now to 
 inaugurate some monument or public work, now to relieve the 
 distress resulting from inundations, now to cheer those who 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 were stricken by outbreaks of cholera or other afflictions. 
 Further, for political reasons, the Emperor went to Germany 
 at different times. He paid an important visit to Stuttgart 
 in 1857, when he met the Emperor of Russia and other 
 sovereigns, and another to Baden in 1860, while on two 
 occasions during the last period of his reign he met the Austrian 
 Emperor at Salzburg. Of his visits to Queen Victoria, first at 
 Windsor and later at Osborne, and of the Empress's more 
 important journeys, we have already spoken. 
 
 The Empress, it seems, was not particularly fond of the 
 chateau of St. Cloud, in spite of its associations with the 
 memory of Marie Antoinette, for she did not find it sufiiciently 
 in the country, sufficiently rural as regards its surroundings. 
 For political business, however, it was a convenient place of 
 sojourn. The Emperor could speedily drive into Paris when- 
 ever circumstances required his presence there, and it was 
 comparatively easy for his ministers to attend the councils 
 which, as a rule, were held at the chateau twice a week, becom- 
 ing rather more frequent in the autumn, when the ensuing 
 year's budget was discussed. It may be pointed out that the 
 Emperor was present on those occasions, that, in fact, he 
 participated in the preparation of the estimates, whence it 
 follows that no small share of responsibility for the finances of 
 the Empire devolved on him. He was, however, a very poor 
 financier, as his private affairs showed, and, with respect to the 
 financial position of the State, we suspect that he often 
 accepted the assertions of his ministers without troubling to 
 verify them. 
 
 As is the case with the Tuileries, nothing but a memory 
 now remains of the chateau of St. Cloud, so unfortunately 
 destroyed, together with its many art treasures, during the 
 German siege of Paris. Dating from the time of the Duke of 
 Orleans, brother of Louis XIV., it was a large and handsome 
 structure, the scene of many a great historical fete of the old 
 regime. From the House of Orleans it passed, in 1785, into the 
 possession of Marie Antoinette, who purchased it for a sum of 
 six million livres. It was there, in the Orangerie, demolished 
 in or about 1864< by Napoleon III., that Bonaparte, on the 
 famous 18th Brumaire, finally destroyed the first French 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 329 
 
 Republic ; it was there that he was proclaimed Emperor, and 
 subsequently espoused the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. 
 It was also at St. Cloud that Charles X. signed those fatal 
 ordonnances which overthrew the regime of the Restoration ; 
 there, too, that he quietly but fatuitously went on playing whist 
 while his guard was dying for him in Paris, replying to M. de 
 Semonville, who warned him that if he did not withdraw his 
 ordonnances and change his ministers, the monarchy would be 
 swept away, " I do not believe it. If my brother, Louis XVI., 
 fell, it was from weakness ; besides, I am quite ready to appear 
 before God." 
 
 Again, it was at St. Cloud that Napoleon III. received 
 official communication of the plebiscitum which made him 
 Emperor of the French ; it was from the chateau that he 
 started on his triumphal entry into Paris; and it was there 
 that he decided, in 1870, on the disastrous war which swept 
 him from his throne. The official proclamation of that war 
 was dated from the chateau, and it was from a railway siding 
 in the park that the Emperor set out for Metz with the young 
 Imperial Prince, who was soon to receive his baptism of fire. 
 
 We have said that the chateau was large. In addition to 
 all the State rooms and the private apartments of the Emperor 
 and Empress, it included forty-five small suites for guests, 
 accommodation for six hundred officials and domestics, together 
 with stabling for two hundred and thirty horses, and coach- 
 houses for twenty carriages. In the guard-house forty troopers 
 and nearly two hundred infantrymen could be quartered, but 
 there was also a neighbouring barracks for more than fifteen 
 hundred men. The fine park spread over an expanse of nearly 
 a thousand acres. 
 
 The interior decorations of the chateau were superb. The 
 ceilings of the state apartments — the great Gallery of Apollo, 
 the Salons of Mars, Diana, Venus, and Truth — ranked as 
 masterpieces of Mignard, Coypel, and Le Moyne. Valuable 
 pictures and statuary decorated the rooms — Pradier's Sappho, 
 Van der Meulen's equestrian portrait of Louis XIV., a large 
 number of Canalettos, a fine series of Vemets, some good 
 Bouchers, a precious suite of Gobelins tapestiy after Rubens,* 
 * The Marie de' Medici series at the Louvre. 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 an infinity of Boule work, and other valuable seventeenth and 
 eighteenth century furniture. Looking towards the chateau, 
 the private apartments of the Emperor and Empress were on 
 the first-floor of the right-hand wing. The Emperor's suite 
 was one of five rooms ; his cabinet had been Louis Philippe's 
 dressing-room, his bedchamber that sovereign's study. The 
 Empress's suite included several salons with historical associa- 
 tions. That assigned to her ladies-in-waiting had witnessed 
 the famous fracas between the Duke d'Angouleme and Marshal 
 Marmont at the Revolution of 1 830, when the former assaulted 
 the latter in a fashion as cowardly as it was brutal. In the 
 Empress's cabinet stood the writing-table of Louis XVL, and 
 several articles of furniture which had been used by Marie 
 Antoinette, while the locks of the doors of this apartment, as 
 well as those of others, were entirely the handiwork of 
 Louis XVI., an expert locksmith, as we know. Then there 
 was the Vemet salon, at one time the study of Louis XVIII. 
 and Charles X., and the salon which had once been the bed- 
 chamber of Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I., and 
 which had witnessed her sudden death when she was so foully 
 poisoned by D'EfGat at the instigation of the Chevalier de 
 Lorraine. The dining-room had been occupied by Peter the 
 Great when he sojourned at the chateau, and it was there that 
 Napoleon I. had taken his meals, assigning armchairs to him- 
 self, the Empress Marie Louise, and Madame Mere, but 
 instructing his majordomo that only ordinary chairs were to be 
 provided for his brothers, the Kings of Spain, Holland, and 
 Westphalia, and his brother-in-law, the King of Naples. 
 Further, there was the salon where the Council of Ministers 
 assembled when the Court of the Second Empire was at St. 
 Cloud. This had been the bedchamber in turn of Marie 
 Antoinette, Josephine, and Marie Louise. 
 
 The apartments of the Imperial Prince were on the ground- 
 floor of the chSteau, under those of his father and mother. 
 Prior to the establishment of the Empire they had been occupied 
 by Miss Howard. On the ground-floor of the wing on the other 
 side of the Cour d'honneur were the quarters of Marshal 
 Vaillant and General Rolin, over which extended the great 
 Gallery of Apollo, so wonderfully and pompously decorated by 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 331 
 
 Mignard, whose mythological and other paintings possessed 
 historical as well as artistic value, since so many of them 
 represented great personages of his period : Louis XIII., 
 Louis XIV., his brother the Duke of Orleans, Anne of Austria, 
 the great Dauphin, the Princess Palatine, the future Regent 
 of Orleans, and many great ladies of the Court. Unhappily 
 all was lost in the conflagration of 1870 — a conflagration 
 which may have been caused by French or by German shells.* 
 All that can be said with absolute certainty is that the 
 Germans appropriated most of the valuable articles saved 
 from the fire — relics of St. Cloud being nowadays scattered 
 over the Fatherland. Already, in 1815, Blucher, who then 
 occupied the chateau, had marked his envy and hatred of its 
 magnificence by tearing the hangings and even the bed linen 
 with his spurs, smashing the mirrors and allowing his pack of 
 hounds the free run of the stateliest apartments. Fortunately 
 the arrival of Wellington to settle the terms of the surrender of 
 Paris prevented further excesses. 
 
 In addition to Queen Victoria, the royalties entertained at 
 St. Cloud during the Second Empire included Victor Emmanuel 
 and Humbert of Italy, Francis King-Consort of Spain, and 
 Maximilian of Bavaria, son of the lover of "Lola Montis." 
 Thither, too, came the wife of another Maximilian, the un- 
 fortunate Charlotte of Mexico. A few years previously she 
 and her husband had been guests at the Tuileries, where the 
 latter was prevailed upon to accept the Mexican crown. It has 
 been said that he yielded not only to the persuasions of 
 Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie, but also to those of 
 his wife, whose disposition was ambitious. The youngest and 
 favourite brother of the Emperor Francis Joseph, Maximilian 
 was supreme head of the Austrian navy, and had served his 
 apprenticeship in statecraft as governor of the Italian possessions 
 of Austria. But his wife, Charlotte, the youngest child of 
 Leopold I. of Belgium by Louise of Orleans, had desires above 
 a position which, however high and honourable, was neverthe- 
 less a subordinate one. She, then, it appears, yielded the more 
 
 * The destruction of the palace, in October, 1870, has been yarionsly 
 ascribed to the fire of the German artillery on adjacent heights, to a French 
 shell from Mont Valerian, and to one from the French gunboat the Farcy. 
 
332 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 readily to the temptations of the French Court, and helped to 
 prevail upon her husband to embark on that disastrous Mexican 
 adventure. They were both quite young at the time, he not 
 more than one and thirty, tall, slim, aristocratic, with a fair 
 flowing beard, she only three and twenty, but accomplished, 
 speaking five languages, with a tall, well-proportioned figure, a 
 distinguished if somewhat stiff bearing, a round face, a bright 
 complexion, and large, dark, beaded eyes. 
 
 In April, 1866, the Moniteur announced the approaching 
 withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico. They were to 
 quit the country at intervals, in detachments, and though it was 
 asserted by French imperialists that Maximilian's position was 
 such that he would easily maintain himself on the throne, he 
 was in reality overwhelmed by Napoleon's decision to abandon 
 him. The Empress Charlotte hastened to France, and reaching 
 Paris early in August repaired to the Grand Hotel, whence she 
 wrote to Napoleon asking him to receive her. Court carriages 
 and a sovereign's escort of cuirassiers were despatched to convey 
 her to St. Cloud, where the Emperor and Empress awaited her 
 at the entrance of the chateau. The scene was a moving one. 
 The countenance of the Empress Charlotte proclaimed her 
 agitation, her anxiety, the many trials and sufferings through 
 which she had passed. Napoleon and his consort were likewise 
 stirred. Their consciences may well have reproached them, for 
 it was they who had sent that unhappy woman and her husband 
 on that wild adventure across the Atlantic, and now the great 
 enterprise was fast collapsing, and Charlotte, who had quitted 
 France radiant with joyful ambition, had returned haggard, 
 careworn, and despairing. There was a long interview in the 
 private rooms of the Empress Eugenie. For two hours the 
 Empress Charlotte pleaded her husband's cause, beseeching 
 Napoleon not to abandon him. But in vain. Confronted by 
 the threats of the United States, the Emperor dared not 
 prolong the French occupation beyond the dates agreed upon. 
 
 A strange incident marked the interview. The Empress 
 Charlotte was accompanied by two Mexican ladies-in-waiting, 
 to whom Mme. Carette, the Empress Eugenie's lady, offered 
 some refreshment. Thereupon one of them particularly 
 requested her to send some orangeade to the Empress Chailotte, 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 
 
 and orders to that efifect were given to a maitre (Thotel. But 
 the Empress Eugenie expressed great surprise at the arrival 
 of this orangeade in the midst of such an important discussion, 
 and inquired who had ordered it to be sent. The man explained 
 that he had brought it by Mrae. Carette's instructions, and the 
 Empress Eugenie thereupon offered the beverage to the Empress 
 Charlotte, who, however, only accepted it after a good deal of 
 insistence.* The interview then proceeded, and Maximilian's 
 consort renewed her entreaties. But Napoleon could only 
 tender advice, which was that, if Maximilian's position was such 
 as the Empress Charlotte depicted it, he had better return 
 to Europe with the French troops. Napoleon repeated that 
 advice on the morrow, when he visited the Empress Charlotte 
 at the Grand Hotel. But if Maximilian had originally hesitated 
 to embark on the enterprise, he was now unwilling to abandon 
 it. A genuine Hapsburg, with all the obstinate pride of his 
 race, he held that his honour was involved in the task to which 
 he had put his hand. Nor did the idea of relinquishment 
 appeal to the Empress Charlotte, for it meant the downfall of 
 her hopes, the wrecking of her ambition. She resolved to apply 
 to the Emperor of Austria for help, and enlist the influence of 
 her brother, the King of the Belgians.^ Under the adverse 
 blows of fate, however, her reason was already tottering. Before 
 she quitted Paris she already complained of violent pains in the 
 head, of feverishness and agitation, which she could not subdue, 
 and for which she could not account until the idea suddenly 
 seized upon her that she had been poisoned — poisoned by the 
 orangeade which had been given her at St. Cloud ! Napoleon, 
 bent on abandoning her husband, and wishing to get rid of her 
 importunities, stifle her protests and complaints, had tendered 
 her a poisoned cup by which he had hoped to silence her for 
 ever! 
 
 It was, of course, mere delusion. The Emperor, whatever 
 may be thought of him, was no Borgia, and the fancies of the 
 
 • The story will be found related in detail in the first part of Mme. Carette'a 
 " Souvenirs intimes." 
 
 t Leopold I. had died in December, 1865. Mme. Carette, who often errs in 
 her " history," and can only be followed in matters which came under her 
 immediate observation, writes as though the Empress Charlotte's father had 
 been still alive in the autumn of 1866. 
 
3S4> THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Empress Charlotte would merely have been amusing had they 
 not ended so tragically. She went on her desperate pilgrimage. 
 She appealed to both her brother and her brother-in-law, but 
 they could only repeat the advice of the Emperor of the French : 
 Maximilian must quit Mexico. At last the Empress Charlotte 
 turned to the Bope as to a supreme resource. She felt that it 
 was in the Pontiff's power both to influence the Catholic 
 sovereigns of Europe in her favour, and, in the name of religion, 
 to exact of the Mexicans themselves submission to her husband's 
 rule. She repaired, then, to Rome, and it was there that her 
 reason finally gave way. In a dramatic interview at the Vatican 
 she threw herself at the feet of Bius IX., beseeching him to 
 shield her, imploring him to lodge her in his palace, the only 
 place, she said, where she would be safe from the poisoners who 
 pursued her. Her mind was gone. 
 
 It does not appear that she ever became violently insane. 
 The state in which she at first remained was one of profound 
 mental dejection, induced by her anxieties and disappointments. 
 She had put her trust in princes and the sons of men, and 
 the result was too hard for her to bear. At first, the doctors 
 did not despair of a cure. They advised, by way of remedy, a 
 total change of scene, and Como was suggested as a residence. 
 The unfortunate woman was, in the first instance, removed from 
 Rome to Vienna, and was still there in 1867 when the news 
 arrived that her husband had become a prisoner of the Mexican 
 Republicans. Her intellect had then grown weaker, but, as in 
 the earlier stages of her aberration, there were yet some occa- 
 sional brief intervals of sanity, though it may be taken, broadly, 
 that the idea that she was threatened by poisoners had become 
 a fixed one. She spent many hours in writing her husband 
 letters, which were brimful of affection, but which, it seems, 
 were never forwarded — indeed, it soon became impossible to do 
 so. We cannot say if there is any truth in the story that a 
 rumour of the Empress Charlotte's death reached Mexico before 
 Maximilian's execution, and that he, on hearing it, exclaimed : 
 " It is better thus, she will not know my fate ; " but it is certain 
 that when the news of the execution at Queretaro arrived in 
 Europe, the doctors attending the Empress Charlotte thought 
 that the tragedy might lead to the cure of their patient. They 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 335 
 
 were of opinion that, in addition to a return to the scenes of 
 youth, a sudden shock — such as the tidings of her husband's 
 death might give her — would greatly help to restore her reason. 
 Those hopes were disappointed. The subject was broached one 
 day during a brief lucid interval, the Empress being told that 
 her husband was in peril and might lose his life. " Better that 
 than his honour," she replied, and before the whole truth could 
 be brought home to her she had relapsed into her usual con- 
 dition. It does not appear that she has ever known, ever been 
 really conscious of her husband's fate. The return to youthful 
 scenes failed like other suggested remedies. For long years 
 now the unfortunate Princess has lived in Belgium, chiefly, 
 we believe, at the Boushout palace, where she has often been 
 visited by her brother the King, and her niece, the Princess 
 Clementine. Now and then, as in earlier years, the mental 
 gloom has seemed to lift, and she has spoken rationally enough 
 on one or another subject. But the veil has suddenly fallen 
 again, and she has failed to recognize those about her. Of 
 Mexico she appears to retain no recollection, never mentioning 
 it even in lucid moments. Only one thought seems to survive 
 in her mind — the obligation to worship God. Every day she 
 prays in the chapel of the palace, repeating her rosary aloud 
 — consciously or unconsciously, we cannot say. For some 
 forty years has the unhappy lady endured this dreadful living 
 death. 
 
 The fates of Maximilian and Charlotte constitute one of the 
 crimes of the Empire, which nothing can wash away. Whatever 
 may have been the former's arbitrary decrees, whatever the 
 latter's young ambition, it must not be forgotten that these 
 two would never have gone to Mexico had it not been for the 
 blandishments and persuasion brought to bear on them, the 
 temptations and promises held out to them at that palace — that 
 fatal palace, we repeat it — of the Tuileries. 
 
 At the time of the Empress Charlotte's visit to St Cloud, 
 Napoleon III. was in very bad health, owing to the progress 
 already made by the complaint which led to his death in 1873. 
 The English doctors were then of opinion that the affection 
 had originated some eight or ten years previously, and a private 
 letter written by M. Rouher (who was in a position to know a 
 
836 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 great deal) confirms that view, it being stated therein that the 
 first characteristic symptoms showed themselves in 1863. In 
 the following year while the Emperor was in Switzerland there 
 came a very bad attack, attended by hematuria. His doctors 
 thereupon ordered complete rest, and after a delay of some 
 three weeks he was able to return to France. A short time 
 previously a severe accident had befallen some members of the 
 imperial party, notably Princess Anna Murat and Mme. Carette, 
 and the prolongation of the Emperor's sojourn in Switzerland 
 was generally, though wrongly, attributed at that time to his 
 solicitude for those ladies. 
 
 During the ensuing summer (1865) while Napoleon was at 
 the camp of Chalons he sent one morning for his medical 
 attendant, Baron Larrey, to whom he made certain communi- 
 cations. " The symptoms, as fully explained by himself," wrote 
 Baron Larrey twenty-one years afterwards,* " were for me, as 
 they would have been for any other surgeon, conclusive 
 symptoms of calculus in the vesica." The Baron accordingly 
 begged the Emperor to submit to proper examination, but he 
 would not consent, indeed he strictly enjoined on the doctor 
 that he should say nothing on the subject to anybody what- 
 ever. In the following year there was a repetition of the 
 same symptoms, and various doctors were consulted by the 
 Emperor, but Larrey was not among them, nor was he included 
 in subsequent consultations. 
 
 Napoleon did not put much faith either in the medical art 
 or in those who practised it. On various occasions, instead of 
 applying to any of the eminent men included in his service 
 midical, he consulted any staff-doctor who happened to be on 
 duty at the Tuileries. The latter often ascribed serious 
 symptoms to a mere passing indisposition, and prescribed some 
 simple palliative remedy. Moreover, several of the better men 
 differed respecting the nature of the Emperor's complaint, some 
 opining that it was vesical catarrh and others diagnosing gouty 
 symptoms ; which conflict of views tended to increase the 
 Emperor's scepticism respecting medical science. 
 
 He was of a lymphatic nature, and anaemia had been induced 
 by his long imprisonment at Ham, resulting in cutaneous and 
 • Letter addressed to Le Figaro, on February 8, 1886, 
 
THE EMPEROR'S ILLNESS 337 
 
 muscular hyperaesthesia, which became most marked under the 
 influence of cold, when also great sensibility, as manifested by 
 shooting pains, sometimes appeared in the extremities. An 
 hemorrhoidal complaint, which had also been induced by the 
 confinement at Ham, had increased the anaemia, which, accord- 
 ing to the Emperor's subsequent admissions, had sometimes led 
 to fainting fits ; but virtually the only trace of it left in the 
 last year of the reign was the hyperaesthesia we have mentioned. 
 There were no symptoms of rheumatism (as some had diagnosed) 
 at all. If the hyperaesthesia had been due to rheumatic causes 
 and not to anaemia, there would have been heart complaint, but 
 there was none. Further, the few gouty symptoms which had 
 shown themselves were in no wise of a rheumatic nature ; but 
 vesical lesion existed. All other organs were regarded as sound.* 
 From the presence of calculus it would seem that the treatment 
 prescribed for the Emperor throughout a period of many years 
 was altogether wrong. The first spa selected for him by his 
 medical advisers was Plombi^res in the Vosges, whose waters 
 may not have done him any particular harm, and may even 
 have been beneficial with respect to passing affections, but a 
 terrible blunder was committed when he was sent to Vichy 
 in the Bourbonnais. This first occurred, we believe, in July, 
 1861, while his complaint was in an incipient state, and Vichy 
 becoming his usual place of resort for treatment, pernicious 
 consequences ensued. The effect indeed of the Vichy waters 
 was to increase the volume of the calculus.f 
 
 In 1865, when the true character of his sjTnptoms was 
 secretly revealed to Baron Larrey, the Emperor paid a visit to 
 Algeria. There were good political reasons for the journey, 
 but, according to some accounts, it was really undertaken by 
 medical advice, it being thought that the sufferer might benefit 
 by a sojourn in a warm climate. It is pointed out that the 
 situation was then evidently regarded as serious by some of the 
 doctors, for, although the Emperor did not quit French 
 territory, he invested the Empress with the powers of Regent, 
 and also made his will before quitting St. Cloud. But there 
 
 * The above account is abbreviated from the report of the famous medical 
 consultation on the eve of the Franco-German War, 
 t Dr. Constantin James. 
 
 z 
 
838 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 are some other points to be considered, such as the Marguerite 
 Bellanger affair, the intervention of President Devienne, the 
 estrangement between Napoleon and his consort, and the neces- 
 sity of effecting a reconciliation, in which respect the regency, 
 the will, and the Algerian journey may all have been helpful. 
 In the following year, however, the Emperor's symptoms were 
 certainly severe. Mental anxiety always reacts on such com- 
 plaints as his, and there can be no doubt that his health at the 
 time — it was the year of the war between Prussia and Austria — 
 greatly influenced his foreign policy, inclining him the more to 
 accept the suggestions of those who advised negotiation with 
 Prussia rather than armed intervention. Eager for treatment 
 after great worries of State, which were not yet ended, he 
 repaired to Vichy on July 27, that is about three weeks after 
 the battle of Koniggratz, attended by his Chef-de-cabinet, 
 Conti, and speedily followed by his Foreign Minister, Drouyn 
 de Lhuys. But the arrival of the Empress Charlotte in France 
 necessitated his prompt return to St. Cloud. Somewhat later 
 his complaint gave much trouble, and alarming rumours led to 
 a fall in the funds. But in the latter part of October he 
 was restored to average good health, making excursions in the 
 environs of Paris, experimenting with the Chassepot rifle, and 
 shooting over the coverts at St. Cloud. 
 
 In 1867 he went to Vichy again, and this time the ill effects 
 of the waters became so marked, the hematuria re-appearing, 
 that the treatment was stopped. In the following year he did 
 not visit Vichy, but reverted to Plombieres, hoping, perhaps, to 
 obtain relief from the waters there. It seems as if his doctors 
 hardly knew what course to suggest. That, in addition to 
 being sceptical in medical matters, he was also a very reticent 
 man is well known. Although, in a sudden moment of anxiety, 
 he had confided everything to Larrey, it does not follow that 
 he acted likewise with other medical advisers. We at least 
 know that until his stay at Vichy in 1867 he submitted to no 
 examination at all, and the discord among the doctors and the 
 erroneous early treatment may have been due in some degree to 
 his own lack of outspoken confidence. In any case, his complaint 
 was not checked, but grew more serious each year. In August, 
 1869, he became so ill that he had to keep his room, and in 
 
THE EMPEROR'S ILLNESS 339 
 
 spite of all precautions ominous rumours again spread through 
 Peiris. The old story of rheumatism which had so often done 
 duty already, was thereupon repeated in order to allay public 
 apprehension, the Journal Officiel stating, on August 18: 
 " Alarming reports respecting the Emperor's health have been 
 circulated. Those reports are incorrect. His Majesty's rheu- 
 matic pains are subsiding." But people with any acumen were 
 not deceived. It was known that Dr. Ricord had been sum- 
 moned, and the mere name of that renowned specialist indicated 
 that the Emperor's complaint, whatever might be exactly its 
 nature, came within the range of the cases which Ricord 
 treated. Moreover, on the same day as the official note 
 appeared, the Independance Beige published a telegram from 
 Paris stating that the Emperor's health was impi-oving, favour- 
 able results having attended the employment of an instrument * 
 which was named. Henri Rochefort immediately pointed out 
 in Le Rappel that this news amply proved that the Emperor's 
 complaint could not be rheumatism. As a matter of fact, 
 though some persons, such as Prince Napoleon, Marshal 
 Lebceuf, and even General Lebrun, subsequently declared that 
 they were ignorant of the truth until the early stages of the 
 war of 1870, the secret of the Emperor's condition was already, 
 in 1869, tending to become a " secret de PolichineUe " in 
 various Parisian circles. 
 
 Respecting the social side of the visits which the Emperor, in 
 his desire for cure, paid annually to Plombieres or Vichy there is 
 not much to be said. Both at the spa commended by Montaigne, 
 and that celebrated by Mme. de Sevign^, his patronage led to a 
 great influx of fashionable folk aud money ; and the State, the 
 municipalities, and the water companies spent large sums on 
 the improvement of both the baths and the towns. TTie 
 Emperor's retinue was usually very small as the Empress did 
 not accompany him on those trips.f He was often pursued by 
 urgent State business. The famous conference with Count 
 Cavour on Italian affairs took place, it will be remembered, at 
 
 • We know from the diagnosis of July, 1870, that the same course had 
 become necessary at Vichy in 1867. 
 
 t One year, when suffering from a stomaohio complaint, she repaired to 
 the spa of Schwalbaoh, in Nassau, where she was extremely well received by 
 the inhabitants. 
 
340 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Plombiferes in 1858. There were also official receptions which 
 the Emperor could not escape. For the rest he led a very 
 simple life, drinking the waters, making excursions in the 
 surrounding country, and occasionally attending a concert or 
 theatrical performance at a casino. Sometimes he patronized 
 a neighbouring village fete, and the good-natured familiarity 
 with which he then mixed with the peasants won him many a 
 staunch adherent in those parts of France. 
 
 One evening, on turning up at a village dance near Vichy, 
 he singled out a good-looking girl and asked her to be his 
 partner. It was by no means the first time he had done such a 
 thing, but it aroused all the customary enthusiasm. While the 
 dance proceeded, however, an old peasant among the onlookers 
 remarked to the orderly in mufti, who was in attendance on the 
 Emperor : " Think of that, now ! Do you see how pleased 
 Marie Boilon looks at having the Emperor for her partner .J* 
 She's my niece, you know." " Ah ! " said the officer, " she 
 certainly does look pleased, as you say." " Yes," continued the 
 old man, " she won't forget it, not if she lives for a hundred 
 years. Voyez vous, monsieur, I'm getting old, and I've seen a 
 few things in my time. We had Charles X., he was the King 
 of the Nobility. Then we had Louis Philippe, he was the 
 King of the Bourgeois ; but Napoleon — ^you can't say the 
 contrary — he's the Emperor of the Peasants ! " Marie Boilon's 
 uncle was right. He had briefly summed up the history of France 
 for a period of half a century, and there is no gainsaying the 
 fact that the peasantry constituted the backbone of the Empire. 
 Another element of the nation with which the Emperor 
 strove to ingratiate himself was the army, not merely the officers 
 but the ranks also ; and, on the whole, he succeeded in this 
 respect until that fateful year 1870, when, after the Plebiscitum 
 had revealed the presence of a certain contingent of malcon- 
 tents in the forces, the advent of war a little later introduced 
 with the Mobile Guard a yet stronger Republican element, 
 impatient of discipline, into their midst, while the early 
 disastrous reverses capped everything by destroying confidence 
 in the military capacity of the Emperor and his Marshals. 
 For years, however, Napoleon made much of his soldiers. If he 
 sent them to die amid the snow and ice of the Crimea, among 
 
THE CAMP OF CHALONS 341 
 
 the maize fields of Lombardy, or under the fierce sun of Mexico, 
 he petted them in France; and in time of peace, during his 
 more vigorous years, he interested himself in the question of 
 their creature-comforts with as much zealous assiduity as the 
 Duke of Cambridge displayed in England. 
 
 The Camp of Chalons was a great institution of the reign. 
 It dated from 1857, when the earlier Camp of Boulogne was 
 raised. It seems certain that the change was brought about by 
 considerations of policy. An entente cordiale existing with 
 Great Britain, the continuance of a great camp on the Channel 
 coast might well seem offensive to that power. But apart from 
 any regard for British feeling, the transference of the army's 
 chief training camp from the west to the east of France, was 
 dictated, we think, even at so early a date as 1857, by the 
 Emperor's aspirations to restore to France what was deemed to 
 be her legitimate frontier on the Rhine. The opportunity for 
 an effort of that kind, lost in 1864 and again in 1866, presented 
 itself once more, though under different and more difficult 
 circumstances, in 1870 — with what results we know. Yet for 
 thirteen years the Camp of Chalons had existed with a view 
 to facilitating the invasion of Germany. Its creation testified 
 to foresight as well as ambition on the Emperor's part. If, 
 instead of invading, he should be invaded, that camp and its 
 organization might render good service. But, again, it all 
 ended as we know. 
 
 The camp was established on a great heath-like expanse 
 lying several miles north of Chalons, and limited by rivers on 
 the south-west and north-east. The front line was about 
 eight miles long, the area available for encampments, ranges, 
 and manoeuvring being about 30,000 acres. Water was 
 abundant, thanks to the boring of wells, the proximity of the 
 two rivers we have mentioned, and the existence of a streamlet 
 called the Cheneu which intersected the camp for some distance, 
 the cavalry and infantry quarters being located on one side of 
 that streamlet, while the ju-tillery, the service corps, the adminis- 
 trative departments, the magazines, slaughter-houses, bake- 
 houses, etc., were on the other. Each division had its hospital, 
 and a tramway ran through the entire camp, which was 
 illumined at night by four large lighthouses. Wooden buildings 
 
842 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 were provided for some of the troops, while others slept under 
 canvas. On some rising ground near a fine old Roman road by 
 which the camp was also crossed, various pavilions and chalets 
 were erected for the headquarters of the marshal or general in 
 command and the accommodation of the Emperor and his suite 
 when he visited the camp. There was also a small dairy farm 
 near this spot, in addition to seven other farms which Napoleon, 
 with a view to utilizing all the manure yielded by the camp, 
 established around it on land which had been lying waste for 
 centuries. For that he must be commended. Those farms, 
 managed on the best principles and extending over some 
 6000 acres, were so many practical schools of agriculture, and 
 exercised no little influence on agricultural methods in that part 
 of France. For some years there was little return for the money 
 expended on them, but by 1867 they were paying ten per cent, 
 on the capital invested. 
 
 During June, July, and August, as many as 60,000 men 
 were sometimes assembled at the Camp of Chalons, but the 
 average number was then about 40,000, falling to a quarter 
 or a fifth of that figure at other seasons of the year. The 
 Emperor's visit usually took place during the first fortnight 
 in August. Many foreign royalties and generals were present 
 at one or another time. The Empress was also an occasional 
 visitor, and from I860 onward the young Imperial Prince came 
 from Paris to witness the manoeuvres and reviews. His first 
 visit, at the date we have mentioned, when he was little more 
 than four years old and rode a diminutive Shetland pony called 
 Balmoral, the gift of Queen Victoria, aroused delirious enthu- 
 siasm among the soldiers. The routine of camp-life was as 
 follows: On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, manoeuvres 
 by part or all of the forces ; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and 
 Saturdays, artillery practice from dawn until 11 a.m., then 
 infantry practice until nightfall. It was at Chalons that De 
 Reffye's mitrailleuses were first tested on any considerable scale 
 and that the famous Chassepot rifle inspired those great 
 expectations which were in a considerable measure fulfilled 
 the first time the weapon was used in action — against the 
 Garibaldians at Mentana. 
 
 Napoleon was always keenly interested in the gun and rifle 
 
THE CAMP OF CHALONS 343 
 
 practice. The greater part of his time at Chalons was given 
 to noting its results. Even in the final years of his reign he 
 showed no little activity when he was at the camp, an activity 
 simply marvellous when one remembers his complaint. On 
 horseback, when he had once really sat down and taken his 
 charger. Hero, by the head, he still made the pace very strong, 
 too strong, indeed, for some of the generals. There can be 
 little doubt that he often punished himself severely. But he 
 was a man of great physical courage. All imputations of 
 cowardice cast at him in former years, should be unreservedly 
 withdrawn, they are unworthy of figuring in the pages of 
 history. The saying " to grin and bear it" expresses, in our 
 opinion, his line of conduct with reference to his malady. In 
 a mistaken way, he sacrificed himself to the regime he had 
 founded. All the concealment so long practised respecting his 
 illness was inspired by solicitude for the Empire. Nobody 
 was to know the truth lest the regime should totter under the 
 revelation, and its adversaries be inspirited to yet greater efforts 
 against it. Yet it would have been better for the Empire, as 
 well as for the Emperor himself, if he had submitted to proper 
 treatment when he was first urged to do so by Baron Larrey. 
 The course of the disease might then have been arrested, and 
 France might have retained a still vigorous instead of a more 
 and more valetudinarian monarch. But there was Prussia, 
 there was the succession to the throne, there wei-e so many 
 interests to be considered. And no, no, there must be no 
 revelation, no risk of operation, he must jog on as best he 
 could, even supposing that Larrey were right — which, judging 
 by what other doctors said, was by no means certain. 
 
 Napoleon mixed freely with his soldiers during his stay at 
 the Camp of Chalons. Often, while he was strolling about in 
 undress uniform, he would ask Corporal Lagloire for a light, or 
 exchange a few words with Drummer Rataplan and offer him a 
 cigarette. He frequently dined in the open air, and afterwards 
 sat over a camp fire, smoking and partaking of coffee. The men 
 on their side got up entertainments to amuse the imperial 
 party in the evening. The Zouaves could always be relied 
 upon to improvise some laughable show. They "played at 
 Arabs" in a manner which vastly diverted the Duke of 
 
344 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Cambridge on one of his visits to the camp. One Zouave 
 would climb on another's shoulders, and the pair, after being 
 robed by their comrades as if forming but a single individual, 
 appeared before the company in the guise of a truly gigantic 
 Bedouin. Again, in some mysterious fashion, two or three men 
 combined together so as to form a very realistic camel, their 
 grey blankets simulating the hide of the animal, on whose 
 hump another Zouave, robed in sheeting, presently perched 
 himself, gazing around with all the dignity of a genuine desert 
 sheik. There was also the Arab wedding, when the young 
 bride, impersonated by some bearded Zouave, swathed from 
 head to foot, sat on the ground attended by matrons, who 
 sang the praises of her many virtues, while some scores of com- 
 rades, draped in sheeting and blankets, danced around to wild, 
 discordant music. 
 
 There were many other entertainments and amusements 
 for the soldiers — skittle alleys, jugglers' booths, a theatre, and 
 a cafe-concert where professional talent was displayed, while 
 some crazy billiard-tables were to be found in the adjacent 
 village of Mourmelan-le-Grand. Again, strips of land for 
 gardens were allotted to different regiments, and many men 
 spent their spare time in raising lettuces and radishes, the 
 Zouaves further adorning their plots with flowers and young 
 fir trees. They of course were a genre a part, but one was 
 struck, particularly in the camp's earlier years, by the similarity 
 of many of the uniforms of the Second Empire with those of 
 the First. The Grenadiers of the Guard, with their huge 
 busbies of an old-fashioned type, their bronzed cheeks and big 
 moustaches, particularly suggested the vieucc de la vieille of 
 1812 and 1813. They more than once sat to Horace Vernet 
 and Meissonier as models. Unluckily few of those men were left 
 in 1870. 
 
 High Mass on Sunday mornings, particularly during the 
 Emperor's stay at the camp, was an impressive if somewhat 
 theatrical spectacle. There was a chapel on the ground, but 
 Sunday Mass was celebrated at an altar on a lofty staging, 
 around which the troops assembled in full uniform and under 
 arms, the cavalry, however, being on foot. Thousands of 
 people came from neighbouring towns and villages to see the 
 
THE MARSHALS OF FRANCE 345 
 
 sight. Sometimes the chief Army-Chaplain, sometimes the 
 Bishop of Nancy, and on special occasions, like the Fete Napoleon, 
 the Cardinal Archbishop of Refms, officiated. The Emperor 
 stood just below the staging, surrounded by marshals and 
 generals and attended by Cent-Gardes, The Domine salvumfac 
 Imperatorem and the Te Deum were accompanied by massed 
 military bands, but the supreme moment of the ceremony was 
 that of the elevation of the Host. As the officiant turned and 
 raised the glittering monstrance towards the broad blue heavens 
 each soldier fell on one knee, presenting arms or saluting with 
 the sword, and at the same moment the colours were lowered, 
 the drums beat, and the field-pieces roared in unison. 
 
 But, as we previously indicated, life at the camp of Chalons 
 was not all amusement and pageantry. The reviews, retraites 
 auxflambeaiuc, and other solemnities and diversions which marked 
 the Emperor's visits came as interludes amid the more serious 
 work. We cannot here enter in detail into the question why 
 that work did not prove more successful when put to the test, but 
 the chief cause seems to have been lack of real military genius 
 among those to whom the charge of the French army was 
 committed. The Empire was unfortunate in its Ministers of 
 War. Marshal St. Arnaud died prematurely in the Crimea, 
 Marshal Niel was carried off by the same complaint as Napoleon's, 
 leaving his efforts at reorganization unfinished.* One who, had 
 he been trusted, might, perhaps, have proved an eflicient War 
 Minister, Marshal Bosquet, also died early. 
 
 We have previously said something of those commanders 
 and a few others, and it is, perhaps, appropriate to add some 
 particulars respecting their colleagues in the Marechalat of the 
 second Napoleonic era. The first, we think, counted three and 
 twenty Marshals of France, in the second we find as many as 
 nineteen,t some of whom, as already indicated, were cut off 
 prematurely or died in the Empire's early years. In that respect, 
 
 * By great misfortime an mstroment broke during one o£ Nelaton's 
 operations on Marshal Niel, and the pieces could not be extracted. Napoleon 
 heard of this, and shrank the more from the risk of an operation, not from 
 cowardice, but on account of the great issues at stake. 
 
 t We include in that number all who were created Marshals by Napoleon 
 UL, either as President or as Emperor. 
 
346 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Excelmans, Ornano and Harispe may be added to Bosquet, 
 Niel, and St. Arnaud. Further, Jerome Bonaparte was past all 
 service at the time of his promotion. Then Vaillant, after 
 acting as War Minister during the Crimean campaign, confined 
 himself to his position at the head of the Emperor's Household. 
 There remain eleven to be mentioned. First, there was the one- 
 armed veteran Baraguey d'Hilliers, born in 1795, who took 
 Bomarsund in 1854, defeated the Austrians in 1859, and returned 
 to active service — though not to command in the field — in 1870 
 when he was seventy-five years of age. He was a soldier of the 
 old-fashioned type, capable in his way. Next may be mentioned 
 Castellane, Baraguey's senior by eight years, a good soldier in 
 his younger days but employed by the Empire, if we remember 
 rightly, only on home service, mainly as Governor of Lyons. 
 Then there was Magnan, Governor of Paris, whose chief military 
 exploit, as previously narrated, was the Coup d'Etat and who 
 was removed from the scene in 1865. On the other hand, 
 Regnault de St. Jeaa d'Angely showed some capacity during 
 the Italian war of 1859 and commanded the Imperial Guard 
 until his death early in 1870, when he was succeeded in that 
 post by General Bourbaki. 
 
 A more important man was Marshal Randon, who also died 
 in 1870. He had been War Minister for a while in 1851, and 
 again held that office from 1859 to 1867, during which period 
 his authority proved disastrous for the army, for as ex-Governor 
 of Algeria he was an apostle as well as a pupil of that Algerian 
 school of warfare which, as a school for hostilities against 
 European forces, was the worst that could have been found. 
 Randon was also very neglectful in his departmental duties, 
 and much that happened in 1870 may be directly traced back 
 to him. If he retained his position so long, it was, perhaps, 
 because as an " elegant Minister," renowned for his entertain- 
 ments, he was supported by so much Court influence. 
 
 He had been succeeded in Algeria by Marshal Pelissier, the 
 " conqueror of Sebastopol," a plump, stumpy little man, with 
 dark eyes, black moustache, and white hair, in whom the 
 military ability and confidence of an old soudard were united 
 with the worst characteristics of the Norman peasantry, from 
 whose ranks he had sprung. Entering the Artillery of Louis 
 
THK MAKSHALS O*' FKANCii 347 
 
 XVIII.'s Guard in 1815, just before Napoleon's return from 
 Elba, P^lissier had seen active service in Spain under the Duke 
 d'Angouleme, then in Morea, and next in Algeria, where he 
 achieved European notoriety by " smoking " some five hundred 
 Arab fugitives in their caves. In 1855 he took over the 
 Crimean command from Canrobert, and reduced Sebastopol, for 
 which achievement he was rewarded with the rank of Marshal 
 of France, the title of Duke of Malakoff, a senatorship, and the 
 Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 Thereby hangs a tale. Pelissier, as we have said, had some 
 peasant characteristics, and among them were greed and par- 
 simony. Still there was justification for the attitude he 
 assumed when he was called upon to pay the various fees of 
 investiture connected with the dignities conferred on him. 
 Those fees amounted to about ^£'400, and the usual application 
 was made to the Marshal. " What ! " he angrily exclaimed ; 
 " I took Sebastopol for you, and you want me to pay for doing 
 so ! Tonnerre de Dieu, you won't get a sou from me ! " The 
 matter was reported to the Emperor, who laughed good- 
 naturedly, put his hand in his pocket, and paid the fees himself. 
 On the whole, although Pelissier's rewards meant a large 
 increase of emoluments, one can understand his irritation. 
 National services, so different from services to a political party, 
 ought always to be rewarded " free of charge." 
 
 Unfortunately, Pelissier did not merely tighten his purse- 
 strings under justifiable circumstances. He was invariably 
 niggardly and grasping. His Christian name, Aimable, was the 
 very antithesis of his snappish, cantankerous disposition. The 
 vulgarity of his speech and the ribald coarseness of his jests 
 were a perpetual shock to people of culture and decency. 
 Nevertheless, thanks to the interposition of the Empress 
 Eugenie, he contrived to marry a bewitching Andalucian 
 beauty, the Sefiorita Sophia de la Paniega, of Granada,* who 
 survived him for severed years, after leading a by no means 
 happy life in her matrimonial bonds. Although Pelissier had 
 no courtly or diplomatic qualifications — being but a rough 
 soldier, brave undoubtedly, intelligent also in his profession 
 (yet achieving pre-eminence in the Crimea chiefly by reason of 
 
 • Her father was an impoverished Marquis. At the time of the marriage 
 In 1858 she was 26 years old, Pelissier being 88 years her senior. 
 
348 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the marked mediocrity of the men around him) — he was sent, 
 after the Orsini affair, to replace Persigny as French ambassador 
 in London. The British Government, mindful of Pelissier's 
 Crimean record, could not object to the appointment, but it 
 was one for which the Marshal was in no way fit. Later, as we 
 have said, he went to Algeria, where his administration proved 
 galling, predatory, and brutal, engendering rising after rising 
 among the natives. The Marshal's chief aim seemed to be the 
 augmentation of his fortune, and as his subordinates followed his 
 example, the native population was despoiled in so scandalous a 
 manner that the home government had to intervene to ensure 
 to the Arabs the possession of their remaining lands. Never- 
 theless, insurrection spread, and was only being reduced after 
 great efforts on the part of the French, when in May, 1864, 
 P61issier died suddenly at Algiers. He was succeeded by 
 MacMahon, who soon re-established order in the colony, its 
 pacification being confirmed by the Emperor's visit in the 
 following year. 
 
 MacMahon was a born gentleman, and contrasted strongly 
 with Pelissier. In his earlier years he had seen considerable 
 service in Algeria ; then, removed to the Crimea, he had carried, 
 as we all remember, the Malakoff works of Sebastopol. Later, 
 in Italy, his share of the victory of Magenta, had procured him 
 both a Marshal's baton and the title of Duke. His abilities 
 were not of the highest order, but he was a good divisional 
 general, and as an administrator he at least managed to keep 
 Algeria quiet during his command there. How, in 1870, he 
 led his army to Sedan, how he was wounded there, will be 
 readily recalled. How far, in later years, as President of the 
 Republic, he became a consenting party to the schemes to 
 restore a monarchy in France, cannot as yet be fully determined. 
 Claiming descent from an ancient and noble Irish sept, he was 
 an aristocrat by inclination, confirmed, too, in such sympathies 
 by his marriage with a lady of high birth, whose influence over 
 him was considerable. His rule in Algeria, which was almost 
 absolute, his experience in command of the army which subdued 
 the Commune of Paris, and thereby prevented the disruption 
 of France, had made him an authoritarian, opposed to popular 
 clamour and ascendency. At the same time, he had less personal 
 
THE MARSHALS OF FRANCE 349 
 
 ambition and a great deal less unscrupulousness than Bazaine. 
 His hands, too, were clean. If, then, he favoured a monarchical 
 restoration, it was, we think, solely by lawful means. We have 
 great doubts whether General de Rochebouet's scheme for a 
 monarchist Coup d'Etat in the seventies really had MacMahon's 
 assent and support. 
 
 While he was President of the Republic, it was often said 
 that he was deficient in intellect, a mere puppet in the hands 
 of others, unable to make a speech, and addicted to numerous 
 failings. We were on the side against him in those days, 
 holding that he had to give in or go out, even as Gambetta 
 had said. But we never thought him quite the puppet that 
 others asserted. We recognized then, as we do now, that the 
 power of oratory is not given to everybody, and we were 
 quite ready to admit the exaggeration, if not falsity, of other 
 assertions. And now that the political passions stirred up at 
 that period have long since been stilled, nobody, we think, will 
 gainsay the fact that MacMahon had a courtly way, as well as 
 a soldierly bearing. It was delightful to see how he handed 
 Madame la Mar^chale either out of a carriage, or, if they were 
 walking, across a street. It was like a sudden flash of the 
 manners of the old regime, that polished yet easy gallantry of 
 long ago, such as was displayed at the Imperial Court by only 
 two other men, Count Walewski and Prince Jerome. 
 
 The best trait of MacMahon's comrade Canrobert was a 
 consciousness of his limitations. Brave, dashing, like the old 
 Zouave leader he was, always prepared — rrran! — to crush, £is 
 military governor, either the unarmed Lyonnese or Parisians, 
 should they rise against the imperial authority, he shrank with 
 good reason from supreme command in the field. No doubts, 
 however, disturbed the tranquillity of Marshal Leboeuf, who, 
 rising to a supreme position, honestly but foolishly harboured 
 the delusion tiiat France, in 1870, was indeed ready for war. 
 Forey, the first of the Mexican marshals, figxired only a few 
 years upon the scene. By treating the Mexicans as brigands, 
 and at least conniving at the barbarities perpetrated by Colonel 
 Dupin of the Contra-guerilla, he contributed to the fate of 
 Maximilian. In 1870, when the Germans refused to recognize 
 the French Francs-tireurs as troops, the Berlin press was able 
 
350 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 to point out that this was by no means an innovation — a 
 similar course having been followed by the French themselves 
 in Mexico. When Forey was superseded there by Bazaine, he 
 returned very regretfully to France, holding that he had been 
 badly treated. But a year or two later, when the Mexican 
 business collapsed, he was well pleased that he had extricated 
 himself from it at an early date. " It was Bazaine's fault if 
 the new Empire had not found acceptance among the Mexicans. 
 Bazaine was a most incompetent man," said he, forgetting that 
 he had previously lauded him to the skies. 
 
 There was, however, truth in his last assertion. Bazaine, 
 who, like so many others, had been trained in the Algerian 
 school, serving also against Carhst bands in Spain, and com- 
 manding the French contingent against Kinburn in 1855, rose 
 from the ranks to supreme command by a combination of good 
 luck and pushfulness. The gaps in his military knowledge were 
 amazing. He was deficient precisely in what made Moltke 
 pre-eminent, his acquaintance with the real science of war being 
 most limited. It is frequently asserted that an ounce of 
 practice is worth a ton of theory. Bazaine was a living proof 
 that this aphorism is not always borne out by facts. Bonaparte, 
 the greatest captain of the modern era, at least studied at 
 Brienne, but where and how did Bazaine study? Natural 
 aptitude, which Bazaine certainly possessed, requires to be 
 reinforced by knowledge, such as he lacked. Yet, until the 
 autumn of 1870, he always had his partisans, and circumstances 
 served him. While fighting with the Cristinos against the 
 Carlists, he had acquired some knowledge of the Spanish 
 language, and that largely helped to secure him a command 
 in Mexico. Then came his opportunity. We will not say 
 that, on succeeding Forey, he might have firmly established 
 Maximilian on his throne, but it seems clear that he re- 
 peatedly lied in his despatches, and systematically placed his 
 own personal interests above those of France. If the contrary 
 were true, then all the many private letters emanating from 
 officers of the French forces in Mexico, notably those from 
 General Abel Douay and Commander Bressonet — letters which 
 were so often opened and copied for the Imperial Cabinet at the 
 Tuileries — must have been mendacious. In Mexico Bazaine also 
 
THE MARSHALS OF FRANCE 351 
 
 acquired a reputation for rapacity, but, in that respect, the 
 poverty into which he fell during his last years seems to indicate 
 that he never amassed any great amount of money. It was at 
 Maximilian's Court that he contracted his second marriage. 
 His first wife had died under very tragical circumstances, apd, 
 in the summer of 1865, he espoused a young Mexican lady of 
 considerable charm of person, the Senorita Josefa de Pena y 
 Azcarate. In conjunction with a devoted aide-de-camp of the 
 Marshal, it was she who, after his trial for the surrender of 
 Metz, helped him to escape from the He Ste Marguerite. 
 
 Whether Bazaine would have fared at all better than he did 
 with the army under his command in 1870, even if, from the 
 very outset, he had been allowed a free hand instead of being 
 subordinated to the Emperor and the latter's entourage, must 
 remain doubtful ; but, after attending his trial from beginning 
 to end, noting the manner of the witnesses as well as their 
 evidence, and the prisoner's own bearing throughout the pro- 
 ceedings, it has always seemed to us only too clear that, after 
 being shut up in Metz, he listened to the voice of personal 
 ambition. It may be taken, we think, that he neglected the 
 true interests of France for those of the imperial cause, 
 imagining that he would be able to restore the Empire under 
 the young Imperial Prince, whose High Constable and protector 
 he would become. He was a Lorrainer by birth, Metz was 
 almost his native spot, and, however much he secluded himself 
 during those siege-days, he must have ridden more than once 
 across the Place Napoleon and along the Esplanade. Statues 
 of two great soldiers, Lorrainers like himself, rose upon those 
 spots — on the first that of Abraham Fabert, and on the second 
 that of Michel Ney, that is, one who never swerved from his 
 duty, but died honoured by all men, and one who, though brave 
 among the brave, suffered death for having violated his oath. 
 But the lesson of those two statues was unheeded by Bazaine ; 
 and Metz, known until his time as Metz la Pucelle, nunquam 
 polluta, feU, and was lost to France. 
 
 In the last days of 1866, a great council of the Marshals of 
 France, with the Emperor in the chair, assembled at Compiegne, 
 where the Court was then staying. Baraguey d'Hilliers, 
 Canrobert, Forey, MacMahon, Niel, Randon, Regnault, and 
 
852 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Vaillant were present, the only absentee being Bazaine, then 
 in Mexico. Four general officers also attended the gathering, 
 these being Frossard, Montauban (Palikao), Trochu, and 
 LebcEuf, the last named of whom had not yet secured his 
 marshal's baton. It was at this tardy meeting, after all the 
 successes of Prussia, that the re-organization of the French 
 army was first debated. A Committee of Reorganization was 
 afterwards formed, and General Trochu, whom we have just 
 named, was originally a member of it. But his views, which 
 went much further than Niel's, found little or no support, and 
 he was before long excluded de facto from the committee. 
 When, therefore, the scheme which it evolved was declared to 
 have been unanimously arrived at, Trochu, unwilling to let 
 such a statement pass unnoticed, penned his famous pamphlet, 
 " L'Armee Franpaise en 1867," which created so great a sensation 
 in every military circle of Europe, and led, in some matters of 
 detail, to a modification of the plans which Niel was appointed 
 to carry out. 
 
 All those men have now passed away. There are no more 
 Marshals of France left — Canrobert was the last survivor. We 
 are not quite certain, however, whether any of Mesdames les 
 Marechales remain, but early in the eighties there was still 
 quite a company of them, including even the relict of one of 
 the first Napoleon's marshals, the venerable Duchess d'Albufera, 
 who, after wedding Marshal Suchet in 1808, had remained a 
 widow ever since 1826. A daughter of Antoine de St. Joseph, 
 mayor of Marseilles, and therefore a close connection by 
 marriage of Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, she had received 
 from him as a wedding gift the fine mansion adjoining the 
 British Embassy in the Faubourg St. Hondre, in which she 
 resided until her death. During the Second Empire the 
 Duchess frequently figured at the Tuileries, and the enter- 
 tainments at the H6tel d'Albufera were at one time renowned. 
 She bore Suchet two children — a son, who married the daughter 
 of the famous banker Schickler, and who was long a member of 
 the Legislative Body ; and a daughter, who became Countess de 
 la Redorte. Other widowed Marechales, who still figured in 
 Parisian society a score of years ago, were Mesdames Regnault 
 de St. Jean d'Angely and Niel, and the Duchess de Malakoff. 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 353 
 
 Then there were Mme. de MacMahon and the Marechale 
 Canrobert, whose husbands were still alive ; while in seclusion, 
 somewhere in the provinces, Leboeuf and his wife were to be 
 found. 
 
 All those high commanders and their ladies figured from 
 time to time, not only at the Tuileries, St. Cloud, and the 
 camp of Chalons, but at the other places whither the Emperor 
 transported himself. The annual stay at Fontainebleau some- 
 times preceded and sometimes followed the imperial visit to 
 Chalons. In various respects the Court's life at Fontainebleau 
 resembled that which it led at Compiegne later in the year, but 
 the gatherings, which generally coincided with the Fontaine- 
 bleau race meetings, were perhaps rather more " fussy " (if we 
 may be again allowed a vulgarism), and whereas at Compiegne, 
 apart from costumes de chasse, only the furs and cloaks and 
 sombre gowns of winter were to be observed out-of-doors, at 
 Fontainebleau the scene was bright with all the hues of dainty 
 summer toilettes. Unfortunately, the gentlemen were pursued 
 by the etiquette of the time, and in that connection we recall 
 a delightful picture. Imagine the lake near the "English 
 garden" covered with sailing-boats, rowing-boats, punts, and 
 canoes, in most of which sit ladies in leghorn hats and 
 crinolines, while the gentlemen who are rowing, punting, 
 paddling, or hoisting sails, invariably wear the solemn orthodox 
 frockcoats and silk hats of the Boulevard des Italiens. The 
 idea of such a thing nowadays seems too preposterous; but, 
 then, did not Marshal Magnan, soon after he was appointed 
 "Great Huntsman," go shooting at Compiegne in similar 
 attire, with the addition of a white neck-cloth ? And does 
 none of our readers remember the lithographs of the late 
 forties in which English tourists were depicted climbing Mount 
 Vesuvius in frockcoats and "chimney-pots"? Not so many 
 years ago, after the disi-uption of an Alpine glacier, an old 
 English beaver hat, such as must have once figured in the Park 
 and about St. James's, was accidentally discovered by some 
 Savoyard mountaineers. If such headgear might be worn amid 
 the avalanches of tie Alps and around the crater of Vesuvius, 
 it is not surprising that it should have been thought " correct " 
 vvhen you were paddling your own canoe — or, rather, one 
 
 2a 
 
354 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 belonging to the Emperor — on that lake at Fontainebleau. 
 The sight may have been scarcely pleasing to the tri-centenarian 
 carp in the water, but they cannot have wondered at it, for 
 they were biases, having witnessed so many vagaries of fashion 
 since their youthful days under the first Francis ! 
 
 We need give no account of the palace of Fontainebleau. 
 If we wrote at some length about the chateau of St. Cloud, it 
 was because it exists no more, whereas Fontainebleau, happily, 
 may still be seen and admired. Besides having many associa- 
 tions with monarchical times, it recalled to the Imperialists of 
 the Second Empire the downfall of the First, for it had witnessed 
 Napoleon's memorable abdication, and his pathetic farewell to 
 the Old Guard in 1814. In the time of Louis Philippe, who 
 did much to restore the palace, a framed facsimile of that deed 
 of abdication had been hung in the room where the original 
 was drawn up, but it was removed soon after the re-establish- 
 ment of the imperial regime, as Napoleon III. did not wish 
 visitors to be reminded too pointedly that Napoleon I. had 
 "renounced for himself and his successors the throne of 
 France." The chief work accomplished by the Second Empire 
 at Fontainebleau was the restoration of the gallery of Francis I. 
 and the building of a new playhouse. 
 
 From " the palace in the forest " the Court betook itself 
 to the shores of the Bay of Biscay. The Empress had been 
 acquainted with Biarritz before her marriage, and the Emperor 
 accompanied her thither early in the reign. They first resided 
 at a villa erected by a Prefect of Bayonne, but in 1854 a large 
 tract of land, half reclaimed from the sea, was purchased for 
 the bagatelle of £1% and in the following year the building of 
 the Villa Eugenie was begun on a barren, unsheltered, terraced 
 slope, beaten at high tide by the waves, whose spray, when the 
 wind was strong, often lashed the windows. There was, how- 
 ever, a superb view of the sea breaking over the many huge 
 rocks arising in the bay ; and although at first a tangle of 
 juniper bushes and a few dwarf trees were the only vegetation 
 in the grounds, the latter were soon improved, thanks to proper 
 manuring and irrigation by means of an artificial lake and a 
 system of runlets. The " villa " itself was originally small, 
 and intense was the dismay of the Empress's ladies-in-waiting 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 355 
 
 the first time they saw their appointed quarters. " Mak, mon 
 Dieu ! " exclaimed the gay and brilliant Mme. de La Bedoyere, 
 whose arrival in a room was often likened by the Tuileries set 
 to the lighting of a chandelier ; " mais, mon Dieu, this is not as 
 large as a cell in the convent where we were brought up ! " " No, 
 indeed," protested her sister, the slim and willowy Mme. de La 
 Poeze,* " we shall never be able to squeeze into such cabanons!'" 
 The consternation of the ladies'* maids found even more vigorous 
 expression. The joke of the situation was that this particular 
 part of the villa had been specially designed by the Emperor, 
 who had imagined that a room ten feet square, and furnished 
 with a small iron bedstead, two chairs, and a dressing-table, 
 would amply suffice for a lady-in-waiting. 
 
 The Duchess de Bassano, as chief of the ladies in question, 
 was naturally bombarded with complaints, and bethinking her- 
 self of some means by which the grievance might be ventilated 
 without giving undue offence, she drew up a petition in verse — 
 the petition of all the crinolines, tournures, and bustles, which 
 finding themselves cribbed, cabined, and confined in so many 
 hermits^ cells at the Villa Eugenie, were fast losing all the 
 vigour and elasticity with which they had fascinated the 
 Parisians. And this petition was confided to the tiny hands 
 of the Imperial Prince, and delivered by him to his papa. 
 Napoleon took it, read it, laughed, twirled his moustaches, and 
 became thoughtful. For the time nothing more was said on 
 the subject, but directly the Court quitted Biarritz that year, 
 a small army of men set to work to enlarge the Villa £ug6nie. 
 St. Crinoline had won the day. 
 
 The villa was again enlarged on two other occasions, and it 
 at last fissumed the proportions and appearance of a college or 
 a barracks. Meantime Biarritz itself was growing fast. A 
 place of some importance in olden days, it had gradually sunk to 
 the status of a mere fisher's hamlet, but the imperial patronage 
 brought it a renewal of life. Its resident population rapidly 
 
 * Those attractive ladies, the daughters of the Marquis de La Boohe 
 Lcunbert, at one time a Gentleman of the Ohamber to Oharles X., and later 
 Ambassador at Berlin, and a Senator of the Second Empire, have been referred 
 to on p. 72. Thej had a sister, the Countess de Yalon, who alone upheld the 
 royalist traditions of her family and never came to Court, 
 
356 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 increased ; it had its large hotels, its restaurants, cafes, casino, 
 and theatre. The earlier scarcity of vegetation was consider- 
 ably remedied, the streets being lined with sycamores, and a 
 miniature Bois de Boulogne being planted in the vicinity, where 
 many handsome residences, such as the so-called chateau de 
 Gramont and Lord Ernest Bruce's mauresque villa, also sprang 
 up. Further, there was a new church, which the municipality, 
 in a courtier-like spirit, caused to be dedicated to St. Eugenia 
 — a proceeding that shocked a good many of the devout, as the 
 church the new one replaced had been dedicated to Our Lady 
 of Pity. It was not right, said some, that St. Eugenia should 
 turn the Virgin out-of-doors. With the prosperity of Biarritz 
 much of its picturesqueness departed. Gracieuse, the pretty 
 Basquaise with her mule and her cacolet, was seen no more; 
 Marinette, who, short-skirted and bare-legged, had raced from 
 Bayonne with her basket of fresh sardines on her head, also 
 belonged to the past. You no longer rode a donkey but a 
 hack, on your excursions. The popular dances were no longer 
 seen, the wild music of the Basque mountain-side was no longer 
 heard. The waltz reigned at the casino, and a military band 
 played tunes from " Chilperic " or " Orphee aux enfers " on the 
 sands. 
 
 Affairs of State pursued the Emperor to Biarritz as they 
 pursued him to other places. Such is the result of personal 
 rule. There were always two or three ministers at the Villa 
 Eugenie, as well as one or another foreign ambassador. Baron 
 Goltz, the Prussian representative, became quite enamoured of 
 Biarritz, and repaired thither every year. In 1865, too, 
 Bismarck's memorable conferences with Napoleon took place 
 there, as we previously mentioned. There were also many 
 visits from crowned heads and other royalties, for whose enter- 
 tainment elaborate excursions and picnics in the picturesque 
 environs — Ustaritz, Cambo, the Pas de Roland, or more distant 
 spots — were organized with the help of the imperial posting 
 service. Occasionally, too, the Emperor and Empress witnessed 
 some bull-fighting at Bayonne. The Emperor, who was so 
 susceptible to cold, seldom bathed, but the Empress (a good 
 swimmer) did so regularly, and there were frequent trips at sea 
 — a despatch-boat being stationed in the old harbour — until 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 357 
 
 a serious mishap on the water in October, 1867, alarmed the 
 Emperor for the safety of his wife and son. 
 
 They had embarked in the despatch-boat, accompanied by 
 the Demoiselles d'Albe, Admiral Jurien de la Gravifere, two 
 ladies-in-waiting (one of them Mme. Carette), Dr. Corvisart, 
 and Monsignor Bauer— a prelate of the Papal Household, who 
 ended badly. The weather was fine at first, but after the 
 steamer had gone as far as San Sebastian, the breeze freshened 
 to half a gale, and the sea became so rough that the captain 
 declared it impossible to put back into Biarritz, pai-ticularly as 
 night was fast falling. The vessel, therefore, made for St. Jean 
 de Luz, where it became necessary to land the imperial party in 
 its boats. The fisher-folk, who had recognized it, hurried to 
 the jetty with torches and lanterns, in order to light the 
 channel, and one boat soon brought some of the party to 
 shore. But the other, containing the Empress, the little 
 Prince, the admiral, the doctor, and the priest, struck a rock 
 and began to fill rapidly. The pilot in charge, losing his head, 
 jumped into the water, fell back against the rock, and was 
 stunned and drowned; but the others succeeded in getting on 
 the rock, the Empress carrying her son, at that time eleven 
 years old, in her arms. One of the bluejackets then offered to 
 swim ashore to procure help, but the tide was fast i-unning out, 
 and once the man was in the water he found that he touched 
 bottom. It therefore became possible for the crew to form a 
 kind of chain and pass the passengers ashore — that is to say, all 
 were carried in that fashion except Monsignor Bauer, who had 
 to wade through the water, the sailors refusing him their assist- 
 ance, as they held him responsible for what had happened ; it 
 being an axiom among them that a priest always brought bad 
 luck on a sea trip. On the return of the party to Biarritz by 
 road, the Emperor was found to be in a state of great alarm. 
 Owing to this mishap, and the undoubtedly dangerous nature 
 of the coast, he forbade all such excursions in future, while, for 
 the protection of others, he ordered the erection of a lighthouse 
 on the mole of St. Jean de Luz. 
 
 From Biarritz the Court usually returned to St. Cloud, and 
 remained there until the period of its annual stay at Compiegne, 
 where it was generally installed by November 3, that being the 
 
358 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 day consecrated t© St. Hubert, the patron of the chase. We 
 have now to speak of the Imperial Venery, otherwise the 
 hunting and shooting service, which dated from April, 1852.* 
 Since Charles X. there had been no such service, and the work 
 of organization was attended by various difficulties. Edgar 
 Ney, to whom it was entrusted, was assisted by his relative, the 
 jovial bon-vivant Baron Lambert, Lieutenant of the Hunt, and 
 the Marquis de Toulongeon, a member of the house of Gramont 
 and at one period Napoleon's orderly-officer, who became 
 Captain of the Shooting-Grounds. Fortunately the Marquis 
 de I'Aigle, the head of an old family of sportsmen residing at 
 the chateau of Francport, between the forests of Compiegne 
 and Laigue, offered Napoleon a pack of thirty hounds and two 
 hunters, and in return for this gift (which formed the nucleus 
 of the imperial equipage) he secured boar-hunting rights in the 
 forests mentioned.f 
 
 The post of chief huntsman was given to M, Reverdy, 
 called " La Trace," who had entered the first Napoleon's service 
 in 1803 as a kennelman, and, rising in rank, had succeeded 
 Dutillet, called " Mousquetaire," as chief huntsman to Charles X. 
 It was to Reverdy that fell most of the preliminary work in 
 1852, but he was assisted by the Marquis de I'Aigle's huntsman, 
 who entered the Emperor's service. Born in 1785, and the son 
 of an official of Louis XVI.'s hunt, Reverdy was a depository 
 of all the old traditions of the chase, one schooled in the 
 manners of other times. Nothing could have been more 
 dixhuitieme decle than the manner in which he approached 
 Ney, with his whip at the correct angle in his right hand, and 
 his three-cornered hat in his left, and exclaimed while bowing, 
 " Le bon plaisir de Monsieur le Comte.'''' He had a high opinion 
 of his office, and quickly resented anything in the way of 
 impertinence. One day at Compiegne a foolish young officer 
 called him a valet. " A valet ! So be it, monsieur," answered 
 La Trace, " but please do not forget that I am the valet of 
 your master." He was also a very honest and well-conducted 
 man, and organized the imperial service skilfully, this being the 
 less easy as many of the men who were engaged came from 
 
 • Napoleon was, of course, only President at that time. 
 
 f The Imperial Hunt confined itself to stag or buck hunting. 
 
THE IMPERIAL HUNT 359 
 
 different hunts with varying traditions or else with none at all. 
 Among the assistant huntsmen, however, there was Leroux, 
 who had entered the first Napoleon's Hunt in 1812, afterwards 
 passing into the royal service. It was he who succeeded 
 Reverdy when the latter retired. There was also Camus, the 
 first mounted limer-man, who had done duty in the Hunts of 
 the First Empire and the monarchy ; while another of the staff, 
 Landouillet, the most proficient of all on the horn, had 
 graduated in the famous Chantilly Hunt of the last Prince de 
 Conde. Leemans, who quitted the Marquis de TAigle's service 
 for the Emperor's as whipper-in, was well acquainted with the 
 English language, and accompanied Baron Lambert to England 
 and Ireland every year to purchase hounds and horses. Lee- 
 mans succeeded Reverdy and Leroux in the chief post, which he 
 held in 1870, and thus it was to him that fell the melancholy 
 duty of poisoning the hounds, it being impossible to keep them 
 or sell them in the midst of war. 
 
 Leaving the service d'honneur on one side, the staff of 
 the Hunt under chief huntsman Reverdy and his successors 
 included two huntsmen, one mounted valet-de-limier, two on 
 foot, three mounted whippers-in, four on foot, and a baker, who 
 made the dogs' bread and prepared their soupe. There was 
 also the stable department with three piqueurs, a coachman, a 
 farrier, an infirmier, and a score of men and lads. The chief 
 huntsman, and the head stable piqueur received £120 a year, 
 the huntsmen £8 a month, and the whippers-in, the valets, 
 kennelmen, and stablemen from £4 to £6 a month. They all 
 had free quarters, firing, etc., received double pay every month 
 of January, and perquisites representing from £4 to £12, 
 whenever St. Hubert's Day came round. The Hunt cost the 
 Civil List about £22,000 annually. 
 
 Attached to the service d^honneur was a medical man. Dr. 
 Aubin des Fougerais, who, curiously enough, was also doctor 
 to the Opera-house in Paris, in such wise that he divided his 
 time between the men of the greenwood and the ladies of the 
 ballet. M. des Fougerais was a good judge of horses, and rode 
 extremely well until his leg was broken by a kick from a vicious 
 animal at Compiegne. From that time he was obliged to 
 follow the chase in a conveyance. The Himt also had its 
 
360 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 painter, Jadin, famous for his portraits of dogs; he wore the 
 uniform of the Hunt, which he often joined. 
 
 The stables contained from fifty to sixty horses, each officer 
 of the Hunt and each huntsman having three, and the doctor 
 and each valet two at his disposal. The horses were always 
 bought in Ireland by Baron Lambert, who paid about =&100 for 
 every animal intended for an officer of the Hunt, and from ,£50 
 to ,£60 for the others. The staff were instructed to take great 
 care of their mounts. Baron Lambert was too good natured to 
 treat anybody with deliberate harshness, but he lost his temper 
 if a man of the staff returned from the chase with his horse 
 broken down. There were usually about 120 hounds, inclusive 
 of 30 limers, in the kennels. They were big English foxhounds, 
 white, with the correct black and fulvous colourings, and, as 
 in the old days of French royalty, each was marked with St. 
 Hubert's cross. Their food was invariably pounded-barley 
 bread, except on hunting days, when, after partaking of the 
 curee, they were treated, on returning to the kennels, to sawpe 
 with beef or horseflesh. They were all intelligent dogs, came 
 out of the pack in answer to their names, proved themselves 
 well acquainted with the forests and adept in finding their way 
 home. On one occasion, when a hound had been lost in the 
 forest of Fontainebleau, he arrived three days later at the 
 kennels at Compiegne, having made a journey of some forty 
 leagues. While M. Leemans was chief huntsman, he looked after 
 the dogs and horses so well that the Society for the Protection 
 of Animals awarded him its medal. 
 
 Green was the predominant colour of the uniform and the 
 liveries of the Hunt. The former had a collar and cuffs of 
 crimson velvet, and silver buttons bearing gold stags. There 
 was also no little silver embroidery and braid. Further, three- 
 cornered hats were worn, those of the Emperor and Empress 
 having their brims edged with white plumes. The various 
 officers carried long hunting-knives. The Empress's habit 
 was of green cloth with trimmings of crimson velvet, gallooned 
 and embroidered with gold. In accordance with the custom of 
 former reigns, whenever the Emperor granted anybody the 
 right to follow the Hunt and wear its uniform, he sent the 
 favoured individual the necessary buttons for the costume. 
 
THE IMPERIAL HUNT 361 
 
 whence it resulted that members of the company were often 
 called "the Buttons." The Emperor's aides-de-camp and 
 orderlies belonged to the Hunt by right, and any civilian 
 officers of the Household who applied for the buttons usually 
 obtained them. The Great Chamberlain, the Duke de Bassano, 
 and the Great Master of Ceremonies, the Duke de Cambaceres, 
 wore the uniform, as did also Prince Napoleon, Prince Murat, 
 several foreign princes and diplomatists, such as Lord Cowley, 
 Prince Metternich, and Baron Budberg. Marshal de Castellane's 
 daughter, the sprightly and witty Marquise de Contades, who, 
 by her second marriage with a captain of the Artillery of the 
 Guard, became Countess de Beaulaincourt-Marles, and who, in 
 conjunction with Princess Mathilde, had kept house for Napoleon 
 during his presidency days at the Elysee Palace, was, like that 
 skilful horsewoman the Baroness de Pierres, one of the few 
 ladies to whom the privilege of wearing the uniform was 
 accorded. Among well-known men who enjoyed it were the 
 Dukes de Momy, Persigny, Caumont-Laforce, and Vicence, the 
 Marquis de L'Aigle, Marshal MacMahon, Count Nieuwerkerke, 
 the Aguados, Achille Fould, Baron Henri de Poilly, MM. 
 d'Offemont, de Montgermont, and Edouard Delessert. The 
 liveries of the huntsmen, whippers-in, and kennelmen of the 
 Venery partook of the character of the uniform, but the 
 embroidery was somewhat less rich, and white metal buttons, 
 in some instances, took the place of the silver ones. The 
 costumes, which were in most respects of an eighteenth-century 
 style, suggestive of the garb of Captain MacHeath and Claude 
 Duval, encountered no little criticism and ridicule in many 
 quarters, but they were undoubtedly picturesque, and not 
 much more absurd or extraordinary, perhaps, than the English 
 "pink." 
 
 At three o'clock on the morning of November 3, St. Hubert's 
 Day, when the Hunt was usually quartered at Compiegne, a 
 fanfare sounded in honour of the saint, and the officers and 
 men, mustering in full costume, repaired to the old church of 
 St. Jacques, where a low mass was celebrated, the consecrated 
 bread being offered by the kennelmen. Immediately afterwards, 
 the forest was tried, and when the best hound in the pack had 
 been singled out at the ensuing meet, a lady was requested to 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 affix to its neck a green silk cockade, the ribbons of which the men 
 shared on their return in the evening, employing them through- 
 out the ensuing year to secure the mouthpieces of their horns. 
 On the same day the huntsmen and whippers-in presented the 
 Emperor with a consecrated brioche, and the Empress with a 
 bouquet. 
 
 The Hunt moved about during the year, being quartered 
 now at Compiegne, now at Fontainebleau, now at St. Germain- 
 en-Laye, or elsewhere. There was no hunting in July or August, 
 but in other months a meet usually took place every five or six 
 days. On an average, at some forty runs, about thirty-three 
 stags were taken, the others escaping. The proportion was 
 much the same as in the time of Charles X., when forty-seven 
 stags were credited to sixty hunts. Napoleon was no disciple 
 of the old hunting school. If he were partial to the chase, it 
 was chiefly for the sake of the exercise it gave. He believed 
 in speed ; he had enjoyed many a fox-hunting run in England, 
 and the comparatively slow and elaborate system of stag-hunting 
 which had been formerly practised in France by its princes and 
 its nobility did not appeal to him. Besides, he could not give 
 days and weeks together to the chase as the Bourbons had 
 done. Nevertheless, the stag-hunting of the Second Empire 
 was not a mere gallop through the forest glades amid much 
 tooting of horns, as some writers, who never witnessed it, have 
 foolishly asserted. There was no question of pursuing " carted 
 deer," but of following wild and vigorous bucks, sometimes 
 ten-tined stags, who, when brought to bay, often proved 
 dangerous. At those times the Emperor frequently showed no 
 little audacity. To the Empress's alarm, he more than once 
 "served" some monarch of the forest with his hunting-knife, 
 and even when he employed a carbine for the purpose, he 
 ventured so near to the infuriated animal that he incurred 
 considerable risk.* On one occasion he only escaped injury 
 by throwing himself flat on the ground in such wise that the 
 stag jumped over him. There were many bad accidents at 
 
 * The young Prince Imperial's first hunt was in 1865. On seeing a carbine 
 employed to despatch the stag, he remarked, " Oh I why is that used ? When 
 I'm big enough I shall use my knife. That's what the kings used to do. I'm 
 not afraid of a stag," 
 
THE IMPERIAL HUNT 363 
 
 Fontainebleau and Compiegne. One day, when Baron Lambert 
 was about to despatch a stag, the beast charged him, threw 
 him down, dislocated one of his shoulders, and pierced his arm 
 with a tine. On another occasion, at a JiaMali at Compiegne, 
 when it fell to the Prince de la Moskowa to kill the stag, the 
 latter charged M. de la Rue, one of the head forest-keepers, 
 threw him off his horse, kiUed that animal by ripping it open, 
 and then turned upon AchiUe Fould, pierced one of his boots 
 with a prod of its antlers, and next dashed upon the mount of 
 the charming Mme. Amedee Thayer, whose horse reared in 
 alarm. Unluckily, one of Mme. Thayer's feet became caught 
 in a wheel of Princess Mathilde's carriage, which had just come 
 up, and in the result the foot was broken, and the unfortunate 
 lady, lamed for life, had to be conveyed to the chateau of 
 Compiegne on a litter, and thence, by special train, to Paris. 
 
 Those are examples of the incidents which occurred from 
 time to time. We also remember witnessing the mishap which 
 late in 1869 befell the Prince of Wales (now Edward VII.), 
 who was unhorsed by a big buck in the forest of Compiegne, 
 though fortunately with no worse result than a shaking, the 
 Prince speedily jumping on to a spare mount, led for him b)' an 
 officer of the Hunt, and at once resuming the chase amid the 
 applause of the entire company. With the conditions of buck- 
 hunting in England, and the reasons of the opposition offered to 
 it of recent years, we do not profess to be acquainted. But in 
 France the sport was genuine enough, the wild red deer of 
 Compifegne and Fontainebleau being by no means the meek, 
 mild, inoffensive creatures that some might suppose. The 
 hounds were often injured, but received prompt treatment, each 
 man of the Hunt being provided with a case containing lances, 
 needles, thread, and ammonia. After a month's rest an injured 
 hound would readily hunt again, but he was never afterwards 
 quite so brave at the TudMi as he had been before. 
 
 One of the great sights at Compiegne and Fontainebleau 
 was the cwree in the evening after a run. The Emperor, the 
 Empress, and the guests were assembled on the balconies or at 
 the windows overlooking the courtyard selected for the occasion. 
 Blazing cressets fixed to long staves, carried by soldiers or 
 servants, illumined the scene, which, if not refined, was certainly 
 
364 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 most interesting, for it showed how well the hounds could be 
 trained and controlled. At first the skin, entrails, head, and 
 antlers of the stag caught that day, were brought into the yard 
 and carried to one end of it. The dogs, though sorely tantalized 
 by the sight, remained perfectly quiet under the control of the 
 kennelmen at the other end of the yard, until the royale began 
 to sound. Then they yelped with ever increasing impatience ; 
 and all at once, as the notes of the curee came from the horns 
 of the assembled piqueurs and valets, and the chief huntsman, 
 who stood behind the remains of the stag, lowered his 
 whip, they bounded forward in eager unison. But when 
 they were within six feet of their prey they saw the huntsman's 
 whip raised again, and they immediately halted — turning back, 
 moreover, directly the kennelmen bade them do so. Three 
 times was that performance enacted, and though the hounds 
 quivered and howled with excitement, they ever obeyed the 
 mute command of the huntsman's whip. It was only at their 
 third charge that the whip remained lowered, and that the 
 stag's skin and antlers were deftly thrown aside, disclosing the 
 other remains, on which the dogs at last threw themselves with 
 wild, ravenous appetite and zest. Nobody could witness the 
 sight without experiencing a thrill. 
 
 There was also some boar-hunting at Compiegne and in its 
 vicinity with the Marquis de I'Aigle's hounds or those of Baron 
 Henri de Poilly of Follembray, whose hunt wore the English 
 " pink." The forest of Ourscamp was in those days as full of 
 boars as the Ardennes, where, however, it is the practice for one 
 to shoot the boar on foot — a fine sport, attended by some risk, 
 to which Prince Pierre Bonaparte was partial. We remember, 
 too, that on the occasion of the visit of several Spanish noble- 
 men to the French Court there was boar-hunting at Marly in 
 the Andalusian style. The Emperor also favoured the attempts 
 to reintroduce hawking into France, which were made by Count 
 Alfred Werl6 (of the Maison Veuve Cliquot), with the assistance 
 of an English falconer, John Barr, who had previously been in 
 the employment of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh in Suffolk. 
 Count Werle obtained the Emperor's permission to fly his hawks 
 over some of the camp of Chalons land, but the sport was 
 stopped by the advent of the Franco-German war. 
 
THE IMPERIAL HUNT 365 
 
 TTiere were four tires or shooting-grounds at Compifegne, 
 and others at Versailles and Marly — ^abundant in hares — 
 Fontainebleau, St. Germain — good in pheasants — and Ram- 
 bouillet — noted for partridges. Great efforts were made to 
 acclimatize the Algerian " Gambra " partridge at Compiegne, 
 In 1859 forty thousand eggs were imported, and the greater 
 number of them were successfully hatched ; but the young birds 
 died off very rapidly, and there were eventually not more than 
 two thousand to turn into the tires. Even those disappeared in 
 a mysterious way, and the phenomenon was not accounted for 
 until Geoffroy de St. Hilaire, the director of the Paris Jardin 
 d'Acclimatation, discovered that the Barbary birds mated with 
 the European species, producing a cross-breed. 
 
 The battue shooting of the Imperial Court was on the whole 
 very fair, when one remembers that the forests had to be re- 
 stocked with game of various kinds, and that little time was 
 allowed it to increase. There was room for nine guns at each 
 tire. With the help of Baron de Lage — a clever and amiable 
 man, who was unfortunately somewhat of a coxcomb, and, 
 according to one of his colleagues, killed himself by his im- 
 moderate use of a poisonous hair-dye — M. de Toulongeon, the 
 Captain of the Shooting Grounds, set up pheasantries at 
 Compiegne, Fontainebleau, and Rambouillet, which yielded 
 about 4000 birds annually, some 600 partridges being reared 
 at the same time. Each shooting-ground was about six miles 
 long and rather more than two hundred yards broad. All 
 the wood on the ground was cut to a height of about four feet, 
 in order that the sportsmen might have a good view of the 
 game, and also see each other. The shooting parties assembled 
 about ten o'clock in the morning. The Emperor's customary 
 attire was a dull brown knickerbocker-suit and a soft felt hat, in 
 which he wore a feather, sometimes a pheasant's, sometimes a 
 jay's. He was attended by Baron de Lage, Gastine-Reinette, 
 his gunsmith, two men who loaded his weapons, the doctor of 
 the Hunt, and a forest-keeper in charge of his retriever, a well- 
 trained dog, who only fetched the game which his master shot, 
 remaining perfectly indifferent to anything that was brought 
 down by other sportsmen. The beaters were soldiers of the 
 garrison, generally about a hundred and fifty in number, and 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 provided with staves and clappers. Each man received for 
 his services a franc and a rabbit at the close of the day's 
 shooting. 
 
 Napoleon was a very good shot, very fond of trying distant 
 shots, and generally succeeding in them ; but he was excelled by 
 that born sportsman the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. 
 In 1867, when the pair shot together at St. Germain, the 
 number of head of game credited to the latter was 419, while 
 the French Emperor's score was 265. Later, at Compifegne, 
 Francis Joseph's score rose to 600, Napoleon's being 200 less. 
 On the other hand, Victor Emmanuel' and his son. Prince 
 Humbert, who also shot over the Corapi^gne ground, were 
 on about a level with their host, while one of the most 
 indifferent shots among the royalties who visited the French 
 Court was William of Prussia, subsequently first German 
 Emperor. Among the diplomatists. Lord Cowley, was par- 
 ticularly expert; he seldom, if ever, missed a bird. Prince 
 Mettemich also shot well, and so did Chevalier Nigra. The 
 last named was fond of various kinds of sport, and had a water- 
 spaniel which caught fish like a cormorant. Thereby hangs a 
 rather amusing tale. 
 
 One day, a conversation which Prince Napoleon had with 
 Nigra respecting the dog in question led to the mention of 
 cormorants and their fishing habits. The Prince stored up the 
 information which he thus acquired, and some time afterwards, 
 being with his father-in-law King Victor Emmanuel in Italy, 
 he conveyed it to him, making, however, a very amusing blunder, 
 for he had forgotten the name of the bird mentioned by Nigra, 
 and imagined it to be the pelican. When Victor Emmanuel 
 heard that pelicans could be trained to bring the fish they 
 caught to their masters, he was rather incredulous ; nevertheless, 
 as the information was said to have come from Nigra, he thought 
 he would test its accuracy. He had some pelicans at his strange 
 menagerie at Monza, and at once gave orders to one of the 
 keepers there to train those birds with the object we have 
 mentioned. The attempt was made. There was some orna- 
 mental water, stocked with fish, and for days and weeks together 
 the keeper walked round and round this water, carrying one or 
 another pelican on his arm, and vainly striving to persuade the 
 
THE IMPERIAL HUNT 367 
 
 bird to dive, fish, and bring back its catch. But whenever a 
 pelican took to the water and caught a fish, it promtly con- 
 cealed it in its pouch, and was in nowise disposed to disgorge 
 it to please the keeper. The latter at last sent word to the 
 King that the experiment had faOed. "Nonsense," was the 
 reply ; " you evidently don't understand pelicans. Nigra says 
 they will bring their masters their catch, and he ought to know. 
 Let another man try." 
 
 Another man did, and marched round the water Uke his 
 predecessor, ever carrying a pelican on his arm, with precisely 
 the same result. Briefly, each keeper exerted himself in vain, 
 merely gaining a severe arm-ache by his endeavours — a pelican 
 being quite six times as heavy as a cormorant — and living in 
 the constant fear that his failure would entail dismissal. Fortu- 
 nately, Chevalier Nigra arrived in Italy on leave, and on Victor 
 Emmanuel speaking to him about the recalcitrant pelicans, the 
 mystery was cleared up. " Never speak to me on any hunting, 
 shooting, or fishing subject again," said Victor Emmanuel to 
 Prince Napoleon, after discovering how he had been fooled ; 
 " you know nothing about such matters." In point of fact, the 
 Prince was certainly a very indifferent sportsman. His hunting 
 at Meudon was mere exercise; while in shooting, whether at 
 Compiegne or on his own ground at Villefermoy, he never 
 bagged more than one out of every three head of game at which 
 he fired. 
 
 M. Magne, long Minister of Finances, was such a bad shot 
 that the keepers attending him at Compiegne took rabbits 
 with them, knocked one of them on the head directly he fired, 
 and then produced it with the assurance that it had been 
 killed by " Monsieur le Ministre." That reminds us that the 
 keepers of Charles X., who was also inclined to be a poor shot, 
 resorted to similar tactics, carrying, however, quails instead 
 of rabbits. With respect to the nominal " Great Huntsman " 
 of the Second Empire, Marshal Magnan, he could not tell a 
 buck from a roe ; while Rouher, the Vice-Emperor, peppered 
 keepers in the legs, and on one occasion shot Baron James de 
 Rothschild's pointer dead. As for M. Rouland, sometime 
 Minister of Justice, he one day mistook a badger for a wild 
 boar, shouting wildly to the keepers, directly he perceived the 
 
368 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 beast : " Quick. ! quick ! a boar ! a boar ! " Luckily, he was 
 too much alarmed to fire, for it so happened that the badger 
 was a tame one, which rejoiced in the name of Pablo, came to 
 you when it was called, and took food from your hand. The 
 next day some boar's-head was served at lunch at the chateau 
 of Compiegne, and the Empress Eugenie inquired of Rouland 
 with a smile if he would accept a slice of hure de sandier a la 
 Pablo. 
 
 Now and again the Empress joined a shooting party, and, 
 like Mme. de Metternich, she was fairly expert with her gun. 
 She very properly put down rabbit-coursing on the lawn of the 
 private grounds at Compiegne, where, by the way, the forest 
 was thickly populated with rabbits. The Emperor ended by 
 commanding a general massacre of them, in order to meet the 
 complaints of the surrounding agriculturists, who were not 
 satisfied with the amounts paid to them for damage. The dis- 
 bursements in that respect were, on the whole, considerable. 
 Around Fontainebleau ^£"1500 was paid annually for the depre- 
 dations, not of small ground game, but of beasts of the chase. 
 According to M. de la Rue, an Inspector of Forests under the 
 Empire, from 55,000 to 60,000 shots were fired each year at the 
 Emperor's sixteen shooting parties — there being about nine guns 
 at each — and the total "bag" was 25,000 head of game, 
 including 16,000 rabbits, 8000 pheasants, and 320 deer. 
 
 The Court's amval at Compiegne early in November was 
 immediately followed by that of the first series of guests invited 
 to the chateau. There were usually four successive series, each 
 being composed of about seventy persons, who were invited for 
 a week ; but some people, like the Mettemichs, for instance, 
 stayed a fortnight or even longer. Apart from an army of 
 servants, the suite of the sovereigns included twenty-four oflicers 
 and ladies, in such wise that the company was altogether a 
 hundred strong. Each series of guests travelled to and fro by 
 special trains which cost the Emperor about £^0% while the 
 wood firing in the hundreds of rooms of the chateau represented 
 about the same amount every day.* Each guest had a dressing- 
 room as well as a bedchamber, and to the more important 
 
 * It was largely the Emperor's extreme susceptibility to cold which led to 
 the euoimoua consumptiou of fuel at the Tuileries, Compiegne, and elsewhere. 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 869 
 
 invites a private sitting-room was also assigned. The hangings 
 and upholstery were mostly grey, the furniture was good old 
 mahogany, the toilet sets were of white Sevres with the imperial 
 monogram in gold. Writing-tables and writing materials were 
 provided on a lavish scale. There was due accommodation for 
 valets and ladies' maids, and at least one of the imperial servants 
 was at your beck and call. 
 
 Almost as soon as you reached the chdteau on a Monday 
 afternoon, a lacquey appeared bringing a large tray with tea 
 and sandwiches, as well as wine and liqueurs for your private 
 consumption during your stay. In the morning, whatever you 
 might desire for your first dejevner was served in your own 
 apartment ; tea, coffee, or chocolate being supplied according to 
 taste. The guest's morning virtually belonged to him, unless 
 he were one of the exalted set privileged to go shooting with 
 the Emperor. As at Fonteiinebleau, frockcoats and silk hats 
 were the ordinary wear in the daytime. The second dejeuner 
 or lunch was served at noon, the guests assembling on either 
 side of the Galerie des Cartes — so called from its large maps or 
 plans of the forest of Compiegne — where they awaited the 
 coming of the Emperor and Empress. In the afternoon, if 
 there was no hunting (there was usually a meet once a week), 
 there were excursions to Pierrefonds or other places, drives 
 through the forest, pigeon-shooting, or various games of dexterity 
 in the grounds of the chateau. Between four and five o'clock 
 you returned to your room, where tea was served to you, unless, 
 as occasionally happened, you received an invitation to partake 
 of it in the Empress's private apartments. The The de 
 rimp6ratrice was generally a very pleasant moment of the day, 
 when the literary men, artists, and other " intellectuals " of the 
 company appeared at their best. 
 
 Dinner was served at about half-past seven, the whole 
 company again assembling in the Galerie des Cartes and going 
 processionally through the guard-chamber to the great dining- 
 room, which, with its blaze of lights, presented a striking scene, 
 the table being adorned by a superb silver aurtout of finely 
 chiselled hunting subjects and a profusion of other plate, as well 
 as porcelain and crystal. There were usually a hundred covers. 
 The band of the Imperial Guard played in an adjoining room. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Dinner over, coffee was taken in the Galerie des Cartes, smokers 
 turned into the apartment reserved to them, and the other 
 guests betook themselves to the drawing-rooms. A variety of 
 evening amusements was provided — billiards, table-quoits (to 
 which Napoleon was partial), private theatricals on the little 
 drawing-room stage, or performances by one or another of the 
 Paris professional companies in the playhouse of the chateau. 
 Again, there were simple parlour games — "consequences," 
 " forfeits," " spelling bees," and once or twice, en petit comite, 
 half an hour's merriment at blind-man's buff. Further, there 
 was dancing, on some occasions a mere improvised sauterie, on 
 others something more elaborate, ending in the customary 
 cotillon ; and now and again Leverrier, the astronomer, would 
 lecture on his particular science and the plurality of worlds, or 
 Wurtz would discourse on chemistry, Longuet on the circulation 
 of the blood, and Pasteur on the diseases of wines or physiology 
 or medicine. That reminds us of a story. 
 
 On one occasion, after Pasteur had made various experiments 
 with frogs before the company, he took back to his own room 
 the box in which some of the animals were left, and forgot to 
 remove it when he quitted the chateau. The apartment was then 
 assigned to a lady guest, who, on the very first night of her 
 stay, was aroused by strange sounds proceeding from under the 
 bed. In her alarm she summoned her maid, and bade her 
 ascertain what was concealed there. The maid, as terrified as 
 her mistress, fearing, indeed, lest she would find the proverbial 
 man under the bed, at first hesitated to obey the order, but 
 when she had done so she drew breath, exclaiming, "There's 
 nothing, madame, nothing at all excepting a little box. Here 
 it is." So speaking, she took up the box to let her mistress see 
 it, and at the same moment raised the lid, whereupon a dozen 
 frogs from the Compiegne ponds jumped on to the bed amidst 
 the horrified shrieks of both women. There was a great to-do, 
 many people were aroused from their sleep, and though the 
 hour was late, another room had to be immediately found for 
 the lady, who vowed that she would not remain in that chamber 
 of horrors a moment longer ! 
 
 Among the literary names which we recall as having figured 
 in the lists of invitSs to Compiegne were those of M^rimee, 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 371 
 
 Feuillet, Sandeau, Nisard, About, Gautier, St. Amand, Doucet, 
 and Sylvestre de Sacy. The representatives of art included 
 Theodore Rousseau, Moreau, Gustave Boulanger, Eugene Lami, 
 Paul Baudry, Robert Fleury, and Viollet-le-Duc, who staged 
 the private theatricals. To the same set belonged Coutiu-e, 
 who, when the Empress inquired if he were comfortable in the 
 room assigned to him, sweetly replied : " Oh yes ; it reminds 
 me of the gan-et in which I began my career ; " and Carpeaux, 
 who, in 1864<, modelled at Compiegne his statue of the young 
 Imperial Prince leaning on the Emperor's favourite dog, a brown 
 setter named Nero,* which piece ot statuary was saved from 
 the conflagration of the Tuileries and is now at Farnborough. 
 Carpeaux was also to have executed a bust of the Empress, but 
 she could not give him the sittings he desired. 
 
 Among the notable musicians who went to Compiegne 
 were Auber, Ambroise Thomas and Liszt ; while among the 
 men of science, in addition to those previously mentioned, was 
 the Empress's eminent relative, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who 
 visited the Court when from time to time he came to France 
 to rest from his labours at Suez. The Emperor was keenly 
 interested in that great enterprise the Suez canal, and often 
 remarked to Lesseps : " When you have severed Asia from 
 Africa, you must sever North from South America in the same 
 way." Many years previously Napoleon himself, after perusing 
 some lectures delivered by Professor Ritter before the Berlin 
 Geographical Society, had become keenly interested in the 
 question of a Panama or, lather, a Nicaraguan canal. While 
 he was imprisoned at Ham he devoted considerable time to 
 studying the question, and proposed to go to Central America 
 immediately after his release from confinement. There were 
 even negotiations between him and various Central American 
 authorities, and in support of the scheme he produced a 
 pamphlet in the English language, entitled "The Canal of 
 
 • Napoleon was inclined to be a " doggy " man. He was extremely 
 attached to Nero, who generally accompanied him on his walks, and remained 
 with him in hia private room. K ever the Emperor vacated his armchair, 
 Nero inunediately installed himself in it, and Napoleon indulgently allowed 
 him to remain there. The Emperor also became attached to a little dog 
 named Tita, belonging to his secretary, M. F. Pietri. Tita often jumped on 
 hia knees to be fondled, and lick him in return. 
 
S72 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Nicaragua ; or, a Project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific 
 Oceans by means of a Canal " [London : Mills & Son, 1846].* 
 But the negotiations failed, and he then took up his residence 
 in King's Street, St. James's. 
 
 The sovereigns whom we recall as visitors to Compiegne 
 were the Emperor of Austria, and the Kings of Holland, Italy, 
 Portugal, and Prussia. The last named went there twice, first 
 in November, 1861, when his retinue included Bismarck, 
 Hatzfeld, Manteufi"el, and the Prince of Reuss. The greatest 
 harmony prevailed on that occasion ; Napoleon went about arm- 
 in-arm with his good brother William, to whom he was to 
 surrender his sword in after-years at Sedan ; and William, when 
 reviewing the young pupils of the Grenadiers of the Guard, 
 among whom marched the little Imperial Prince, smiled at 
 the sight of the child's soldierly bearing, and, turning to 
 the Empress, gallantly kissed her hand — a pretty way of 
 complimenting her on her son. 
 
 Of course most of the Court folk were invited to Fontaine- 
 bleau and Compiegne at one or another time. The horse-racing 
 element appeared there with Count Lagrange, Charles Laffitte, 
 and the young Talons. Great Britain was represented by her 
 ambassadors, the Prince of Wales, the Hamiltons, the Earl of 
 Clarendon, Mr. Blount, the Duke of AthoU, the Marquis of 
 Tullibardine, and the Earl of Dunmore, who astonished both 
 the Court and the natives by appearing in the Highlander 
 uniform. We also remember seeing there the present Marquis 
 of Lansdowne, who, as the grandson of Count de Flahault, was 
 naturally persona grata at the Imperial Court. The ladies of 
 Compiegne and Fontainebleau were those of the Tuileries to 
 whom we have so often referred. A few additional names may 
 perhaps be mentioned. The Empress's mother, Mme. de 
 Montijo, who seemed to keep very much in the background 
 when the Court was in Paris, came quite to the front at 
 Compiegne — or perhaps it would be best to say that she was 
 more observed there, the company being less numerous than at 
 the Tuileries, She often played chess with Merim^e. Then, 
 too, " Marcello " the sculptor, otherwise the widowed Adele 
 
 * See on that subject M. G, de Molinari'a " Napoleon III. publioiate " 
 (Brussels, 1861). 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 378 
 
 d'Affrey, Duchess Colonna di Castiglione, was more than once a 
 guest at Compiegiie, though she was seldom seen at the Tuileries. 
 Further, the ladies of the house of Caraman-Chimay followed 
 wherever the Court went. Foremost among them were the 
 beautiful golden-haired Countess Louise de Mercy-Argenteau 
 and her sister Princess Constantino Czartoryska, in the veins of 
 both of whom coursed the blood of Madame Tallien. The 
 Countess, who resembled Marie- Antoinette, was a great pianist, 
 and often held the musical folk of the Court entranced by her 
 fine performances. She was one of those who, having been a 
 friend of the fair days, remained one when the evil days arrived. 
 After Sedan, she and her husband visited Napoleon at 
 Wilhelmshohe. There was also Mile. Valentine de Caraman- 
 Chimay, a sister or cousin of the ladies we have mentioned. She 
 was not pretty, but she had a very taking way, and the Empress 
 Eugenie was much interested in her. She made, however, 
 a most unfortunate marriage with the Prince de Beauffremont, 
 and before many years had elapsed all Europe rang with the 
 story of her troubles, which ended by her flight from France 
 with her daughters, her change of nationality and religion, and 
 her marriage to Prince George Bibesco. 
 
 We have mentioned that there were two kinds of theatrical 
 performances at Compiegne. At times the company of the 
 Comedie Fran^aise came to play some work of Ponsard's, or 
 one of Augier's, such as " Le Gendre de M. Poirier," or else 
 a piece of the repertoire, such as " Les Plaideurs " or " Le 
 Misanthrope." At another time one heard tlie artistes of the 
 Op&a Comique in " Le Bre aux Clercs " or " Le Domino Noir," 
 and on other occasions came the turn of the Gymnase with 
 "Montjoye," or of the Vaudeville troupe with Sardou's 
 "Famille Benoiton." The actors were always well paid, 
 travelled to and fro in special trains, and were entertained 
 at champagne suppers after their performance. But it was 
 certainly the amateur theatricals which constituted the chief 
 feature of evening amusement at Compiegne. Ponsard's clever 
 charade in verse called "Harmonie,"* Momy's "Succession 
 
 * Armes-au md. In the first section, Nienwerkerke figured as a knight 
 receiying his arms; in the second, Countess Fleury Eiesented the little 
 Imperial Prince in a nest of flowers. 
 
374 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Bonnet," M. de Massa's " Cascades de Mouchy," and particu- 
 larly his " Commentaires de Cesar," played in 1865, were 
 among the great successes. We have previously referred to 
 the last-named production in connection with the prominent 
 share which Princess Pauline Mettemich took in it.* Count 
 Solms, the Prussian Charge d'affaires, who played the part 
 of an itinerant marchand de coco ; Baron Lambert, who got 
 himself up as the legendary Monsieur Prudhomme, the butt 
 of French satirists ; and Mr. Ashton Blount, who figured as 
 a music-hall " star " of the fair sex (that is, as Theresa of " La 
 Femme a Barbe " and "Rien n'est sacre pour un Sapeur"), 
 were among the cleverest of the masculine performers, though 
 General Mellinet, as a venerable invalide, and M. de Galliffet, 
 as a young infantryman, also scored successes behind the scenes 
 as well as before the footlights. It happened, indeed, that 
 during an entr'acte the Emperor strolled to the rear of the 
 stage, and on seeing two men in uniform who saluted him and 
 whom he did not recognize, he imagined that they belonged 
 to the garrison, and had been recruited for some special duty. 
 He therefore engaged them in conversation according to his 
 practice on such occasions, and he was ah'eady feeling in his 
 pockets to ascertain if he had any money about him, when, 
 noticing the decrepit appearance imparted to Mellinet by his 
 " make up," he exclaimed : " Mais, man brave, they ought not to 
 have brought you here at this time of night. They ought to 
 have engaged a younger man. You do not look at all strong." 
 At this Mellinet lost his self-control, giving vent to words of 
 protest in his natural voice, which immediately revealed his 
 identity to Napoleon, who remained for some minutes shaking 
 with laughter at the strange appearance of his poor old 
 general. 
 
 Some of the songs figuring in M. de Massa's piece were 
 very lively, and great was the success of Princess Metternich, 
 when, wearing her smart uniform a la " Fille du Regiment," 
 with her fist on the little keg at her side, she sang in spirited 
 
 fashion : 
 
 " Je suls une guerri&re 
 Au ooBur, au oceur joyeux I 
 La vi — la vivandl^re 
 DesTuiooBbleusI" 
 
 * Bm onie, p. 286. 
 
THE VILLEGIATURA OF THE COURT 375 
 
 In the part assigned to Mme. Bartholoni, that of England, 
 there were frequent references to the entente cordiale then pre- 
 vailing between the two countries, and when this lady was 
 joined by Mme. de PourtalSs, who appeared as France, vows of 
 eternal friendship were exchanged, and the following dialogue 
 ensued : — 
 
 France : Free trade I 
 
 England: Yes, and no more passports I Let us have a bridge 
 
 oyer the Channel I 
 France : All right ! We will prolong the Boulevard Haussmonn 
 
 to Piccadilly. 
 Monaiewr Prudhonvme (as^) : Good I I must buy land. It will 
 
 go up in value. 
 
 But all that was a dream. No bridge was ever thrown across 
 the silver streak, nor does it seem likely that there will ever be 
 a tunnel beneath it. 
 
 However imperfect may be our sketch of Court life at Com- 
 piegne, it will, we trust, convey to the reader some idea of its 
 character, and induce him to banish from his mind all thoughts 
 of those foolish legends of " orgies," which at one time circulated 
 on every side. A whole volume would be required to do justice 
 to the subject. The life was gay in its way, but even if, as we 
 mentioned in a previous chapter, some ladies of the Court did 
 sometimes appear as dames du ballet, the line was drawn there. 
 Of course, no indecorum was ever witnessed either then or 
 at the general dancing. For the rest, there were the picturesque 
 meets in the forest on hunting days, all the exhilarating rides 
 and drives hither and thither, whence many a guest, whether 
 jaded politician or pleasure-seeker, derived undoubted benefit, 
 returning to Paris with a new fund of energy for the work or 
 the amusements of the coming season. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE IMPERIAL PBINCE — LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE — • 
 WAR AND REVOLUTION — FATE OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 The Imperial Prince — His Governesses, Nurse, and Tutors — A Plucky Boy — 
 His Military Education— His Governor, General Frossard — His Aides-de- 
 camp — His Equerry, Stables, and Horses — Playmates of his Boyhood — • 
 Political Prospects — The Emperor and Parliamentary Bule — The Necessity 
 of Revenge on Prussia — The Coalition between France, Austria, and Italy 
 — The Mission of General Lebrun — The first Hohenzollem Candidature — 
 The New Liberal Empire — The Career of Emile Ollivier — ^He becomes 
 Prime Minister — Squibs on Eouher — Ollivier's Dif&culties — ^Madame 
 Ollivier — The New Constitution and the Plebisoitum — The Medical 
 Consultation respecting Napoleon's Health — The Illness stiU kept Secret 
 — The Second Hohenzollem Candidature and the Outbreak of War — 
 The Emperor and his Illness again — The French Defeats and Ollivier's 
 Pall — The Last Reception at the Tuileries— Bazaine under Metz — General 
 Troohu and the Empress — The Emperor's proposed Return to Paris — The 
 Empress's Last Days at the Tuileries — The News of Sedan in Paris — 
 The Bevolution^Scenes at the Tuileries — Departure of the Empress — 
 The Palace during the Siege of Paris and the Commune — Its Destruction 
 by Fire, 
 
 In chronicling the birth of the Imperial Prince we mentioned 
 that Mme. Bruat, widow of the distinguished admiral of that 
 name who commanded the French fleet during the Crimean 
 War, was appointed Governess of the Children of France, 
 with Mme. Bizot, widow of General Bizot, and Mme. de 
 Branpion, widow of a colonel of the Line, as under-govemesses. 
 The duties attaching to those posts were neither many nor 
 onerous, the child's bringing-up being so largely directed by his 
 mother the Empress. Mme. Bruat's salary was £1200, that 
 of Mmes. de Branpion and Bizot £4<00 a year. Mme. Bruat 
 did not reside at the Tuileries, but called there every day in a 
 Court carriage placed at her disposal. One or other of the 
 under-govemesses was, however, always at the palace, and 
 accompanied the little Prince whenever he was taken for a 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 377 
 
 drive. The under-govemesses were lodged and boarded, and 
 dined every Sunday at the imperial table. 
 
 The person who actually brought up the little Prince, 
 particularly after he was weaned, was his English governess 
 or nurse, Miss Shaw, a well-bred, intelligent, and devoted 
 woman, to whom the child became extremely attached. She 
 was constantly with him, sleeping from the time of his birth 
 onward in an alcove of the room he occupied. In March, 1863, 
 when the Prince, having completed his seventh year, was 
 officially regarded as being no longer in the custody of women 
 (though de facto this was scarcely the case), M. Francis Monnier 
 was appointed to be his tutor. The boy was at that time 
 inclined to be turbulent and self-willed, and Monnier, a literary 
 man, often absent-minded and careless, like some of his class, 
 did not give full satisfaction. His place was taken, then, by 
 M. Augustin Filon, who remained attached to the Prince's 
 person in one or another capacity until he quitted the Royal 
 Military Academy at Woolwich. In addition to a resident 
 tutor, the boy had several masters. He was instructed in 
 matters of religion and prepared for his first communion by 
 Abb6 Deguerry of the Madeleine, who came to the Tuileries 
 twice a week. After the Prince had made his first com- 
 munion in 1869, the Abbe still gave him certain instruction 
 once a fortnight. The Prince's handwriting-master was a 
 M. Simonard, who gave him two lessons a week. A Mr. 
 Maynard gave him lessons in English, and a M. Levy 
 lessons in German. Further, still twice a week, he was in- 
 structed in history by a then young but now distinguished 
 man, M. Ernest Lavisse, of the French Academy. That was 
 an age of Latin, and thus there was five Latin lessons each 
 week, the masters being successively M. Edeline, M. Poyart, 
 and M. Cuvillier. There was no interruption of the lessons, 
 whether the Prince were at the TuUeries, or St. Cloud, or 
 Fontainebleau, or Compiegne. In the two former instances the 
 masters were fetched and driven home in Court carriages ; in 
 the latter they travelled by rail as members of the Imperial 
 Household, and carriages were again at their disposal. With 
 respect to the Court's sojourn at Biarritz, that coincided with 
 the Prince's vacation. 
 
378 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 There is no doujjt.that he was an intelligent boy and made 
 good progress with his studies. He had artistic inclinations 
 and could draw very fairly indeed. He was also very plucky, 
 the result, in some measure, no doubt, of his training even in 
 infancy, when he was allowed to tumble about and pick himself 
 up as best he could. It is related that on one occasion in his 
 early years, when Dr. Nelaton performed some operation on 
 him, he suddenly winced. " Did I hurt you .'' " Nelaton inquired. 
 " No, monsieur le docteur," the boy answered, " but you startled 
 me." It may be added that at an early date those about the 
 Prince impressed on him that the name of Napoleon was a 
 synonym of bravery, and that, his own name being Napoleon, 
 it was his duty to be brave. There are many anecdotes of his 
 childhood, which show that he never forgot that lesson.* 
 
 His training for the profession of arms began at a very early 
 date. As an infant he was taught the military salute, and in 
 1860, when he was but four years old, he was incorporated, at 
 least nominally, among the enfants de troupe of the Grenadiers 
 of the Guard, and began to attend reviews with his father. 
 A little later real drilling commenced ; he learnt the goose 
 step, bayonet exercise, fencing, and so forth. The illustrated 
 newspapers of those days were full of engravings showing him 
 participating with his young comrades in the drill-lessons 
 given them. At last, in 1867, when the Prince was only in 
 his eleventh year, a Military Governor was assigned to him, 
 this being General Frossard, who had served the Emperor as 
 aide-de-camp, and who, as we had occasion to point out in one 
 of our early chapters,! was an officer of considerable merit, in 
 spite of his defeat at Forbach (Speichem) at the outset of the 
 Franco-German War. In that connection it may be mentioned 
 that already in 1867 Frossard prepared for the Emperor an 
 elaborate plan for the defence of France in the event of a 
 Prussian attack. When invasion came in 1870, some part of 
 Frossard's plan was put into execution. It was, notably, in 
 accordance with his ideas that the battle of Worth, schemed 
 out by him in 1867, was fought. Frossard, however, had 
 planned it with a view to victory, not defeat, though in the 
 
 * By his father and mother, however, he was invariably called Louis. 
 t See ante, p. 47. 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 379 
 
 latter case it was to have been followed by a strenuous defence 
 in the forest of Haguenau. Unfortunately, Frossard did not 
 correctly forecast the relative strength of the combatants ; the 
 success of his plan depended also on the presence of a more able 
 general than MacMahon, and he never imagined that Worth 
 would, even in the worst case, become such a rout and panic as 
 to prevent all possibility of resorting to the Haguenau-forest 
 defence. At the same time, Frossard's scheme (which provided 
 for four armies totalling 440,000 men) shows genuine ability, 
 and under other circumstances, had the effective and general 
 disposition of the French forces been different, it might have 
 achieved, perhaps, a measure of success.* 
 
 The General was a tall, slim, and somewhat reserved man, 
 whom the Emperor knew to be an excellent father, for which 
 reason he entrusted the young Prince to his care. They got on 
 very well together, and the Prince until his last years always 
 spoke favourably of his military governor. Frossard's emolu- 
 ments were ,£'1200 a year, with the use of horses and carriages 
 of the imperial stables. Under him were the Prince's aides-de- 
 camp (salary d?400 per annum), who were selected from among 
 the Emperor's former orderly officers. They included Count 
 Viel-d'Espeuilles, a lieut.-colonel of cavalry ; Count de Ligniville, 
 a major of light-infantry (Chasseurs-£t-pied) ; Major Lamey, an 
 engineer officer ; and Captain Duperre, of the imperial navy. 
 MM. Lamey and Duperre were with the Prince during the cam- 
 paign of 1870, the last-named accompanying him to Belgium 
 and thence to England. Both were devoted to the imperial 
 family. A doctor, M. Barthez, was also attached to the 
 Prince's person. 
 
 The latter's stable was quite distinct from the Emperor's 
 establishment, except with regard to its expenses, and the 
 general control of the Great and First Equerries. The Prince's 
 riding-master was M. Bachon, a Gascon by birth, who had once 
 belonged to the cavalry school of Saumur, but who, having 
 participated in Napoleon's attempt at Boulogne, had lost his 
 
 • FrosBard's plan will be found in Part I. of the French official History of 
 the War: "La Guerre de 1870-71," Paris, Ohapelot, 1902. Prossard's best 
 Bchievement was probably the direction of the siege works of Sebastopol under 
 PeliBsier. 
 
380 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 position by it. Bachon was already an elderly man when he 
 began to teach the Prince to ride, but he had remained young 
 in his ways, with a good deal of joviality, due perhaps to his 
 Gascon origin. He received, after a time, the title of Equerry 
 to the Prince. Before the latter could ride, however, he had 
 his carriage service ; first, of course, the inevitable goat-cart, 
 then a little carriage drawn by two cream-coloured ponies, and 
 next for driving about Paris a large landau and a D'Aumont 
 equipage, while a posting landau was provided for excursions of 
 any distance, and a parasol-sociable for country drives. When 
 the Prince was in Paris he was driven virtually every day to 
 Lord Hertford's charming place, Bagatelle, in the Bois de 
 Boulogne. The Emperor wished to purchase it, but Lord 
 Hertford declined the proposal, at the same time begging 
 Napoleon to send his son to Bagatelle as often as he pleased. 
 Thus, nearly every afternoon, the little fellow repaired thither 
 with his governess, nurse, equerry, and an escort of Guides, and 
 it was chiefly in those beautiful, secluded, private grounds 
 that he learnt to ride. The first mount he ever had was a 
 diminutive Shetland pony, Balmoral, which Queen Victoria sent 
 him. This he rode with a safety-saddle, but he was promoted 
 to an ordinary one on receiving a pony called Arlequino from 
 King Victor Emmanuel, who subsequently sent him his first 
 charger, Bouton d'Or. Next came a pair of Pyrenean mares, 
 Effy and Fleurette, then an Arab called Kaled, which had been 
 given to the Emperor in Algeria in 1865. Kaled, one of the 
 Prince's favourite horses, was his mount in 1870, when he viewed 
 the engagement of Saarbriicken, and received his baptism of fire. 
 He also had three other Arabs, the gifts of Sultan Abdul Aziz, 
 a Russian horse. The Czar, sent to him by Alexander II., and 
 a young Spanish barb, Solferino, which was a present from 
 Queen Isabella. He ended by riding extremely well. At an 
 early age he took lessons in vaulting, and was soon able to 
 spring into the saddle without setting foot in the stirrup. It is 
 probable that this was what he tried to do on the 1st of June, 
 1879, when he found himself faced by the Zulus. Unfortunately 
 for him, according to the statements of Mr. Archibald Forbes 
 and others, his mount was over-tall for a young man of his 
 stature, with the result that he failed in his leap, and was slain. 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRINCE 381 
 
 A good many friends of the Prince's boyhood still survive. 
 First and foremost among them was his particular chum, Louis 
 Conneau, the son of the doctor, the Emperor's devoted adherent. 
 The others were also sons of his father's or mother's friends, 
 Corvisart, Fleury, Bourgoing, Espinasse, La Bedoyere, and La 
 Poeze. The lads played together at the Tuileries or in the 
 reserved garden of the palace, or in the grounds at Bagatelle ; 
 and the young Prince showed himself extremely companionable, 
 never evincing any disposition to lord it over the others. What 
 kind of man he might have eventually become it is difficult to 
 surmise ; still less is it possible to estimate what might have 
 been his chances against the Republic which has hitherto 
 emerged victorious from every attempt against her. The 
 Emperor dragged the weight of the Coup d'Etat after him 
 throughout his reign ; the Prince, though not personally re- 
 sponsible, would also have had to bear the weight both of 
 Sedan and the lost provinces — for was he not a Bonaparte .'' We 
 think, then, that even h£id he lived, he would never have reigned 
 over France. 
 
 The thought of the young fellow's chances of peaceful 
 accession, the thought of the undisputed continuance of the 
 dynasty, was evidently one which often came to Napoleon III. 
 as time went by. He, the Emperor, was suffering from an 
 ailment which became more and more serious — much more 
 serious indeed than even the doctors, who examined him in 
 July, 1870, imagined, for organic changes, which were not then 
 suspected and which " even if suspected could not (according to 
 Sir Henry Thompson) have been ascertained," were, it seems, 
 in progress at that period, their development being revealed at 
 the examination after death. In any case, whether the Emperor 
 imagined himself to be in actual danger or not, he must have 
 been well aware that he was no longer the man he had been, 
 and that it was needful he should look to the future, and 
 provide for it. 
 
 How was he to do so .'' He could not leave such a legacy 
 as personal rule to his widow and his young son. He well knew 
 what personal rule meant, its difficulties, its dangers, the 
 unremitting toil which it entailed. He himself was more or 
 less tired of the burden to which his failing strength was no 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 longer equal. On the other hand there was the growth of the 
 demagogic spirit in Paris and some other large cities to be 
 contended with; and how could that be done successfully if 
 autocratic sway were abandoned ? Perhaps liberal measures 
 would tend to disarm the demagogy, and at the same time 
 gather more closely round the throne the more sober-minded of 
 the nation, the folk who desired the maintenance of order so 
 that they might pursue their avocations in peace. It was 
 desirable that it should be to the interest of all those people to 
 uphold the regime, and that might be best achieved by associat- 
 ing them in a greater degree with the government of the country. 
 Thus, in the Emperor's opinion, the time was at hand for real 
 parliamentary rule. He would, moreover, take the country's 
 opinion on the subject by a Plebiscitum, of the result of which 
 he had little or no doubt, holding, too, that, while sanctioning 
 his reforms, it would also consolidate the dynasty. 
 
 But there was yet another point. The foreign policy of 
 the Empire had been discredited by repeated failures. The 
 regime's prestige in that respect could only be revived by 
 some great success. None was to be hoped for in the field of 
 diplomacy, but in spite of lost opportunities it might yet be 
 gained on the field of battle. New lustre would then be 
 imparted to the Empire, the position of the dynasty would 
 be yet again strengthened, the demagogues would be silenced 
 by the acclamations of a victorious nation, proud of its increase 
 of territory — the extension of the French frontier to the Rhine; 
 and then he, the Emperor, might depart whenever he were 
 called, confident that his son would reign. Moreover, the 
 activity of Prussia in various directions was disquieting, and 
 required to be checked. South Germany still enjoyed, no 
 doubt, a measure of independence, but how long would that 
 last? If the whole Fatherland became absolutely united, 
 France would have a perpetual, intolerable menace on her 
 eastern frontier. For a time, according to the assertions of 
 certain French diplomatists, notably M. de St. Vallier, it seemed 
 probable that South Germany, in its dread of Prussia, would 
 eagerly rise against her, should opportunity occur. But leaving 
 that as doubtful, there was the possibility of obtaining the 
 co-operation of Austria, which was still smarting from the 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 383 
 
 reverses of 1866 and regretting its loss of control over German 
 affairs. Further, Napoleon considered that he had claims on 
 Italy, for he had rendered her important services, even if he had 
 kept her out of Rome. Thus a great scheme arose in the 
 imperial mind. 
 
 As a matter of fact war had been threatening ever since 
 1866 when France had failed to obtain the " compensations " 
 for which she had negotiated ; but although army reorganiza- 
 tion was then planned, and afterwards carried out in some 
 degree — though without sufficient vigour — by Niel (who, how- 
 ever good he may have been at planning, was, by reason of his 
 illness, less competent to execute) the actual steps for forming a 
 coalition against Prussia were not taken until 1869, when 
 communications on the subject passed between Napoleon and 
 the Austrian Emperor. Negotiations with Victor Emmanuel 
 appear to have ensued, and early in 1870 Archduke Albert of 
 Austria came to Paris to discuss the question. In May the 
 Emperor Napoleon's aide-de-camp. General Lebrun,* received 
 instructions to proceed to Vienna to prepare plans there, and 
 on the 28th he quitted Paris, travelling in the first instance to 
 Berlin, in the hope of thereby throwing the Prussian govern- 
 ment off the scent, though in reality he failed to do so. 
 Reaching Vienna, however, Lebrun there had numerous confer- 
 ences with Archduke Albert, and it was agreed that Germany 
 should be invaded by the entire forces of France and Austria 
 with the support of 100,000 Italians or more — for according to 
 the statements of both the French Emperor and the Austrian 
 Archduke to Lebrun, Victor Emmanuel had promised his 
 assistance. As a matter of fact the King of Italy had already 
 promised neutrality to Prussia, pursuing a kind of Machia- 
 vellian policy, prepared as he was, perhaps, to serve the interests 
 of the side which might prove the stronger, but guided 
 principally in the course he took by the hope that the chances 
 of the conflict would ensure him the possession of Rome — so 
 long the object of Italian ambition. In any case, Italy's 
 promises to Prussia were not known to General Lebrun and 
 Archduke Albert when they met. According to their plan, then, 
 while one French army was threatening the Palatinate, three 
 ♦ See ante, p. 47. 
 
384 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 others, Italian, French, and Austrian, each 100,000 strong, 
 were to invade Germany from the south, south-west, and south- 
 east, and detach the southern kingdoms and states from any 
 alliance with the north, against which the remaining forces of 
 France and Austria would co-operate. Moreover, Archduke 
 Albert appeared to believe that Italy would place not only 
 100,000 men but her entire army, at the service of the coalition. 
 
 General Lebrun estimated that France would be able to 
 throw 400,000 men across the German frontier in a fortnight, 
 but he learnt that the mobilization of Austria would require a 
 period of forty-two days, and Austria, moreover, was unwilling 
 to begin mobilizing until France had declared war. At an 
 audience granted to Lebrun by Francis Joseph, he was told by 
 the latter that the war must be brought about in such a way 
 that it might appear to be forced upon Austria, and that there 
 must be every certainty of success. In addition, Archduke 
 Albert insisted that there should be no hostilities till the spring 
 of 1871 ; before that year he would be unable to co-operate, 
 and a later season than spring would, in his opinion, jeopardise 
 the chances of success. It follows, then, that already in 
 1869 Napoleon III. was planning a coalition against Prussia, 
 and that in May, 1870, it was agreed that Germany should be 
 invaded in April or May, 1871.* 
 
 On the other side, Bismarck and Moltke had regarded war 
 as inevitable ever since 1866, from which time forward the 
 latter had been busy preparing for it, while Bismarck on his side 
 had virtually assured himself of the co-operation of the South 
 German States by divulging to them the secret " compensation" 
 projects, so foolishly left with him, in 1866, by the French 
 representative Benedetti. In France, until the very outbreak 
 of the war in 1870, it was popularly believed that, whatever 
 ZoUverein arrangements and other bonds might link North 
 and South Germany together, the latter would surely rise against 
 the former; but it seems evident that this illusion was no 
 longer entertained by Napoleon in the spring of 1870, as the 
 agreement with Austria provided for the occupation of the 
 
 * We have naturally based our account of the negotiations on General 
 Lebrun's work, "Souvenirs Militaires: Ma Mission k Vienne," Paris, 1896. 
 Of the general accuracy of that work there can be no doubt whatever. 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 385 
 
 South German States. In that matter, much as the illusion 
 may still have been shared by some French diplomatists, the 
 Emperor may have been enlightened by Prince Mettemich or 
 Archduke Albert, 
 
 We have said that the war was virtually inevitable after 
 1866. It nearly broke out in the following year over the 
 Luxemburg question, and there was again a perilous moment 
 in 1869, when for the first time the candidature of a Prince of 
 HohenzoUern to the Spanish throne was mooted.* The idea 
 seems to have been then an exclusively Prussian one, no oiFer of 
 the crown coming from Spain, but Prince Bismarck opening 
 negotiations with certain Spanish agents in order to bring 
 about such an offer. Benedetti, the French ambassador at 
 Berlin, sent word of what was being done to Paris, and 
 Napoleon promptly put his foot down, Prussia being given to 
 understand that France would regard such a candidature as a 
 casus belU. It was thereupon withdrawn, and, outwardly at all 
 events, no very unpleasant consequences seemed likely to ensue 
 from the incident ; but it is certain that Napoleon wtis again 
 alarmed by the activity of Prussia, and that from the moment 
 of this first HohenzoUern candidature the idea of invading 
 Germany, with the assistance of Austria, took definite shape, 
 resulting, as we have said, in the Archduke Albert's visit to 
 Paris and the mission of General Lebrun. 
 
 While all those momentous diplomatic and military matters 
 were receiving attention, important changes were taking place 
 in France. Though the so-called " Liberal Empire " had come 
 into being in 1860, real constitutional government, as under- 
 stood in England, was still inexistent. It has been pointed out 
 
 ♦ Isabella II. had been overthrown the previous year, and compelled to 
 flee to France, where she was received with great kindness by the Emperor 
 and Empress. Purchasing the Hotel BasUewsK, in the Avenue du Eoi de 
 Borne, of a Russian nobleman who had virtually ruined himself in building 
 it, she re-ohristened it the Palais de Castille, and lived there in great state, 
 while Don Francisco de Asis, her husband (a " friendly" separation super- 
 vening between them) betook himseU to a modest ground-floor in the Eue 
 des fiouries d'Artois. Other sovereigns Ln exUp to be found in Paris about 
 that time were the blind King of Hanover, Francis II. of Naples and his wife, 
 and that old resident, the pink and white Duke of Brunswick, with the flaxen 
 wig, the chooolate-ooloured mansion, the yellow and strawberry coach, and 
 the safe fuU of diamonds — recovered after the daring theft perpetrated by 
 bis English valet, Shaw. 
 
 2 c 
 
THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 that solicitude for his dynasty, illness, and force of circum- 
 stances, gradually inclined Napoleon to make a trial of such a 
 form of sovereignty by giving the nation an increase of liberty, 
 enlarging still further the sphere of parliamentary action, which 
 had already been extended in I860 and 1867, and reviving that 
 ministerial responsibility to the Legislature which had existed 
 in the time of Louis Philippe and of the Second Republic. In 
 1869 the semi-parliamentary regime, over which Rouher had 
 virtually presided since its inauguration in '67, was in a parlous 
 state. There had been a succession of very indifferent Ministers 
 of the Interior, the anti-dynastic party had grown larger and 
 bolder, and no little rioting occurred in connection with the 
 general elections, when, despite great Government pressure, the 
 Republican Opposition increased its numbers, while a Third 
 Party of some thirty deputies, tinged with Orleanism, came 
 into being. The political situation was even affected by a 
 crime at common law — a great and horrible one, it is true — the 
 murder of the Kinck family by a young fellow named Tropp- 
 mann — the wildest legends springing up concerning him and 
 his abominable deed. Briefly, there was considerable unrest of 
 one and another kind, arising from a variety of causes. 
 
 Rouher, Persigny, and others advised the Emperor to revert 
 to autocratic sway ; but he, on the contrary, became more and 
 more resolved to try parliamentary rule. The Prime Minister 
 he finally chose was Emile Ollivier, to whom we previously 
 referred.* Born at Marseilles in July, 1825, and the son of a 
 merchant of that city, who sat in the chambers of the Second 
 Republic and opposed the restoration of the Empire, Ollivier, 
 after being called to the Bar, was appointed Commissary of 
 the Republic in his native city, where he suppressed some 
 socialist risings in June, 1848. Cavaignac then made him 
 Prefect, but early in 1849 he returned to the Bar, and pleaded 
 ably in several important political and other cases. At the 
 general election of 1857 he was elected as a deputy for Paris, 
 being one of the famous Five who then formed the sum total 
 of the parliamentary Opposition to the Empire. At that time 
 Ollivier pompously claimed to appear in its midst as " the 
 Spectre of the Second of December" — that is, of the Coup 
 • See ante, pp. 177, 232. 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 387 
 
 d'Etat ; yet in another four years he was making advances to 
 the regime which he had denounced. Already, in 1861, his 
 apostasy was foreseen by the Republicans who had been his 
 fHends. On his re-election in 1863 he accepted from the 
 Emperor a mission to report on certain differences which had 
 arisen between the Suez Canal Company and the Viceroy of 
 Egypt, those differences having been submitted to the Emperor's 
 arbitration. Further, in 1864, the Duke de Morny became 
 very gracious with Ollivier, made a show of seeking his advice, 
 and caused him to be selected to report to the Chamber on an 
 important working-class societies' bill. In the following year 
 OUivier's evolution towards the Empire went further, and he 
 was rewarded by an appointment as " Commissaire de Surveil- 
 lance " in connection with the Suez CansJ Company, a sinecure 
 to which was attached a salary of dPlSOO a year. The accept- 
 ance of such a post was contrary to all the traditions of the 
 Paris Bar, of which Ollivier was a member. The Coimcil of 
 the Order of Advocates therefore called on him to choose 
 between it and his position as a barrister. He chose the 
 salaried post, and his name was struck off the roll. 
 
 Having become one of the Empire's creatures, he di'ew yet 
 nearer and nearer to it. During the Empress's regency in 
 1865, he was presented to her, dining en petit comite at the 
 Tuileries; tind at the close of the following year Count 
 Walewski placed him in direct communication with the 
 Emperor, who was then meditating the reforms specified in 
 his letter of January 19, 1867. Thus the author of the 
 Coup d'Etat and the man who, when first presenting himself 
 before the Paris electorate, had claimed to be its ghost, and 
 had promised to do his duty " in the name of France and the 
 Republican cause," at last came face to face. Their first 
 interview took place at the Tuileries, about five o'clock on 
 January 10, 1867. Walewski had offered Ollivier the offices 
 of Minister of Public Instruction and general Government 
 orator in the Legislative Body ; but Ollivier declared to the 
 Emperor that the more independent he might remain, the 
 more efficacious would be his help. Napoleon therefore gave 
 him no post, but some correspondence passed between them, 
 and a second meeting took place, which Rouher was to have 
 
388 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 attended. But he did not come, and, after the audience, 
 Ollivier, imagining that he had thoroughly converted the 
 Emperor to all his views, quitted the Tuileries in a state of 
 rapture, which impelled him (according to a factum he wrote 
 somewhat later) to wander for some hours, star-gazing, along 
 the quays of the Seine. He already pictured himself to be 
 the Restorer of French Liberty. The Man of that Second of 
 December, of which Ollivier was the ghost, had appeared to 
 him charming — ahsolument ! 
 
 The best proof that Ollivier did not inspire the reforms 
 of January 19 is, that when the Emperor's letter announcing 
 them appeared, he was not satisfied with it. Meantime Rouher 
 proceeded on his way ; and between him and Ollivier (who was 
 now altogether shunned by his former Republican associates) 
 there ensued many a bout of eloquence during the parliamentary 
 sessions of the next few years. Ollivier's hour came at last. 
 Disapproving of the Emperor's evolution towards Liberalism, 
 Rouher had to retire from active authority in the autumn of 
 1869, and was appointed President of the Senate in the place 
 of Troplong, a jurisconsult of some learning and sagacity, who 
 had held the post for many years. Then came Forcade de la 
 Roquette's brief administration, and in the last days of 1869, 
 while the Court was at Compiegne, the Emperor finally decided 
 on a real parliamentary regime, and offered Ollivier the chief 
 ministry. 
 
 The first impression of the public after the appointment of 
 Ollivier and his colleagues on January 2, 1870, was certainly 
 favourable. The funds rose. Many people had feared a return 
 of Rouher's rule. That " Vice-Emperor " had made himself the 
 most unpopular man in Paris. Several amusing songs and paro- 
 dies, in which he figured, had been circulated about the time of 
 his downfall. There was a parody of Victor Hugo, beginning — 
 
 " Or voioi la grande revue 
 
 Que passe, lugubre et sans bruit, 
 Pleuranli ea d^faite imprSvue, 
 Eouher 4 I'heure de minuit." 
 
 Another — a very clever parody of Chateaubriand — dating from 
 the same period, or a little earlier, when the once all-powerful 
 minister's fate was trembling in the balance, ran as follows : — 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 389 
 
 Combien j'ai douce souvenanoe 
 Des premiers jovirs de ma puissance ; 
 On faisait a tous mes disconis 
 
 Silence. 
 Ma place sera mes amours 
 
 Toujours I 
 
 Alors je n'avais qu'i paraltre 
 A la tribune pour soumettre 
 La Chambre, qui, folle de moi, 
 
 Son maltre, 
 Votait, sans demander poorquoi, 
 
 Ma loi. 
 
 Aujourd'hui la Chambre indocile, 
 A ma yoix n'est plus si facile ; 
 Son d6vouement, par contre-coup, 
 
 Vacille. 
 Je n'en viens presque plus du tout 
 
 A bout. 
 
 Qui ram^nera I'inhumaine 
 Sous ma volontS souveraine ? 
 Son abandon fait tous les jours 
 
 Ma peine — 
 Ma place sera mes amours 
 
 Toujours I 
 
 In the new Government OUivier was Minister of Justice 
 and Religion. His colleagues included Chevandier de Val- 
 drome (Interior), Marshed Leboeuf (War), Admiral Rigault de 
 Genouilly (Marine), Count Napoleon Daru, a godson of the first 
 Emperor (Foreign Affairs), Buffet (Finance), and the Marquis de 
 Talhouet (Public Works). The other appointments need not be 
 specified, but it may be mentioned that Daru * had opposed 
 the Coup d'Etat and that Buffet and Talhouet had protested 
 against it. They were, in point of fact, Orleanists, and after 
 the Plebiscitum they resigned, being replaced by the Duke 
 de Gramont and MM. Mege and Plichon. At first, the 
 Orleanist deputies of the Chamber, that Third Party of which 
 we have spoken, rallied round the new Ministry, their adherents 
 joined them, and with this support Ollivier basked in a semblance 
 of popularity. But all that these new partisans desired was to 
 participate in a new Curee, a great distribution of favours and 
 appointments; while on the other hand, the Prime Minister 
 
 * See alsojpost, p. 405, 
 
890 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and his colleagues were cordially detested by all the real 
 Imperialists and the Republicans. The new appointments 
 were comparatively few, certain functionaries, lilie Baron Hauss- 
 mann, were dismissed and replaced, but the new regime was at 
 a loss how to fill many offices. The Empire had spent eighteen 
 years in training its prefects and sub-prefects, and Ollivier, 
 having few men at his disposal on whom he could rely, was 
 forced to leave the great majority of the old functionaries in 
 office. Again, the Senate presided over by Rouher frowned on 
 him, all sorts of coteries, too, suddenly sprang up in the 
 Chamber, while the Court looked on with a feeling of dis- 
 appointment. It is true that Madame Ollivier was a great 
 success. The daughter of a M. Gravier, a Marseilles merchant, 
 she was the Prime Minister's second wife,* their marriage 
 dating from the previous year. And she came to the Tuileries 
 quite fresh and young, with bourgeois manners, refusing to 
 wear a low-necked gown, yet looking quite charming in her 
 white frock, which was set off neither by lace nor jewels, the 
 lady's only coquetterie being a sprig of heather in her smooth 
 fair hair. All that was quite novel to many Tuileries folk. It 
 seemed as if St. Muslin, so often invoked during the perform- 
 ances of Sardou's " Famille Benoiton," had at last heard the 
 appeal and come to the rescue. In any case a reign of " Sweet 
 Simplicity" set in. Trains were almost abandoned, hair was 
 more simply dressed, the " false " variety being discarded, and 
 diamonds were left in their cases. 
 
 Meantime, however, serious trouble had assailed the new 
 ministry. Only eight days after its assumption of office, Victor 
 Noir, the journalist, expired in a chemist's shop at Auteuil, 
 killed by Prince Pierre Bonaparte.j Then came the demonstra- 
 tion at his funeral, followed by an infinity of riotous incidents, 
 wild provocative articles in the advanced Press, the arrest of 
 Rochefort, exciting scenes at public meetings, turmoil that 
 never ceased. Amidst all those disquieting symptoms, how- 
 ever, the new Constitution was drafted. It established parlia- 
 mentary rule, made the ministers responsible to the Chambers, 
 
 * M. Olliviei's first wife was IilUe. Blandine Liszt, a daughter of the 
 famous pianist. She died in 1862, 
 f See wnte, p. 212. 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 391 
 
 gave members of the latter the right to introduce bills, provided 
 that commercial treaties should be submitted to them, and 
 limited to twenty the number of senators whom the Emperor 
 might appoint in any one year. Further, it named Prince 
 Napoleon as heir to the throne in the event of the death of 
 the Imperial Prince.* There were two ways of securing the 
 country's ratification of the reforms, one was by means of a 
 Plebiscitum, the other by a dissolution and general elections. 
 The Orleanists in the ministry were really opposed to the 
 Plebiscitum, for they feared it would consolidate the Empire, 
 and they had only accepted office in order to undermine it. 
 However, a Plebiscitum was taken — such being the Emperor's 
 personal desire — and the solemn presentation of the result to 
 the Sovereign in the Salle des Etats at the Louvre was the last 
 great Court ceremony of the reign. 
 
 Napoleon, judging by the result of the Paris elections of 
 1869, had estimated that 6,000,000 votes would be cast in 
 his favour, but the Ayes were, in round numbers, 7,350,000, 
 against 1,530,000 Noes, the latter including nearly 50,000 
 army votes, at least half of which, however, emanated from 
 men angry at having been kept with the colours (owing to 
 certain fears) six months beyond their time. That is no 
 fiction. Nearly all the men at the Prince Eugene barracks 
 in Paris voted " No," and the Emperor was greatly distiu:bed 
 on hearing it. A little later, therefore, he visited the barracks, 
 and was immediately acclaimed by the men. Their vote had 
 been dictated solely by their personal grievance, and had no 
 political signification. The Emperor, well pleased on finding 
 that such was the case, ordered a distribution of gratuities 
 among the men — which was not, perhaps, the best course to 
 pursue. Still there is no doubt that the army vote, generally, 
 was much less unfavourable than it seemed. At the same 
 time, great as might be the Imperial majority at the Plebis- 
 citum, it was noteworthy that the minority had now become 
 six times larger than it had been when the country was called 
 upon to sanction the establishment of the Empire. In Paris 
 and its immediate vicinity the adversaries of the regime were 
 
 ' Previously Prince Napoleon had only been designated by decree. See 
 ante, p. 61, 
 
392 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 24<0,000, another 100,000 being in the departments of which 
 Lyons and Marseilles are the chief cities. In fact, the " Noes " 
 were very numerous throughout southern France ; and, briefly, 
 if the Emperor was pleased with his majority, the anti-dynastic 
 party was, on the whole, not dissatisfied at finding itself so 
 strong, even though some wild Republicans had at one moment 
 imagined that they would sweep the country. 
 
 The Plebiscitum was taken about a week before the de- 
 parture of General Lebrun on his mission to Vienna — a 
 circumstance not without its significance. Yet the vote was 
 certainly no vote for war. Going from Paris to Touraine, and 
 thence to Brittany about that time, the impression we received 
 was that the great majority of people desired to enjoy tran- 
 quillity and to see order re-established in Paris, whence the 
 newspapers brought all sorts of exaggerated reports. Many 
 who voted " Yes " scarcely approved of the new Constitution, 
 and it was more as an expression of confidence in the Emperor 
 personally that their votes were given. Again, there ;was 
 occasionally an old Imperialist who stubbornly refused to vote 
 at all, not wishing to do so against the Emperor, yet unwilling 
 to give any support to Emile OUivier. Apart, too, from per- 
 sonal observation in central and western France, documentary 
 evidence shows that the Premier was nowhere more unpopular 
 than in the south, his native part ; and this, in despite of the 
 fact that, having been rejected by the Parisian electors as an 
 apostate, he now sat for the department of the Var. That had 
 been brought about in some degree by Government influence. 
 Pressure was also brought to bear on the electors in connection 
 with the Plebiscitum, but the facts have often been exaggerated 
 by Republican writers, who have been careful to say little or 
 nothing of the stupendous efforts of their own party, which, 
 counting several men of great personal wealth in its ranks, 
 disposed of a large amount of money. 
 
 In a way, it was possible for Ollivier to deceive himself 
 respecting his real hold on public opinion. The Orleanists, 
 hoping to make him their tool, coquetted with him vigorously ; 
 and the French Academy, then one of their strongholds, became 
 so gracious, that in this, the last year of the reign, one saw for the 
 first time a Minister of the Empire elected as a member of that 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 393 
 
 company of Immortals. Moreover, all who sought appoint- 
 ments, and all who feared lest they might lose those they held, 
 fawned upon the Prime Minister, who thus had an entourage 
 by which he might be deceived respecting his popularity. At 
 last the Orleanists, who, wishing to turn the agitation of the 
 Republicans to their own advantage, had roused themselves 
 so suddenly from their prolonged somnolence — and were to 
 make their influence felt immediately after the approaching 
 war — unmasked their batteries. The Count de Paris and his 
 relatives, the Prince de Joinville, the Dukes d'Aumale, de 
 Nemours, and de Chartres, petitioned the Chamber for per- 
 mission to return to France as " mere citizens." It was impossible 
 for the Empire to accede to such a petition, and OUivier was 
 forced to oppose it. Scarcely had it been dismissed (July 2, 
 1870) when France was startled by a thunderclap. 
 
 At that time the Court was en residence at St. Cloud. 
 Nevertheless, on July 1, a very important consultation on 
 the subject of the Emperor's iUness took place in great secrecy 
 in Paris between Drs. N^laton, Ricord, Fauvel, Grermain S^, 
 and Corvisart. Two days later it became known that Prince 
 Leopold of Hohenzollern was a candidate for the Spanish 
 throne. From this it will be seen that the consultation of 
 the Emperor's doctors preceded the incidents which actually 
 led up to the Franco-German war, and was therefore dictated 
 by none of them. At the same time, it may not have been 
 brought about solely by the Emperor's anxiety respecting 
 his health, as the arrangements for it followed the return 
 of General Lebrun from his mission to Vienna, and we are 
 inclined to think that if the Emperor at last decided to 
 place himself unresei-vedly in the hands of his doctors for 
 treatment, it was, in at least some degree, with a view to 
 his participation in the campaign planned for the spring of 
 1871. There was no exploratory surgical examination of the 
 Emperor, but the report of the consultation drawn up by Dr. 
 Germain See advised such an examination, adding, "and we 
 think that this is an opportune moment, particularly as just 
 now there are no acute symptoms." 
 
 On July 3, See drafted his report, and on the same day 
 he gave it to Dr. Conneau (by whom the consultation had 
 
394 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 been arranged), asking him to get it signed by the other 
 medical men, and to show it afterwards to the Empress. But 
 Conneau did not procure the other signatures, and it is at 
 least very doubtful whether it was shown to the Empress 
 at all. According to Dr. See it was not. However, M. 
 Darimon, a friend of Emile OUivier, asserts in his work, " La 
 Maladie de TEmpereur," that subsequent to the latter's death, 
 on Prince Napoleon reproaching Conneau for having kept Dr. 
 See's report secret, the latter declared that he had shown it to 
 the rightful person (a qui de droit), and that the reply it 
 elicited was : Le vin est tirS, U faut le hoire, which may be 
 Englished perhaps as, " The die is cast, we must abide by the 
 result" — the communication being made of course after the 
 Hohenzollern candidature difficulty had arisen with Prussia. 
 M. Darimon attributes the reply in question to the Empress, 
 but we are confident he is in error — "the rightful person" 
 referred to by Conneau, being none other than Napoleon him- 
 self, to whom Conneau submitted See's report directly it was 
 received, in order that he, the Emperor, might know how 
 serious the doctors considered his case to be. Conneau doubt- 
 less intended to procure the other doctors' signatures, and he 
 also meant to show the document to the Empress, but Napoleon 
 kept it, answering in the manner stated. We also think it 
 probable that he enjoined secrecy, even as he had done in 
 Larrey's case in 1865. At all events he did not intend to act 
 on the report at once ; his hands were now too full, that 
 Hohenzollern affair, which had sprung up since the consultation, 
 must be settled before he could submit to medical treatment; 
 and thus it came to pass that the report was suppressed, hidden 
 away, and only became known when the original was found 
 among Napoleon's papers, and Dr. See sent his original draft 
 to n Union MSdicale for publication. 
 
 For the consequences which followed the suppression of 
 the report. Napoleon himself must primarily be blamed; but 
 Conneau, in obeying the master to whom he was so devoted, 
 was guilty of a grievous error of judgment. It may be that 
 when he submitted the report to the Emperor, the latter told 
 him that he would show it to the Empress himself; neverthe- 
 less, during the fateful fortnight which ensued, the doctor, who 
 
WAR AND REVOLUTION 395 
 
 knew the truth, ought to have intervened. He could not have 
 prevented the war, for Prussia was resolved on it — she was not 
 going to allow Napoleon time to mature his coalition plans — 
 but he might have prevented the Emperor from assuming 
 command. Further, why did not See himself and Ricord, 
 Fauvel, Corvisart, and Nekton speak out directly they saw the 
 Emperor assuming command? They must have known that 
 he was unfit for such work, yet they made no protest. The 
 doctrine of "professional secrecy" seems to have overridden 
 every other consideration, the interests of the Emperor person- 
 ally, those of the Empire, and particularly those of France. 
 Baron Corvisart, for his part, was not satisfied with keeping 
 his mouth shut, he even participated in the folly of the course 
 taken by Napoleon, for he accompanied him on the campaign, 
 and was with him still at Sedan. Both Emile Ollivier and his 
 colleague Maurice Richard, Minister of Fine Arts, afterwards 
 told Darimon that had the truth about the Emperor's illness 
 been known to them, he would not have been allowed to join 
 the army of the Rhine, but would have been kept in Paris; 
 apart from which particular point, the report of the doctors 
 would have exercised the greatest influence on every Govern- 
 ment decision respecting the war. 
 
 As we have said, Prussia was bent on hostilities. The 
 revival of a HohenzoUem candidature to the throne of Spain 
 was, so to say, the answer to Lebrun's mission to Vienna, 
 respecting which Bismarck had received full information from 
 the Hungarian Ministers of the time, who, being opposed to 
 the projected coalition, betrayed both Austria and France 
 to the Prussian Chancellor. He then deliberately prepared 
 that second HohenzoUern candidature, and hurled it at amazed 
 France — amazed because it imagined that the project had been 
 definitely shelved the previous year. 
 
 We have not space to enter in emy detail into the story 
 of what ensued. To put the case briefly, if rather crudely, 
 France objected to the presence of a Prussian Prince on the 
 Spanish throne, and demanded the withdrawal of the candi- 
 dature, as she had done already the previous year. Thereupon 
 the candidature was again withdrawn. Then, as this was the 
 second attempt of the kind, France requested of the King of 
 
396 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Prussia, as head of his House, a pledge that there should be 
 no further renewal of such a candidature. That pledge King 
 WiUiatn refused to give, and war followed. With respect to 
 some other points, we doubt whether the Empress Eugenie, 
 to whom some have assigned so much responsibility, unduly 
 hurried on what had become inevitable. We do not believe 
 that she ever called it ma guerre a moi. We think also, as 
 Trochu generously remarks in his "Memoirs," that Marshal 
 Leboeuf, the War Minister, honestly believed that France was 
 in a position to take the field. Further, whatever may be 
 in some respects our opinion of M. Emile Ollivier, however 
 inexcusable may have been his remark about embarking on the 
 war with a light heart, we readily acknowledge that the war 
 was not brought about by him. He wished to preserve peace, 
 he was at one moment even hopeful of doing so, and he was 
 not even present at that fateful night-meeting at St. Cloud 
 when the decisive step of ordering the mobilization of the 
 army was taken. He only heard of that decision the next 
 morning. 
 
 On the actual diplomatic methods of the Duke de Gramont, 
 the Foreign Minister, and his subordinate Benedetti, the French 
 ambassador at Berlin, during the incidents which immediately 
 preceded hostilities, some rather severe strictures might be passed. 
 As for the Duke's public statement respecting the co-operation 
 of Austria, that, we think, was made in good faith. It is true 
 that according to existing arrangements Austria was not to 
 co-operate until 1871, and that as M. de Gramont subsequently 
 admitted, " she was painfully surprised by the haste of France 
 in declaring war ; " nevertheless, there were serious reasons for 
 believing that she would co-operate despite the fact that events 
 had been precipitated. We have also M. de Chaudordy's state- 
 ments about the negotiations which took place between Paris, 
 Vienna and Florence between July 20 and August 4, in accord- 
 ance with which Austria and Italy would have intervened on or 
 about September 16, provided that a French army should by 
 that time have crossed the Rhine, invaded southern Germany 
 and reached Munich, there to join hands with the Austrian 
 and Italian forces.* Those assertions may have been denied — 
 
 * Eng^uSta sui le Goveruemest du 4: Septembre: Deposition de M. de 
 Ohaudoidy, 
 
WAR AND REVOLUTION 397 
 
 by Beust and others, denials sometimes being necessary — ^but 
 M. de Chaudordy did not speak without authority. 
 
 The French, however, failed to cross the Rhine, The lack 
 of method and the great delay in their mobilization, with 
 the low strength of their effectives, presaged no good result. 
 Three years previously Frossard had planned a campaign for 
 450,000 men, three months previously Lebrun had promised 
 Archduke Albert 400,000; but only 243,000 was the actual 
 strength of the forces gathered in Alsace-Lorraine in August, 
 1870, and the mobilization had occupied thrice the time it 
 should have done. Moreover, repeated defeats fell on the 
 Emperor's armies and shattered all hope of a coalition. Italy 
 seems to have been the first to break away, and Austria, 
 confronted by a situation so diflPerent from what had been 
 anticipated, relinquished any idea of intervention. 
 
 On July 27, Napoleon, leaving the Empress behind him as 
 Regent, quitted the chateau of St. Cloud with his young son. 
 A special train was in readiness at a siding in the park. The 
 great dignitaries of the Empire, the senators and others, were 
 present to take leave of the sovereign. The Emperor appeared 
 quite calm; the young Prince showed some excitement; the 
 Empress was plainly affected, her eyes were moist. Among the 
 escort accompanying Napoleon to the headquarters of the army 
 of the Rhine at Metz was Dr. Baron Corvisart, who, knowing 
 the truth about the Emperor's condition, had with him a case 
 of instruments for use if any operation should become urgent. 
 On August 2 came the engagement of Saarbriicken, at which 
 the young Prince received the baptism of fire. When the 
 affair was over, General Lebrun, noticing that the Emperor had 
 great difficulty in alighting from his horse, proffered assistance. 
 Napoleon took his arm, and as they walked towards a carriage 
 some fifty paces away, Lebrun remarked : " Your Majesty 
 seems to be unwell." " My dear general," replied the Emperor, 
 stifling a moan, " I am suffering horribly." Thus it was that 
 aide-de-camp Lebrun first heard of Napoleon's malady. In a 
 similar way its extreme seriousness only came about this time 
 to the knowledge of M. Pietri, Napoleon's private secretary, 
 who, on August 7, after a conversation with the Emperor on 
 the subject, telegraphed to the Empress advising that the 
 
898 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Emperor should return to Paris and leave Bazaine in chief 
 command. But at that moment the defeats of Weissenburg, 
 Speichem, and Worth had followed each other in swift succes- 
 sion, and the Empress replied that the consequences of the 
 Emperor's return after such reverses ought to be considered, 
 and that should he decide to go back to Paris, the country must 
 be given to understand that he only did so provisionally, in 
 order to organize a second army, and had left Bazaine merely 
 as temporary commander of the army of the Rhine. 
 
 The position in Paris, where only a few weeks previously 
 the war had been so frantically acclaimed by thoughtless folk, 
 was certainly becoming difficult. Already, on the evening of 
 August 6, at the first news of MacMahon's overwhelming 
 defeat at Worth, the Empress had hurried from St. Cloud to 
 the Tuileries, where a long night-council was held. On the 
 morrow, while issuing a proclamation exhorting the Parisians 
 to be firm and preserve order, she declared a state of siege in 
 the capital. Then, on the 9th, the OUivier Ministry was over- 
 thrown by the Chamber, and replaced by an administration 
 under General Cousin-Montauban, Count de Palikao, who, as 
 commander in China several years previously, had looted the 
 Summer Palace of Pekin. His colleagues were all Bonapartists, 
 chiefly of the younger school. On the morrow (August 10) 
 came the news that Strasburg was invested ; on the 12th we 
 heard that Nancy was occupied. Now it was that, in com- 
 pliance with the clamour of the anti-dynastic party, the 
 unhappy, ailing Emperor was deposed from the chief command 
 and replaced by Bazaine, respecting whose military abilities 
 there was such extraordinary infatuation. Fate was on the 
 march. Paris was becoming more and more excited, more and 
 more uncontrollable. 
 
 On August 14, a few hours after there had been some rioting 
 at La ViUette, the last reception of the reign was held at the 
 Tuileries. The Empress appeared at it garbed in black net 
 with a jet diadem, and every lady present was in the deepest 
 mourning for the reverses of France. Even the Court footmen 
 and other officials wore black, only the military men retaining 
 their uniforms. The aflair at La Villette was, perhaps, the chief 
 subject of conversation at that gathering, but there was some 
 
WAR AND REVOLUTION 399 
 
 hopefulness with respect to the war now that Bazaine had the 
 supreme control, and that the withdrawal of his army from Metz 
 had been decided on. Matters would soon improve when the 
 Marshal and his men were in the open — such was the prevailing 
 impression. But, as we know, the situation went from bad to 
 worse. On August 14 Napoleon quitted Metz; on the 16th 
 Vionville-Mars-la-Tour was fought, and Bazaine's retreat 
 stopped; and on the 18th, after fighting for nine hours at 
 St. Privat-Gravelotte, he was driven back under the great 
 stronghold of Lorraine. 
 
 In Paris, that same day, General Trochu stepped upon the 
 scene. There had been a demand that he should be made Minister 
 of War, but the post assigned to him weis that of Governor of 
 the capital. As Minister at that stage it is improbable that he 
 could have retrieved the situation ; but had he held the post at 
 the very outset his services might have proved most valuable, 
 for he was a born organizer. At the time of the Crimean War 
 the French forces might well have found themselves in the same 
 plight as the English if Trochu, after assembling certain 
 colleagues at the War Ministry, had not exerted himself in 
 selecting the units of the expedition, planning staflf arrange- 
 ments, attending to the proper equipment of the men, and 
 providing them with all necessaries — accomphshing, in fact, 
 quite a tour deforce, for France was at that time no more pre- 
 pared for war than she was in 1870. Trochu again proved his 
 talent as an organizer during the siege of Paris, when he 
 improvised so much, when he so often turned nothing into 
 something, and made, if not a successful, at least an extremely 
 honourable defence. 
 
 Unfortunately, after St. Amaud's death, Trochu was dis- 
 trusted by the Empire. A Breton, bom in 1815, he had been 
 a great favourite with Louis Philippe's Marshal, Bugeaud, and 
 having refused a Court appointment from Napoleon III., he was 
 suspected of Orleanism. Moreover, his repeated criticisms of 
 French army methods long gave offence in high places. He 
 had his limitations, and he knew them ; he had never exercised 
 more than a divisional command in the field (Italy, 1859), and 
 it was because he felt unequal to field duties that he never com- 
 manded in person at the sorties during the Paris siege. But in 
 
400 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 an office or a camp he was admirable, an adept in laying down 
 sound rules, in preparing, providing for requirements. Again, 
 he was not the man to cope with a popular rising, and in that 
 respect he was not fit for the post of Military Governor of 
 Paris. If he did not save the Empire on the 4th of September, 
 neither did he save himself and his National Defence colleagues 
 on the 31st of October, during the siege days, when he and they 
 were shut up at the H6tel-de-Ville, at the mercy of a Communist 
 insurrection. The rescue which was effected was the work of 
 a civilian, Jules Ferry. 
 
 At the same time, if the Empress-Regent had placed more 
 confidence in Trochu instead of steadily alienating him, he 
 might at least have attempted to save the Empire at the 
 Revolution, though we doubt if any one, any St. Arnaud or 
 Magnan or Canrobert, could really have saved the regime 
 that day, even if the Empress had been willing, which she 
 was not, to have the people cannonaded as at the Coup d'Etat. 
 However, as Trochu bitterly complains in his Memoirs, he was 
 treated by the Empress with suspicion and distrust from the 
 moment of his appointment. He was to have been followed to 
 Paris by the Emperor, and MacMahon's army was to have 
 retreated on the capital to recruit its strength and cover the 
 city. But when Trochu informed the Empress of those plans — 
 agreed upon at a conference held at Chalons between the 
 Emperor, Rouher, Prince Napoleon, MacMahon, Schmitz, and 
 Trochu himself — she opposed them violently, saying, " Those 
 who advised the Emperor to adopt those plans are enemies. 
 The Emperor shall not return ; he would not return alive. As 
 for the army of Chalons [MacMahon's] it must eflFect its 
 junction with the army of Metz." * 
 
 That policy prevailed. The unlucky army of Chalons 
 started on its march to relieve Metz, where Bazaine was now 
 shut up, just as the bombardment of Strasburg was beginning. 
 MacMahon led his forces from Chalons to Rethel, thence in the 
 direction of Montmedy. But the Germans followed them, 
 came up with them, routed the corps under General de Failly 
 at Beaumont, and forced MacMahon and the others on Sedan, 
 where the supreme catastrophe fell upon them. The unhappy 
 * Trochu, " Le SUge de Paris," etc., Mame, Tours, 
 
WAR AND REVOLUTION 401 
 
 Emperor, who, forbidden to return to Paris, had accompanied 
 his troops on that anxious, difficult, terrible march, sought 
 death on the field, and when death refused to take him, made 
 a last supreme assertion of his authority, ordered the white flag 
 to be hoisted, and tendered his sword to the Prussian King. 
 
 The Empress Eugenie has been violently attacked by scores 
 of writers for preventing the return of the Emperor and 
 MacMahon to Paris. It has even been said repeatedly that 
 she deliberately sacrificed her husband to the chance of saving 
 the Empire for her son. This narrative has shown that 
 Napoleon was no faithful husband, and that his consort had 
 real grievances against him. But we do not believe that she 
 sacrificed him in the way and for the purpose alleged. We 
 hold that she was quite sincere when she said to Trochu that 
 the Emperor would not return to Paris alive — meaning, of 
 course, that he would be killed if he returned. We were in 
 Paris at the time, and the unpopularity into which the Emperor 
 had fallen by reason of all the reverses inflicted on the French 
 arms, was of such a nature that, even if he had come back at 
 the same moment as Trochu (by whose sudden popularity he 
 was to have been covered) we doubt if Trochu could have saved 
 him. Trochu, as already stated, was not the man to contend 
 with mobs. And the Emperor's return, and the knowledge 
 that MacMahon's forces were returning also — abandoning 
 Bazaine to his fate — would have been like a match applied 
 to tinder; and in the sudden blaze, the sudden outburst of 
 popular indignation and wrath. Emperor, Empress, and Empire 
 would have been immediately swept away. Briefly, the Fourth 
 of September would now be known as the Eighteenth of August. 
 By the course which the Empress took, then, she did not 
 sacrifice her husband, she hoped to save the Empire. As it 
 happened, she was only able to prolong the agony for fourteen 
 days. 
 
 On the other hand, from the military standpoint, the retreat 
 of MacMahon on Paris would certainly have been the best 
 course. But the Empress, haunted, not without reason, by 
 the thought of Revolution, held, no doubt, that even such a 
 retreat would have sufficed to stir it up — so acute, so urgent 
 was the anxiety for Bazaine and Metz, so foul and so odious 
 
 2d 
 
402 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 would it have seemed to Paris, at that moment, if the Marshal 
 and the fortress had been abandoned. Besides, if only 
 MacMahon and his men had returned to the capital, what 
 could have been done with the Emperor ? The situation was 
 perplexing, full of serious difficulties, and it is because we know 
 that such was the case, that, unlike some others, we bring no 
 charges against the Empress with respect to the course she 
 followed. It is always easy to fling accusations, it is often 
 difficult to substantiate them. 
 
 Many accounts testify that the Empress, from the time of 
 her sudden return from St. Cloud to the Tuileries, was haunted, 
 as we have mentioned, by the thought of Revolution. If, before 
 all else, she had to discharge her duty to the country, she also 
 had to perform her duty to the dynasty, whose interests she, 
 as Regent, held in trust. The vigilance of the Prefect of Police 
 was not relaxed until the last hour. The expiring Empire was 
 not uninformed of the planning and scheming of the anti- 
 dynastic party, which was so watchfully awaiting its oppor- 
 tunity to seize the reins of government. " Let us destroy the 
 Empire first, we will see about the country afterwards," was the 
 motto of too many of the men who subsequently paraded as 
 zealous patriots. All that was known at the Tuileries, and 
 apprehension was natural. The Empress, so it has been said, 
 particularly feared that revolution might break out during the 
 night, and always felt disturbed when evening fell. In addition 
 to the military guard, many detectives were on duty around 
 the palace, never losing sight of the Republican spies by whom 
 it was watched. There was no actual conflict, we think, each 
 side was content to remain en observation. 
 
 With or without the Empress's knowledge and assent 
 various schemes for assuring her safety in the event of an out- 
 break were devised. One plan provided for a temporary retreat 
 at a Paris convent, whose lady-superior was most willing to be 
 of service. There were moments, however, when the Regent 
 shook off her apprehensions, and when the question of pursuing 
 a vigorous policy towards the Parisian malcontents was mooted 
 at the Tuileries. More than once it was proposed to have 
 certain leaders arrested, but hesitation invariably supervened, 
 and the question was postponed. 
 
WAR AND REVOLUTION 403 
 
 The decisive moment came with the catastrophe of Sedan. 
 Though the Empress did not receive direct tidings from 
 Napoleon until four o'clock on the afternoon of September 3, 
 the truth was known to the Government on the afternoon of 
 the previous day, and both Thiers and Jules Favre became 
 acquainted with it the same evening. Thiers was vainly 
 implored by Prince Metternich, in conjunction with M&imee, 
 to take office and save both France and the Empire; but he 
 refused his services, even as on the morrow, September 8, he 
 refused to place himself at the head of the Republicans as 
 he was begged to do by Favre, Simon, Ferry, Picard, and 
 others of the Opposition. It was then and then only that the 
 anti-dynastic leaders really turned to Trochu. 
 
 In the Legislative Body, on the afternoon of September 3, 
 Count de Palikao, the Prime Minister, would only admit that 
 MacMahon had been compelled to retreat to Sedan, and that 
 a small body of his troops had sought refuge in Belgium ; but 
 at a night sitting which was held some hours later, there could 
 be no further concealment of the truth which Thiers and Favre 
 had already conveyed to many colleagues. Besides, it had also 
 begun to circulate through Paris, and during the evening 
 people flocked to the Palais Bourbon, many of them already 
 crying : " Dethronement ! dethronement ! " On the Boulevards 
 the excitement was general, and a foolhardy attack was even 
 made on a police-station there, whereupon the police charged 
 the crowd with their swords quite as energetically as they had 
 ever done in the days of the Empire's power. Many people 
 then hurried to Trochu's quarters at the Louvre to protest 
 against the brutality of the police, while others tissembled 
 on the Place de la Concorde to discuss the position and insist 
 on the Emperor's abdication. When, about two o'clock in the 
 morning (September 4), the night-sitting of the Chamber ended, 
 and the many vehicles containing ministers, deputies, and 
 journalists came rolling across the square, a strong force of 
 cavalry suddenly swept out of the Palais de I'lndustrie in the 
 Champs Elysees, where it had been quartered since the jifter- 
 noon, and cantering hither and thither, threw the procession of 
 conveyances into confusion and scattered the spectators. In a 
 quai'ter of an hour everybody had been driven from the spot. 
 
404 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 and the energy of the troops, following that of the police, 
 seemed to indicate that any attempt at Revolution after day- 
 break would be speedily put down. At that moment, then, 
 quietude prevailed in Paris ; but the Republicans had not lost 
 their time during the evening, nor did they lose the remaining 
 hours of the night. The word went round that everybody 
 must turn up early in the afternoon, as soon as the Chamber 
 should assemble, and the Palais Bourbon was the appointed 
 rendezvous. Briefly, although the events which followed were 
 not exactly organized, the movement was not so spontaneous as 
 some have imagined. 
 
 Bright and clear was that Sunday, September 4. There is 
 just a possibility that if rain had poured in torrents there might 
 have been no Revolution. It could not have been prevented 
 by bloodshed, we think, and the Empress was right in refusing 
 to sanction extreme measures. She had presided over a Minis- 
 terial Council at the Tuileries shortly before the night-sitting 
 of the Legislative Body, and a proclamation had then been 
 agreed upon, as well as a proposal for a Committee of Defence, 
 which proposal was met in the Chamber by more or less revo- 
 lutionary ones emanating from the Republicans and Orleanists. 
 After the council many of the great dignitaries arrived at the 
 palace, and only at a late hour was the Empress left with her 
 immediate entourage. She took very little rest. At six 
 o'clock on the morning of the 4th she was up and about, 
 visiting the ambulance which she had installed in the palace 
 playhouse. Afterwards, repairing to her little oratory, she 
 heard mass, subsequently conversing with the chaplain, and 
 supplying him, in her usual way, with money for necessitous 
 cases. By that time General de Palikao and the other ministers 
 had arrived, as well as several members of the Privy Council, 
 including Rouher ; and the course to be pursued at the after- 
 noon sittings of the Chamber and Senate was then discussed at 
 length, Rouher taking a leading part in the deliberations. 
 Lunch was served about half-past eleven, some twenty-eight 
 persons sitting down to table with the Empress, as the service 
 (Thonneur whose week ended that day was present as well as 
 the service which was to replace it. The only guest, however, 
 was Ferdinand de Lesseps. There was no departure from any 
 
WAR AND REVOLUTION 405 
 
 of the ordinary etiquette, though the anxiety of everybody was 
 keen. Despatches arrived at every moment, now from the 
 Prefecture of Police, now from the Ministry of War, now from 
 that of the Interior. Most of them referred to the gravity of 
 the situation in Paris, and proposed or suggested measures for 
 subduing any popular rising. In that respect the Empress's 
 authorization was requested ; but she would give none. " Any- 
 thing rather than civil war," was her invariable answer. 
 
 From time to time various visitors, people more or less 
 attached to the Court, arrived, one and all of them bringing 
 increasingly serious tidings respecting the disposition of the 
 Parisians. It became known that bands of people were march- 
 ing about, already shouting, " Dethronement ! Dethronement ! " 
 and " Long live the Republic ! " At last some troops suddenly 
 appeared on the Place du Carrousel, and others in the reserved 
 garden of the palace. They were all men of the Imperial 
 Guard, led by devoted officers. Next, however, National Guards 
 were seen streaming along the quays and the Rue de Rivoli 
 towards the Palais Bourbon and the Place de la Concorde. On 
 they hurried, like the advanced guard of Revolution. But a 
 diversion came, for all at once the Third Party, the Orleanist 
 deputies of the Legislative Body, appeared upon the scene, 
 seeking audience of the Empress. They were headed by Count 
 Daru, who, although a godson of the great Napoleon, wished 
 to pick the crown of France out of the blood and mire of Sedan 
 to present it to the Count de Paris. A scholarly but despic- 
 able man, this Daru subsequently penned for the National 
 Assembly of Versailles some of the most mendacious reports 
 ever presented to any parliament. And in that hour of France's 
 grievous misfortune the chief object, the great craving, of Daru 
 and his friends was the crown for their Prince, the crown at all 
 costs, at all hazards. Entering the room where the deputies 
 were assembled, the Empress greeted them with a sad smile, 
 and they talked to her of — abdication. She answered them, 
 proudly enough, that the Ministers were in office to propose 
 whatever measures might be necessary in the interest of France, 
 and that if they deemed abdication necessary, it would be 
 signed. They were her constitutional advisers, and she was in 
 their hands. 
 
406 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 In our earlier chapters we have not hesitated to express 
 an unfavourable opinion of much of the Empress's influence in 
 politics, with regard notably to Italy and Rome. Let us now 
 say that on the day of Revolution she displayed a dignity and 
 fortitude entitling her to all respect. Her interview with the 
 Orleanist deputies was brought to an end by the arrival of a 
 Prefect of the Palace, who had witnessed the preliminaries of 
 the invasion of the Palais Bourbon, and of a Chamberlain who 
 had observed the aggressive tendencies of the huge crowd 
 assembled on the Place de la Concorde. Moreover, on a window 
 being opened, the distant roar of " Vive la Republique ! " could 
 be distinctly heard. Perhaps the Third Party was alarmed by 
 those tidings and those cries ; at all events, it withdrew, looking 
 worried and perplexed. The whole affair was extremely charac- 
 teristic of Orleanism. Louis Philippe's sons and grandsons were 
 mostly gallant men, and it is a curious phenomenon that the 
 political supporters of the house should have been, with few 
 exceptions, so different. 
 
 The Empress evinced some sadness after the departure of 
 the deputation, then became rather excited on learning that the 
 imperial eagles were already being struck off some of the public 
 buildings of Paris. All the Ladies of the Palace who happened 
 to be in the city were now with her. Marshal Pelissier's 
 widow and Marshal Canrobert's wife had arrived together at 
 an early hour. No officer of the Household was absent. Several 
 usually attached to the Emperor's person presented themselves, 
 eager to render service, some of the younger ones being pro- 
 vided with revolvers for use if the palace should be invaded 
 and an affray occur. Princess Clotilde also came over from 
 the Palais Royal, and there was a brief, touching scene between 
 her and the Empress. Next a few foreign diplomatists arrived, 
 including Prince Metternich, who looked extremely affected, 
 and Chevalier Nigra, who was as calm, as debonair, as usual. 
 They, like every other new arrival, hastened to kiss the hand 
 of the Empress, whose emotion became more and more apparent. 
 Finally, a little before two o'clock, a few Ministers, notably 
 Chevreau and Jerome David, and various deputies, hurried in 
 with news of the invasion of the Palais Bourbon by the crowd, 
 and the proclamation of the Republic on its steps. The leaders 
 
War ANiD REVOLUTION 40t 
 
 of the Revolution were now hastening to the Hotel de Ville to 
 act likewise there. Thus all was virtually over. The Empress 
 conferred for a moment with General Mellinet, who commanded 
 the troops guarding the palace, repeating to him her orders 
 that there was to be no bloodshed, and adding that she was 
 about to depart. She then gave her hand to those officials 
 to whom she had not previously bidden farewell, and turning 
 to her ladies, exclaimed, " Do not stay any longer ; there is 
 little time left." Tears started from many eyes, and all her 
 ladies clustered round her, kissing and pressing her hands. 
 " Go, go, I beg you ! " the Empress repeated with emotion ; 
 and now, for the first time, it seemed as if she would break 
 down. But finally the ladies, reluctantly enough, many of 
 them sobbing, withdrew — that is, all did so excepting Mme. de 
 La Poeze, who, like Count Artus de Cosse-Brissac, the Chamber- 
 lain, was one of the last to leave the palace. 
 
 But the Empress herself had retired to the further end of 
 the salon, and after pausing there and bracing herself for a 
 moment, she bowed to the whole gathering with the stately, 
 solemn bow of impressive occfeions. Then, turning hurriedly 
 to hide her twitching face, she withdrew to her private apart- 
 ments, accompanied by Prince Metternich, Chevalier Nigra, and 
 Mme. Lebreton, who had succeeded Mme. Carette as her reader. 
 M. de Cosse-Brissac next faced the assembled officers, and said 
 to them : "Messieurs, her Majesty thanks you, and invites you 
 to withdraw." There was some little hesitation, and before 
 the order was obeyed the Chamberlain had to assure his col- 
 leagues and friends that their further presence could serve no 
 useful purpose. As he himself at last went out, an usher 
 showed him the audience book, in which were inscribed the 
 names of all who had called at the palace that day. The 
 man wished to know what was to be done with it. " Give 
 it to me," replied M. de Cosse-Brissac ; and taking the book, 
 he tore from it all the pages on which names were inscribed, 
 and put them in his pocket, remarking, " They would only 
 serve as food for abuse and slander if they were left here." 
 
 The incidents of the Empress's departure have been so often 
 and so minutely described, that we need merely mention that 
 she quitted the palace virtually unobserved, accompanied by 
 
408 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 Mme. Lebreton, and escorted by the Ambassadors of Austria 
 and Italy, who were desirous of protecting her from insult. A 
 vehicle was procured, and she safely reached the residence of 
 her dentist, Dr. Evans, whose Memoirs contain a full account 
 of the aflFair. Next the Empress made her way to Trouville, 
 and crossed over to England on Sir John Burgoyne's little 
 yacht, The Gazelle. 
 
 The Court of the Tuileries had ceased to exist, and the 
 palace itself was to last but a few months longer. As in oiir 
 first chapter we gave some account of its origin, we here append 
 a brief narrative of its fate. 
 
 * * m * * * 
 
 During the siege of Paris, after the fall of the Empire, the 
 Tuileries garden served as an artillery bivouac, and the palace 
 wa.s chiefly employed for ambulance purposes — the ambulance 
 which the Empress had previously installed in the playhouse 
 being enlarged. A committee, which the Government of 
 National Defence appointed to examine such of the imperial 
 papers as had not been removed or destroyed prior to the 
 Revolution, also met at the Tuileries, in the Emperor's private 
 rooms. One of the principal members of that committee was 
 M. Jules Claretie, whose distinguished career, marked by high 
 integrity as well as ability, supplies sufficient answer to the 
 charge that documents were tampered with for purposes of 
 publication — a charge occasionally preferred by one or another 
 interested party during recent years. There can be no doubt 
 at all that the publications of the Government of National 
 Defence were quite genuine, though undoubtedly they were 
 incomplete. Circumstances interrupted both scrutiny and 
 publication ; and ultimately the bulk of the papers perished 
 in the conflagration of the palace. Few further documentary 
 revelations respecting what one may call the secret side of the 
 Second Empire can therefore be expected, until, if ever, the 
 collections of the Empress Eugenie are given to the world. 
 
 Immediately after the rising of the Commune of Paris on 
 March 18, 1871, an ex-soldier of Chasseurs d'Afrique, named 
 Dardelle, was appointed military governor of the Tuileries. He 
 quartered himself in the fine rooms formerly occupied by the 
 Duke de Bassano, the Imperial Great Chamberlain, collected a 
 
FATE OF THE PALACE 409 
 
 number of people around him, and frequently entertained them 
 at dinners and dances. Being musically inclined, he also often 
 charmed his leisure moments by executing fantasias on the 
 chapel organ. At this time, for the small admission fee of half 
 a franc, anybody might visit the state apartments of the palace 
 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ; and early in May it occurred to 
 Dr. Rousselle, a prominent partisan of the Commune, who 
 modestly entitled himself " Chief Surgeon of the Universal 
 Republic," that concerts for the benefit of wounded National 
 Guards might well be held at the Tuileries. That idea was 
 adopted, and every Thursday and Sunday concerts took place, 
 simultaneously, in the Salle des Marechaux, the palace playhouse, 
 and the Galerie de Diane. The number of performers in the 
 various orchestras varied according to the dimensions of the 
 apartments, in one or another of which the artistes sang or 
 recited alternately. The charge for admission ranged from half 
 a franc to five francs, the latter being the tariff in the Salle des 
 Marechaux, where a large stage was erected, adorned with 
 crimson velvet draperies, fringed with bullion, and spangled 
 with the gold bees of the Bonapartes — these hangings having 
 been taken from the imperial throne-room and other apart- 
 ments. The rooms blazed with wax candles derived from the 
 palace stores"; the audiences were numerous and enthusiastic; 
 refreshments, chiefly red wine and eau-de-vie, were procurable 
 at moderate charges ; and there was any amount of smoking, 
 — clay pipes, however, being far more numerous than cigars. 
 Each performance, which naturally began and ended with the 
 "Marseillaise," included recitations of revolutionary passages 
 in the poems of Victor Hugo and Auguste Barbier, with a 
 medley of patriotic and socialistic songs. Mile. Agar, sometime 
 of the Comedie Franpaise, was the chief reciter, the leading 
 vocalist being the Citoyenne Bordas, previously of the Grand 
 Concert Parisien, who invariably raised the enthusiasm of the 
 audiences to the highest pitch by the manner in which she 
 thundered forth the refrain of her famous song — 
 " Cast la canaille I Eh Men, j'en suis I " 
 
 Besides those concerts, there were occasional ^fe* de 7iuU in 
 the reserved garden of the palace, when countless red and white 
 
410 THE COURT OF THE TUILERlES 
 
 lamps glowed amid the shrubberies and orange-trees, while 
 round the orchestra swaggered the military dignitaries of the 
 Commune, the ex-hatters, ex-chemists, ex-compositors, and 
 others, all displaying plenty of gold braid on the sleeves of 
 their tunics. They were often accompanied by their ladies, 
 wives or demi-wives, as the case might be. 
 
 The last of the concerts took place on the evening of Sunday, 
 May 21, while the columns of the army of Versailles under 
 Marshal MacMahon were stealthily advancing into Paris. 
 That same day or night (there is some doubt on the point) 
 " General " Bergeret, one of the chief commanders under the 
 Commune, quitted his quarters at the Palais Bourbon, and 
 came to the Tuileries, with all his staff. The eventual entry 
 of the regular troops had been foreseen, and the approaches 
 to the palace were defended by powerful batteries and huge 
 barricades. Of the latter the most formidable and elaborate 
 arose at the comer of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue St. 
 Florentin. It was quite five and twenty feet high, constructed 
 largely of masonry, and defended by two or three guns. There 
 was another bariicade on the Quai de la Conference, and 
 another near the moat separating the reserved garden of the 
 palace from the public one ; while on the terrace overlooking 
 the Place de la Concorde a powerful battery was planted. On 
 May 22, MacMahon's troops having reached the Arc de 
 Triomphe atop of the Champs Elysees, a detachment of his 
 artillery took up position there, and the Avenue des Champs 
 Elysees was soon swept by the joint fire of the Versaillese guns 
 and the Tuileries batteries. 
 
 While this duel was in progress eleven vans belonging to 
 the Crown Furniture service arrived at the Tuileries by way 
 of the Place du Carrousel. They contained furniture, papers, 
 and works of art previously removed from M. Thiers's house in 
 the Place St. Georges, which had been demolished by order of 
 the Commune. The vans, whose contents were piled up in 
 various ground-floor rooms, may merely have amved at the 
 Tuileries that day by a coincidence, but if so it was a strange 
 one. Meantime, as we have said, the artillery fire was con- 
 tinuing on both sides. Great caution was invariably observed 
 by the Versaillese throughout the street-fighting of that Bloody 
 
FATE OF THE PALACE 411 
 
 Week which had now begun. Not a single barricade in Paris 
 was taken by any infantry frontal attack ; all the Communist 
 positions were seized by flanking movements. Thus about five 
 o'clock on Tuesday, May 23, some of the batteries defending 
 the Tuileries having been silenced, and the troops having con- 
 trived to seize the Palais de Plndustrie and the Elysee, a 
 detachment, passing by way of the Madeleine, was able to turn 
 the great barricade at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli, which 
 they found abandoned. During the artillery duel some damage 
 had been done on the Place de la Concorde and among the 
 statuary in the Tuileries gardens ; and the partisans of the 
 Commune have asserted more than once that the palace itself 
 was set on fire by Versaillese shells. 
 
 There is, however, abundant evidence to the contrary. In 
 the course of May 23 several vehicles carrying barrels of gun- 
 powder arrived at the Tuileries by way of the court of the 
 Louvre and the Carrousel. In the afternoon General Bergeret 
 repaired to the Hotel de Ville, where the Committee of Public 
 Safety was sitting. On his return to the palace he assembled 
 his principal officers, who included notably a certain Victor 
 Benot, an ex-private in the 10th of the Line, who had become 
 a lieutenant in the National Guard during the German siege, 
 and had risen to a colonelcy under the Commune. Another 
 was a "Captain" Etienne Boudin, a bibulous individual, 
 formerly a hatter, we believe, who had seized 900 bottles of 
 wine in the Tuileries cellars and shared them with his comrades. 
 Other men, named Madeuf and Servat, whose exact rank is not 
 certain, a Pole, "Colonel" Kaweski, and Dardelle, whom we 
 have previously mentioned, also attended Bergeret's council, 
 in addition to the latter's immediate staff-officers. It seems 
 certain that Bergeret had received positive orders from the 
 Committee of Public Safety to set the Tuileries on fire— there 
 is only a faint possibility that he may have acted on his own 
 initiative. In either case, he informed the others that the palace 
 must be destroyed. To Dardelle he assigned the duty of 
 removing all the materiel de guerre which the Commune might 
 still require, while Benot and Boudin willingly, if not eagerly, 
 accepted the task of firing the palace. Not only had gun- 
 powder been brought to the Tuileries during the day, there 
 
412 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 were also some barrels of liquid tar there, and these, as well 
 as a quantity of turpentine, were used by Boudin in preparing 
 the Pavilion Marsan for the conflagration. He, like Benot, was 
 assisted by several acolytes, and with the help of the many pails 
 and brooms in the palace, the hangings, floorings, woodwork, 
 and furniture of numerous apartments were coated with tar or 
 drenched with petroleum. In the chief vestibule Benot placed 
 three barrels of gunpowder, while two or three others were 
 hoisted up the well of the grand staircase and then rolled into 
 the Salle des Marechaux, where several cases of cartridges, some 
 shells, and other ammunition were disposed. Other barrels of 
 powder were broken open, and the contents scattered about 
 the ground-floor rooms. Trains also were laid, notably one 
 extending to the courtyard, and this was fired by Benot when 
 everybody had quitted the palace. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock when all was ready. The Versaillese 
 seldom, if ever, stirred after dusk during that terrible week. 
 They remained on the positions they had gained during the 
 day. Had they been quicker in their movements, the week 
 might have been reduced to three days, and many of the 
 buildings of Paris might have been saved. On the other hand, 
 no doubt, the casualties would have been much more numerous. 
 On the evening of May 23 the National Guards still occupied 
 the garden of the Tuileries, the barricade near the ditch, and 
 the quay alongside the Seine. They were spread there en 
 tirailkurs, ready to oppose the advance of the Versaillese, should 
 the latter attempt to push forward beyond the corner of the 
 Rue St. Florentin. Others, too, were strongly entrenched in the 
 Ministry of Finances in the Rue de Rivoli, and defended it 
 throughout the night, every effort being made to check the 
 advance of the troops until the conflagration of the Tuileries 
 should be beyond remedy. As for Bergeret and his staff", they 
 retired to the Louvre barracks, and it was there, about ten 
 o'clock or a little later, that Benot joined them, announcing 
 that the Tuileries was alight. 
 
 The whole company sat down to supper, ate well and 
 drank heavily. Towards midnight, after coffee had been served, 
 Benot invited the others to admire his work. They went out 
 on to the terrace of the Louvre and saw the Tuileries blazing. 
 
FATE OF THE PALACE 413 
 
 Flames were already darting from the windows of the great 
 fapade — over twelve hundred feet in length ; and if at times there 
 came a pause in the violence of the fire, the ruddy glow which 
 every opening of the building revealed, was a sufficient sign that 
 the conflagration had by no means subsided. At last a score 
 of tongues of flame leapt suddenly through the collapsing roof, 
 reddening the great canopy of smoke which hovered above 
 the pile. The flames seemed to travel from either end of the 
 palace towards the central cupola-crowned pavilion, where 
 Benot, an artist in his way, had designedly placed most of his 
 combustibles and explosives ; and at about two o'clock in the 
 morning Bergeret's officers were startled, almost alarmed, by a 
 terrific explosion which shook all the surrounding district. 
 Many rushed to ascertain what had happened, and on facing 
 the Tuileries, they saw that the flames were now rising in a 
 great sheaf from the central pavilion, whose cupola had been 
 thrown into the air, whence it fell in blazing fragments, while 
 millions of sparks rose, rained, or rushed hither and thither, 
 imparting to the awful spectacle much the aspect of a bouquet 
 of fireworks, such as usually terminates a great pyrotechnical 
 display. 
 
 " It is nothing," said Bergeret to those of his men whom 
 the explosion had alarmed. "It is only the palace blowing 
 up." And taking a pencil, he wrote : " The last vestiges of 
 Royalty have just disappeared. I wish that the same may 
 befall all the public buildings of Paris." That note he handed 
 to a young man named Victor Thomas, who was a nephew of 
 the General Clement Thomas shot by the Communards on the 
 18th of March, but who, curiously enough, was serving the 
 insurrection, in spite of his uncle's fate. Thomas, who personally 
 witnessed what we have described, carried the note to the 
 Committee of Public Safety at the Hotel de Ville. When he 
 returned to the Louvre, Bergeret had disappeared. 
 
 Victor Benot, being subsequently taken prisoner, was tried 
 by a Council of War and convicted not only of his deeds at the 
 Tuileries, but also of having helped to set fire to the library of 
 the Louvre — the old library of the sovereigns of France, which 
 contained 40,000 volumes, valuable not only by reason of their 
 contents but also of their bindings, which comprised many of 
 
414 THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES 
 
 the finest examples of the bookbinder's art in France. Benot 
 was condemned to death, but on the ground that he had acted 
 under Bergerefs orders, his sentence was commuted to one of 
 transportation to New Caledonia for life. 
 
 What Benot did not do was done by others. At ten o'clock 
 on the morning of May 24, columns of smoke arose from 
 various parts of Paris, coiling, meeting, and expanding until 
 they almost hid the sun from view. The Ministry of Finances, 
 the Palais Royal, the Hotel de Ville, the Prefecture de Police, 
 the Palais de Justice, the Palais de la Legion d'Honneur, the 
 Cour des Comptes, the Theatre Lyrique, the Caisse des Depots 
 et Consignations — all these were burning as well as many houses 
 in one and another part of Paris, as for instance in the Rue de 
 Lille and the Rue du Bac, at the cross way of the Croix Rouge, 
 in the Rue Royale, the Faubourg St. Honore, the Rue Boissy 
 d'Anglas, the Rue de Rivoli, the Avenue Victoria, the Boulevard 
 Sebastopol, the Rue St. Martin, the Place du Chateau d'Eau 
 and the Rue St. Antoine. Never will that awful spectacle 
 depart from our memory. 
 
 Surrounded by all those other conflagrations, that of the 
 Tuileries continued for three days. It was fortunately cir- 
 cumscribed by the massive masonry and ironwork of the newer 
 portions adjoining the quay and the Rue de Rivoli, and for a 
 similar reason the conflagration of the Louvre library did not 
 spread to the art galleries. For some years the outer walls of 
 the palace remained standing — lamentable mementoes of the 
 madness of Paris in those terrible days of 1871 ; and an im- 
 pressive water-colour drawing of them was made by Meissonier, 
 who exhibited it in 1883. On various occasions there were 
 plans for rebuilding the residence of the Kings and Emperors of 
 France, but those schemes were ultimately abandoned, and now 
 only the memory of the Tuileries remains. Perhaps that is 
 best, for despite all the magnificence, all the festivities, it 
 witnessed, it was ever a fatal edifice — a Palace of Doom for 
 both Monarchy and Empire. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbatccci, minister, 57 
 
 Abdul-Aziz, Abdul Hamid, See Tur- 
 key. 
 
 About, E., 171, 222, 223, 224, 371 
 
 Absinthe, hour of, 322 
 
 Abyssinian page, Empress's, 252 
 
 Academy, French, 392 
 
 Actors, actresses, and Tocalists of the 
 reign, 322, 325 
 
 Adjutant-General of the Tuileries, 41 
 
 Agar, Mile., 409 
 
 Aguado, Viscount Onesime, 71, 3G1 ; 
 Viscountess, Marchioness de Las 
 Marismas, 71, 253, 259, 361 
 
 Aides-de-camp to the Emperor, 45 et 
 teq., 305 ; to the Imperial Prince, 379 
 
 Aigle, Marquis de 1', 358, 361, 364 
 
 Ajaccio, Prince Kapoleon's speech at, 
 230, 231 
 
 Aladenize, Lieut., 149 
 
 Albe, Duke d', 63 ; Duchess d', 61, 62, 
 63, 64, 173. 174 ; Miles, d', 170, 323, 
 357 
 
 Albert, Archduke, of Austria, 383, 384, 
 385 
 
 Albuf^ra, Duke and Duchess d', 352 
 
 Alexander II,, Czar. See Bussia. 
 
 Algeria, the Emperor in, 337 ; Gover- 
 nors of, 346 et seq. ; King of, pro- 
 posed title, 91 
 
 AUsop in Orsini plot, 117 
 
 AUou, MaStre, 216 
 
 Almonry, imperial, 52 
 
 Alphand, M., 132 
 
 Alton-Shee, 25 
 
 Ambassadors to France, some, 298, 299 
 
 American beauties at Court, 71, 262 
 
 Andre scandal, 186 et seq. 
 
 Angouieme, Duke of, 190, 300 
 
 Antonelli, Card., 171 
 
 Aosta, Amadeo, Duked', King of Spain, 
 226, 272 ; Marie Laetitia Bonaparte, 
 Duchess d', 226 
 
 Arago, Em., 204 
 
 AichbishopB of Paris, 52, 68, 108 
 
 Archer. See Gordon. 
 
 Arfese, Count, 1:'6 
 
 Army, the, and the Emperor, 340 el 
 
 seq., 391 ; reorganisation of, 270, 274, 
 
 345. 352 
 Atholl, Duke of, 372 
 Auber, 52, 66, 371 
 Aubin des Fougcrais, Dr., 359 
 Audiences at Court, 134, 135, 136, 245 
 Aumale, Duke d', 231, 303, 393 
 Aurelle de Paladines, Gen. d', 145 
 Austria, Anne of, 3, 227, 331 ; Francis 
 
 Joseph of, 273, 274, 331, 333, 366, 
 
 372, 383, 384; to invade Germany, 
 
 383 et seq. See also Wars. 
 Aventi, Countess, 213 
 Ayguesvives, Count d', 43 
 
 Bachon, equerry, 379 
 
 Baciocchi, Princess, 58, 209, 212, 213; 
 Count Marius, 42, 43, 112, 1 13, 136, 
 185, 187, 189 
 
 Baden, Stephanie, nie Beauhamais, 
 Grand Duchess of, 57, 93, 97 
 
 Bagatelle, estate of, 380 
 
 Ballets at Court, 260, 285 
 
 Balls, Empress's Monday, 257, 258 ; 
 fancy and masked, 198, 258 et teq • 
 Hotel de Ville, 273 ; Jockey Club's, 
 264 ; Legislative Body's, 77, 78 ; 
 Princess Mettemich's, 262; Prus- 
 sian Embassy's, 263; public and 
 private, 254 ; Tuileries state, 254 et 
 teq. ; refreshments at, 257 ; Ver- 
 saiUes, 86, 87 
 
 Banquets at Tuileries. See Dinnera. 
 
 Banville, T. de, 235 
 
 Baptism of Imperial Prince, 94, 97 et 
 teq. 
 
 Baraguey d'Hilliers, Ml., 83, 346, 351 
 
 Baroohe, minister, 147, 176, 296 
 
 Barrot,F., 186; OdUon, 186 et «eg., 220 
 
 Bartholoni, Marchioness, 213, 217 • 
 Mme. 253, 261,375 
 
416 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bartolotti, regicide, 109 et seq. 
 
 Baruoci, Giulia, 323 
 
 Bassano, Duke de, 42, 70, 81, 361, 408 ; 
 
 Duchess de, 42, 67, 70, 355 
 Baudry, Paul, 371 
 Bauer, Mgr., 53, 357 
 Bavaria, MaximiUan of, 331 
 Bayle, Miles., 76, 164 
 Bazaine, Ml., 147, 350 et seq., 398 et 
 
 seq. ; his wife, 351 
 Baze, qusBstor, 11, 141 
 Beauffremont, Princess de, 373 
 Beaufort, Duke of, 183 
 Beauharnais, Claude de, 57. See also 
 
 Hortense, Josephine, and Baden 
 Beaulaincourt. See Contades. 
 Beaumont, Count and Countess de, 286 
 Beauregard, chateau of, 190 ; Countess. 
 
 See Howard. 
 Beaury plot, 120 
 Beauties, dinner of the, 253 
 Be'chgvet, Count de, 183, 190, 193 
 Beckwith, Miss, 262 
 B^doyfere. See La Bedoyfere. 
 Bees, haUet of the, 260 ; of the Bona- 
 
 partes, 95, 260 
 Bfliague, Countess de, 281 
 Belgians, kings of the : Leopold L, 
 
 331, 333 ; Leopold II., at first Duke 
 
 of Brabant, 88, 271, 335 
 Bellanger, Marguerite, 202 et teq., S38 
 Belle H^ine in a crinoline, 314 
 Bellemare, lunatic regicide, 107, 108 
 Belmont, Marq. de, 43 
 Benedetti, Count, 294, 295, 384, 385, 
 
 396 
 Benoit, Tuileries head-cook, 137, 250 
 Benot, incendiary, 411 et seq. 
 Berokheim, Gen. de, 48 
 Berezowski, regicide, 272 
 Bergeret, Gen. of the Commune, 410 
 
 et seq. 
 Bernard, Dr., 117, 119 
 Bernhardt, Sarah, 325 
 Bern, Duke de, 102, 190; Duchess 
 
 do, 31, 92 
 Berryer, 175, 215 
 Berthier, Ml., 281. See Wagram. 
 Berwick. See Albe. 
 B^ville, Baron de, 47, 189 
 Beyens, Baron, 299 
 Biarritz, 273, 354 et seq. 
 Bibesco, Prince, 373 
 Bides, M., 41 
 
 Biguet, Empress's usher, 158 
 Billault, minister, 176, 293 et seq. 
 Billing, Baron de, 225, 266, 271 
 Bineau, minister, 57 
 Birth of Imperial Prince, 91 et seq. 
 
 Bismarck, Count, later Prince, 147, 
 256, 272, 273, 294, 295, 372, 384, 
 385, 395; colour, so-called, 315 
 
 Bizot, Mme., gov. to Impl. Prince, 90, 
 376 
 
 Black Cabinet, 108, 147 
 
 Blanc, Charles, on feminine dreaa, 314 ; 
 Franjois, of Monte Carlo, 243 
 
 Blount, Ashton, 372, 374 
 
 Blueher, Ml., 331 
 
 Boar-hunting, 358, 364 
 
 Bonaparte, Prince Antoine Lucieo, 
 211, 213 ; Charles Lucien, Prince of 
 Canino, 211 ; Christiane Egypta, 
 239; Elisa (sister of Napoleon I.), 
 58, 209; Elizabeth, Mrs., nife Pater- 
 son, 215 et seq. ; Princess Jeanne, 
 see Villeneuve ; Jerome, Mr., son of 
 Elizabeth Faterson, 213, 215 et seq. ; 
 Jeiome fils, grandson of E. Paterson, 
 216, 218, 219 ; Prince Joseph Lucien, 
 211, 213 ; Laetitia, " Madame Mive," 
 215, 330; Princess Laetitia Julie, 
 209, 211 ; Prince Louis Lucien, 92, 
 211, 213 ; Cardinal Lucien Louis, 
 211 ; Princess Mariana, 213 ; Prince 
 Napoleon Charles Lucien, 92, 211, 
 213 ; Princess Napoleon Charles 
 Lucien, n^e Euspoli, 211, 212 ; Prince 
 Napoleon Louis, brother of Napoleon 
 III., 7, 116; General Prince Napo- 
 leon Louis Jerome, 226, 233 ; Prince 
 Napoleon Victor Jerome, 226, 233 ; 
 Prince Pierre Napoleon Lucien, 148, 
 150, 151, 211, 213, 240 et acq., 364, 
 390 ; Princess Pierre Napoleon, 242, 
 243 ; Prince Eoland, 243, 244. See 
 also Aosta, Canino, Jerome, Joseph, 
 Louis, Mathilde, Napoleon, and 
 Napoleon (Jerome). 
 
 Bonaparte-Centamori, Mme., 214 
 
 Wyse, 212, 213 
 
 Bonapartes, the, allowances and grants 
 to, 38, 148, 212 et seq.; at the 
 establishment of the Second Em- 
 pire, 209; table of, in 1868.. .213; 
 their connection with the British 
 Koyal House, 219 
 
 Bonnets and hats, 317, 318 
 
 Booker, Mrs. A., 213 
 
 Boots, ladies', 318 
 
 Bordas, Mme., 409 
 
 Bordeaux, Duke de, 2, 92 
 
 Bosquet, Ml., 97, 253, 345 
 
 Boudin, incendiary, 411, 412 
 
 Boulevards, Paris, 321, 322; at the 
 Eevolution, 403 
 
 Boulogne, Bois de, 322,323, 380 
 
 Boulogne-Bur-Mer, camp at, 80, 84, 
 
INDEX 
 
 417 
 
 341; Louie Napoleon's attempt at, 
 
 32, 33, 183 
 Bourbaki, Gen., 47, 346 
 Bourbon, Palais, 11, 77, 290,403. 404 
 Bourgoing, Baron de, 51 ; Baroness de, 
 
 253, 260 
 Bouvet. Bee Carette. 
 Bovary, Mme,, 296 
 Brabant. Bee Belgians. 
 Branoion, Mme. de, 90, 376 
 Branlt. Bee Gordon. 
 Breakages and losses at Tuileiies, 
 
 248 
 Breseant, 234 
 BresBonet, Major, 350 
 Bridge over English Channel, 146, 375 
 Bridges, Mr. (Imperial stables), 304 
 Brincard, Mme., 260 
 Brohan, Augustine, 320 ; Madeleine, 
 
 234 
 Bruat, Mme., GoTemess of the Children 
 
 of France, 90, 93, 97, 98, 376 
 Brunswick, Charles II., Duke of, 284, 
 
 385 
 Bndberg, Baron, 299 
 Buffet, minister, 389 
 Bugeaud, Ml., 31, 399 
 Bure, Crown treasurer, 148, 184, 251 
 Burgh, Mr. de, 51 
 Burgoyne, Sir J., 408 
 Bussi^res family, 280 
 Buttons of the Hunt, 360, 361 
 
 Cabanxl, portrait of Napoleon III. 
 
 by, 161 
 Cabinet noir of the post-ofBce, 108, 147 
 , private, of the Emperor, 129 et 
 
 $eq. 
 Cadore, Duchess de, 160, 253 
 CtBsar, Napoleon's life of, 47, 48, 138, 
 
 146, 154 
 Cafe's of Paris, 321 
 Calzado, 323, 324 
 Cambac^rSs, Duke de, 44, 65, 246, 
 
 361 ; Duchess de, 45, 246 
 Cambridge, Duke of, 341, 344 
 Cambrie^, Gen., 48 
 Camerata, Count, 58 
 Camp. See Boulogne and Chalons. 
 Campana, Marchioness, 150, 151 
 Campella, Countess, 213 
 Canino, Lucien, Prince of, brother of 
 
 Napoleon I., 11, 209, 211, 239 
 Canizy, Mme. de, 253 
 Canrobert, Certain de. Ml., 46, 47, 97, 
 
 253, 349, 351, 352 
 , Mme. de, n^e Macdonald, 46, 233, 
 
 260, 279, 353, 406 
 
 Caraman-Chimay family, 310, 373 
 Carbonari, Napoleon III. and the, 7, 
 
 104 
 Carbonnel, Gen., 25 
 Cardigan, Lord, 82 
 Carette, Mme., nee Bouvet, 72,73, 167, 
 
 256, 332, 333, 336, 357 
 Carpeaux, 322, 371 
 Carriages, State, 65, 67, 87, 89, 302, 
 
 303; the Emperor's service, 303 et 
 
 teq.; the Empress's, 308; the Im- 
 perial Prince's, 380 
 Carrousel, Place du, 3, 18 
 Cassagnac, Paul de, 218, 219, 286 
 Castelbajac, Count de, 51 
 Castellane, Ml. de, 17, 30, 32, 59, 198, 
 
 346 
 Castelnau, Gen., 46 
 Castelveochio, Count de, 207 
 Castiglione, Count Verasis di, 110, 
 
 200, 202; Countess Virginia, 110, 
 
 111, 197 et teq., 259, 263. Bee alio 
 
 Colonna. 
 Castries, Duke de, 280 
 Caulainconrt. See Vicence. 
 Caumont-Laforce, Duke de, 361 
 Caux, Marquis de, 51, 258 
 Cavour, Count, 88, 110, 111, 147, 225, 
 
 339 
 Cellariua, 320 
 Cent-Gardes, 39, 41, 49, 50, 121 tt 
 
 teq.; 130,254,255 
 Ceremonies, Ort. Master of the, and 
 
 others, 44, 45 
 Cemr dioUuei, 223 
 
 Chftlons, camp of, 341 et teq. ; Em- 
 peror ill at, 336; conference at, iu 
 
 1870.. .400 
 Chamber of Deputies. See Legislative 
 
 Body. 
 Chamberlains, Emperor's, 42 et teq., 
 
 130, 135, 305 ; Empress's, 74, 75 
 Chambre bleue, la, by Mgrimee, 169 
 Changamier, Gen., 141 
 Channel, bridge over English, 146, 
 
 375 
 Chaplin, Charles, 159 
 Charaies at Court, 285, 373 
 Chargers. See Horses. 
 Charities, Empress's, 69, 167. 308 
 Charles X. of France, 10, 20, 36, 329, 
 
 330, 358 
 Charlotte, Empress. See Mexico. 
 Charras, Col.. 141 
 Chasselonp-Laubat, Marq. de. 270 ; 
 
 March, de, 253 
 Chassepot rifle, 46, 47, 342 
 Chassiron, Baroness de, iife Murat, 212, 
 
 213 
 
418 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chaudordy, Count de, 396 
 
 Ohaumont, Marquis de, 43 
 
 Chemist, Court, 54 
 
 Cherbourg, 119, 313 
 
 Chevandier de Valdr6me, 295, 389 
 
 Chevreau, miDister, 295, 406 
 
 Chignons, 317, 318 
 
 Chimay. See Caraman. 
 
 Choiseul, Count de, 259 
 
 Civil Family of the Emperor, 210 et 
 
 neq. 
 Civil List and its payments, 36, 37, 
 
 39, 148, 150, 151, 212, 213, 214 
 Civita Nuova, Emperor's estate of, 
 
 188, 191 
 Clarendon, Earl of, 372 
 Claretie, Jules, 324, 408 
 Claude, chief of Detective Police, 115 
 Clotilde of Savoy, Princess, wife of 
 
 Napoleon (Jerome), 215, 225, 226, 
 
 228, 229, 245, 246, 256, 259, 406 
 Clubs of Paris, 321 
 Coalition projected against Germany, 
 
 383 et seq., 396, 397 
 Colonels, French, threaten England, 
 
 119 
 Colonna di Oastiglione, Duchess, 373 
 Colours of the reign, fashionable, 314, 
 
 315, 317 
 Comedie fran^aise, 112, 373 
 Cvmmentaires de Cfeiar, Massa's, 285, 
 
 374, 375 
 Commune of Paris and the Tuileries, 
 
 408 et seq. 
 Compiegne, the Court at, 285, 358, 357 
 
 et leq., 368 et seq. ; marshals at, 351. 
 
 See also Hunt. 
 Conception, immaculate, dogma, 108 
 Conegliano, Duke de, 40, 43, 306 
 Conflagrations of the Commune, 414 
 Conneau, Dr., 53, 54, 134, 136, 144, 
 
 393, 395 ; Mme., 234 ; their son, 381 
 Conspiracies against Napoleon III., 100 
 
 et seq. 
 Constantino, Grand Duke, 18, 19 
 Constitution of the Empire and its 
 
 changes, 16, 60, 61, 84, 89, 173, 175, 
 
 176, 269, 270, 385, 386, 390, 391, 392 
 Consultation on the Emperor's health, 
 
 393 et seq. 
 Contades, March, de, 60, 199, 361 
 Conti, Chef-de-eabinet, 139, 143 
 Cooks and assistants at Tuileries, 250, 
 
 251 
 Corbeille de mariage. Empress's, 69, 
 
 311 
 Comemuse, Gen., 155 et seq. 
 Comu, Mme., 14, 17, 15.% 154 
 Corps Legislatif. See Legislative Body. 
 
 Corvisart, Dr. Baron, 53, 54, 357, 393, 
 
 395, 397 
 CoBse-Brissao, Count Artus de, 75, 407 
 Costumiers, Parisian, 310 et seq. 
 Council, imperial family, 216 
 , ministerial, Empress at the, 171, 
 
 176,177; her last, 404 
 Coup d'Etat of Dec., 1851.. .6, 7, 10 
 
 et seq., 27, 28, 48, 381; men of the, 
 
 23 et seq. ; Mocquard at the, 140, 141 ; 
 
 Napoleon's horse at the, 307 ; victims 
 
 of the, 69, 70, 96 
 Courcelles, Eue de, Princess Mathilde 
 
 in the, 234, 235 
 Cousin-Montauban. Bee Palikao. 
 Couture, painter, 371 
 Cowley, 1st Earl, 16, 27, 299, 361, 366 
 Cradles of the Impl. Prince, 90 
 Credit foncier loans to Emperor, 150, 
 
 151 ; to city of Paris, 297 
 Cremieux, A., 204 
 Crimea. jSee Wars. 
 Crinoline, the, 164, 165, 313, 314, 355 
 Crown. See Dotation, Jewels. 
 Crouy-Chanel, Prince de, 145 
 Cur^e after hunting, 363, 364 ; of the 
 
 Liberal Empire, 248, 389 
 CybMe carriage, 302, 303 
 Czartoryska, Princess Constantine, 285, 
 
 373 
 Czemowitz, Count, 307 
 
 Dalmas, M. de, 143 
 
 Damas, M. de, 217 
 
 Dancing with peasant girls. Emperor, 
 
 14, 340. See Balls. 
 Darboy, Archbp. of Paris, 52, 53 
 Dardelle, of the Commune, 408, 409 
 
 411 
 Darimon, deputy, 394, 395 
 Daru, Count, 389, 405 
 Davenport brothers, 265 
 David, Baron Jerome, 149, 214, 406 ; 
 
 Baroness, 214 
 Davillier, Count, 51, 54 
 Deauville, 29 
 
 Degnerry, Abb^, 53, 163, 258, 377 
 Dijeuners, Emperor and Empress's, 
 
 135; officers', 136; at Compiigne, 
 
 369 
 Delangle, minister, 296 
 Delessert, Mme., 59 ; her son, 361 
 Delorme, Philibert. See Tuileries. 
 Demidoff, Prince Anatole, 235, 236 
 Demi-monde, the, 264, 323. See cdso 
 
 Pearl, Cora. 
 Demorny, Auguste, 24. See Momy. 
 Denmark, King of, 272. See alto 
 
 Wars: Schleswig. 
 
INDEX 
 
 419 
 
 Denuelle de la PUigne. See Ltubnig. 
 BeTienne, Ftesident, 203 et $eq., 838 
 Devonshire, DuohesB of, previously of 
 
 Manchester, 198 
 Dinners at Tuileries, 136, 137, 229, 
 
 245 et teq., 251 et teq. ; at Compi%gne, 
 
 369 ; at Palais Royal, 229 
 Dix, General, 299; Miss, 262 
 Dogs, the Emperor's, 365, 371 
 Dotation of the Crown, 36, 39 
 Douay, Gen. Abel, 350 ; Gen. Fflix, 47 
 Doucet, Camille, verses by, 95, 371 
 Drageetflmpl. Prince's, 125 ; ordered by 
 
 Emperor, 196, 197 
 Drives, Emperor's, 305, 306 
 Drouyn de Lhuys, M., 57, 295, 298, 
 
 338 ; Mme., 261 
 Dubois, Dr. Baron, 54, 93 
 Dubufe's paintings at Tuileries, 159 
 Dufour, Gen., 9, 137 
 Dumas, Alex., the elder, 322 
 Dunmore, 7th Earl of, 372 
 Duperr^, Capt., later Adml., 379 
 Dupuis or Dupny, comptroller, 249, 
 
 251 ; his wife, 164 
 Dusautoy, Emperor's tailor, 15, 149, 
 
 153 
 Duthg, La, 317 
 
 Edinbuegh, Dnke of, 272 
 
 Edward VII. See Wales. 
 
 Egypt, Ismail, Viceroy of, 272. See 
 Suez. 
 
 ^ly. Marchioness of, 89 
 
 Elys^e Palace, 5, 6, 36, 59, 65, 66, 128, 
 140, 185, 273, 361, 411 
 
 Empire. See Second. 
 
 Empress, the. See Euge'nie, House- 
 hold. 
 
 England, Emperor and Empress visit, 
 81, 82. See Great Britain. 
 
 Ennery, Adolphe d', 141 
 
 Mrttente eordiale, origin of the term, 
 79, 119 
 
 Equerries, Emperor's, 50, 51, 255, 300, 
 301,309; Empress's, 308; Imperial 
 Prince's, 380 
 
 Espinasse, General, 11, 47, 118 
 
 Eisling, Princess d', 67, 70, 81, 91 
 
 Estafettes, imperial, 305 
 
 Eugenie, Empress of the French, and 
 a statue of Peace, 19; refuses a 
 jointure, 38 ; gives General Schmitz 
 a kiss, 48; her parentage and 
 marriage, 56 et teq., 189; her personal 
 appearance, 64, 68, 255 ; her house- 
 hold, 67, 70 et teq. ; her jewellery, 
 67, 69, 144, 166, 167, 255; her 
 forbeille de manage, 69, 311; re- 
 
 proves her reader, 73 ; visits London 
 and Windsor, 81, 82 ; receives Queen 
 Victoria at St. Cloud, 85; attends 
 the Versailles ball, 87; is Mendly 
 with Nigra but champions Papal 
 interests, 88, 171 et teq., 177, 206, 
 207; birth of her son, 89 et teq.; 
 present at the State baptism, 97 
 et teq. ; presented with the Golden 
 Eose, 99, 163; befriends GrisceUi, 
 104 ; in connection with the Pianori 
 and Bellemare affairs, 105, 107 ; at 
 the theatre, 112 ; at the Orsini affair, 
 114, 115 ; her fears for her son, 120; 
 portraits of her, 130 ; lunches with 
 the Emperor, 135; her preference 
 in cookery, 137 ; at dinner, 137, 246, 
 249, 252, 253; meets Mme. Comu, 
 154 ; her rooms at the Tuileries, 
 158 et teq. ; portrayed as the god- 
 dess Flora, 159 ; her private sanc- 
 tum, 161 ; her collections of docu- 
 ments, 162 ; her wardrobe, 163-166, 
 811 ; her head maid, 164; patronizes 
 the crinoline, 1C5 ; her expenditure 
 on dress, 165, 166; her charities, 69, 
 167, 308 ; the rearing of her son, 
 168 ; her reading, 169 ; her evening 
 chats, 170; her travels, 170; her 
 regencies, 170 et teq., 397 et teq.; 
 admires Marie-Antoiuette, 170, 177, 
 201 ; her share in politics, 171 et seq., 
 176, 177, 206, 207 ; loses her sister, 
 172 ; visits Scotland, 174, 175, 199 ; 
 is opposed by Persigny, 176 ; attends 
 ministerial councils, 176, 177 ; her 
 relations with Bonher, Magne, and 
 OUivier, 177; in relation to Miss 
 Howard, 189, 192, 193, 207 ; expels 
 a scandalmonger from the Tuileries, 
 195; is no Catherine of Braganza, 
 196; expels Mme. de Castiglione, 
 201 ; incensed by the Marguerite 
 Bellanger affair, 205 ; threatens to 
 leave the Emperor, 205 ; is estranged 
 from him, 206, 207 ; her Abyssinian 
 page, 252; gives a beauty dioner, 
 253 ; at State balls, 255 et teq. ; her 
 Monday balls, 257 et teq. ; at fancy- 
 dress balls, 259, 260, 261 ; patronizes 
 Home the medium, 266; at St. 
 Cloud fair, 268 ; affected by wounded 
 soldiers' sufferings, 278 ; visits Momy 
 before his death, 290 ; gives a 
 carriage to the Duke d' Aumale, 302, 
 303 ; her carriages and horses, 308, 
 809 ; her costumiers, 311 ; drives in 
 the Bois de Boulogne, 323 ; dislikes 
 St. Cloud, 328, 330; with Charlotte 
 
420 
 
 INDEX 
 
 of Mexico, 332, 333; at Biarrilz, 
 354 et seq.; her adventure off St. 
 Jean de Luz, 357 ; her hunting-habit, 
 360; is alarmed by her husband'a 
 daring, 362 ; ahoots in the preserves, 
 368 ; her joke with Eouland, 368 ; 
 pita down rabbit-oonrsing, 368 ; her 
 tea-parties at Compifegne, 369; ia 
 complimented on her son by 'VViJliani 
 of Prussia, 372; receives Emile 
 OUivier at dinner, 387; does not 
 see the report on her husband's 
 health, 394 ; unlikely that she pre- 
 cipitated the Franco-German War, 
 397 ; becomes Begent for the last 
 time, 397 ; is hostile to Napoleon's 
 return to Paris, 398, 400, 401 ; goes 
 precipitately to Paris after Worth, 
 398 ; her last official reception, 398, 
 399 ; her distrust of Trochu, 399, 
 400; the charge of sacrificing her 
 husband discussed, 401 ; has fears of 
 a revolution, 401, 402; schemes to 
 ensure her safety, 402; receives 
 news of Sedan, 403 ; holds her last 
 councils, 404 ; receives the Orleanist 
 deputies, 405, 406; takes an im- 
 pressive farewell of her household, 
 406, 407; quits the Tnileries and 
 France, 408 
 
 Eugenie, vUla. See Biarritz. 
 
 Evans, Dr., 408 
 
 Exoelmans, Gen., later Marshal, 48, 
 346 
 
 Exhibition, Paris, of 1 855, 80 et seq. ; 
 of 1867, 271 et seq. 
 
 Faillt, Gen. de, 47, 196, 400 
 
 Family. See Civil and Council. 
 
 Famese frescoes, 22 
 
 Famesina gardens, 148 
 
 Fashions, feminiae, 164, 165, 277, 284, 
 
 310 et seq., 390; men's, 320, 321, 
 
 353 
 Fat Ox Procession, 267, 268 
 Fauvel, Dr., 393, 395 
 Fave', Gen., 47, 175 
 Favre, Jules, 118, 403 
 Fechter, 147 
 Felix, Empress's hairdresser, 81 ; 
 
 actress, see Bachel 
 Feray, Countess, 72 
 Ferrifere, Visct. de la, 43 
 Ferry, Jules, 400, 403 
 Fetes and fairs in Paris and environs, 
 
 267, 268, 269 
 Feuillet, Octave, 235, 285, 371 
 Feuillet de Conches, Baron, 45, 170 
 Fialin. See Persigny. 
 
 Fieschi, 102 
 
 Filon, Aug., 377 
 
 Financial scandals, 324 
 
 Flahault de la Billarderie, Gen. Count 
 
 de, 9, 23 et seq., 290; his wife, 24 
 Flanders, Count and Countess of, 272, 
 
 273 
 Flandrin's portrait of Prince Napoleon, 
 
 222, 22? 
 Fleury, Emile, Gen. Count, 11, 17, 
 
 34, 35, 44, 50, 51, 56, 57, 58, 60, 65, 
 
 68, 81, 85, 146, 182, 183, 185, 300 
 
 et seq., 309 ; his wife, 35, 260 
 Floquet, Ch., 272 
 Florence, Louis Napoleon's love affair 
 
 at, 181 
 Fontainebleau, Court at, 16, 353, 354, 
 
 362, 363, 365, 368 
 Fonvielle, Ulrieh de, 241, 242 
 Footmen, palace, 44, 53 
 Forcade de la Eoquette, minister, 30, 
 
 295, 296, 388 
 Foreign affairs, Ministers of, 297 
 Forey, Ml., 349, 350, 351 
 Fould, Aohille, 35 et seq., 39, 58, 60 
 
 66, 270, 283, 361, 363 
 Fourtoul, minister, 57 
 Francis Joseph. See Austria. 
 Fraser, Carolina. See Murat, Princess 
 
 Lucien. 
 Frogs, Pasteur's, 370 
 FrOBsard, Gen., 47, 352, 378, 379, 397 
 Fustel de Ooulanges, 169 
 
 Gabobiau, E., on Comemuse and Miss 
 
 Howard, 157, 192 
 Gabrielli, Prince, 213, 245; Princess, 
 
 ne'e Bonaparte (Lucien), 210, 211, 
 
 213, 245 
 Galerie de Diane, etc. See Tuileries. 
 Galliffet, family, 276 ; Gen. Marq. de, 
 
 48, 49, 196, 260, 275 et seq., 285, 
 
 286, 374; Mme. de, 49, 253, 261, 
 
 275, 277 et seq. 
 Gamble, Mr., of the imperial stables, 
 
 307 
 Garcia the gambler, 323, 324 
 Gardoni, 234 
 Garter, order of the, given to Emperor 
 
 82 
 Garters, fashions in, 318, 319 
 Gautier, Theophile, verses on the Im- 
 perial Prince, 94, 194, 371 
 Germany, coalition to invade, 383, 384, 
 
 396, 397. See also Prussia. 
 Gipsy quadrille at Tuileries, 260 
 Gipsy's prediction to Napoleon III., 17 
 Girardin, Emile de, 224 ; Mme. de 
 
 262 
 
INDEX 
 
 421 
 
 Golden Rose, the, 99, 163 
 
 Goltz, Baron, 298, 356 
 
 Gomez, Orsini's servant, 115 
 
 Gordon, Col. Archer, 181 ; Mme., nfe 
 Brault, 181, 182 
 
 Gouache, confectioner, 196 
 
 Goyon, Gen. Count de, 46 
 
 Graces of the Empire, 275 et seq. 
 
 Gramont Duke de, 389, 390 
 
 Grant, A. S., 192 
 
 Groat Britain, her relations with 
 France, 79, 119 ; royal house of, and 
 the BonapartcB, 219 ; Victoria, Queen 
 of, sounded on the Emperor's matri- 
 monial schemes, 56 ; visited by the 
 Emperor and Empress, 81, 175, 313 ; 
 visits Paris, 83 et sej. ; in relation 
 to the Imperial Prince, 89, 93, 380 
 
 Great Chamberlain, Great Equerry, 
 Great Huntsman, etc. See Cham- 
 berlains, Equenies, Huntsman, etc. 
 
 Greco's plot, 120 
 
 Greece. See Hellenes. 
 
 Grenadiers of tlie Guard, 344, 372, 
 378 
 
 Gricourt, Marq. de, 43 
 
 Griscelli, detective, 104, 109 
 
 Grocer, profession of, 152 
 
 Grouaset, P., 241, 242 
 
 Guard, Imperial, 50, 88, 130, 346; 
 Mobile, 46, 274, 340 
 
 Gue'roult, Adolphe, 223 
 
 Guides, regiment of, 50, 67, 239 
 
 Ham, Napoleon III. at, 52, 54, 59, 76, 
 
 140, 144, 183, 184, 336, 337, 371 
 Hamiltons, 57, 97, 372 
 Hanover, last King of, 385 
 Hargett. See Howard. 
 Harispe, Ml. Count, 346 
 Haussmann, Baron, 132, 273, 296,297; 
 
 Mile., 297 
 Havre, Le, Miss Howard kept at, 189 
 Havrincourt, Marqms d', 43, 75 
 Hawking revived, 364 
 Heindereich, headsmaii, 203 
 Hellenes, George I., King of the, 271 
 Hertford, Marq. of, 185, 281, 322, 380 
 Hippodrome plot, 102 
 Hitchcock, Miss, 263 
 Hohenlohe, Princess Adelaide of, 56 
 Hohenzollem candidatures to Spanish 
 
 throne, 385, 393, 395 
 Holland, William III., King of the 
 
 Netherlands, 154, 372 ; Sophia,Queen, 
 
 154, 155 
 Home, D.D., medium, 265 et seg. 
 Honorati-Bomagnoli, Mme., 213 
 
 Horsemanship, the Emperor's, 10, 83, 
 84, 307, 343; the Imp!. Prince's, 380 
 
 Horse-racing and the Emperor, 309 
 
 Horses, the Emperor's carriage, 306 ; 
 his saddle, 307, 308 ; the Empress's, 
 308, 309 ; of the hunt, 360 
 
 Hortense, nfe Beauhamais, Queen of 
 Holland, mother of Napoleon HI., 
 7, 8, 9, 23, 24, 25, 57, 139 
 
 Hounds of the imperial hunt, 358, 359, 
 360, 363, 364 
 
 Household, the imperial, its organiza- 
 tion and expenses, 35 et seq. ; oflicerg 
 of, 39 et teq., 135 ; the Emperor's 
 military, 45 et seq. ; at tlie Revolu- 
 tion, 406, 407; the Empress's, 67, 
 70 et seq., 74 et seq. ; the Impl. 
 Prince's, 90, 376 et teq. See Chamber- 
 lains, Equerries, etc. 
 
 Howard, Elizabeth Anne Haryett (or 
 Hargett), Countess de Beauregard, 
 37, 60, 64, 182-193, 330 
 
 Hubner, Baron, 226, 283 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 14, 78, 96, 103, 141, 409 
 
 Humbert. See Italy. 
 
 Hunt, the imperial, 52, 300, 301, 358 
 et feq. 
 
 Huntsman, the great, 32, 52, 300, 301, 
 353 
 
 Hyrvoix, chief of palace police, 120, 
 123, 125 
 
 Illness, the Emperor's, 139, 335-339 
 343, 345, 381, 393-395, 397 
 
 Immaculate Conception dogma, 108 
 
 Imperial Guard, imperial household, 
 etc. See Guard, Household, etc. 
 
 Imperial Prince, the. Napoleon Louis, 
 Eugfene Jean Joseph; his birth, 89 
 et seq. ; his appearance, 93, 94 ; his 
 private baptism, 94 ; verses in his 
 honour, 94 et teq. ; his state baptism, 
 97 et teq., 148 ; fears for his safety, 
 120 ; his prank with a Cent-Garde, 
 125 ; his meals, 135; a hairdresser's 
 petition to him, 145 ; his fables, 154; 
 his early rearing, 168, 377, 378; 
 attends fancy balls, 259, ,261 ; his 
 rooms at St. Cloud, 330 ; at ChWons 
 camp, 342; his adventure at St. 
 Jean de Luz, 357 ; his first hunt, 
 ;!62; a pupil of the Grenadiers of 
 tlie Guard, 372, 378 ; in a charade, 
 373 ; his household, 376 et seq. ; his 
 masters and lessons, 377 ; his pluck, 
 378 ; his military governor and 
 aides-de-camp, 378, 379 ; his horses 
 and horsemanship, 379, 380 ; his 
 young friends, 381; his chance of 
 
INDEX 
 
 Bnoceasion, 381, 382; in the Franco- 
 German War, 50, 397 
 
 Industrie, Palais de 1', 80, 81, 273, 279, 
 403, 411 
 
 Invalides, the, 17, 85, 91, 92, 93 
 
 Inraaion of Germany, projected, 341, 
 383, 384, 396, 397 
 
 Isabella. See Spain. 
 
 Isly, Duchess d', 260 
 
 Italian Opera-house, Paris, 107, 323 
 
 Italy, Victor Emmanuel II., King of, 
 previously of Sardinia, 88, 110, 225, 
 331, 366, 367, 372, 380, 383 ; Hum- 
 bert, Crown Prince, later King of, 
 201, 202, 272, 331; to invade 
 Germany, 383 et eeq. See also Wars. 
 
 Jablonowski, Prince, 150, 151 ; 
 
 Prinoesa, 261 
 Jacob, Zouave, 326 
 Jadin, 235, 360 
 Jargon of fashions, 317 
 Jemingham, Sir H., 258 
 Jerome, ex-Kins; of Westphalia, brother 
 
 of Napoleon I„ 17, 58, 60, 61, 68, 85, 
 
 155, 200, 209, 210, 214-217, 227, 
 
 245, 346, 349. See Wurtemberg. 
 Jewellery, eccentric, 319 
 Jewels, crown, of France, 67, 144, 166, 
 
 167 
 Joseph, sometime King of Spain, 
 
 brother of Napoleon I., 209, 211, 
 
 237, 240, 352 
 Josephine, Empress, 59, 330 
 Journalists, Parisian, 324 
 Judith, Mile., 226 
 Jurien de la Gravifere, Adml., 48, 357 
 
 Keith and Naime, Baroness, 24 
 
 Kelch's plot, 103, 109 
 
 King of Eome. See Rome. 
 
 Kiosks, Paris, 192 
 
 Kirkpatrioks, the, 63 
 
 Kisseleff, Count and Countess, 265, 
 
 286, 287 
 Kitchen service at Tuileries, 250, 251 
 
 La Bedot{)re, Count de, 43 ; Countess 
 
 de, 72, 85, 98, 355 
 Labenne, Count de, 184 
 Ladies of Honour to the Empress, 70 
 of the Palace, 70 et seg. ; at the 
 
 Revolution, 406, 407 
 
 " of the Lake," 264, 284, 323 
 
 Laffitte, Charles, 202, 275, 372 
 
 Lllge, Baron de, 52, 365 
 
 La Grange, Marquis de, equerry to 
 
 Empress, 85, 174 
 Lagrange, Count P., 310, 372 
 
 Laisne, Abb^, Emperor's confessor, 52, 
 
 53 
 Lambert, Col. Baron, 52, 358,360, 363, 
 
 374 
 Land reclaimed by the Emperor, 148, 
 
 150, 151, 184, 185, 292, 342 
 Lansdowne. Marquess of, 24, 372 
 La Poeze, Countess de, 72, 355, 407 
 Larrey, Dr. Baron, 54, 336 
 Las Marismas. See Aguado. 
 Latour-Maubourg, Marquis de, 52; 
 
 March-de, 72, 98, 195 
 Lavisse, Ernest, 377 
 LawcBstine, Count de, 41 
 Layette of the Impl. Prince, 88, 89, 90 
 Lebas, P., 9 
 
 Leboeuf, Justine. See Bellanger. 
 , Ml, 46, 339, 349, 352, 353, 389, 
 
 396 
 Lebreton, Mme., n^e Bourbaki, 73, 74, 
 
 407, 408 
 Lebrun, Gen., 47, 146, 339, 383-385, 
 
 392, 393, 395, 397 
 Leconte de Lisle, 150, 151, 325 
 Ledru-EoUin, 109, 111, 143 
 Leemans, chief huntsman, 359, 360 
 Lefuel, his Tuileries work, 159 
 Legislative body, the, 16, 77, 93, 175, 
 
 176, 269, 270, 386, 390, 403-406 
 Lehon, Count Charles, 288, 289 ; Count 
 
 Leopold, 289; Countess Zoe, 26, 
 
 286, 288, 289 ; her children, 289 
 Lejeune, Baron, 51 
 
 Leon, Count Charles, son of Napo- 
 leon I., 179 et seq. 
 Leopold. See Belgians. 
 Lepic, Gen. Count, 42, 49 
 Lespes, B., hairdresser, 145 
 
 Leo, journalist, 146. 322 
 
 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 63, 371, 404 ; 
 
 Mathieu de, 63 
 Leverrier, 16, 370 
 Lezay-Marnesia, Count de, 75 ; Countess 
 
 de, 72 
 Librarian, the Empress's, 76 
 Lincoln, Lord, 2 
 Liszt, Ahh4, 283, 371, 390 
 Literary men of the reign, some, 324, 
 
 325 
 Liveries. See Uniforms. 
 Locock, Sir C, 89 
 Longuet, Prof., 370 
 Lord Mayor in Paris, first, 82, 83 
 Losses and breakages at Tuileries, 248 
 Louis XIII. and the Palais Royal, 227 ; 
 
 XIV. and the Tuileries, 3 et seq., 
 18 et seq. ; and St. Cloud, 329, 331 ; 
 
 XV. and the Tuileries, 4 ; and 
 Napoleon III., 207, 208; XVL and 
 
INDEX 
 
 423 
 
 the Tuileries, 4, 21 ; hU civil list, 
 
 36 ; and St. Cloud, 330 ; XVUI. and 
 
 the Tuileries, 5, 6, 20 ; his civil list, 
 
 36 
 Louis Philippe and the Tuileries, 6, 18, 
 
 102; and the Palais Royal, 227; 
 
 and St. Cloud, 330; and Fontaine- 
 
 bleau, 354 
 sometime King of Holland, fether 
 
 of Napoleon III., 7, 8, 9 
 Lourmel, Countess de, 73 
 Louvre Library, 413, 414 
 Lucien, brother of Napoleon I. See 
 
 Canino. 
 Luxburg, Count, 179; Countess, 179 
 
 et teq. 
 Luxembourg Palace, 5 
 Luxemburg, Grand Duchy of, 269,272, 
 
 385 
 Lyons, Lord, 299 
 
 Maodonald. See Canrobert and 
 
 Farente. 
 MacMahou, Ml., Duke de Magenta, 49, 
 
 120, 348, 349, 351, 361, 398, 400, 401, 
 
 403, 410; Mme. de, 279, 349, 353 
 Magnan, Ml., Grt. Huntsman, 17, 28, 
 
 32, 52, 301, .S46, 353, 367; his 
 
 daughters, 287; Mme. Leopold, n^e 
 
 Haritoff, 253. 260, 287 
 Magne, minister, 177, 296, 367 
 Maillard, chef de Vargenterie, 247 et seq. 
 Matlres d'hdtel at Tuileries 249, 250 
 Malakoif. See Pelissier. 
 Malaret, Baroness de, 72, 81 
 Malmesbury, 3rd Earl of, 70, 183, 19G 
 Manchester, Duchess of, 198 
 Mangin, OoL, 150, 151 
 "Maroello,"372 
 Marie Am€lie, Queen, 302 
 Antoinette, Queen, and the 
 
 Tuileries, 4; and St. Cloud, 328, 
 
 330 ; her hair, 317 ; and the Empress 
 
 Eugenie, 170, 177, 201 
 
 Laetitia, Princess. See Aosta. 
 
 Louise, Empress, 54, 67, 329, 330 
 
 Marksman, Napoleon III. as a, 366 
 Marriage, the imperial, 56 et teq., 189 
 Marshal of the Household, great, 39, 
 
 41 
 Marshals of France, 345 et teq. ; dinner 
 
 of the, 251, 253. See alto their re^ 
 
 spectiye names. 
 Marthe, Mile., 58 
 Martigues principality, 276 
 Martyn, Major Mountjoy, 182, 190 
 Mass, military, at Ch&lons, 344 
 Massa, Marq. Philippe de, 282, 285, 
 
 374 
 
 Massol, baritone, 112 
 
 Mekster of the Empress's Household, 
 
 great, 74, 75 
 Mathilde, Princess. 60, 65, 87, 194, 202, 
 
 210, 212, 213, 215, 217, 218, 233 
 
 et teq., 245, 246, 256, 259, 261, 361, 
 
 363 
 Maupas, M. de, 28 
 MauBsion, Baron de, 41 
 Maximilian. See Mexico. 
 Mazurka, the, 325 
 Mazzini, 108, 109, 111, 117 
 Medical service, imperial, 53, 54 
 Medici, Catherine de, 1, 2, 5; Marie 
 
 de, 5 
 Meissonier, 414 / 
 Mellinet, Gen., 374, 407 
 Men of the reign, some, 322, 324, 325 
 Menjaud, Bp. of Nancy, 52, 68, 94 
 Menneval, Baron de, 41 
 M&ante, 260 
 
 Mercy- AJgenteau, Countess de, 373 
 Me'rime'e. P., 76, 169, 371, 372, 403 
 Merle, Count, 41 
 Me'ry, 66 
 
 M^tairie, Abb^, 53 
 Metternich, Prince Eichard, 283, 285, 
 
 286, 322, 361, 366, 385, 403, 406, 407, 
 
 408 ; Princess Pauline, 253, 259, 261 , 
 
 262, 263, 368, 282 et teq , 368, 374 
 Metz and Bazaine, 351, 397-40] 
 Meudon chateau, 215, 229 
 Mexico, Maximilian, Emperor of, 206, 
 
 273, 331, 332 et seq., 335 ; Charlotte, 
 
 Empress of, 273, 331 et seq., 338. 
 
 See also Wars. 
 Mingrelia, Salom£ Dadiani of. See 
 
 Murat, Princess Achille. 
 Ministers of Napoleon III., some, 57, 
 
 58, 118, 134, 175, 176, 177, 270, 293 
 
 et seq., 345, 346, 386, 388, 389, 398 
 Miolan-Carvalho, Mme., 234 
 Mobile. See Gtiard. 
 Mooqnard, Chef-de-oabinet, 121, 139 
 
 et seq., 185, 189, 191, 225 
 Molitor, Baroness, 260 
 Mollard, Gen., 46 
 Moltke, ML, von, 272, 273, 384 
 Moncalieri title, 232 
 Monnier, F., 154, 377 
 Montalembert, 78 
 Montauban. See Palikao. 
 Montaut, Mme. Henri de, 261 
 Montbrun, Baron de, 41 
 Montebello, Gen. Count Lannes de, 46, 
 
 71, 81, 85 ; Countess, 71, 81, 98, 174, 
 
 253 
 Montijo, Count de, 62, 63; Countess 
 
 de, 59, 62, 63, 67, 76, 91, 148, 372 ; 
 
424 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Joaquin de, 61. See Albe and 
 Eugenie. 
 
 Montmorency, Carmen, Ducheas de, 
 71, 253 
 
 Montpensier, Mile, de, 3 
 
 Moon, Sir F. G., Ld. Mayor, 82, 83 
 
 Morio de I'Isle, Baron, 41 
 
 Morlot, Card., 52 
 
 Momy, Charles Auguete, Duke de, 23- 
 29, 58, 132, 147, 176, 256, 261, 287 
 et seq., 292, 361, 887 ; Sophie, Duchess 
 de, later de Sesto, 29, 160, 253, 262, 
 288, 289, 291 ; their children, 291 
 
 Moskowa, Edgar Ney, Prince de la, 17, 
 52, 72, 81, 104, 185, 262, 300, 301, 
 358, 363 ; Princess (dowager) de la, 
 34. See also Persigny, Ducheas. 
 
 Mosti, Countess, 213 
 
 Mouchy, Antoine de Noailles, Duke 
 de, 211, 238, 245. See also Murat, 
 Princess Anna. 
 
 Moustache, Napoleon III.'s, 133, 161 
 
 MuUer's portrait of Napoleon III., 258 
 
 Murat, Napoleon Lucien, Prince, 92, 
 211, 213, 237 et seq., 245, 361; 
 Princess, nee Fraser, 211, 212, 213, 
 237, 238, 239, 245 ; Prince Joachim, 
 211, 238, 239, 245 ; Princess Joachim, 
 211, 212,213, 239, 245; Prince Aohille, 
 148, 211, 213, 288 ; Princess Achille, 
 n*e Dadiani, 211, 212, 238 ; Princess 
 Anna, Duchess de Mouchy, 148, 160, 
 211, 212, 213, 238, 245, 253, 386. See 
 also Chassiron and Basponi. 
 
 Huiats, allowances to the, 212, 213 
 
 Music in Paris, 825 
 
 Muslin, St., 316, 390 
 
 Nabot, Bishop of, 52, 68, 94 
 
 Naples, Francis II., King of, 172, 173, 
 385 
 
 Napoleon I., Emperor, and the Tuil- 
 eries, 5, 19, 20, 21, 67 ; at the Elysee, 
 5, 6; his will, 79 ; his tomb, 85 ; plot 
 against, 101 ; annuls the Paterson 
 marriage, 215 et eeq. ; illegitimate 
 children of, 178 et seq. ; and the 
 Palais Royal, 227 ; portrait of, 257 ; 
 at St. Cloud, 330 ; his abdication, 
 354 
 
 Napoleon III., Emperor, some events 
 of his reign,and time, xi. ; occupies 
 the Tuileries, 6, 15, 16, 17 ; his ap- 
 pearance, character, and early career 
 sketched, 7-15; his relations with 
 women, 9, 14, 181 et seq., 207, 208 
 [see Bellanger, Castiglione, Florence, 
 Gordon, Howard, and Vergeot] ; re- 
 
 establishes the Empire, 13, 15, 16 ; 
 forms his Court, 23 et seq. ; portraits 
 of, 18, 161, 258 ; in connection with 
 Momy, 26, 27, 290, 291 ; with Mag- 
 nan, 32, 33 ; with Persigny, 34, 36 ; 
 with Fleury, 34, 35; with Fould, 
 35; his debts, 37, 183, 185; helps 
 his relatives, 38, 212, 213, 214 ; assists 
 inventors, 39, 146 ; ia relation to 
 Vaillant, 40, 41 ; at Sedan, 54, 308, 
 401 ; his matrimonial negotiations, 
 56 et seq., 235 ; appoints Jerome and 
 Napoleon Jerome his successors, 61 ; 
 marries Mile, de Montijo, 65 et seq. ; 
 his relations with Great Britain, 79, 
 80; visits England, 81, 82; visited 
 by Queen Victoria, 88 et seq. ; birth 
 of his son, 89 et seq. ; is godfather to 
 3000 children, 96 ; attends his sou's 
 baptism, 97, 98 ; conspiracies against 
 him, 100 et seq. [see Beaury, Belle- 
 mare, Greco, Hippodrome, Kelch, 
 Opera Comique, Orsini, Pianori, and 
 Tibaldi]; never a Oarbonaro, 104; 
 to be poisoned, 128; his private 
 cabinet, 129 et seq. ; his sanctum, 
 131 ; his share in the Paris improve- 
 ments, 138, 297; his valets, 133; 
 his moustache, 133, 161 ; his morning 
 work, 134 ; his lunch, 135 ; his after- 
 noons, 136; his work-day dinners, 
 136 et seq. ; his evenings, 138, 170 ; 
 his varied life, 189; his relations 
 with Mocquard and others, 139 et 
 seq. ; his truncheon, 145 ; reads 
 secret reports and intercepted letters, 
 147; his laud reclaiming schemes, 
 148, 150, 151, 184, 185, 292, 342; his 
 projected novels, 152 ; finances news- 
 papers, 153; is reconciled with Mme. 
 Cornu, 154 ; is chidden by the Queen 
 of Holland, 154 ; an alleged theft in' 
 his room, 155 et seq. ; prefers Ste.- 
 Beuve to Merime'e, 169; in relation 
 to Italy, 171, 172 ; his first consti- 
 tutional reforms, 173, 175, 176 [tee 
 also Constitution] ; his wife's journey 
 to Scotland, 174; his illegitimate 
 children, 181, 184, 190; his estate 
 of Oivita Nuova, 183 ; services 
 rendered him by Miss Howard, 188, 
 185; his letter to Odilon Barrot 
 respecting her, 186 et seq. ; his gifts to 
 her, 190 et seq. ; scandal about him, 
 193, 195; on bad terms with the 
 Empress, 205 et seq. ; parallel be- 
 tween him and Louis XV., 207 ; his 
 relations with Prince Napoleon, 220, 
 221, 225, 231; at family and state 
 
INDEX 
 
 425 
 
 dinners, 229, 245, 249, 253 ; inolinea 
 to liberaliBm, 231, 232 ; his relations 
 with the Murats, 238; with the 
 Dudley Stuarts, 240; with Pierre 
 Bonaparte, 240, 241, 242; at state 
 receptions, 254, 269; at balls, 257, 
 259, 260, 261 ; plays parlour games, 
 265, 370 ; asks riddles, 265 ; patron- 
 izes Home the medium, 265, 266 ; 
 receives the Fat Ox and Washer- 
 women's processions, 267, 268; at 
 the St. Cloud fair, 268 ; his foreign 
 policy defeated, 269; his constitu- 
 tional changes in 1867.. 269, 270; 
 studies the housing of the working 
 classes, 270 ; receives many foreign 
 royaliies, 271-273; his intercourse 
 with Bismarck, 273 ; hears of Maxi- 
 milian's death, 273; his reception 
 of Galliffet, 278 ; visits the dying 
 Morny, 290; will not pay for Bil- 
 lault's sins, 294 ; deprecates Prussian 
 extortions, 298 ; his stables and hunt, 
 301 et seq.; his daily drives, 305, 
 306 ; his horses and horsemanship, 
 307, 308, 343 ; his interest in horses 
 and racing, 309, 310 ; gives his bride 
 iifty-two gowns, 311 ; his journeys 
 and sojourns in the provinces and 
 abroad, 327, 328; at St. Cloud, 328 
 et seq. ; receives Charlotte of Mexico, 
 331 et eeq. ; his illness, 335-339, 343, 
 345, 381, 393-395, 397; his life at 
 Vichy and Plombiferes, 339, 340; 
 dances with a peasant girl, 340 ; his 
 relations with his soldiers, 340 et seq. ; 
 his visits to the camp of Chalons, 341 
 et seq. ; at Biarritz, 354-356; alarmed 
 for his wife and son, 357 ; hunts the 
 stag, 362 ; views the curies, 363 ; at 
 shouting parties, 365, 366 ; a doggy 
 man, 371 ; his interest in a Nicara- 
 guan canal, 371 ; is amused by 
 Slellinet as an iiivalide, 374 ; his 
 plans for the continuance of his 
 dynasty, 381-383 ; schemes a coali- 
 tion against Prussia, 383-385, 396, 
 397; resents the first HohenzoUem 
 candidature to the Spanish throne, 
 385 ; inaugurates parliamentary rule, 
 385, 386 ; his relations with Ollivier, 
 386-388; his last plebiscitum, 391, 
 392 ; consultation respecting his 
 health, 393 et seq. ; outbreak of war, 
 396; leaves for Metz, 397; ill at 
 Saarbriioken and Metz, 397, 398; 
 advised not to return to Paris, 398, 
 400, 401 ; deposed from command, 
 398 ; quits Metz, 399 ; holds a con- 
 
 ference at Cha,lons, 400 ; surrenders 
 Bt Sedan, 401 
 
 Napoleon (Jerome), Prince, 27, 60, 61, 
 65, 66, 68, 87, 116, 210, 212, 213, 
 215-217, 220-234, 236, 246, 245, 256, 
 293, 339, 366, 367, 391, 394, 400 
 
 Narvaez, Ml., 37 
 
 Xefftzer, journalist, 223 
 
 Xe'laton, Dr., 54, 345, 378, 393, 395 
 
 Nelidoff, Mile de, 260 
 
 Nero, Emperor's dog, 371 
 
 Neufchatel principality, 280, 281 
 
 Newspapers financed by the Emperor, 
 153 ; by Prince Napoleon, 223 
 
 Ney, Duke d' Elchingen, 48 
 
 Ney, Edgar. See Moskowa ; Eglc, 
 see Persigny. 
 
 Nicaraguan canal and the Emperor, 
 361, 371 
 
 Nicholas, Czar. See Eussia. 
 
 Niel, Ml., 46, 270, 274, 345, 351, 352, 
 383 ; hia widow, 3.')2 
 
 Nieuwerkerke, Count de, 39, 201, 236, 
 361, 373 
 
 Nilsson, Christine, 234 
 
 Nigra, Chevalier, afterwards Count, 88, 
 225, 366, 367, 406, 407, 408 
 
 Nobility, families of the old, 149 ; pro- 
 posed new, 149 
 
 Noir, Victor, 241, 242, 390 
 
 Novels, Emperor's projected, 152 
 
 Odilon-Barrot. See Barrot. 
 
 Ollivier, Emile, 27, 184, 232, 386 et 
 neq., 392, 393, 395, 396, 398 ; Mmo., 
 390; ministry formed by, 388, 389, 
 398 
 
 Opern, Paris, 39, 101, 112 et seq. 
 
 Opera Comique, Paris, 103, 105 
 
 Oppenheim, Major, 42 
 
 Orange, Prince of, 271 
 
 Orderly oflScers to Emperor, 48 et seq. 
 
 Orleanist deputies in the Legislative 
 Body, 386, 389, 405, 406 
 
 Orleans, Gaston, Duke of, 328 ; 
 " Egalite," Duke of, 227 ; Ferdinand, 
 Duke of, 25, 26, 61 ; Helfene, his 
 wife, 32 ; family property, 28, 36 ; 
 princes' petition in 1870, 392 
 
 Ornano, Gen. Count d', 27, 346 ; Count 
 Eodolphe d', 43, 45 
 
 Orphanage, Eugene Napoleon, 69 
 
 Orsay, Count d', 183 
 
 Orsi, Count d', 104, 150, 151, 183 
 
 Orsini and his plot. 111 et teq. 
 
 Orx, Count d', 184 
 
 Osborne, imperial visit to, 313 
 
 Oudinot, Gen., 25 
 
426 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Padoue, Duke de, 297 
 Pageant of all the lands, 261 
 Pagerie. See Tasclier. 
 Pajol, Gen. Count, 46, 54 
 Palace Police, 120 et seq., 127 
 Palais Eoyal, 200, 215, 227 et teq. 
 Palikao, Cousin - Montauban, Gen. 
 
 Count de, 48, 352, 398, 403, 404 
 Palmerston and the crinoline, 313 
 Paris, Archbishop of, 52, 68, 108; 
 
 Count de, 2, 32, 94, 393, 405 
 , improvements in, 132, 296, 297 ; 
 
 life in, 267 et seq., 271, 310, 321 
 
 et seq. ; Queen Victoria in, 84 et seq. ; 
 
 revolution in, 398, 403 et «eg. ; siege 
 
 of, 280, 399, 408 
 Farisani, March., 213 
 Parliamentary rule, 385, 386 
 Partridges, Algerian, 365 
 Pasteur, 370 
 
 Faterson, Pllizabeth, 215 et seq. 
 Fatrizzi, Card., 97 et seq. 
 Patti, Adelina, 51, 258, 323 
 Pearl, Cora, 227, 230, 323 
 Peasantry and Emperor, 340 
 Feel, Sir Robert, 25 
 Pelicans as fishers, 366 
 Pelissier, ML, Duke de Malakoff, 31, 
 
 346 et seq. ; Mme., 106, 352, 406 
 Fepoli-Murata, 212, 213 
 Performances at Compiegne, 373 
 
 et seq. 
 Persigny, Fialin, Duke de, 11, 33, 34, 
 
 36, 57, 148, 150, 151, 176, 182, 294, 
 
 361, 386 ; Duchess de, ne'e Ney de la 
 
 Moskowa, 34, 160, 253, 259 
 Peyrat, M., 223 
 Pianori's attempt on Emperor, 104 
 
 et seq. 
 Fiennes, Marq. de, 74, 75 
 Pierrebourg, Baroness de, 253 
 Fierres, Baron de, 67, 71, 304, 308; 
 
 Baroness de, tuTe Thome, 71, 309, 361 
 Pierri on Orsini affair, 115 
 Pie'tri, Prefects of Police, 28, 104, 147, 
 
 402; Franoeschini, 130, 139, 143, 
 
 251, 397, 398 
 Pinard, E., minister, 295, 296 
 Pius IX., Pope, 91, 93, 94, 97, 99, 133, 
 
 171, 206, 334 
 Phaetons, Emperor's, 168, 305 
 Pleasantries, 365 
 Physicians to the Crown, 54 
 Plate at the Tuileries, 246 et seq. 
 Plombiferes, 203, 225, 337, 339, 340 
 Plebiscitum of 1852.. .16; "of 1870... 
 
 391, 392 
 Plon, Henri, 87 
 Plots against Emperor, 100 et seq. 
 
 Poilly, Baron H. de, 318, 361, 364; 
 
 Baroness de, 318 
 Police of the Palace, 120 et seq., 127 
 Pollet, Mme., Empress's head-maid, 
 
 164, 166, 251 
 Pompeian house. Prince Napoleon's 
 
 280 
 Poniatowski, Princes, 144, 289 
 Pons de Wagner, Mme de, 73 
 Poole, tailor, 15 
 Pope. See Pius. 
 Popelin, Claudius, 236. 237 
 Porcelain and glass at J'nileries, 247 
 Portugal, Dom Luis I., King of, 273 ; 
 
 Maria Fia, Queen of, 272 
 Posse, Prince Arved, 239 
 Posting service, imperial, 304 
 Pourtalfes, account of family, 280 : 
 Count Edmond de, 280-282 ; Coun- 
 tess Me'Ianie de, 280 et seq., 375; 
 fine art collection, 281 
 Prefects of Police. See Pietri. 
 
 of the Palace, 41, 137, 138, 252 
 
 Prevost, v., Cent-Garde, 124 et seq. 
 Primoli, Countess, n^e Bonaparte, 210, 
 
 211, 213, 245 
 Prince Consort of Grt. Britain, 80, 83, 
 
 84,87 
 Prince Imperial. See Imperial. 
 Princess Eoyal of Grt. Britain, 83 
 Privy Purse, expenses of the, 134, 148, 
 
 149, 150, 151, 153, 212, 302 
 Frotooole, chief of the, 45 
 Prussia, William I., King of, later 
 German Emperor, 272, 273, 366, 372, 
 396 ; Frederick, Crown Prince, later 
 Emperor, 272. See also Wars. 
 
 Quadrille d'honneur at Court, 256 
 Quartermasters of the Household, 41, 
 
 42 
 Queen's hair, 317 
 Queretaro, execution at, 273, 334 
 
 Rachel, the tragedienne, 179, 226 
 Raimbeaux, equerry, 51, 272 
 Randon, Ml. Count, 261, 270, 297, 346, 
 
 351 
 Rasponi, Countess, nfe Murat, 212, 
 
 213 
 Eattazzi, Mme., Me Bonaparte- Wyse, 
 
 213, 214, 292 
 Ravignan, Father de, 53 
 Rayneval, Countess de, 98, 167 
 Readers, Empress's, 73, 74 
 Receptions at Tuileries, 253, 320, 898, 
 
 399 
 Recreations at Court, 265, 373 
 Redorte, Countess de la, 352 
 
INDEX 
 
 427 
 
 Eeffye, Gen. de, 48 
 
 Regencies, EmprLSs's, 84, 170, 171, 
 
 337, 397 
 Begent diamond, 67, 97, 166, 255 
 Eoille, Gen. Count, 47 
 I^egnault de St. Jean d'Angely, Ml., 
 
 346, 351, 852 
 Republic proclaimed, 406, 407 
 lleverdy, chief huntsman, 358, 359 
 Revolution of 1870, 400 et eeq. 
 Rhine frontier of France, 341, 382 
 Richard, Maurice, 395 
 Rioord, Dr., 54, 290, 339, 393, 395 
 Eiencourt, Count de, 43 
 Rigault de Genouilly, Adml., 270, 389 
 Rimmel, E., 147 
 Eimsky-Korsakoff, Mme., 261 
 Ristori, Mme., 107, 113 
 Boccagioyine, March., nfe Bonaparte, 
 
 210, 211, 213, 245 
 Bochefort, Henri, Marq. de Lu9ay, 
 
 218, 219, 241, 339 
 Roche-Lambert, Marq. de la, 72, 355 
 Roguet, Gen. Count, 45, 1 14 
 Rolin, Gen., 41, 127, 251 
 Rome, King of, 2, 54, 92, 93; and 
 France, 35, 88, 106, 171 ft aeq., 206, 
 207, 269, 383 
 Boquette. See Forcade. 
 Rose. iSee Golden. 
 
 BothBchild, Baron James de, 281, 322, 
 367; Baron Alphonse de, 280; 
 Baroness Alphonse de, 253, 259 
 Eouher, Eugfene, 28, 34, 147, 176, 270, 
 294, 295, 367, 386-390, 400, 404; 
 his wife, 295 
 Rouland, minister, 367 
 Rousselle, Dr., of the Commune, 409 
 Royalties in Paris in 1867... 271 et seq. 
 Budio, with Orsini, 115 
 Rue, M. de la, 52, 363, 368 
 Ruspoll, Prince, 211 ; Countess, 213 
 Russia, Emperors of, Alexander II., 
 29, 272, 273, 288; Nicholas, 236, 
 288 
 Rute. See BattazzL 
 
 Saoalet, M., 143, 150 
 
 Sandeau, Jules, 371 
 
 Saint Amaud, Leroy de, Ml., 17, 18, 
 28, 29 et eeq., 32, 50, 58, 65, 147, 155 
 et eeg., 345 
 
 Cloud, 16, 85, 188, 201, 268, 328 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Gratien, 234, 236 
 
 Hubert's Day, 361 
 
 Jean d'Angely. See Regnault. 
 
 de Luz, Empress's adven- 
 ture off, 357 
 
 Saint Napoleon's day, 53, 267-269 
 
 Vallier,M. de, 382 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 169 
 
 Salle des Marechaux, Salon d'Apollon, 
 
 etc. See TuUeries. 
 Salzburg, 273, 328 
 Sancy de Parabfere, Countess de, 72, 
 
 295 
 Sandon scandal, 293 
 Sander, Count, 283 
 Sanloy, M. de, 73; Mme. de, 73, 85, 
 
 98, 174 
 Savoy, annexation of, 46, 172 
 Saxe-Cobourg, Duke of, 113 
 Saxony, Kings of, 57, 272 
 Scandalmonger expelled from Court, 
 
 195 
 Scandals, financial, 324 ; Sandon's, 
 
 293 
 Schleswig-Holstein. See Wars. 
 Schmitz, Gen., 48, 400 
 Schneider Eugene, President of Legis- 
 lative Body, 214, 292, 293 
 
 Hortense, 73, 272, 314 
 
 Schwalbach, Empress at, 339 
 Scientists of the period, 326 
 Scotland, Empress visits, 174, 175 
 Second Empire founded, 13, 16 et leq. ; 
 
 overthrown, 403 et seq. 
 Secretary, Empress's, 76 
 Secret Societies, 102 
 Sedan, 54, 80, 279, 308, 400, 401, 403 
 Se'e, Dr., 54, 893-395 
 Seilli&res, Baron, 281 
 Sejour, Victor, 142 
 Senate, the, 16, 60, 61, 93, 388, 390, 
 
 391 
 Servants, watch on palace, 121, 127 
 Sesto. See Momy. 
 Sfeyres. See Porcelain. 
 Shaw, Miss, nurse, 91, 377 
 Shooting grounds and parties, 365 et 
 
 seq. 
 Sibour, Archbp., 68, 108 
 Simonel, director of Cabinet noir, 147, 
 
 148 
 Slidell, Miss, 262 
 Solms, Count, 299 ; Mme. de. See Rat- 
 
 tazzi. 
 Spain, Queen Christina of, 62; Isa- 
 bella n. of, 99, 385; Francis of 
 Aflsisi, King-consort of, 331, 385; 
 Hohenzollem candidatures to the 
 throne of, 385, 393, 395 
 Squibs on Rouher, 388, 389 
 Stables, the imperial, 300 et seq. 
 Stackelberg, Count, 299 
 Stage, the, of the period, 325 
 Stephanoni, March., 213 
 
428 
 
 INDEX 
 
 stockings, fashions in, 318 
 
 Stoffel, Col., 48 
 
 Straaburg affair, the, 33, 181 
 
 Stuart, Lord Dudley Coutts, 239 ; his 
 
 son, 239, 240 
 Succession to the throne, the, 61, 210, 
 
 391 
 Suobet, Ml., 352 
 Suez Canal, 170, 230, 371, 387 
 Suisses at the Tuileries, 44, 255, 305 
 Surgeons to the Crown, 54 
 Surtout de tahle, the great, 246 
 Sweden, Kings of, 57, 97, 273 ; Queen 
 
 of, 93, 94 
 Sweetmeats, Emperor's, 196, 197 
 Switzerland, Emperor ill in, 336 
 
 Table seryice at the Tuileries, 249, 
 
 et seq. 
 Tannhaiiser in Paris, 283 
 Tarente, Maodonald, Duke de, 43, 150, 
 
 151 
 Tascher de la Pagerie, Count, 57, 67, 
 
 74, 75 J Count Charles [Duke de 
 
 Waldburg], 67, 74, 75, 81, 260; 
 
 Countess Stephanie, 75, 259, 260, 
 
 281 
 Tattini, Countess, 213 
 Texier, B., 223 
 Thayer, Mme., 363 
 Theatre frangais. See Comedie. 
 Theft in the Emperor's room, alleged, 
 
 155 
 Thelin C, keeper of Privy Purse, 134, 
 
 139 144 153 
 Thiers, A.,' 140, 147, 403, 410 
 Thomas, Amhroise, 371 
 Clement, 147, 413; Victor, his 
 
 nephew, 413 
 Thome, Mr., American, 71 
 Thouvenel, minister, 288, 297 
 Tibaldi plot, 108, et seq. 
 Tirmaohe, Mgr., 52, 108 
 Titles, queer Spanish, 149 
 Toilettes, Empress's, 67, 97, 163 et sej. 
 
 311, 360; seven a day, 317 
 Tournelles palace, 1, 2 
 Toulongeon, Marq. de, 52, 81, 185, 
 
 358, 365 
 Trains, court, 320 
 Trelawny, C, 192 
 Trezel, Gen., 25 
 Trimm, Timothe'e, 146, 322 
 Trochu, Gen., 31, 48, 352, 399, 400, 
 
 401, 403 
 Tropmann, 326, 386 
 Troplong, M., 57, 388 
 Troubetskoi, Princess Lise, 260, 261 ; 
 
 Princess Sophie. See Morny. 
 
 Trousseau, Dr., 290 
 
 Truncheon, Emperor's, 145 
 
 Tuileries Palace, the, its early history 
 and architects, 1 et eeq. ; an unlucky 
 palace, 2 ; occupied by Napoleon III., 
 6, 7, 15 et teq. ; Second Empire pro- 
 claimed there, 17, 18 ; is redecorated, 
 18 et seq. ; visited by Queen Victoria, 
 87 ; Imperial Prince born there, 91 
 et seq. ; Miss Howard there, 188 ; at 
 the time of the Eevolution of 1870, 
 402, 404 et seq. ; its fate, 408 et seq. ; 
 See Balls, Dinners, Receptions, etc. 
 
 , rooms in : Emperor's apart- 
 ments, 129 et seq. ; Empress's apart- 
 ments, 135, 158 et seq. ; Galerie de 
 Diane, 21, 138, 257, 409; Galerie 
 de la Paix, 18, 256, 257 ; Salle des 
 Mare'chaui, 5, 19, 66, 116, 255, 256, 
 257, 409,412; Salle des Trave'es, 18, 
 135, 267 ; Salle du Trone, 20, 255 ; 
 Salon d'ApoUon, 19„ 136, 255, 257; 
 Salon Blanc, 19 ; Salon Bleu, 159 ; 
 Salons Louis XIV., etc., 3, 20-22, 
 138, 255 ; Salons Marie The'rfese, 21 ; 
 Salon de Mars, 21 ; Salon du Pre- 
 mier Consul, 255, 257 ; Salon Eose, 
 159 ; Salon des Tapisseries, 21, 136 ; 
 Salon Vert, 159 
 
 TuUibardine, Marq. of, 372 
 
 Turkey, Sultans of, 272, 273 
 
 Tiirr, Mme., 213 
 
 UuiFOEMS, insignia, and liveries of the 
 Imperial Household, 42, 44, 74, 75, 
 121, 122, 168, 255, 257, 305, 309, 360, 
 361 
 
 Ushers of the palace, 43, 44, 135, 158, 
 249, 255 
 
 Vaillant, Count, Great Marshal, 39 
 et seq., 53, 73, 81, 85, 346, 352 
 
 Valabrfegue, M. de, 51, 104 
 
 Valdegamaa, Marq. de, 68 
 
 Valentini, Mme,, 213 
 
 Valets, the Emperor's, 133, 134 
 
 Varaigne-Dubourg, Baron, 41 
 
 Veillard, M., 9 
 
 Velocipede, the, 326 
 
 Vergeot, Alexandiine, 184 
 
 Verger, Abbe', 68, 108 
 
 Verly, Col. Baron, 49, 124, 246 
 
 Versailles, Bp. of, 68 ; Queen Victoria 
 at, 86 
 
 Vicenee, Oaulainoourt, Duke de, 300, 
 361 
 
 Vichy, 203, 278, 337-840 
 
 Victoria, Queen. See Groat Britain. 
 
 Vidocq, 144 
 
INDEX 
 
 429 
 
 Viel Castel, Count H. de, 170, 193, 194 
 
 Vignon, Claude, 150, 151 
 
 Villa Eugenie. See Biarritz. 
 
 Villefermoy, 230 
 
 Yillegiatnra, the Court's, 326 et seq. 
 
 Villeneuve, Marq. de, 2i4 ; March, de, 
 
 rUe Bonapajte, 244 
 Villeneuve-l'Etang, chateau, 36, 69 
 VioUet-le-Duc, 132, 371 
 Viry de Cohendier, Baroness de, 73 
 
 Wagram, Beethiee, Prince de, 300, 
 301 
 
 Waldburg, Duke de, 260 ; Duchess de, 
 281 
 
 Waldor, Mflanie, 150, 151 
 
 Waldteufel, 256 
 
 Wales, Prince of [Edward VII.], 83, 
 272. 363, 372 
 
 Walewska, Marie Lonczjnska, Coun- 
 tess, 27, 45; Alexandrine Bicei, 
 Countess, 70, 154, 160, 179, 197, 253, 
 292 
 
 Walewski, Alexandre Florian, Count, 
 27, 56, 57, 179, 185, 214, 225, 256, 
 261, 26 283 , 292, 297, 349, 387 ; 
 Antoine Jean, 179 ; Captain Andre, 
 179 
 
 Wallace, Sir B., 280, 281 
 Walsh, Visct., 43 
 
 Wardrobe, Empress's, 163, 105, 166, 
 311 
 
 War ministers of the Empire, 345, 346 
 Wars of the period, referred to : China, 
 48; Crimean, 32, 46, 78, 79, 96; 
 Italian (1859), 85, 46, 48, 143, 171 ; 
 Two Sicilies, 172; Schleswig-Hol- 
 stein, 269; Mexican, 29, 146, 148, 
 206, 269, 277-279, 331, 332 et $eq., 
 349, 350; Austro-Pmssian (1866), 
 35, 269, 294, 295, 298, 338; Franco- 
 German (1870-71), 279, 299, 351, 
 378, 379, 382-385, 393, 395^08. 
 See alto Sedan; and Chronological 
 List, ante, pp. xi. and xii. 
 Wasa, Princess Carola, 57 
 Washbume, Mr., 299 
 Washerwomen's F«te, 267, 268 
 Waterloo, memory of, 79, 80, 85, 86 
 Wedding, the imperial, 65 et teq. 
 WerM, Count A., 364 ; M. (senior), 137 
 Werther, Baron, 299 
 Wcrwoort, first usher, 135 
 Wines consumed at Tuileries, 137 
 Wisterhalter's portrait of Empress, 130 
 Workmen's dwellings, 270 
 Worth, battle of, 378, 379, 398 
 Worth, Mr., costumier, 268, 284, 311- 
 
 313 
 Wurtemberg, Catherine of, wife of 
 
 Jerome Bonaparte, 217, 219, 220 
 Wurtz, Prof., 370 
 Wyse, Sir T., 212; Lady, 212, 213 
 
 ZovATBS, the, 344 
 
 THE £NS 
 
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