BEFORE THE STORM
When the news of the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern to
the Spanish throne reached me, together with a letter from my Ambassador
urging my return to Paris, I was staying in a little village on the
coast of Normandy. Though I started at once for the capital, I could
hardly bring myself to believe in the possibility of a war between
France and Prussia. The thing appeared to me to be quite impossible,
especially in view of a conversation I had had with the Emperor
immediately after the results of the Plebiscite of May, 1870, had become
known. I had ventured to offer to the Sovereign my congratulations upon
the new triumph he had obtained. Napoleon III. seemed also delighted,
and though it was most unusual for him to be demonstrative, yet he did
not, on that occasion, attempt to hide what he was feeling, going so far
as to tell me that the results of the Plebiscite in his opinion “had not
only consolidated the dynasty, but also had done away with the legend
that represented him as desirous of a foreign war in order to add to his
prestige.” “No one can say so at present,” added the Emperor, “because,
after France has so positively affirmed its allegiance to the Empire, it
would be madness for me to risk losing popularity through a war which,
even if victorious, would always materially impoverish the country.”
Napoleon III. did not seem to have noticed that M. Rouher had at once
observed that the vote of Paris had been distinctly hostile to him, and
that as things were organised, it was Paris which overthrew dynasties
and governments.
But that wisdom which is born of attentive observation of the events of
the world, as well as of outward and sometimes insignificant
circumstances that lead on to their development, seemed to be absent
from the thoughts of the principal politicians who, at that particular
moment of her history, held in their hands the destinies of France.
Neither the Emperor nor his responsible advisers saw farther than the
victory of the moment, and they all rejoiced together at the new triumph
which they had won for themselves, as well as for the party which they
represented.
A few days after the Plebiscite, I happened to be calling on a social
celebrity, the Countess de Castiglione, about whom so much has been
written and said. Nature had been generous to her in many ways, but she
was not destined to keep her fairness much longer than a rose its
freshness. At the time of which I am speaking, she had barely reached
her thirtieth year, and was already the ghost of her former self. I
don’t think I have ever met a woman who faded so quickly; I have often
thought about it, and come to the conclusion that her beauty was so
dazzling that it obliterated the imperfections it possessed, just as the
Neapolitan or Sicilian sun prevents us from noticing aught else but the
brilliance of the places it lights up with its rays. At the first
glance, her loveliness literally took one’s breath away, as it did mine
the first time I saw her in 1868, when already she was going down hill.
I can therefore imagine what she must have been at the time she first
startled Paris by her glorious complexion and extraordinary beauty, and
conquered the senses if not the heart of the Emperor.
Madame de Castiglione, without being the very clever woman she has been
represented by some, nor the stupid one she has been described by
others, was possessed of an intelligence that was certainly above the
average, but completely spoiled, her severe critics said, by an
inordinate vanity, which prostrated her at the feet of her own beauty,
and made everything in her life subservient to it. She firmly believed
that she had only to show herself to conquer, and in a certain sense it
was quite true, until the numerous victims of her charms learned to know
her well. She had been sent to France by her cousin, the great Cavour,
with a mission to influence Napoleon III. in favour of the cause of
Italian independence. In a certain sense she succeeded, though much of
her success can be attributed to the personal sympathies of the Emperor
as well as to the rash promises of which had been so generous in regard
to the various secret societies and associations with which he had been
connected in his youth. But he was a master in the art of flattery, and
it pleased his fancy to allow the young and lovely woman to think that
she, and she alone, had been the means of Italy attaining her liberty.
Madame de Castiglione thereafter took herself _au sérieux_, and believed
she was a political heroine.
Later on, however, clouds came to obscure the horizon of her successes;
the sensation caused by the lovely Italian very soon vanished, and
though she was talked about a great deal in society, though painters
still raved about her, and old men devoured her with their eyes, whilst
young ones sighed at her feet, though women grew green with envy when
they saw her enter a room, certain it is that her success was neither a
long nor a permanent one. As a dream she flitted through that brilliant,
frivolous society of the Second Empire, and as a dream she vanished into
the darkness of the night that overtook it.
The curious thing in the career of Madame de Castiglione was the way in
which she used to come and go, the eclipses her personality underwent,
and the notoriety that, now and then, arose in regard to her. There had
been a day when she was asked to leave France altogether, but then she
very soon returned to it, more arrogant, more haughty, more than ever
ardent in resuming a political rôle. But she did not like Napoleon III.,
whom, perhaps, she did not forgive for the light-heartedness with which,
after all, he had treated her. Though she would never have owned to it,
she knew in her inmost heart that he had taken her as he would have
taken any other pretty woman weak enough to have been dazzled. Madame de
Castiglione was then in the glory of her youth and beauty, and she may
well be forgiven. Principles she had few, religion and morals still
less, or she would not, upon more occasions than one, have forgotten the
great name she bore, or the high social position she enjoyed, and
accepted, for instance, the banknotes of Lord Hertford, and of many
others.
A curious trait in that celebrated woman’s character was her pride in
what others generally hid from the eyes of the world. A characteristic
anecdote can be told on this subject. One day, as one of the very few
friends she had left was talking with her of that period of the Empire
when she had been its brightest star, suddenly Madame de Castiglione
exclaimed: “I shall take care that even after I am dead the world shall
know how great I was whilst it lasted”; and with a cynicism such as she
alone would have been capable of, she rang the bell, and turning towards
the maid who had appeared in answer to it, “Luisa,” she said, “montrez à
Monsieur, la chemise de nuit de Compiègne.” And when an elaborate
garment all batiste and lace was brought to her, she added: “I shall
leave instructions to bury it with me.”
To come back to what I was saying at the beginning of this chapter, I
had called upon Madame de Castiglione just after the Plebiscite, and
naturally the conversation turned towards that event. The Countess
listened very seriously to all the remarks exchanged between the two or
three people who were present in the room, and at last surprised us
considerably by saying: “You are all mistaken; the Plebiscite will not
consolidate the dynasty. Up to now neither Italy nor Prussia thought
that it could maintain itself _à la longue_ in France, where it was
firmly believed that no political regime was able to last beyond a few
years. The results of the Plebiscite have proved that this conviction
was an erroneous one; and the consequences will be that both these
nations will use their best endeavours to inveigle the Emperor into a
war. It is very well known that France is unprepared. Such an event will
naturally throw her back into a state of revolution, and for a time will
wipe her off the European slate.”
No reply was made to this extraordinary remark, but when we went out
together with Alphonse Rothschild, who had been one of those who had
heard her, he turned to me and said with the clear insight of a
financier, combined with the cleverness of a diplomat and his experience
of the world: “How that woman hates the Emperor.”
And now as I was hastening back to Paris on that July day of the year
1870, I remembered both the remark of the Baron and the tone of
animosity with which the Countess de Castiglione had spoken on that
occasion, and something like apprehension suddenly seized me,
apprehension I did not know of what, but of a danger which I felt rather
than saw, swooping down upon this brilliant society of the Second
Empire, which I had grown to like so much and so well.
I reached Paris late in the evening of July the 16th, twenty-four hours
after war had been declared, and was struck by the extraordinary aspect
of the people who crowded the boulevards. Much to my surprise they were
singing the forbidden Marseillaise, and altogether they presented an
excited appearance. The cafés were full, and from time to time someone
would stand up, and scream loudly: “À Berlin!” whereupon the mob took up
that cry, and vociferated in its turn, “À Berlin! À Berlin!” All Paris
seemed to have gone mad, but already, in spite of what has been said to
the contrary, remarks were heard hostile to the Emperor and to the
government, who, it was said, had not soon enough tried to avenge the
insult which France had received, but had done their best to prevent the
outbreak of a war which, as someone remarked in my presence that same
evening, “was indispensable to the dignity and the greatness of the
country.” To attempt reasoning with such folly was out of the question.
I stopped the cab which had brought me from the station, and, alighting
near one of the cafés on the boulevards, sat down under the pretext of
having something to drink, but in reality to observe the scenes that
were taking place. All the windows and balconies were full of people
looking down in the street below, and watching the movement of the
crowd, listening to its warlike cries. And later, when the theatres were
over, the boulevards seemed to fill even more than they had been before.
Women appeared wearing the national colours, and above the noise, the
shouts, the movements of that great agglomeration of human beings,
resounded again one great acclamation, one immense cry: “À Berlin! À
Berlin!”
When at last I reached our Embassy, I found that consternation
prevailed; not at the war, though everybody agreed that anything more
foolish than the circumstances that had led to it had never been seen,
but at the weakness displayed by the government, which certainly ought
to have checked that exuberance of public opinion, and prevented
manifestations that at any moment might turn against itself. Then
surprise was expressed at the disorderly attitude displayed by the
troops when starting for the frontier, as already one or two regiments
had done that morning. No one ventured to make a prediction as to what
the future was holding in reserve, but serious apprehensions were
entertained concerning the ultimate fate of the Emperor and of his
dynasty.
That last feeling was very general, and I found it prevailed among all
the foreigners then at Paris. Two or three days after my return to the
capital, I called upon an old friend of mine, Madame Jules Lacroix, an
extraordinary old woman, a Russian by birth, whose sister was the widow
of the novelist Balzac, and who had made her home in France ever since
her marriage with M. Lacroix, the brother of the famous novelist known
under the pseudonym of “Bibliophile Jacob.” Madame Lacroix presided over
one of the pleasantest salons of the time; within its walls one was
always sure to meet some important and interesting persons. She had been
a great friend of Morny, and though her family had been Legitimists--she
used to boast of her alliances with the Bourbons through Queen Marie
Leszczinska, her aunt many times removed--all her sympathies were with
the Napoleonic dynasty. She possessed a villa in St. Germain, where she
used to spend her summers, and was there at the time the war broke out.
I went to dine with her in the endeavour to find out something about the
events that had brought about the present crisis.
Madame Lacroix received me with effusion, and talked of little else than
the war, and of the consequences it would have. To my great surprise,
however, I did not find her by any means so enthusiastic as I had
expected, rather she was subdued and anxious. She related to me that her
great friend General Castelnau, one of the aides-de-camp of the Emperor,
who was later on to share his captivity, did not look at the situation
with over-confident eyes, and that he had given her to understand that
he had some apprehensions as to the ability of the army to come out
victorious from the struggle it was about to enter.
“The Emperor is more ill than one supposes,” added Madame Lacroix, “and
should his strength fail him, who can take his place at the head of the
army? Indeed, it would be far better if he did not attempt at all to
lead it, because his presence in Paris will be more necessary than at
the frontier. Suppose a revolution breaks out here, who is to confront
it? The Empress is too unpopular through her clerical leanings to
inspire confidence in a nation that has lost every respect for priests
and their protectors.”
Several episodes were then related concerning the deliberations which
had taken place at St. Cloud during the momentous days before the solemn
question of war or peace had been decided. It seems that when the first
telegrams from Berlin announcing the candidature of Prince Leopold of
Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne had arrived in Paris, the Duke de
Gramont had immediately sent them to the Emperor, though it was in the
middle of the night, and that in a long conversation which he had
subsequently held with his Sovereign, he had insisted on the affront
such a candidature represented for France. Why it was an affront
probably the Duke himself could not have properly explained.
On the contrary, the Empress, who was afterwards to be represented as
having done all that was in her power to decide Napoleon to declare war
against Prussia, had been far from urging him to it, if we are to
believe what I heard on that day at Madame Lacroix’s. It seems that when
it was found to be impossible to resist the public clamour for revenge
against this insolence of Prussia, as the chauvinists, who held the
upper hand at that moment, were pleased to call the Hohenzollern
candidature, the Empress was very much upset, and to General Castelnau,
who saw her come out from her room with red eyes and in great agitation,
she said that she felt very anxious and very much afraid at the
responsibility that was to become hers when she would be left as Regent
alone in Paris. The General then advised her not to allow the Prince
Imperial to accompany his father to the frontier, upon which she
exclaimed: “Oh! I can’t keep him here, he will be much safer amidst the
army than with me!” Singular remark for a mother to make.
Altogether it seems to me, from what I had opportunity to hear, that at
this crisis of her life Eugénie entirely lost her head, and that from
its very outset allowed outward circumstances and impressions to obscure
her clear judgment. I have been told that she was extremely
superstitious, and firmly believed that what she once described in one
of her conversations with an intimate friend as “the obstinacy” of the
Emperor in not imposing the weight of his authority upon King Victor
Emmanuel, to oblige him to abandon his secret ambitions to annex to his
crown the territory of the Holy See, would prove fatal to him as well as
to the Bonaparte dynasty. She was a fervent and devout Catholic and, in
addition to her misgivings as to the future, feared the wrath of God.
I was not present when the Emperor left St. Cloud and looked for the
last time on his home of so many happy years, but I am told that nothing
could be sadder than this departure, so very different from that other
occasion, some ten years before, when, amidst the hurrahs of the
Parisian population, he had started for the Italian frontier to take
part in a struggle the end of which had been so glorious. And yet the
present war was a great deal more popular than had been that of 1859.
Not only was it desired, but almost imposed on the Sovereign, by a
nation who would never have forgiven him had he not acceded to her
wishes. And yet, when Napoleon took leave of his wife, his Ministers,
and the members of his household, on that eventful 28th of July, though
few eyes were dry in bidding him good-bye, the country over which he had
ruled for eighteen years did not unite in wishing him God-speed. On the
eve of the greatest catastrophe of modern times, an atmosphere of
foreboding was already making itself felt in the sadness of that early
departure.
When the Sovereign had gone, a period of anxious waiting ensued. Paris
got wilder and wilder, became more and more riotous. One of the
Empress’s familiar friends called upon her one day at St. Cloud, before
she had left that residence to return to the capital, and thought it his
duty to draw her attention to that fact, and to express to her his
apprehensions that the excitement might have serious consequences should
any reverse happen to the army. She replied with vivacity: “Oh, not only
in case of reverse, also in case of victory, the nation only wants a
pretext to get rid of us.”
These words are remarkable, and, so far as I know, no one had voiced
such sentiments before; they reveal on the part of the Regent a state of
discouragement which explains, perhaps, her total collapse when the
dreaded crisis at last occurred; maybe it was this belief which led to
the indifference with which she submitted to a destiny which she had
accepted as foreordained, and against which she had recognised the utter
futility of rebelling.
She was leading a feverish existence, which left her little time to
think over her difficult position, or to make plans concerning her own
future. After having tried to imbibe the enthusiasm with which she was
told the declaration of war against Prussia had been received in the
whole of France, she was now realising how little grounds there had been
for it. Before even the earliest news of the first disasters of this
deplorable campaign had been brought to her, she had prepared herself
for the worst, and believed in the worst, though when that worst came it
was to surpass all that she had most dreaded or imagined.
Before she decided to leave St. Cloud, she went for a walk in the park
with one of her ladies in waiting. On the last evening she gave way to
the apprehensions that were torturing her soul. The sun was setting
after a glorious day, and the Imperial residence had never seemed so
beautiful, nor so peaceful; a peace in such contrast to the agitation of
the country, that the Empress could not refrain from remarking upon it.
Her companion tried to cheer her with words of hope and encouragement:
“No,” replied Eugénie, “I have no hope left, and if I could still wish
for something, it would be to stop the course of time; to have a few
more hours to look upon St. Cloud and its gardens; but see,” she added,
and pointed with her hand towards the sun that was slowly disappearing
below the horizon, “see, this is how our prosperity is also setting, and
who knows what will happen in the night that is falling upon us!”
And covering her face with her hands, she who was still Empress of the
French sobbed bitterly.