“Gentlemen, after an interval of twelve years I have come for the
second time to distribute rewards to those who have most distinguished
themselves in those works which enrich nations, embellish life, and
soften manners. The poets of antiquity sang the praises of those great
games in which the various nations of Greece assembled to contend for
the prize of the race. What would they say to-day were they to be
present at these Olympic games of the world, in which all nations,
contesting by intellect, seem to launch themselves simultaneously
in the infinite career of progress towards an ideal incessantly
approached, without ever being able to be attained? From all parts
of the earth the representatives of science, of art, and of industry
have hastened to vie with each other, and we may say that peoples and
kings have both come to do honor to the efforts of labor, and to crown
them by their presence with the idea of conciliation and peace. The
Exhibition of 1867 may be justly termed ‘universal,’ for it unites the
elements of all the riches of the globe.
“Side by side with the latest improvements of modern art appear the
products of the remotest ages, so that they represent, at one and the
same time, the genius of all nations and all ages.
“It is universal, for in addition to the marvels luxury brings forth
for the few, it displays also that which is demanded by the necessities
of the many.
“The interests of the laboring classes have never aroused more lively
solicitude. Their moral and material wants, their education, the
conditions of life at a cheap rate, the most productive combinations
of association, have been the object of patient inquiries and serious
study. Thus all improvements go forward. If science, by turning matter
to account, liberates labor, the cultivation of the mind, by subduing
vices, prejudices, and vulgar passions, also liberates humanity.
“Let us congratulate ourselves, gentlemen, upon having received among
us the majority of the sovereigns and princes of Europe, and so many
distinguished visitors. Let us be proud of having shown to them France
as she is,—great, prosperous, and free. One must be destitute of all
patriotic faith to doubt her greatness; must close one’s eyes to
evidence to deny her prosperity; must misunderstand her institutions,
tolerant sometimes even of license, not to behold in them liberty.
I thank the imperial commission, the members of the jury and the
different committees, for the intelligent zeal they have displayed in
the accomplishment of their tasks. I thank them also in the name of
the Prince Imperial, whom, notwithstanding his tender age, I have been
happy to associate in this great undertaking of which he will retain
the remembrance. I hope the Exhibition of 1867 will mark a new era
of harmony and progress. Assured that Providence blesses the efforts
of all who, like ourselves, desire good, I believe in the definitive
triumph of the great principles of morality and justice, which, while
satisfying all legitimate desires, are alone able to consolidate
thrones, to elevate nations, and to ennoble humanity.”
The names of the exhibitors to whom the chief prizes—gold or silver
medals—had been awarded were then read. They had been marshalled in
procession, two and two, under the distinctive banners of the various
groups into which the Exhibition was divided. The whole number was
about nine hundred. One by one, as each name was called, the exhibitors
ascended the steps of the throne, and received from the hands of the
emperor the ribbon belonging to the decoration of the Legion of Honor.
At the close of the distribution, the imperial party, leaving their
seats on the throne, and headed by the Corps Diplomatique, passed
entirely round the hall, amid the most enthusiastic plaudits, while
the orchestra of twelve hundred pieces played the chorus of Handel’s
oratorio of “Judas Maccabeus,”—“See! the Conquering Hero comes.”
In the matter of dress, if in no other, the name of the Empress Eugénie
will be historical. It was within her province to decide what fashions
should prevail in France, in Europe, in America, and in some parts of
Asia; and the marvellous _modes_ she introduced among the ladies of
all countries have immortalized her. Her own costumes were of the most
elaborate construction, and were changed with the greatest frequency.
She displayed three or four dresses in the course of each day, and
even the most expensive were never worn more than twice. Many writers
derived their income from describing in the journals of the day these
successive “creations” of the Paris milliner and dressmaker.
She accumulated a collection of fans, furs, laces, and jewels that
probably surpassed any other in existence.
During the period that elapsed between her marriage and her flight she
received twenty thousand dollars pin-money every month, which sum she
never failed to spend to the last cent.
Never in modern times have the fashions been more elaborate and
extravagant than while this “queen of fashion” occupied the palaces of
France.
Eugénie was fitted by nature to play the part of Lady Bountiful and
dwell in the House Beautiful. The city of Paris voted her a large sum
for the purchase of jewels; she accepted the money, but requested
permission to devote it to founding an institution for the education of
young girls of the working classes. She further bestowed in charity
twenty thousand dollars of a present of fifty thousand given her at
the same time by the emperor; and her reign was marked by many other
striking gifts to charitable and scientific objects.
The empress was partial to colored servitors. At one time she had a
Nubian page, and on his death took a young Abyssinian into her service,
whose daily duty it was to stand immediately behind her chair at
dinner, in front of the line of tall, fresh-colored, clean-shaven,
powdered lacqueys, in green, scarlet, and gold liveries, who encircled
the imperial dining-table.
The empress gave also a great number of splendid and costly
entertainments at the Tuileries, Compiègne, Fontainebleau, and
elsewhere. State balls were numerous, especially during the latter
years of the Empire. These took place usually at the Tuileries. The
invitations, having been drawn up by the high chamberlain from a
carefully prepared list of some ten thousand persons, were distributed
by mounted servants in the imperial livery of green and gold.
The guests arrived at the vast marble vestibule, and, ascending the
grand staircase, were received on the landing by a splendidly attired
official, who took from them their cards of invitation. The ball took
place in the _Salle des Marcheaux_, the largest and most splendidly
decorated _salon_ in the palace, and at its conclusion supper was
served in the _Galerie de Diane_. All the old forms of etiquette in
vogue at the court of Louis XIV. were revived; and had the _Grand
Monarque_ been present at a ball in the Tuileries Palace, he would no
doubt have felt as much at home, as far as all forms and ceremonies
were concerned, as in his own _Galerie des Glaces_, at Versailles.
Twice during the absence of the emperor, once in 1865, when he was in
Algeria, and again in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Eugénie was
left the nominal head of the state, with the title of Empress-Regent.
At the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, she was present in the yacht
_l’Aigle_, and took a chief part in the celebration. The _Aigle_ formed
one of the “inauguration fleet” of forty-five vessels, and took the
lead in making the passage to the Red Sea, where, with the empress on
board, it arrived on the 22d of November, returning the next day to the
Mediterranean.
“It was mid-afternoon on such a May day as is seen only under Parisian
skies. But the invitation of the sky could not alone account for the
multitudes thronging the leafy park, the blooming _parterres_ of the
gardens, and the broad ways of the _Champs Élysées_. The court was
about to set out for St. Cloud, and the pleasure-loving Parisians were
to be treated to a spectacle.
“Gorgeous lines of soldiery formed in statuesque ranks along the pebbly
walks and hot asphalt ways facing the palace. Save for the waving
plumes, the glistening wall rested immobile and silent as the granite
sphinxes whose solemn eyes blinked sleepily under the ardent sunshine.
There was just the perception of a movement in the shining cuirasses as
the swelling notes of a cavalry bugle echoed and re-echoed in sonorous
blasts through the crowded aisles of the park and died away far over
the turrets of the palace. The Imperial Guards, flaming in scarlet and
glittering casques, formed in serried ranks from the Rivoli gates and
the _Place du Carrousel_ to the borders of the Seine. Outriders in
the magenta and gold of the line dashed in excited movement along the
gravelled roadways, adjusting the obstacles, for the imperial advent.
Squadrons of the guards formed on each side of the wide way through
which the procession was to pass to the _Champs Élysées_. On a signal
from the trumpets, they divided, facing their horses inward, and waited
immovable as the Egyptian figures at the golden gate. A thin column of
smoke curled upward from the Arch of the Carrousel, a loud, cracking
detonation of artillery announced that majesty was about to leave the
palace, another that majesty was in the vestibule, and the long line
of fire made by the red-breeched troopers moved, as with one impulse,
into an attitude of respectful attention.” From the central porch of
the Tuileries, as the guards came to a salute, a short, stout figure,
clad in a gentleman’s walking-dress, appeared, and slowly descended
the velvet-carpeted steps. To the salutations of the soldiers and the
populace he slightly raised his hat. The crowd in the rear broke into
shouts of “_Vive l’Empereur!_” Halting, as the lackeys held the door of
the landau open, the emperor half turned.
A lady, tall, slight, and graceful, appeared in the group at the
door-way. She was speaking with animation to the chamberlain, with her
face to the multitude. Her black eyes were full of life and vivacity,
and her hair, coiled in great masses over her shapely head, shone
like burnished copper as the sunbeams fall upon it. “She tripped
lightly down the broad steps, a sunshade in her right hand serving
as a walking-cane, while with her left she upheld with charming
daintiness a robe of silver-gray color. As the outlines of her figure
became distinct upon the crimson carpet, a tumultuous cry of ‘_Vive
l’Impératrice!_’ resounded far back in the shrubberies of the garden.
The lady bowed with gracious recognition, and, giving her hand to the
emperor, stepped into the landau. At the same moment a graceful youth
of fourteen, mounted on a jet-black pony, shot out from the entrance
of the Carrousel, and riding close to the carriage, reined in suddenly,
and raising his hat, brought it down to the saddle as he bent to the
occupants. ‘_Vive le Prince Impérial!_’ shouted the crowd; and the
emperor, empress, and prince bowed gravely in response.
“The trumpets broke into another long blast, the postilions touched
their horses; majesty was _en route_, the prince riding beside the
imperial carriage, the troopers falling into groups of four.
“Who of all that crowd, filling the palace gardens and thronging the
banks of the Seine, would have then told _Cæsar_ that he should never
again pass those fateful portals in state?
“The Parisians afterwards recalled the event as the Romans had the
journey of the great Julius from the tearful pleadings of Calpurnia to
the base of Pompey’s statue. But there was nothing of the Ides of March
in the emperor’s reception on the present occasion. The acclamations of
the multitude were spontaneous and hearty, and all hats flew off when
the benignant smiles of Eugénie supplemented the gracious inclinations
of Napoleon.”
On the 15th of July, 1870, Louis Napoleon declared war with Prussia.
The numerous vicissitudes of his eventful life may have suggested to
him the possibility that the war, if long protracted, might prove
unfavorable to his hopes; but no seer could have predicted to him
that, in seven weeks from that day, he would be defeated, dethroned,
and a prisoner in the hands of the one man among all the crowned heads
of Europe whom he most hated, and that all the hopes which he had
cherished of the perpetuation of a Bonaparte dynasty in France would be
at an end.
We cannot, in this short sketch, attempt to portray the progress of
this war, which, in its rapid movement, its terrible destructiveness,
and its stupendous results, is without a parallel in history. Suffice
it that, with the defeat of the French army at Sedan, the star fell.
An empire which had progressed through nearly twenty years, ran out in
a moment like a reel of thread. Napoleon was sent as state prisoner
to Wilhelmshöhe, the Germans entered France, marched to Paris, and
William, king of Prussia, slept in the palace of the _Grand Monarque_.
And now occurred one of those strange anomalies which the history of
France so often presents.
It is the 18th of January, 1871. The grand gallery of Versailles is
filled with an eager, anxious throng. But it is not such a throng as
has been wont to gather here. Where are the cavaliers, with their
red-heeled boots and slashed doublets, and the _grandes dames_, with
their lofty plumes and flashing jewels?
The top-boot, the clanking spur, the sword, and sabre-tache, these are
the accoutrements of this band of stern, martial men who now stand
beneath Le Brun’s gorgeous frescoes. At one end of the gallery a
throne is erected, and its presence reminds us of that silver throne
erected here in 1685, at whose foot the Doge of Genoa bowed in homage,
and upon whose summit, the personification of pompous pride and royal
prerogative, stood King Louis XIV. But no king or emperor of France
stands upon the throne of the Versailles gallery on this 18th day of
January, 1871. A king is there, it is true, but he is William, king of
Prussia, who is this day to be proclaimed Emperor of Germany. It seems
like fate, like an avenging Nemesis, that in this palace of Versailles,
whose marble portals bear the inscription, “To all the glories of
France,”—in this _Grande Galerie des Glaces_, the scene of so many
glories, and triumphs of the houses of Bourbon and of Bonaparte,—the
crown of United Germany should be placed, with mighty shout and loud
acclaim, upon the head of that stern old warrior, William I. of
Hohenzollern.
The last four weeks of her abode in France the Empress Eugénie spent at
the Tuileries. Those were days of confusion and distress. The series of
defeats which culminated at Sedan had already begun, and a proclamation
had appeared declaring Paris in a state of siege. Still the empress
was hopeful. “She thought with a lady’s romantic ideas about military
possibilities,” says a narrator, “that everything could be retrieved by
a _grand coup_.”
But then came the news of the emperor’s surrender at Sedan. Eugénie
was up all night; council after council was held, as new reports and
scraps of information arrived. Finally it was decided that she should
ride on horseback through the streets of Paris, and herself proclaim to
the unpopular legislature its dissolution. This resolution, however,
was never carried into effect, for lack of a riding-dress! A plain,
black habit, with the cross of the Legion of Honor pinned upon her
breast, was what she had decided to wear. Was it a fatality that out
of the three hundred and sixty dresses then hanging in their wardrobes
at the Tuileries, the needed one was missing? A few days before there
had been a general stampede of servants, who had gone off, carrying
great quantities of imperial property, and the dark riding-dress, which
the empress now sought, had probably been among the spoils of her
domestics. There was only one habit to be found, and that was neither
black nor plain. It was a dress of gorgeous green, embroidered with
gold, and designed to be worn with a three-cornered Louis XV. hat, the
costume of the imperial hunt at Fontainebleau. This was pronounced,
with evident justice, to be too theatrical, and the enterprise was
consequently abandoned.
“What grotesque mischances mar great destinies and shift potent
purposes!” The lack of a spur by the messenger whom Louis XVI. had
sent to call M. de Machault to the post of prime minister, delayed his
departure, and thus—by giving Madame Adelaide time to write, in favor
of her friend the Count de Maurepas, to that feeblest of monarchs
who, not being able to withstand the strongly worded appeal of his
strong-minded aunt, recalled his messenger as he was mounting his
horse,—caused an entire change in the policy of the ministry of the
kingdom.
And now “the lack of a petticoat—on the testimony of Thiers himself,
who spoke of it afterward—brought about the expulsion of a dynasty;
for had the woman, pathetic in her misfortune, ridden out among the
multitude, like Elizabeth to Tilbury fort, the chivalrous sentiment of
Paris would have acclaimed her, and the history of a people would have
been written in less lurid colors.”
Upon the fourth of September, the mob so long feared made its
appearance. The infuriated insurgents to the number of one hundred
and fifty thousand crowded the Tuileries gardens, the _Place de la
Concorde_, and the _Champs Élysées_, shouting, “Down with the Empire!
down with Bonaparte! death to the man of December!”
At two o’clock in the afternoon, Signor Nigra, the Italian ambassador,
entered the empress’ apartment, to tell her that the time for
flight had come. “You have not an instant to lose,” he said. “The
revolutionists are entering the palace by the _Place du Carrousel_.”
And now for the first time Eugénie’s courage wavered; but she mastered
her emotion, and giving her hand to the ambassador, with a melancholy
flash of her old imperial grandeur, said calmly, “I will take leave of
our friends.”
“The door of the white drawing-room was thrown open, and the empress
appeared for a moment on the threshold—an inexpressibly touching
figure, in her simple black dress and white collar. She made a courtesy
and waved her hand, trying hard to smile, while many—not all of them
women—were sobbing aloud. Then, with gentle persuasion, Prince Richard
Metternich, the Austrian ambassador, drew her back, and the door was
closed again.”
Through the magnificent galleries of the Louvre, hung with the
masterpieces of Rubens, Van Dyke, Leonardo, Poussin, Claude, and the
imperishable dynasties of art, fled the Empress Eugénie and her few
faithful followers.
The square of St. Germain L’Auxerrois was empty. A cab stood by the
curb. The veiled empress and Madame Carette, her lady-in-waiting,
escorted by Signor Nigra, Prince Metternich, and M. Ferdinand de
Lesseps, approached it.
Sinking back upon the cushions, Eugénie for an instant raised her veil
to catch a last glimpse of the Louvre. As her eye rested on that fatal
colonnade, where Catherine de’ Medici and the king had stood on the
night of St. Bartholomew, a little ragamuffin, seated on the stone
foundation of the golden railing, started up, shouting, “There is the
empress!”
A group of artisans, lounging at the corner, vaguely caught the cry and
came forward. But M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, with admirable presence of
mind, caught the urchin, whirled him round and sent him sprawling in
the roadway, saying furiously:—
“Ah, you are crying ‘_Vive l’Empereur_,’ are you? That will teach you
to hurrah for the Bonapartes, when the Republic is proclaimed.”
The group on the sidewalk approved this laudable sentiment. M. de
Lesseps sprang inside, with the empress. The cab was whirled away; and
thus ended for Eugénie de Montijo the empty dream of greatness, by
which she had been so long beguiled.
Leaving Paris, she embarked on board the yacht _Gazelle_, and was
conveyed to England, where Victoria and the royal family received her
with great kindness, and placed at her disposal the beautiful country
residence of Camden Place, Chiselhurst. Here she was joined by the
Prince Imperial, and later by Louis Napoleon.
“Camden Place, Chiselhurst, 1871. A gentleman sixty-three years of age,
a lady, and a youth of fifteen are resting in the pleasure grounds of
an English rural mansion. This does not seem much. But this gentleman
is he who, a twelvemonth since, was emperor of the French nation, and
the most powerful monarch in Europe. He is a student and a writer—as
well as an actor—of history, which must have taught him the value of
an imperial title. Can he think it worth the pursuit or possession,
having once sat upon a throne which was perhaps not so agreeable as
his present seat on the Chiselhurst garden-chair? If he desires, for
himself or for his son, to leave Camden Place, or a similar abode, and
go back to the Tuileries Palace, we can only say it is a matter of
taste.”
But Louis Napoleon was not destined to behold again the Tuileries
Palace. On the 9th of January, 1873, he died, consoled by the presence
of the empress, but not of the Prince Imperial, who, summoned from
Woolwich, arrived too late to see him alive.
All the hopes and affections of the widowed empress then centred in
her son, and his recent fate cannot but be remembered. He joined the
expedition to Zululand, and on the first of June, 1879, perished by the
javelins of the savages while scouting with a few companions. On the
10th of July, the body arrived in England, and on the 12th the final
ceremony took place at Chiselhurst. It was a soldier’s funeral, but
there was no glare and glitter of martial splendor.
Mind rather than matter was pre-eminent in giving voice to the public
sorrow. At the head of the military pageant, whose every feature
was pervaded with a genuine pathos, marched the cadets of the Royal
Military Academy, Woolwich, with arms reversed; then, to the solemn
strains of the “Dead March,” the Royal Artillery Band; then the cross
before the gun; and then the gun, drawn by six dark-brown horses by
whose sides rode mounted artillerymen. The coffin above the gun was
wrapped in the English and French flags. The sword of the prince, his
belt, and sabre-tache were placed upon it; while on a cushion were the
great cross and ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
By the side of the coffin walked the pall-bearers, the Duke of
Cambridge, the Duke of Connaught, the Crown Prince of Sweden and
Norway, and M. Rouher on the left. The Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince
of Wales, Prince Leopold, and the Duke of Bassano on the right. Behind
the coffin came the prince’s favorite horse, “Stag,” caparisoned in
the white and silver starred trappings of the imperial stable, and
led by M. Gamble, the faithful retainer who had attended the baptism
of the prince, and who now followed his coffin. Next came the chief
mourners, Prince Napoleon and his sons, Prince Victor and Prince Louis;
Prince Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Joachim Murat, Prince Napoleon Charles
Bonaparte, and Prince Louis Murat.
After these came the great officers of the imperial crown, and many
personages of princely rank not related by kindred.
So mournful a ceremony was not regarded in the light of a spectacle,
and even the elements accorded with the nature of the scene. There was
no sun to flash from the polished helmets of the Lancers, or linger on
the gold of the splendidly mounted Horse-Artillery.
“It was an unusual and impressive sight to see that strangely and
variously composed line of soldiers on horseback, and priests and
mourners on foot, moving slowly along the serpentine road across
the great, uneven plain of the common, with thousands of spectators
stationary on either hand.”
To those who thought of the widowed, childless empress in her lonely
house, and knew that the chief mourners were princes, and that the
queen was watching the procession from her black tribune, unless she
had left it to console the sorrowing mother, the sight was much more
than impressive.
“The tragic elements which prevailed at the death of the prince,
the inexpressible desolation of the imperial mother, the lessons of
mutability in human affairs which the case enforced upon the mind, the
remembrance of the virtues of the departed young man, and the tale
of broken hopes, baffled aspirations, and defeated purposes, which
the circumstances so clearly exhibited, preoccupied the thoughts and
feelings of the mourners, and shut off for the time being all interest
in the mere external traits of the scene. The realities to which it
pointed stood out so clearly from the outward semblances in which they
were pictured, that the latter were forgotten, and the overpowering
force of the former were exclusively recognized.
“Seldom in recent times has any public ceremonial so closely touched
the hearts of those who took part in it.”
And now in the little Roman Catholic church at Chiselhurst, by the side
of the emperor his father, lies all that was mortal of Napoleon Eugène
Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial.
_Requiescat in pace._
Under the elms at Chiselhurst, at the close of a mild spring afternoon,
we may see a lady walking. Her figure, once so straight and graceful,
is slightly bowed with age, and her fast-whitening hair is covered by a
widow’s cap. And as she turns toward us her sad face, still retaining
the traces of its former loveliness, we recognize her whom we have
seen seated, amid the pomp and pageantry of a court, upon the throne
at the Tuileries Palace, and flying with her scanty escort through the
galleries of the Louvre,—Eugénie de Montijo, Comtesse de Téba, the once
brilliant empress of the French.