Society during the Empire -- The series of guests at Compiegne --
The amusements -- the absence of musical taste in the Bonapartes
-- The programme on the first, second, third, and fourth days --
An anecdote of Lafontaine, the actor -- Theatrical performances
and balls -- The expenses of the same -- The theatre at Compiegne
-- The guests, male and female -- "Neck or nothing" for the
latter, uniform for the former -- The rest have to take "back
seats" -- The selection of guests among the notabilities of
Compiegne -- A mayor's troubles -- The Empress's and the
Emperor's conflicting opinions with regard to female charms --
Bassano in "hot water" -- Tactics of the demi-mondaines --
Improvement from the heraldic point of view in the Empress's
entourage -- The cocodettes -- Their dress -- Worth -- When every
pretext for a change of toilette is exhausted, the court ladies
turn themselves into ballerinas -- "Le Diable a Quatre" at
Compiegne -- The ladies appear at the ball afterwards in their
gauze skirts -- The Emperor's dictum with regard to
ballet-dancers and men's infatuation for them -- The Emperor did
not like stupid women -- The Emperor's "eye" for a handsome woman
-- The Empress does not admire the instinct -- William I. of
Prussia acts as comforter -- The hunt -- Actors, "supers," and
spectators -- "La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas" -- The Imperial
procession -- The Empress's and Emperor's unpunctuality --
Louis-Napoleon not a "well-dressed man" -- The Empress wished to
get back before dark -- The reason of this wish -- Though
unpunctual, punctual on hunt-days -- The police measures at those
gatherings -- M. Hyrvoix and M. Boitelle -- The Empress did not
like the truth, the Emperor did -- Her anxiety to go to St.
Lazare.
The guests were divided into five series, each of which stayed four days
exclusive of the day of their arrival and that of their departure. Each
series consisted of between eighty and ninety guests.
The amusements provided were invariably the same for each series of
guests. On the day of their arrival there was the dinner, followed by
charades, and a carpet dance to the accompaniment of the piano--or, to
speak by the card, of the piano-organ. It was an instrument similar to
that which nowadays causes so much delight to the children in the
streets of London, and, as far as I can remember, the first of its kind
I had ever seen. The male guests, and not always the youngest, relieved
one another in turning the handle. Mechanical as was the task, it
required a certain ear for time, and they were often found sadly wanting
in that respect. It was rather comical to see a grave minister of State
solemnly grinding out tunes, and being called to task every now and
again for his incapacity. The worst offender, the most hopeless
performer, was undoubtedly the Emperor himself. The Bonapartes are one
and all devoid of the slightest taste for music. I think it is De
Bourrienne--but I will not be certain--who speaks of the founder of the
dynasty humming as he went along from one apartment to another. "Et Dieu
sait comme il chantait faux," adds the chronicler in despair. That part
of the great man's mantle had decidedly fallen upon his nephew. I
remember the latter trying to distinguish himself on that piano-organ
one evening. M. de Maupas, who was the prefect of police at the time of
the Coup d'Etat, and minister of police afterwards, was among the
guests. The ambulant musician in Paris has to get a kind of licence from
the prefecture of police, the outward sign of which is a brass badge,
which he is bound to wear suspended from his button-hole. While the
Emperor was trying to make the company waltz, one of the ladies suddenly
turned round to M. de Maupas: "Si jamais l'empereur vous demande la
permission de jouer dans la rue, refusez lui, monsieur; refusez lui,
pour l'amour du ciel et de la musique," she said aloud: and the Emperor
himself could not help smiling at the well-deserved rebuke. "Madame," he
replied, "if ever I am reduced to such a strait, I will take you into
partnership: I will make you sing, and I will collect the pence." In
spite of his musical deficiencies the Emperor was right; the lady was
Madame Conneau, who had and has still one of the most beautiful voices
ever heard on the professional or amateur stage.
On the first day following that of the arrival of the guests, there was
a shooting-party, or, rather, there were two--one in the home park for
the Emperor himself, who was not a bad shot, and a dozen of the more
important personages; another in the forest. Those who did not care for
sport were at liberty to remain with the ladies, who, under the
direction of the Empress, proceeded to the lawn. Croquet, as far as I
know, had not been invented then, but archery lent itself to posing and
flirtation quite as well, and the costumes worn on such occasions were
truly a sight for the gods.
On the evening of that day, there was a performance in the theatre,
built for the express purpose by Louis-Philippe, but which had been
considerably embellished since. The companies of the Comedie-Francaise,
the Odeon, the Gymnase, the Vaudeville, and the Palais-Royal took it in
turns. Only the members of the Comedie-Francaise had the privilege of
paying their respects in the Imperial box. It was during one of the
performances of the Gymnase company that the following amusing incident
occurred. They were playing "Le Fils de Famille" of Bayard and De
Bieville,[64] and the Emperor was strolling in the lobbies before the
performance, when he noticed an old colonel of lancers, whom he did not
remember to have seen among the guests during the daytime, but who
seemed perfectly at home. He had not even donned his full regimentals.
[Footnote 64: Known on the English stage as the "Queen's
Shilling," by Mr. Godfrey.--EDITOR.]
"Voila un vrai, beau militaire," said the sovereign to one of his
aides-de-camp; "allez demander son nom."
The aide-de-camp returned in a moment. "Il s'appelle Lafontaine, sire;
et il appartient au regiment du Gymnase."
"Comment, au regiment du Gymnase?"
"Mais oui, sire; c'est Lafontaine, le comedien."
In fact, the assumption was so thoroughly realistic, that even a better
judge than Louis-Napoleon might have been deceived by it.
Those performances were really most brilliant affairs, and an invitation
to them was only less highly prized than that to the ball which always
followed the play on November 15th, the Empress's fete-day.[65] The cost
of each performance was estimated at between twenty and thirty thousand
francs, according to the company performing. I am repeating the official
statement, though inclined to think it somewhat exaggerated. Except the
Opera or Opera-Comique, there was not then, nor is there now, a theatre
in Paris whose nightly receipts, with "the greatest success," exceed
seven or eight thousand francs. Allowing for an additional three
thousand francs for railway travelling and sundry expenses, I fail to
see how the remainder of the sum was disbursed, unless it was in
douceurs to the performers. There is less doubt, however, about the
expenses of the Chateau during this annual series of fetes. It could not
have been less than forty-five thousand francs per diem, and must have
often risen to fifty thousand francs, exclusive of the cost of the
theatrical performances, because the luxe displayed on these occasions
was truly astonishing--I had almost said appalling.
[Footnote 65: The Sainte-Eugenie, according to the Church
Calendar. In France, it is not the birthday, but the day of the
patron-saint whose name one bears, which is
celebrated.--EDITOR.]
The theatre was built on the old-fashioned principle, and what we call
stalls were not known in those days. There was something analogous to
them at the Opera and the Theatre-Francais, but they were exclusively
reserved to the male sex. Both these theatres still keep up the same
traditions in that respect. At Compiegne the whole of the ground floor,
parterre, or pit, as we have misnamed it--"groundlings" is a much more
appropriate word, perhaps, than "pittites"--was occupied by the officers
of all grades of the regiments quartered at Compiegne and in the
department. The chefs de corps and the chief dignitaries of State filled
the amphitheatre, which rose in a gentle slope from the back of the
parterre to just below the first tier of boxes, or rather to the balcony
tier, seeing that the only box on it was the Imperial one. The latter,
however, took up much more than the centre, for it had been constructed
to seat about two hundred persons. Only a slight partition, elbow high,
divided it from the rest of the tier, whence the sterner sex was
absolutely banished. The display of bare arms and shoulders was
something marvellous, for they were by no means equally worthy of
admiration, and the stranger, ignorant of the court regulations, must
have often asked himself why certain ladies should have been so reckless
as to invite comparison with their more favoured sisters. It was because
there was no choice. The slightest gauze was rigorously prohibited, and
woe to the lady who ventured to disobey these regulations. One of the
chambellans was sure to request her to retire. "L'epaule ou l'epaulette"
was the title of a comic song of those days, in allusion to the
Empress's determination to suffer none but resplendent uniforms and ball
dresses within sight of her. If I remember aright, the chorus went like
this--
"Je ne porte pas l'epaulette,
Je ne puis me decoll'ter,
Je ne suis qu'un vieux bonhomme,
Donc, je ne suis pas invite."
For even the guests in plain evening dress were mercilessly relegated to
the tier above that of the Imperial box, and, even when there, were not
permitted to occupy the first rows. These also were reserved for the
fairer portion of humanity.
This fairer portion of humanity, thus ostensibly privileged, embittered
the lives of the poor mayor and sub-prefect of Compiegne. The wives of
the local notabilities and of the government officials, in addition to
those of some of the landed gentry of the Empire, were not only anxious
to be present at these gatherings, but generally insisted on having the
front seats, at any rate in the second circle. Their applications,
transmitted by these dignitaries to the Duc de Bassano, were always in
excess of the room at his disposal, and, being an utter stranger to all
these ladies, he had virtually to choose at random, or, if not at
random, to be guided by the mayor and sub-prefect, who were consulted,
not with regard to the greater or lesser degree of opulent charms and
comeliness of features of these fair applicants, but with regard to
their social status and fair fame. Now, it so happens that in France
"L'amour fait des siennes" in the provinces as well as in the capital;
he only disdains what Mirabeau used to call "les fees concombres." The
Empress, provided the shoulders and arms were bare, did not trouble much
about either their colour or "moulded outline;" the Emperor, on the
contrary, objected, both from personal as well as artistic reasons, to
have the curved symmetry of the two circles marred by the introduction
of so many living problems of Euclid; and it really seemed as if the
devil wanted to have all the good shapes to himself, for the reputedly
virtuous spinsters, widows, and matrons were angular enough to have
satisfied a tutor of mathematics. There was a dilemma: if they were put
in the front rows, the Emperor scolded Bassano, who in his turn scolded
the mayor and the sub-prefect. If the less virtuous but more attractive
were put in the front rows, there was frequently a small scandal; for
the Empress, at the first sight of them, had them expelled, after which
she scolded Bassano, who avenged himself for his having been reprimanded
on the mayor and sub-prefect. Furthermore, the contingent from Paris,
some of whom were often provided with letters of introduction from
influential personages to the latter gentleman, were not always without
reproach though ever without fear; but how were two provincial
magistrates to know this? Those sirens could almost impose upon them
with impunity, and did; so, upon the whole, the magistrates did not have
a pleasant time of it, for in the case of the former damsels or veuves
de Malabar both the Emperor and the Empress were equally strict--though,
perhaps, from utterly different motives.
Nevertheless, the esclandres were comparatively rare, and the house
itself presented a sight unparalleled perhaps throughout the length and
breadth of Europe. At nine o'clock, Comte Bacciochi, the first
chambellan, in his court dress descended the few steps leading from the
foyer to the Imperial box, and, advancing to the front, announced, "The
Emperor." Every one rose and remained standing until the Emperor and
Empress, who entered immediately afterwards, had seated themselves in
the crimson velvet and gilt arm-chairs which the gentlemen-in-waiting
(les chambellans de service) rolled forward.
I have spoken elsewhere of the immediate entourage of the Imperial
hosts, and may therefore pass them over in silence here. As the
Napoleonic dynasty became apparently more consolidated both at home and
abroad, this entourage gradually changed--though no truthful observer
could have honestly averred that the change was for the better. The
decaves and the declassees of the first period disappeared altogether,
or underwent a truly marvellous financial and social metamorphosis: the
men, by means of speculations, chiefly connected with the
"Haussmannizing" of Paris, the successful carrying out of which was
greatly facilitated by their position at court; the women by marriages,
the conditions of which I prefer not to discuss. An undoubtedly genuine
leaven of names to be found in "D'Hozier,"[66] came to swell the ranks
of the hitherto somewhat shady courtiers of both sexes. Unfortunately,
their blood was not only thicker than water, and consequently more
easily heated, but they presumed upon the blueness of it to set public
opinion at defiance.
[Footnote 66: "D'Hozier," the French "Burke," so named after
its founder, Pierre D'Hozier, the creator of the science of
French genealogy.--EDITOR.]
"Ce qui, chez les mortels, est une effronterie
Entre nous autres demi-dieux
N'est qu'honnete galanterie."
Thus wrote the Duchesse du Maine[67] to her brother, of whom she was
perhaps a little more fond than even their blood-relationship
warranted. This privilege of stealing the horse, while the meaner-born
might not even look over the hedge, was claimed by the sons and the
daughters of the old noblesse, who condescended to grace the court of
Napoleon III., with a cynicism worthy of the most libertine traditions
of the ancien regime; and neither the Empress nor the Emperor did
anything to discountenance the claim. The former, provided that "tout se
passait en famille," closed her eyes to many things she ought not to
have tolerated. At the Tuileries, a certain measure of decorum was
preferred; at Compiegne and Fontainebleau, where the house was "packed"
as it were, the most flagrant eccentricities, to call them by no harsher
name, were not only permitted, but tacitly encouraged by the Empress.
This was especially the case when the first series of guests was gone.
It generally included the most serious portion of the visitors, "les
ennuyeurs, les empecheurs de danser en rond,"[68] as they were called.
The ladies belonging to, or classed in that category, presented, no
doubt, a striking contrast to those of the succeeding series, in which
the English element was not always conspicuous by its absence. The
costumes of the latter were something wonderful to behold. The cloth
skirt, which had then been recently introduced from England, and the
cloth dress, draped elegantly over it, enabled their wearers to defy all
kinds of weather. And as they went tramping down the muddy roads, their
coquettish little hats daintily poised on enormous chignons, their
walking boots displaying more than the regulation part of ankle, the
less sophisticated Compiegnois stared with all their might at the
strange company from the Chateau, and no wonder. Still, the surprise of
the inhabitants was small compared to that of the troopers of the
garrison at the invasion of their riding-school by such a contingent,
which indulged in ring-tilting, not unfrequently in tent-pegging, and,
more frequently still, "in taking a header into space," to the great
amusement of their companions.
[Footnote 67: Anne, Louise, Benedicte de Bourbon, Princesse de
Conde, who married the Duc du Maine, the illegitimate son of
Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan. She disliked her husband,
whom she considered socially beneath her, and who was very ugly
besides. The lines quoted above are probably not hers, but
Malezieu's, "her poet in ordinary," who also organized her
amateur theatricals.--EDITOR.]
[Footnote 68: Idiomatically, "the bores, the spoil-sports, or
wet-blankets."--EDITOR.]
In those days, Worth was not quite king; the cocodettes of the Imperial
circle were still prophesying on their own account. The "arsenal des
modes," as Madame Emile de Girardin had boastingly called Paris but ten
years previously, had as yet not been boldly taken by storm by a native
of bucolic Lincolnshire. But in a very short time he became the absolute
autocrat in matters of feminine apparel. It was not even an enlightened
despotism. His will was law. Every different entertainment required its
appropriate costume, and the costume was frequently the sole pretext for
the entertainment. And when the ingenuity in devising both was in danger
of becoming exhausted, the supreme resource of these ladies was to turn
themselves into ballerinas; not into ballerinas as King Bomba, or the
Comte Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld, or M. Rouher would have had them,
but into ballerinas with the shortest of gauze skirts and pink silk
fleshings.
One year, I am not certain of the exact one,--I know that the future
Emperor of Germany was there,--the ladies hit upon the idea of giving a
surprise to the Emperor and Empress on the occasion of the latter's
fete-day. A ballet-master was sent for in hot haste from Paris, and "Le
Diable a Quatre" put in rehearsal. Unlike Peter the Great, who had a
soldier hanged--he said shooting was too good for him--for having
represented a disreputable character on the stage, the Emperor professed
himself exceedingly pleased; and the ladies, among whom was Princess von
Metternich, were sent for from the Imperial box to be complimented by
the sovereign. At the ball which followed the entertainment, they
appeared in their theatrical dresses. Every one was delighted. "Apres
tout," said Napoleon, blinking his eyes, "avec cette manie des hommes de
courir apres des danseuses, il vaut mieux leur en fournir de bonne
maison."
The philosophy was unassailable, and, to a certain extent, acted upon by
its professor. Napoleon only admired dancers on the stage. He thought,
with Balzac, that the extraordinary physical strain upon the lower
extremities necessarily interfered with the intellectual development "at
the other end." "L'esprit de la danseuse est dans ses jambes, et je
n'aime pas les femmes betes," he remarked; for the Emperor, like most of
the members of his family, did not scruple to apply the right word, when
talking to his familiars.
Nevertheless, until he was assured of the stupidity of a woman by more
intimate acquaintance, he was too much inclined to be attracted by the
first handsome face he saw, or, to speak by the card, by the first
handsome face he picked out for himself. The moment he was seated by
the side of the Empress in the Imperial box, during one of those
performances I mentioned just now, he swept the house with his
opera-glass, and unerringly the glass stopped at what was really the
handsomest woman in the house, whether she was seated on the tier with
him or in the upper one--of course, I mean "the handsomest woman" among
the strangers, because on such occasions the Emperor paid but little
attention to those who were generally around him. The Empress was fain
to put up with these peccadilloes: she could not be always running away
to Schwalbach or to Scotland; besides, she knew that she would have to
come back again. Some months previous to the performance of "Le Diable a
Quatre," she went to the former place to hide her mortification. William
of Prussia was at Baden-Baden at the time, and he immediately left the
delightful society and the magnificent roulades of Pauline Lucca to
offer his sympathies to the Griselda who had fled from her home
troubles, forgetting that there was another one at home, who would have
even been more glad of his company.
On the day after the shooting-party and the theatrical performance,
there was generally an excursion to Pierrefonds, and afterwards to the
magnificent Roman remains at Champlieu. In the evening there were
charades and carpet dances as usual.
The third day was always reserved for the most important part of the
programme--the stag-hunt. Candidly speaking, I doubt whether Napoleon,
though a very excellent horseman, cared much for this sport, as
conducted on the grand traditional lines of the French "code of
venerie." His main object personally was a good stiff run with the
hounds, such as he had been used to in England, troubling himself little
whether the pack kept the scent or not. In fact, there were generally
two packs out, one of purely English breed, which was followed by the
Emperor and his guests; the other French, followed by the serious lovers
of sport, who, as a rule, caught at every pretext to get away from the
magnificently apparelled crowd, driving or riding in the wake of the
sovereign. Among the former there was a considerable sprinkling of the
landed gentry of the neighbourhood, monarchists and legitimists to a
man, some of whom did not even condescend to honour the Emperor with a
salute. Compiegne, Senart, etc., were, after all, public property, and
they could do as they liked, though I have got an idea that this wilful
slight was an instance of singular bad taste on the part of these
gentlemen.
The spot fixed for the meet was invariably the large clearing known as
the Carrefour du Puits-du-Roi, whence radiated eight immense avenues,
stretching as far as the uttermost confines of the forest of Compiegne.
The spot, apart from its associations with royalty, from the days of
Clovis up to our own, was admirably chosen, the mise-en-scene worthy of
the greatest stage-manager on record. The huge centre itself was kept
clear by the gendarmes de chasse--a cross between a mounted constable
and a ranger--from any but the officers of the garrison on horseback and
other persons privileged to join the Emperor's suite. Six of the avenues
were free to the pedestrians, who could watch every movement from their
vantage point; the seventh was set apart for carriages of all sorts,
from the humble shandrydan of the local notary and doctor to the
magnificent break of the neighbouring landed proprietor, or the less
correctly but more showily appointed barouches of the leaders of
provincial society, who rarely missed an opportunity of attending these
gatherings, where there were so many chances of coming in contact with
the court. Relegated for at least ten months of the year--allowing for
an annual visit to the capital--to the dull, humdrum, though often
pretentious round of entertainments of her own circle, the Comtesse
d'Esbargnas,[69] whether young or old, handsome or the reverse, matron
or widow, of patrician or plebeian origin, sedulously watched the yearly
recurring time and tide that might lead to a permanent footing at the
Tuileries. What has happened once may happen again. Agnes Sorel, Diane
de Poitiers, Gabrielle d'Estrees, Louise de la Valliere, let alone
Jeanne Becu and Jeanne Poisson,[70] had by no means exhausted the
possibilities of sudden elevations to within a step of the throne. These
new aspirants would be content with a less giddy position. And who could
say what might happen? Had not Alfred de Musset, the daring poet of "les
grandes passions," written a play entitled "Il ne faut jurer de rien"?
Assuredly what had happened once might happen again. Meanwhile the
pleasure of watching all this splendour was worth coming for.
[Footnote 69: A character of one of Moliere's plays, who lends
her name to the play itself, and who, with her provincial
clique, apes the manners of the court.]
[Footnote 70: Mesdames Du Barry and Pompadour.]
The latter proposition hardly admitted of discussion. The sight was
truly worth coming for. Though the Imperial suite never made its
appearance before one, the main arteries of the forest became crowded as
early as eleven. Half an hour later came La Trace and La Feuille with
their equipage.[71] The kennelmen and huntsmen in full dress gathered
round a roaring fire, their hounds lying at their feet. The stablemen
and grooms, in undress livery of green and brown, walking the hunters of
the Emperor and his suite to and fro, presented a picture full of colour
and animation.
[Footnote 71: "Equipage" is the right word. Applied to any but
military or hunting uses, it is out of place, though frequently
thus used.--EDITOR.]
As a rule the Imperial cortege was punctual on those occasions, though
it was often remiss in that respect at gatherings of a different nature.
Among the familiars at the Tuileries the blame for this general
unpunctuality was attributed in an equal measure to both the Emperor and
the Empress. The latter dressed very slowly, and the former wanted to
dress too quickly. The result of this difference of habit was always
manifest to the most casual observer. The Empress, after the most
fatiguing day or soiree, always looked as if she had just left her
dressing-room, the Emperor at the beginning of the same as if he had
scarcely been in it. But on "grand hunt-days" the Empress was never a
minute late; and the reason, apart from the natural wish to exercise "la
politesse des rois," exactitude, was a curious one, but for the truth of
which I can vouch. It gets dark early in November, and the Empress
dreaded to be overtaken by darkness in the forest, even amidst a crowd.
It reminded her of a disagreeable episode during her first stay at
Compiegne, when she was still Mdlle. Eugenie de Montijo. She and her
future husband had got separated from the rest of the party. It was
never accurately known what happened, but she was found sitting quietly
but sorely distressed on her horse by M. de Saint-Paul, the sub-ranger,
who escorted her back to the Chateau. She explained her lonely and
uncomfortable position by the fact that her companion's horse had
suddenly taken the bit between its teeth. The explanation was a lame
one, seeing that the Prince-President, on his return, hours before, had
looked perfectly composed and not as much as mentioned her name. The
truth leaked out afterwards. Enraged at Mdlle. de Montijo's refusal to
grant him a clandestine interview for that night, her princely suitor
had left her to find her way back as best she could.
Invariably, then, at the stroke of one, the Imperial procession was
signalled, for it was nothing less than a procession. At its head rode
the chief ranger of Compiegne, Baron de Wimpffen, in a magnificent
hunting-coat of green and gold, the laced tricornered hat, surmounted by
a bunch of black plumes, jackboots, and white doeskins. Then came the
Imperial break, drawn by six horses, mounted by postilions in powdered
wigs, the Imperial host and hostess on the front seat, the members of
the family, or some illustrious guests, behind; the rest of the breaks
were only four-horsed, and the procession was closed by the carriage of
M. Hyrvoix, the chief of the secret police. In Paris this arrangement
was reversed, and M. Hyrvoix, who had the rank of a prefect, and took
his place as such at all public functions, preceded instead of following
the Imperial carriage.
I am inclined to think, notwithstanding the frequent outcries against
the secret police during the second empire, that M. Hyrvoix was a
thoroughly upright and conscientious servant. Unfortunately for himself
and his Imperial masters, his position was a difficult one; for though
professedly employed to gauge public opinion with regard to the dynasty,
his reports to that effect were not always received with the
consideration due to honest truth, at any rate by the Empress.
Throughout these pages, I have endeavoured as far as possible to jot
down my recollections in a kind of chronological order, rather than in
the order they occurred to me; but in this, as in many other instances,
I have been obliged to anticipate the course of events lest they should
slip my memory, for I had no documents to go by, and also to avoid
unnecessary repetitions. This particular part of my somewhat disjointed
narrative was meant to deal with the festivities at Compiegne and the
company there; on reading it over, I find that it has developed into a
fragment of biography of the Emperor and his Consort. As such, the
following stories will throw a valuable side light on their different
dispositions.
When the news of Emperor Maximilian's death reached Paris, there was the
rumbling of a storm which foreboded no good. For days before, there had
been vague rumours of the catastrophe. It had been whispered at the
annual distribution of prizes at the College de France, where one of
the young Cavaignacs had refused to receive his reward at the hands of
the Prince Imperial. In short, indignation was rife among all classes.
The Empress, on hearing of the insult, had burst into hysterical tears,
and been obliged to leave the reception-rooms. In short, a dark cloud
hung over the Tuileries. I have spoken elsewhere of the Mexican
expedition, so need not enlarge upon it here. We will take it that both
Napoleon and his wife were altogether blameless in the affair--which was
by no means the case,--but a moment's reflection ought to have shown
them that appearances were against them, and that the discontent
expressed was so far justified. I am under the impression that Napoleon
himself looked at it in that way; he bowed to the storm; he regretted,
but did not resent people speaking ill of him. Not so the Empress; the
truth was only welcome to her when it flattered her; she really fancied
herself an autocrat by the Grace of God, as the previous Bourbons
interpreted the term. In spite of all that has been said about her
amiability, about her charity, Eugenie was in reality cruel at heart. No
woman, not cruel, could have taken the principal part in a scene which I
will describe presently. But she was vindictive also, and, what was
worse, blindly vindictive. Though firmly convinced that she reigned by
right divine, she had felt more than once that private revenge on "the
people" who abused her was beyond her power. She not only fretted
accordingly, but often vented her wrath on the first victim that came to
hand, albeit that the latter was generally the mere innocent conveyance
through which the voice of "the people" reached her. M. Hyrvoix, in
virtue of his functions, often found himself the echo of that voice. He
was generally the first of all the officials to present his daily
report. The Emperor gave him his cue by asking, "What do the people
say?"
On that particular morning, after the death of Maximilian had become
known, the answer came not as readily as usual; for the chief of the
secret police was not in the habit of mincing matters. This time,
however, M. Hyrvoix kept silent for a while, then replied, "The people
do not say anything, sire."
Napoleon must have noticed the hesitating manner; for he said at once,
"You are not telling me the truth. What do the people say?"
"Well, sire, if you wish to know, not only the people, but every one is
deeply indignant and disgusted with the consequences of this unfortunate
war. It is commented upon everywhere in the selfsame spirit. They say it
is the fault of ----"
"The fault of whom?" repeated Napoleon.
Whereupon M. Hyrvoix kept silent once more.
"The fault of whom?" insisted Napoleon.
"Sire," stammered M. Hyrvoix, "in the time of Louis XVI. people said,
'It is the fault of the Austrian woman.'"
"Yes, go on."
"Under Napoleon III. people say, 'It is the fault of the Spanish
woman.'"
The words had scarcely left M. Hyrvoix' lips, when a door leading to the
inner apartments opened, and the Empress appeared on the threshold. "She
looked like a beautiful fury," said M. Hyrvoix to his friend, from whom
I have got the story. "She wore a white dressing-gown, her hair was
waving on her shoulders, and her eyes shot flames. She hissed, rather
than spoke, as she bounded towards me; and, ridiculous as it may seem, I
felt afraid for the moment. 'You will please repeat what you said just
now, M. Hyrvoix,' she gasped in a voice hoarse with anger.
"'Certainly, madame,' I replied, 'seeing that I am here to speak the
truth, and, as such, your Majesty will pardon me. I told the Emperor
that the Parisians spoke of "the Spanish woman," as they spoke
seventy-five and eighty years ago of the Austrian woman.'"
"'The Spanish woman! the Spanish woman!' she jerked out three or four
times--and I could see that her hands were clenched;--'I have become
French, but I will show my enemies that I can be Spanish when occasion
demands it.'
"With this she left as suddenly as she had come, taking no notice of the
Emperor's uplifted hand to detain her. When the door closed upon her, I
said to the Emperor, 'I am more than grieved, sire, that I spoke.'
"'You did your duty,' he said, grasping my hand."
As a matter of course, the threat to show her enemies that she could be
Spanish when occasion required was, in this instance, an empty one,
because "the enemies" happened to be legion. A scapegoat was found,
however, in the honest functionary who had, in the exercise of his duty,
frankly warned the Emperor of the ugly things that were said about her.
Next morning, M. Hyrvoix was appointed Receiver-General for one of the
departments--that is, exiled to the provinces.
This system of ostracism was indiscriminately applied to all who
happened to offend her. Unfortunately, the slightest divergence of
opinion on the most trifling matter was construed into an offence; hence
in a few years the so-called counsellors around the Emperor were simply
so many automata, moving at her will, and at her will only. Men who
ventured to think for themselves were removed, or else voluntarily
retired from the precincts of the court sooner than submit to a tyranny,
not based like that of Catherine II. or Elizabeth upon great
intellectual gifts, but upon the wayward impulses of a woman in no way
distinguished mentally from the meanest of her sex, except by an
overweening ambition and an equally overweening conceit.
And as nothing is so apt to breed injustice as injustice, men, who might
have proved the salvation of the Second Empire in its hour of direst
need, were absolutely driven into opposition, and so blinded by
resentment as to be unable to distinguish any longer between France and
those who impelled her to her ruin.
Lest I should be taxed with exaggeration, a few instances among the many
will suffice. One evening, in the course of those charades of which I
have already spoken, some of the performers, both men and women, had
thrown all decorum to the winds in their improvised dialogue. A young
colonel, by no means strait-laced or a hypocrite, who was a great
favourite with the Emperor and Empress, professed himself shocked, in
the hearing of the latter, at so much licence in the presence of the
sovereigns. In reality, it was an honest but indirect comment upon the
Empress's blamable latitude in that respect. The Empress took up the
cudgels for the offenders. "Vous n'etes pas content, colonel; he bien!
je m'en _fiche_, _refiche_ et _contrefiche_." ("You don't like it,
colonel; well, I don't care a snap, nor two snaps, nor a thousand
snaps."[72]) The Emperor laughed, and applauded his Consort; the colonel
took the hint, and was seen at court no more. Shortly afterward he went
to Mexico, where all who saw him at work concurred in saying that he was
not only a most valuable soldier, but probably the only one in the
French army, of those days, capable of handling large masses.
Nevertheless, when the war of '70 broke out, he was still a colonel, and
no attempt at offering him a command was made. The republicans, for once
in a way, were wiser in their generation: at this hour he holds a high
position in the army, and is destined to occupy a still higher. It was
he who counselled Bazaine, in the beginning of the investment of Metz,
to leave twenty or thirty thousand men behind to defend the fortress,
and to break through with the rest. According to the best authorities of
the German general staff, the advice, had it been followed, would have
materially altered the state of affairs. It is not my intention to
enlarge upon that soldier's career or capabilities; I have merely
mentioned them to show that, when her resentment was roused, Eugenie
threw all considerations for the welfare of France to the winds, and
systematically ostracized men, whatever their merits; for I may add that
the young colonel, at the time of the scene described above, was known
to be one of the ablest of strategists.
[Footnote 72: My translation by no means renders the vulgarity
of the sentence. The French have three words to express their
contempt for a speaker's opinion, _se moquer_, _se ficher_, and
_se_ ... I omit the latter, but even the second is rarely used
in decent society.--EDITOR.]
We have heard a great deal of the Empress's charity. Truth to tell, that
charity was often as indiscriminate as her anger; it was sporadic,
largely admixed with the histrionic element, not unfrequently prompted
by sentimentalism rather than by sentiment; and woe to him or to her who
ventured to hint that it, the charity, was misplaced. In those days
there was a prefect of police, M. Boitelle. He was a worthy man, endowed
with a great deal of common sense, and, above all, honest to a degree.
Belonging to the middle classes, he was free from the vulgar greed that
so often distinguishes them in France; and, after leaving the army as a
non-commissioned officer, had settled on a small farm left to him by his
parents. Now, it so happened that M. de Persigny, whose real name was
Fialin, had been a sergeant in the same regiment, and one day, after the
advent of the Empire, being in the north, went to pay his former comrade
a visit. I am perfectly certain that M. Boitelle, whom I knew, and with
whose son I have continued the amicable relations subsisting between his
father and myself, did not solicit any honours or appointment from the
then powerful friend of the Emperor; nevertheless, Persigny appointed
his fellow-messmate to the sub-prefectorship of St. Quentin. The
emoluments, even in those days, were not large, but M. Boitelle was only
a small farmer, and the promise of quick preferment may have induced
him to leave his peaceful homestead; in short, M. Boitelle accepted,
and, after several promotions, found himself at last at the Paris
Prefecture of Police. In this instance the choice was really a good one.
I have known a good many prefects of police, among others M. de Maupas,
who officiated on the night of the Coup d'Etat, and who was also a
personal friend; but I never knew one so thoroughly fitted for the
arduous post as M. Boitelle. Though not a man of vast reading or
brilliant education, he was essentially a man of the world in the best
sense of the word. He was not a martinet, but a capable disciplinarian,
and, what was better still, endowed with a feeling of great tolerance
for the foibles of modern society. The soldier and the philosopher were
so inextricably mixed up in him, that it would have been difficult to
say where the one ended and the other began. M. de Maupas was at times
too conscious of his own importance; there was too much of the French
official in him. His successful co-operation in the Coup d'Etat had
imbued him with an exaggerated notion of his own capabilities of "taking
people by the scruff of the neck and running them in" (a empoigner les
gens). An English friend of mine, to whom I introduced him, summed him
up, perhaps, more fitly. "He is like the policeman who ran in a woman of
sixty all by himself, and boasted that he could have done it if she had
been eighty."
But M. Boitelle, though kind-hearted, had no sympathy whatsoever with
mawkish philanthropy. The Empress, on the other hand, had absolute
paroxysms of it. She was like the Spanish high-born dame who insisted
upon a tombstone for the grave of a bull, the killing and torturing of
which in the ring she had frantically applauded. One day she expressed
her wish to M. Boitelle to pay a visit to Saint-Lazare. There is nothing
analogous to that institution in England. The "unfortunate woman" who
prowls about the streets before or after nightfall is--except in a few
garrison towns--tacitly ignored by our legislators, and when she offends
against the common law, treated by our magistrates like any other member
of society. We have no establishments where the moral cancer eats deeper
into the flesh and the mind by the very attempt to isolate those who
suffer most from it; we have no system which virtually bars the way to a
reformed life by having given official authority to sin, and by
recording for evermore the names of those whom want alone compelled to
have themselves inscribed as outcasts on those hellish registers. We
have no Saint-Lazare, and Heaven be praised for it!
M. Boitelle knew the moral and mental state of most of the inmates of
Saint-Lazare sufficiently well to foster no illusions with regard to the
benefit to be derived by them from the solitary visit of so exalted a
personage, while, on the other hand, he felt perfectly aware that it was
morbid curiosity, however well disguised, that prompted the step. At the
same time, the respect due to his sovereign made him reluctant to expose
her, needlessly, to a possible, if not to a probable insult; in short,
he considered the projected "tour of inspection" an ill-concerted one.
He also knew that it would be idle to bring his fund of shrewd
philosophy to bear upon the Empress, to make her relinquish her design,
so he adopted instead the outspoken method of the soldier. "Whatever
your charitable feelings may be for those who suffer, madame," he said,
"your place is not among them." The words sound a shade more abrupt in
French, but a moment's reflection would have shown the most fastidious
lady that no offence on the speaker's part was intended. The Empress,
however, drew herself up to her full height. "Charity can go any and
everywhere, monsieur," she replied. "You will please take me to
Saint-Lazare to-morrow."
I would fain say as little as possible about the occupants of that
gloomy building at the top of the Faubourg St. Denis, but am compelled
to state in common fairness that, when once they are incarcerated and
behave themselves--of course, according to _their_ lights--they are not
treated with unnecessary harshness. I will go further, and say that they
are treated more leniently than female prisoners in other penal
establishments. The milder method is due to the presence in greater
numbers than elsewhere of that admirable angel of patience, the Sister
of Charity, who has no private grievances to avenge upon her own sex,
who does not look upon the fallen woman as an erstwhile and unsuccessful
rival for the favours of men, who consequently does not apply the _vae
victis_, either by sign, deed, or word. During my long stay in Paris, I
have been allowed to visit Saint-Lazare twice, and I can honestly say
that, though the laws that relegate these women there are a disgrace to
nineteenth-century civilization, their application inside Saint-Lazare
is not at all brutal. This does not imply that they lie upon down beds,
and that their food is of the most delicate description; but they are
well cared for bodily. The Empress, however, in a gush of misplaced
charity, thought fit to take objection to their daily meals not being
concluded with dessert. Thereupon, M. Boitelle, whose sound common sense
had already been severely tried during that morning, could not help
smiling. "Really, madame," he said; "you allow your kindness to run away
with your good sense. If they are to have a dessert, what are we to give
to honest women?"
Next day, M. Boitelle was appointed a senator; that is, removed from his
post as prefect of police, which he had so worthily filled, and where he
had done a great deal of unostentatious good. The next time M. Boitelle
came in contact with the Empress was at the last hour of the Empire,
when he tried, but in vain, to overcome her resentment, caused by his
unhappy speech of many years before.
Yet the woman who could indulge in sentiment about the absence of
dessert in the Saint-Lazare refectory, would, at the end of the hunt,
deliberately jump off her horse, plunge the gleaming knife in the throat
of the panting stag, and revel in the sight of blood. Many who saw her
do this argued that in the hour of danger she would as boldly face the
enemies of herself and her dynasty. I need not say that they were
utterly mistaken. She slunk away at the supreme hour; while the
princess, whom she had presumed to teach the manners of a court, left
like a princess in an open landau, preceded by an outrider. I am
alluding to Princess Clotilde.