THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
A plébiscite--Louis Napoleon's political panacea--was ordered Dec.
20, 1851, two weeks after the _coup d'état_, to say if the people
of France approved or disapproved the usurpation of the prince
president. The national approval as expressed in this _plébiscite_
was overwhelming. Each peasant and artisan seemed to fancy he was
voting to revive the past glories of France, when expressing his
approval of a Prince Napoleon. The more thoughtful voters, like M.
de Montalembert, considered that the _coup d'état_ was a crushing
blow struck at Red Republicanism, Communism, the International
Society, and disorder generally.
For a while the prince president governed by decrees; then a new
legislative body was assembled. Its first duty was to revise the
constitution. The republican constitution of 1850 was in the main
re-adopted, but with one important alteration. The prince president
was to be turned into the Emperor Napoleon III., and the throne
was to be hereditary in his family.
After the passage of this measure it was submitted by another
_plébiscite_ to the people. The _plébiscite_ is a universal suffrage
vote of yes or no, in answer to some question put by the Government
to the nation. The question this time was: Shall the prince president
become emperor? There were 7,800,000 ayes, and 224,000 noes.
When the news of this overwhelming success reached the Élysée,
Louis Napoleon sat so still and unmoved, smoking his cigar, that
his cousin, Madame Baiocchi, rushing up to him, shook him, and
exclaimed: "Is it possible that you are made of stone?"
Having thus secured his elevation by the almost universal consent
of Frenchmen, the new emperor's next step was to insure his dynasty
by a marriage that might probably give heirs to the throne. He
chose the title Napoleon III. because the son of the Great Napoleon
had been Napoleon II. for a few days after his father's abdication
at Fontainebleau in 1814. The next heir to the imperial dignities
(Lucien Bonaparte having refused anything of the kind for himself
or for his family) was Jérôme Napoleon, familiarly called Plon-Plon.
He was the only son of Jérôme Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine
of Würtemberg. But Prince Napoleon, though clever, was wilful and
eccentric, and made a boast of being a Red Republican; moreover,
his father's Baltimore marriage had made his legitimacy more than
doubtful,--at any rate, Louis Napoleon was by no means desirous
of passing on to him the succession to the empire; and being now
forty-four years old, he was desirous of marrying as soon as possible.
When a boy, it had been proposed to marry him to his cousin Mathilde,
and something like an attachment had sprung up between them; but
after his fiasco at Strasburg he was no longer considered an eligible
suitor either for Princess Mathilde or another cousin who had been
named for him, a princess of Baden. Princess Mathilde was married
to the Russian banker, Prince Demidorff; but when Louis Napoleon
became prince president, he requested her to preside at the Élysée.
The new emperor, or his advisers, looked round at the various
marriageable princesses belonging to the smaller courts of Germany.
The sister of that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern whose selection for
the throne of Spain led afterwards to the Franco-Prussian war, was
spoken of; but the lady most seriously considered was the Princess
Adélaïde of Hohenlohe. She was daughter of Queen Victoria's half-sister
Feodora; and to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as heads of the
family, the matter was referred. A recent memoir-writer tells us of
seeing the queen at Windsor when the matter was under discussion.
The queen and her husband were apparently not averse to the alliance,
hesitating only on the grounds of religion and morals; but it is
doubtful how far the new emperor went personally in the affair.
His inclination had for some time pointed to the reigning beauty
of Paris, Mademoiselle Eugénie de Montijo.
This young lady's grandfather was Captain Fitzpatrick, of a good old
Scottish family, which had in past times married with the Stuarts.
Captain Fitzpatrick had been American consul at a port in southern
Spain. He had a particularly charming daughter, who made a brilliant
Spanish marriage, her husband being the Count de Teba (or Marquis
de Montijo, for he bore both titles). The Montijos were connected
with the grandest ducal families in Spain and Portugal, and even
with the royal families of those nations.
The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were young, and they
were left under the guardianship of their very charming mother.
The elder married the Duke of Alva; the younger became the Empress
Eugénie.
Eugénie was for some time at school in England at Clifton. She
was described by those who knew her there as a pretty, sprightly
little girl, much given to independence, and something of a tom
boy,--a character there is reason to think she preserved until
it was modified by the exigencies of her position.
Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned Madame de Teba
to his friends as a singularly charming woman. In 1818 he wrote
home to a friend in America:
"I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw of her there and
at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most cultivated and interesting
woman in Spain. Young, beautiful, educated strictly by her mother, a
Scotchwoman,--who for this purpose carried her to London and kept
her there six or seven years,--possessing extraordinary talents, and
giving an air of originality to all she says and does, she unites
in a most bewitching manner the Andalusian grace and frankness to a
French facility in her manners and a genuine English thoroughness
in her knowledge and accomplishments. She knows the chief modern
languages well, and feels their different characters, and estimates
their literature aright. She has the foreign accomplishments of
singing, painting, playing, etc., joined to the natural one of
dancing, in a high degree. In conversation she is brilliant and
original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, and as full
of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture."
Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing to
his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba.
"I believe I told you," he says, "that I knew the grandfather of
the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick. In 1827 I was in the house of his
son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant, intelligent gentleman,
much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye and been maimed in a
leg and hand. Some years after, in Madrid, I was invited to the
house of his widow, Madame de Montijo, one of the leaders of _ton_.
She received me with the warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She
claimed me as the friend of her late husband. She subsequently
introduced me to the little girls I had known in Granada, _now_
fashionable belles in Madrid."
In some lines of Walter Savage Landor, Madame de Montijo was addressed
as a "lode-star of her sex."
The Marquis de Montijo had been an adherent of Joseph Bonaparte
while the latter was king of Spain, and his eye had been put out
at the battle of Salamanca. He was a liberal in politics, and his
house was always open to cultivated men.
Such was the ancestry of the beautiful young lady who, tall, fair,
and graceful, with hair like one of Titian's beauties, was travelling
with her mother from capital to capital, after the marriage of her
sister to the Duke of Alva, and who spent the winters of 1850,
1851, and 1852 in the French capital. Mademoiselle Eugénie had
conceived a romantic admiration for the young prince who at Strasburg
and Boulogne had been so unfortunate. Her father had been a stanch
adherent of Bonaparte, and she is said to have pleaded with her
mother at one time to visit the prisoner at Ham and to place her
fortune at his disposal.
This circumstance, when confided to the prince president, disposed
him to be interested in the young lady. She and her mother were
often at the Élysée, at Fontainebleau, and at Compiègne. Mademoiselle
de Montijo was a superb horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's
especial personal accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost
together in the forest at Compiègne, and then society began to
make remarks upon their intimacy.
The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with Mademoiselle
de Montijo. It is said, on the authority of M. de Goncourt, that
in one of their rides he asked her, with strange frankness, if
she had ever been in love with any man. She answered with equal
frankness, "I may have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten
that I was Mademoiselle de Montijo."[1]
[Footnote 1: Pierre de Lano. La Cour de L'Empereur Napoléon III.]
Such a project of marriage was not approved by the emperor's family,
it was not favored by his ministers, and the ladies of his court
were all astir.
At a ball given on New Year's Day, 1853, by the emperor at the
Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and insulting
to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she looked troubled, the
emperor inquired the cause; and when he knew it, he said quietly:
"To-morrow no one will dare to insult you again." There is also
a story, which seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks
before this, at Compiègne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on
her head, saying: "I hope soon to replace it with a better one."[2]
Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it prophesied to her in
her girlhood that she should one day wear a crown.
[Footnote 2: Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.]
The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, the
Duc de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a letter from the
emperor, formally requesting her daughter's hand.
The ladies, after this, removed to the Élysée, which was given to
them, and preparations for the marriage went on apace.
In less than a month afterwards Eugénie de Montijo was empress of
France.
Here is the emperor's own official announcement of his intended
marriage:--
"I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in announcing
my marriage to you. The union which I am about to contract is not
in harmony with old political traditions, and in this lies its
advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, has been widely
sundered from the rest of Europe. A wise Government should so rule as
to bring her back within the circle of ancient monarchies. But this
result will be more readily obtained by a frank and straightforward
policy, by a loyal intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often
create false security, and subordinate national to family interests.
Moreover, past examples have left superstitious beliefs in the
popular mind. The people have not forgotten that for sixty years
foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the throne only to see
their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution.
One woman alone appears to have brought with her good fortune, and
lives, more than the rest, in the memory of the people; and this
woman, the wife of General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. We
must admit this much, however. In 1810 the marriage of Napoleon I.
with Marie Louise was a great event. It was a bond for the future,
and a real gratification to the national pride.... But when, in
the face of ancient Europe, one is carried by the force of a new
principle to the level of the old dynasties, it is not by affecting
an ancient descent and endeavoring at any price to enter the family
of kings, that one compels recognition. It is rather by remembering
one's origin; it is by preserving one's own character, and assuming
frankly towards Europe the position of a _parvenu_,--a glorious title
when one rises by the suffrages of a great people. Thus impelled, as
I have been, to part from the precedents that have been hitherto
followed, my marriage is only a private matter. It remained for me
to choose my wife. She who has become the object of my choice is
of lofty birth, French in heart and education and by the memory of
the blood shed by her father in the cause of the Empire. She has,
as a Spaniard, the advantage of not having a family in France to
whom it would be necessary to give honors and dignities. Gifted with
every quality of the heart, she will be the ornament of the throne,
as in the hour of danger she would be one of its most courageous
defenders. A pious Catholic, she will address one prayer with me
to Heaven for the happiness of France. Kindly and good, she will
show in the same position, I firmly believe, the virtues of the
Empress Josephine."
The State coaches of the First Empire were regilded for the occasion,
the crown diamonds were drawn from the hiding-place where they
had lain since Louis Philippe's time, and were reset for the lady
who was to wear them, while her apartments at the Tuileries were
rapidly prepared.
The emperor was radiant. He had followed his inclination, and now
that his choice was made, it seemed to receive universal approval.
The London "Times" said: "Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the
character of France than any princess who could have been fetched
from a German principality. She combines by her birth the energy
of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the opinion we hold of
her be correct, she is, as Napoleon says, made not only to adorn
the throne, but to defend it in the hour of danger."
The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thousand francs
to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding present. Very gracefully
she declined the necklace, but accepted the money, with which she
endowed an Orphan Asylum.
The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined the streets as the
bride and her _cortège_ drove to the Tuileries, where they were
received by the Grand Chamberlain and other court dignitaries, who
conducted the bride to the first _salon_. There she was received by
Prince Napoleon and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced
her into the _salon_, where the emperor, with his uncle, King Jérôme,
surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals, marshals, admirals,
and great officers of State, stood ready to receive her. Thence, at
nine o'clock, she was led by the emperor to the Salle des Maréchaux
and seated beside him on a raised throne. The marriage contract
was then read, and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all
the princes and princesses present.
The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alençon point lace, clasped
with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the Empress Marie Louise,
and she looked, said a beholder, "the imperial beauty of a poet's
vision." The emperor was in a general's uniform. He wore the collar
of the Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used to
wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece that had once
belonged to the Emperor Charles V.
The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair and the wedding
guests passed into the theatre, where a _cantata_, composed by
Auber for the occasion, was sung. The empress, robed in lace and
glittering in jewels, seemed, says an eye-witness, to realize the
picture presented of herself in the composer's words:--
"Espagne bien aimée,
Où le ciel est vermeil,
C'est toi qui l'as formée
D'un rayon de soleil."[1]
[Footnote 1:
Ah, beautiful Spain,
With thy skies ever bright,
Thou hast formed her for us
From a ray of sunlight.]
When the _cantata_ had been sung, the Grand Master of the Ceremonies
conducted the bride, as yet only half married, back to the Élysée.
The next morning all Paris was astir to see the wedding procession
pass to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Early in the morning the emperor
had repaired to the Élysée, where, in the chapel, he and the empress
had heard mass, and after making their confession, had partaken
of the Holy Communion. There were two hundred thousand sightseers
in Paris that day, in addition to the usual population.
The empress wore upon her golden hair the crown that the First
Napoleon had placed upon the head of Marie Louise. The body of
the church was filled with men,--ambassadors, military and naval
officers, and high officials. Their wives were in the galleries.
As the great doors of the cathedral were opened to admit the bridal
procession, a broad path of light gleamed from the door up to the
altar, adding additional brilliancy to the glittering scene. Up
the long aisle the emperor led his bride, flashing with the light
of jewels, among them the unlucky regent diamond, which glittered
on her bosom. After the Spanish fashion, she crossed her brow,
her lips, her heart, her thumb, as she knelt for the nuptial
benediction. The ceremony over, the archbishop conducted the married
pair to the porch of the cathedral, and they drove along the Quai
to the Tuileries.
The first favor the empress asked of her husband was the pardon
of more than four thousand unfortunate persons still exiled or
imprisoned for their share in the risings that succeeded the _coup
d'état_.
When Washington Irving heard of the marriage, he wrote: "Louis
Napoleon and Eugénie de Montijo,--Emperor and Empress of France!
He whom I received as an exile at my cottage on the Hudson, she
whom at Granada I have dandled on my knee! The last I saw of Eugénie
de Montijo, she and her gay circle had swept away a charming young
girl, beautiful and accomplished, my dear young friend, into their
career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugénie is on a throne,
and the other a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the most
rigorous Orders." This convent is near Biarritz, where the nuns
take vows of silence like the monks of La Trappe.[1] The empress
when at Biarritz never failed to visit her former friend, who was
permitted to converse with her.
[Footnote 1: Saturday Review, 1885.]
The beautiful woman thus raised to the imperial throne[2] was a
mixed character,--not so perfect as some have represented her,
but entirely to be acquitted of those grave faults that envy or
disappointed expectations have attributed to her. Her character united
kind-heartedness with inconsideration, imprudence with austerity,
ardent feeling with great practical common-sense. Probably the
emperor understood her very little at the time of his marriage, and
that she long remained to him an enigma may have been one of her
charms. With the impetuosity of her disposition and the intrepidity
that had characterized her girlhood, she found it hard to submit
to the restraints of her position, and the emperor had occasion
frequently to remonstrate with her on her indifference to etiquette
and public opinion. It was not until after her visit to Windsor
in 1855 that she could be induced to establish court rules at the
Tuileries, and to prescribe for herself and others, in public, a
strict system of etiquette. But in her private hours, among her
early friends, in the circle of ladies admitted to her intimacy,
the empress was less discreet. Her impressions were apt to run
into extremes; she indulged in whims like other pretty women; yet
she was never carried by her romantic feelings or her enthusiasm
beyond her power of self-control. Though careless of etiquette in
private life, whenever a great occasion came, she could act with
imperial dignity.
[Footnote 2: Pierre de Lano.]
Although she often experienced ingratitude, she was always generous.
She was as ready to solicit favors and pardons as was the Empress
Josephine. Sometimes she was even sorely embarrassed to find arguments
in favor of her _protégés_. "_Ah, mon Dieu!_" she cried once, when
pleading for the pardon of a workman, "how could he be guilty?
He has a wife and five children to support; he could have had no
time for conspiracy!"
As a wife she was devoted, not only to the public interests of her
husband, but to his personal welfare. She was constantly anxious
lest he should suffer from overwork; and her little select evening
parties, which some people found fault with, were instituted by
her with the chief object of amusing him.
Ben Jonson makes it a reproach against a lady of the sixteenth century
that she would not "suffer herself to be admired." No such reproach
could be addressed to the Empress Eugénie. Few women conscious of
their power to charm will fail to exercise it. In the case of an
empress,--young, lively, of an independent and adventurous spirit, and
very beautiful,--all who approached her thought better of themselves
from her apparent appreciation of their claims to consideration;
and, indeed, in her position was it not the duty of the successor
of Josephine to be gracious and charming to everybody?
Unfortunately the ladies who most enjoyed the intimacy of the Empress
Eugénie were foreigners. She seems to have felt a certain distrust
of Frenchwomen; and considering the ingratitude she often met with
from those she served, it is hardly surprising that she preferred
the intimacy of women who could not look to her for favors.
One of the ladies most intimate with the empress was the wife of
Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian ambassador. This lady seems
to have had personal and political ends in view, and to have succeeded
in inducing the empress to adopt and further them. That she was a
dangerous and false friend may be judged from a speech she made
when remonstrated with for countenancing and encouraging a project,
favored by the empress, of making a promenade in the forest of
Fontainebleau with her court-ladies in skirts which, like those
in the old Scotch ballad, should be "kilted up to the knee." "You
would not have advised your own empress," it was said to her, "to
appear in such a garb." "Of course not," replied the ambassadress;
"but _my_ empress is of royal birth.--a real empress; while yours,
_ma chère_, was Mademoiselle de Montijo!"
Brought up in private life, not early trained to the self-abnegation
demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugénie did not bring into her
new sphere all the _aplomb_ and seriousness about little things
which are early inculcated on ladies brought up to the profession
of royalty. The career for which she had formed herself was that
of a very charming woman; and one secret of her fascination was
the sincerity of the interest she took in those around her. She
loved to study character, to see into men's souls. She loved to
be adored, while irresponsively she received men's homage. She
especially liked the society of famous men, and when she was to
meet them, she took pains to inform herself on the subjects about
which they were most likely to converse.
That Queen Victoria loves her as a sister and a friend, is a testimony
to her dignity and goodness; and we have her husband's own opinion
of her, published on her fête-day, Dec. 15, 1868, after nearly
sixteen years of marriage. The emperor had under his control a
monthly magazine called "Le Dix Décembre," in which he often inserted
articles from his own pen. The manuscript of this, in his own
handwriting, was found in 1870 in the sack of the Tuileries. He
omits all mention of his wife's Scotch ancestry, neither does he
allude to her school-days in England. He speaks of her as a member
of one of the most distinguished families in Spain, extols her
father's attachment to the house of Bonaparte, and tells how she and
her sister were placed at the Sacré Coeur, near Paris, declaring that
"she acquired, we may say, the French before the Spanish language."
He goes on to speak of her, not as the leader of a giddy circle of
fashion in Madrid, as Washington Irving describes her, but as the
thoughtful, studious young girl, with a precocious taste for social
problems and for the society of men of letters; and he adds that after
her marriage her simple, natural tastes did not disappear. "After her
visit to the cholera patients at Amiens," he says, "nothing seemed
to surprise her more than the applause that everywhere celebrated
her courage. She seemed at last distressed by it.... At Compiègne,"
he also tells us, "nothing can be more attractive than five o'clock
tea _à l'impératrice_; though," he adds slyly, "sometimes she is
a little too fond of argument."
Assuredly she filled a difficult place, and filled it well; but
the court of the Second Empire was all spangles and tinsel. It
was composed of men and women all more or less adventurers. It was
the court of the _nouveaux riches_ and of a mushroom aristocracy.
There were prizes to be won and pleasures to be enjoyed, and it
was "like as it was in the days of Noë, until the flood came, and
swept them all away."
In the midst of the crowd that composed this court the emperor and
the empress shine out as the best. Both wanted to do their duty,
as they understood it, to France. Whether it was the emperor's
fault or his misfortune, is still undecided; but, with one or two
exceptions, he was able to attach to himself only keen-witted
adventurers and mediocre men. Among the women, not one who was
really superior rose above the crowd. The empress led a giddy circle
of married women, as in her youth, according to Washington Irving,
she had led a giddy circle of young girls.
The two most able men among the emperor's advisers were his own
kinsmen,--Count Walewski, who died in 1868, and the Duc de Morny,
a man calm, polished, socially amiable, and so clever that Guizot
once said to him: "My dear Morny, you are the only man who could
overturn the Empire; but you will never be foolish enough to do
it." By his death, in 1865, Louis Napoleon was bereft of his ablest
adviser.
Persigny, or Fialin, had been the close personal friend of the
emperor in his exile, and took a prominent part in the abortive
expedition to Boulogne. In his youth he had led a disreputable
life, and was not a man of great intellect, but he was presumed
to be devoted to his old comrade. His friendship, however, had not
always a happy effect upon the fortunes of his master. In 1872 he
made a miserable end of his adventurous life, after having turned
against the emperor in his adversity.
Fleury was another personal friend of Louis Napoleon, and was probably
his best. The prince president had distinguished him when he was
only a subaltern in the army. He had enlisted in the ranks, and
had done good service in Algeria. In the emperor's last days of
failing health he loved to keep Fleury beside him; but the empress
was jealous of her husband's friend, and used her influence to
have him honorably exiled to St. Petersburg as French ambassador.
This post he occupied when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, so
that he could be of little help to his master.
Saint-Arnaud had been made a marshal and minister of war, in spite
of having been twice turned out of the French army.
M. Rouher had charge of the emperor's financial concerns, and Fould
was a man who understood bureau-work, and how to manipulate government
machinery.
Whoever might be the emperor's ministers, this little clique of
his personal adherents--De Morny, Persigny, Saint-Arnaud, Fleury,
Rouher, and Fould--were always around their master, giving him
their advice and sharing (so far as he allowed anyone to share)
his intimate councils.
The members of the Bonaparte family were an immense expense to the
emperor, and gave him no little trouble. They were not the least
thirsty among those who thronged around the fountain of wealth and
honor; and their importunate demands upon the emperor's bounty led
to a perpetual and reckless waste of money. The empress frequently
remonstrated with her husband in regard to his lavish largesses
and too generous expenditure. Contrary to what has been generally
supposed, she was herself orderly and methodical in her expenditures
and accounts, always carefully examining her bills, and though by
the emperor's express desire she always expended the large amount
annually allowed her, she never exceeded that sum.
Unhappily, the revived imperialism of Louis Napoleon was not, like
Legitimacy, a _cause_, but to most persons who supported it, it
was a speculation. Adherents had therefore to be attracted to it
by hopes of gain, and all services had to be handsomely rewarded.
The emperor's policy in the early years of his reign may be said
to have been twofold. He wanted to make France increase in material
prosperity, and he wished to have money freely spent within her
borders. He set on foot all kinds of improvements in Paris, and
all kinds of useful enterprises in the provinces. Work was plenty;
money flowed freely; the empire was everywhere popular. But the
government of France was the government of one man; and if anything
happened to that one man, where would be the government? There
seemed no need to ask that question while France was prosperous
and Paris gay. France under the Second Empire was quieter than
she had been for any eighteen years since the Great Revolution;
and for that she was grateful to Napoleon III.
His foreign policy was still more successful. "The Empire is peace,"
he had early proclaimed to be his motto. At first the idea of a
Napoleon on the throne of France had greatly terrified the nations;
but by degrees it seemed as if he really meant to be the Napoleon
of Peace, as his uncle had been the Napoleon of War. He took every
opportunity of reiterating his desire to be on good terms with
his neighbors. With respect to England, those who knew him best
asserted earnestly that he had always been in sympathy with the
country that had sheltered him in exile. Count Walewski, whom he sent
over as ambassador to London, was very popular there. He attended
the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in his official capacity,
and in return for this courtesy England restored to the French
emperor his uncle's will, which had been laid up in Doctor's Commons
with other wills of persons who had died on English soil. Russia
was haughty to the new emperor; but the other courts of Europe
accepted him, and most of them did so with considerable alacrity;
for was he not holding down Socialism and Internationalism, which
they dreaded far more than Napoleonism, and by which they were
menaced in their own lands?
The great perplexity of the new emperor was his relation to Italy.
He and his brother had taken the oaths of a Carbonaro in that country,
in 1831. It is not to this day certain that his brother did not die
by a Carbonaro's knife, rather than by the measles. Be that as
it may, Louis Napoleon knew that if he failed to keep his promises
as to the liberation of Italy, assassination awaited him.
How he endeavored to reconcile his engagements as a Carbonaro with
his policy as the French emperor belongs less to the historical
gossip of France than to that of Italy. So too the history of the
Crimean War seems to belong _par excellence_ to that of Russia. It
was undertaken by England and France as allies, joined afterwards
by a Sardinian army under General La Marmora, by the Turkish troops
under Omar Pasha, and by an Egyptian contingent; but as we are
now engaged on the personal history of the emperor and empress,
I will rather here tell how Napoleon III., having formed a camp
of one hundred thousand soldiers at Boulogne, on the very ground
where his uncle had assembled his great army for the invasion of
England, decided to ascertain, through his ambassador in London,
if it would be agreeable to Prince Albert to visit that camp and
see the manoeuvres of his army. Finding that the invitation would be
acceptable to the prince, he addressed him the following letter:--
July 3, 1854.
MON FRÈRE,--Your Royal Highness knows that putting in practice
your own idea, and wishing to carry out to the end the struggle
with Russia that we have begun together, I have decided to form an
army between Boulogne and St. Omer. I need not tell your Highness
how pleased I should be to see you, and how happy I should be to
show you my soldiers. I am convinced, moreover, that personal ties
will strengthen the union so happily established between two great
nations. I beg you to present my respectful homage to the queen,
and to receive this expression of the esteem and sincere affection
I have conceived for you.
With this, _mon frère_, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping.
NAPOLEON.
The prince accepted the invitation, addressing the emperor as "Sire
et mon frère." The queen entirely approved the visit, and Baron
Stockmar predicted much advantage from it, "inasmuch," he said,
"as the good or evil destiny of the present time will directly and
chiefly depend upon a rational, honorable, and resolute alliance
between England and France."
Prince Albert met the emperor at Boulogne, Sept. 4, 1854. The Duke
of Newcastle, who was in attendance on Prince Albert, wrote to a
friend that tears stood in the emperor's eyes when he received
his guest as he stepped upon French soil; and the prince wrote
that evening to the queen:--
"The emperor has been very nervous, if we are to believe those who
stood near him and who know him well. He was kindly and courteous,
and does not look so old nor so pale as his portraits make him, and
is much gayer than he is generally represented. The visit cannot
fail to be a source of great gratification to him.... I have had
two long talks with him, in which he spoke very sensibly about the
war and the _questions du jour_. People here are sanguine about
the results of the expedition to the Crimea, and very sensitive
about the behavior of Admiral Sir Charles Napier."
The prince adds in his letter, the same evening:--
"The emperor thaws more and more. This evening after dinner I withdrew
with him to his sitting-room for half an hour before rejoining his
guests, in order that he might smoke his cigarette,--in which
occupation, to his amazement, I could not keep him company. He
told me that one of the deepest impressions ever made on him was,
when having gone from France to Rio Janeiro and thence to the United
States, and being recalled to Europe by the rumor of his mother's
serious illness, he arrived in London directly after King William's
death, and saw you going to open parliament for the first time."
Subsequently the prince tells the queen,--
"We discussed all topics of home and foreign policy, material and
personal, with the greatest frankness, and I can say but good of what
I heard.... He was brought up in the German fashion in Germany,--a
training which has developed a German turn of mind. As to all modern
political history, so far as this is not Napoleonic, he is without
information; so that he wants many of the materials for accurate
judgment."
Dickens, who was at Boulogne on this occasion, thus tells of Prince
Albert's arrival:--
"The town looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with
streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday, the whole
range of the cliff-tops was lined with troops, and the artillerymen,
matches in hand, stood ready to fire the great guns the moment
she made the harbor, the sailors standing up in the prow of the
yacht, the prince, in a blazing uniform, left alone on the deck for
everybody to see,--a stupendous silence, and then such an infernal
blazing and banging as never was heard. It was almost as fine a
sight as one could see, under a deep blue sky."
While the guest of the emperor, Prince Albert expressed to him
the queen's hope that they should see him in England, and that she
should make the acquaintance of the empress.
The prince, an excellent judge of character, in a subsequent memorandum
concerning his impressions, says,--
"The emperor appeared quiet and indolent from constitution, not
easily excited, but gay and humorous when at his ease. His French
is not without a little German accent, and his pronunciation of
German is better than of English.... He recited a poem by Schiller
on the advantages to man of peace and war, which seemed to have made
a deep impression upon him, and appeared to me to be not without
significance with reference to his own life. His court and household
are strictly kept and in good order, more English than French.
The gentlemen composing his _entourage_ are not distinguished by
birth, manners, or education. He lives on a familiar footing with
them, although they seemed afraid of him. The tone was rather that
of a garrison, with a good deal of smoking.... He is very chilly,
complains of rheumatism, and goes early to bed, takes no pleasure
in music, but is proud of his horsemanship."
Speaking again of the emperor's lack of information as to the history
of politics, Prince Albert says:--
"But he is remarkably modest in acknowledging these defects, and
in not pretending to know what he does not. All that relates to
Napoleonic politics he has at his finger's ends. He also appears to
have thought much and deeply on politics, yet more like an amateur
politician, mixing many very sound and very crude notions together.
He admires English institutions, and regrets the absence of an
aristocracy in France, but might not be willing to allow such an
aristocracy to control his own power, whilst he might wish to have
the advantage of its control over the pure democracy."
The emperor closely questioned the prince about the working of
the English government and the queen's relations to her ministers.
Prince Albert writes,--
"He said that he did not allow his ministers to meet or to discuss
matters together; that they transacted their business solely with
him. He seemed astonished when I told him that every despatch went
through the queen's hands and was read by her, as he only received
extracts made from them, and indeed appeared to have little time
or inclination generally to read. When I observed to him that the
queen would not be content without seeing the whole of the diplomatic
correspondence, he replied that he found a full compensation in
having persons in his own employ and confidence at the different
posts of importance, who reported solely to him. I could not but
express my sense of the danger of such an arrangement, to which
no statesman, in England at least, would submit."
I have quoted this memorandum of Prince Albert's, because it points
out the perils which led to the downfall or the Empire,--the emperor's
bad _entourage_; his personal government, assisted only by private
confidential relations with irresponsible persons; his mixture of
crude and sensible ideas of government; his indolence; and his
tendency to let things slide out of his own hands.
"Upon the whole," concluded the prince, "my impression is that
neither in home nor foreign politics would the emperor naturally
take any violent step, but that he appears in distress for means
of governing, and is obliged to look about him from day to day.
Having deprived the people of any active participation in the
government, and reduced them to the mere position of spectators,
they grow impatient, like a crowd at a display of fireworks, whenever
there is any cessation in the display. Still, he appears the only
man who has any hold on France, relying on the name of Napoleon.
He said to the Duke of Newcastle:
'Former Governments have tried to reign by the support of one million
of the educated classes; I claim to lay hold of the other twenty-nine.'
He is decidedly benevolent, and anxious for the good of the people,
but has, like all rulers before him, a bad opinion of their political
capacity."
Strange to say, in the midst of war the Universal Exposition of
1855 took place in Paris. The winter was horribly severe, and the
armies in the Crimea suffered terribly. The emperor was extremely
desirous to go himself to the seat of war, but was urged by every
one about him to remain at home. All kinds of good reasons were
put forward for this advice, but probably not the one subsequently
advanced by one of his generals after the campaign of Italy in
1859. "It used to be said that the presence of the First Napoleon
with his army was worth a reinforcement of forty thousand men.
The army now feels that the presence of the Third Napoleon equals
the loss of about the same number."
We have seen that Queen Victoria had expressed a wish to welcome
the emperor and empress at Windsor Castle. It was on April 16,
1855, that the imperial pair reached England, and were received by
Prince Albert on board their yacht. They met with a hearty national
greeting on their way to London. In London itself crowds lined the
streets. "It was," says an eye-witness, "one bewildering triumph,
in which it was estimated that a million of people took part."
The "Times" reporter noticed that as the emperor passed his old
residence in King Street, St. James's, he pointed it out to the
empress as the place where he was living when the events of 1848
summoned him to Paris.
"Only seven years before," observes his biographer, Mr. Jerrold,
"he was wont to stroll unnoticed, with his faithful dog at his
heels, from this house to the news-vendor's stall by the Burlington
Arcade, to get the latest news from revolutionary France; now he was
the guest of the English people, on his way through cheering crowds
to Windsor Castle, where the queen was waiting in the vestibule to
receive him." The same rooms were prepared for him that had been
given to Louis Philippe and to the Emperor Nicholas. Queen Victoria
tells us in her diary,--
"I cannot say what indescribable emotions filled me,--how much
all seemed like a wonderful dream.... I advanced and embraced the
Emperor, ... and then the very gentle, graceful, and evidently
nervous empress. We presented the princes and our children (Vicky,
with very alarmed eyes, making very low courtesies). The emperor
embraced Bertie, and then he went upstairs, Albert leading the
empress, who, in the most engaging manner, refused to go first, but
at length, with graceful reluctance, did so, the emperor leading
me and expressing his great gratification in being here and seeing
me, and admiring Windsor."
At dinner, on the day of his arrival, the new ruler of France seems
to have charmed the queen. "He is," she records in her journal,
"so very quiet. His voice is low and soft. _Et il ne fait pas des
phrases._"
When the war was talked about, the emperor spoke of his wish to
go out to the Crimea, and the queen noticed that the empress was
as eager as himself that he should go. "She sees no greater danger
for him _there_," she adds, "than in Paris. She said she was seldom
alarmed for him except when he went out quite alone of a morning....
She is full of courage and spirit, and yet so gentle, with such
innocence and _enjouement_, that the _ensemble_ is most charming.
With all her great liveliness she has the prettiest and most modest
manner."
The queen little guessed what commotion and excitement had gone on
before dinner in the private apartments of the emperor and empress,
when it was discovered that the case containing all the beautiful
toilet prepared for the occasion had not arrived. The emperor suggested
to his wife to retire to rest on the plea of fatigue after the
journey, but she decided to borrow a blue-silk dress from one of
her ladies-in-waiting, in which, with only flowers in her hair,
she increased the queen's impression of her simplicity and modesty.
During the visit the emperor asked the queen where Louis Philippe's
widow, Queen Marie Amélie, was living. She had been at Windsor Castle
only a few days before, and the queen had looked sorrowfully after
her as she drove away, with shabby post-horses, to her residence
near Richmond. The emperor begged her Majesty to express to Louis
Philippe's widow his hope that she would not hesitate to pass through
France on any journey she might make to Spain.
There was a review of the household troops, commanded by Lord Cardigan,
who had led the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and who
rode the same charger. The emperor rode a fiery, beautiful chestnut,
and his horsemanship was much admired. That evening there was a
State ball at Windsor Castle, and the queen danced a quadrille
with the emperor. The queen wrote that evening in her journal: "How
strange to think that I--the granddaughter of George III.--should
dance with the Emperor Napoleon, nephew of England's greatest enemy,
now my nearest and most intimate ally, in the Waterloo Room, and
that ally living in this country only six years ago in exile, poor
and unthought of!"
She adds, speaking of the empress: "Her manner is the most perfect
thing I have ever seen, so gentle and graceful and kind, and the
courtesy is charming,--so modest and retiring withal."
The next day came a council attended by the emperor, Prince Albert,
ministers, and diplomatists, which lasted so very long that the
queen herself knocked at the door and reminded them that at four
o'clock the emperor was to be invested with the Order of the Garter.
After this ceremony was over, the emperor remarked to the queen
that he had now sworn fidelity to her Majesty, and would carefully
keep his oath.
At dinner that day the talk fell on assassination. The emperor
was shot at by a Carbonaro only a few days after his return from
Windsor, and four years later by Orsini.
Before leaving England the emperor attended a banquet given to
him by the Lord Mayor. At Windsor he read his speech (in English)
to the queen and prince, who pronounced it a very good one.
Next day the royalties went to see the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham.
There they were surrounded by sight-seeing throngs, and in such a
crowd there was every chance for a pistol-shot from some French
or Italian refugee. "I own I felt anxious," writes the queen; "I
felt as I walked, leaning on the emperor's arm, that I was possibly
a protection to him."
Afterwards she writes,--
"On all, this visit has left a permanent satisfactory impression. It
went off so well,--not a _contre-temps_ ... fine weather, everything
smiling, the nation enthusiastic and happy in the alliance of two
great countries whose enmity would be fatal.... I am glad to have
known this extraordinary man, whom it is certainly not possible
not to like when you live with him, and not, even to a considerable
extent, to admire.... I believe him capable of kindness, affection,
friendship, gratitude. I feel confidence in him as regards the
future. I think he is frank, means well to us, and, as Stockmar
says, that we have insured his sincerity and good faith to us for
the rest of his life."
Nearly a year after this visit, when the emperor and empress had
been married about three years, the Prince Imperial was born, March
16, 1856. A few hours after his birth he was christened Napoleon
Eugène Louis Jean Joseph. Pope Pius IX. was his godfather, the
Queen of Sweden his godmother. For many hours the empress, like
her imperial predecessor Marie Louise, was dangerously ill.
The Crimean War had by that time virtually come to a triumphant
end. The emperor had at last an heir; all things appeared to smile
upon him. A general amnesty was issued to all political offenders. The
emperor became godfather and the empress godmother to all legitimate
children born in France upon their son's birthday, and finally the
little prince had a public baptism at Notre Dame, followed by a
ball of extraordinary magnificence, given by the city of Paris to
the mother of the heir-apparent, at the Hôtel-de-Ville.
The chief trouble that menaced the imperial throne at this period
was the extraordinary lavishness which the emperor's _entourage_ of
speculative adventurers encouraged him to incur in all directions;
the recklessness of speculation; the general mania for gain that
went on around him. There had also been terrible inundations in
France, and a bad harvest. Many things also that disgusted and
disquieted the emperor were going on among the persons who surrounded
him,--persons in whom he had placed confidence; and it was one of
his good qualities that he was always slow to believe evil. Still,
these things were forced on his attention, and greatly disturbed
him.
His little son was from the first his idol. Here is a letter he wrote
to Prince Albert, acknowledging Queen Victoria's congratulations:--
"I have been greatly touched to learn that all your family have
shared my joy, and all my hope is that my son may resemble dear
little Prince Arthur, and that he may have the rare qualities of
your children. The sympathy shown on the late occasion by the English
people is another bond between the two countries, and I hope my son
will inherit my feelings of true friendship for the royal family of
England, and of affectionate esteem for the great English nation."
A few months later, the future Emperor Frederick, then recently
engaged to the Princess Royal of England, visited Paris. He was
attended by Major Baron von Moltke, who described the emperor,
empress, and their court in letters to his friends. "The empress,"
he says, "is of astonishing beauty, with a slight, elegant figure,
and dressing with much taste and richness, but without ostentation.
She is very talkative and lively,--much more so than is usual with
persons occupying so high a position. The emperor impressed me
by a sort of immobility of features, and the almost extinguished
look of his eyes."
This look, by the way, was cultivated by the emperor. When his early
playfellow, Madame Cornu, saw him after twelve years' separation,
her first exclamation was: "Why! what have you done to your eyes?"
"The prominent characteristic of the emperor's face," continues
Von Moltke, "is a friendly, good-natured smile which has nothing
Napoleonic about it. He mostly sits quietly with his head on one
side, and events have shown that this tranquillity, which is very
imposing to the restless French nation, is not apathy, but a sign
of a superior mind and a strong will. He is an emperor, and not
a king.... Affairs in France are not in a normal condition, but
it would be difficult to say how, under present circumstances,
they could be improved.... Napoleon III. has nothing of the sombre
sternness of his uncle, neither his imperial demeanor nor his deliberate
attitude. He is a quite simple and somewhat small man, whose always
tranquil countenance gives a strong impression of amiability. He
never gets angry, say the people round him. He is always polite....
He suffers from a want of men of ability to uphold him. He cannot
make use of men of independent character, who insist on having
their own notions, as the direction of affairs of State must be
concentrated in his hands. Greater liberty ought to be conceded in
a regulated state of society, but in the present state of France
there must be a strong and single direction, which is, besides,
best adapted to the French character. Freedom of the Press is for
the present as impossible here as it would be at the headquarters
of an army in the field if the Press wished to discuss the measures
taken by the general in command. Napoleon has shown wisdom, firmness,
self-confidence, but also moderation and clemency; and though simple
in his dress, he does not forget that the French people like to
see their sovereigns surrounded by a brilliant court."
Of the imperial baby in his nurse's arms, on whom the father looked
with a face radiant with pride and joy, Von Moltke remarks: "Truly,
he seems a strapping fellow."
The little prince grew up a very promising lad. He was his father's
idol. Louis Napoleon never could be brought to give him any sterner
reproof than "Louis, don't be foolish,--_ne fais pas des bêtises._"
Discipline was left to his mother, and it was popularly thought
that she was much less wrapped up in the child than his father
was. His especial talent was for drawing and sculpture. Some of
his sketches, of which fac-similes are given in Jerrold's "Life
of Napoleon III.," are very spirited, and when he could get a lump
of wet clay to play with, he made busts of the persons round him
which were excellent likenesses.
The emperor's rooms at the Tuileries were rather low and dark,
but he selected them because they communicated with those of the
empress in the Pavillon de Flore, by a narrow winding staircase.
Often in the day would she come down to him, or he ascend to her.
His study was filled with Napoleonic relics, and littered with
political and historical papers. He kept a large room with models
of new inventions, which were a great delight to him and to his
son. He was fond of wood-turning, and Thélin and he would often
make pretty rustic chairs for the park at Saint-Cloud.
For some years before his overthrow he was growing very feeble,
and always carried a cane surmounted with a gold eagle. Commonly
too some chosen friend, generally Fleury, gave him his arm, but
he always walked in silence. In the afternoon he would drive out,
and sometimes horrify the police by getting out of his carriage
and walking alone in distant quarters of the city.
On one occasion he had a difference of opinion with one of his
friends, who assured him that if he insisted on planting an open
space in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine with flowers, and protected
it by no railing, the flowers would very speedily be destroyed.
His pleasure and exultation were very great when he found he had
been right, and that not a flower had been plucked or broken.
The emperor was generally gay and ready to converse at table, but
he made it a rule never to criticise or discuss living persons
himself, or allow others to do so in his hearing.
There was much decorum at court so far as his influence extended
in the imperial circle, but there were plenty of scandals outside
of it; and as to money matters, even Persigny and Fleury--one the
friend of the emperor for five-and-twenty years, and the other
devotedly attached to him--could not restrain themselves from cheating
him and tricking him whenever they could.
[Illustration: _EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN._]