The Empress Eugénie and her son

Front matter

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THE EMPRESS EUGENIE AND HER SON

Preface

" History has only learned of late to dispel the mists both of glamour and of prejudice, and to study in the true mood of human sympathy and impartial insight the amazing years of the Second Empire." *

Prosper Merimee, the intimate friend of the Empress Eugenie, her sister and their mother, the Comtesse de Montijo, said the only things in histories which interested him were the anecdotes. This being so, Merimee, who, I suppose, " the skilled gentry of the " Times " Literary Supplement permitting, may be termed a French classic, might possibly have smiled a qualified approval of the twelve hundred pages which I have now devoted to the Empress, Napoleon III., the Prince Imperial (" Napoleon IV.") and many of the most prominent personages and events of the Second Empire and after.

I have not attempted to pen cut-and-dried " biographies." Such things are to be found m bulky tomes containing amazing views of Emperors and Empresses — and Kings. (By " biographies " I do not, needless to say, mean " lives " such as those by Lord Fitzmaurice of Lord Granville, by Lord Morley of Mr Gladstone, and by Sir Edward Cook of " Delane of the ' Times ' " — all brilliant and accurate, unsurpassable.) To write ordinary biographies is as easy as planting cabbages, and less useful.

But while I have studiously eschewed the commonplace, unattractive biographical method — dates follow-

*" Daily Telegraph," one of the few English papers which has always dealt fairly with the Napoleonic r^g-ime and remains consistently sympathetic with the Empress.

ing each other in chronological precision, from the subject's birth to death — I have essayed to present all the obtainable episodes which marked the careers of my characters. My method was not inaptly described by the " Times " reviewer of " The Comedy and Tragedy of the Second Empire " (September 14, 191 1): " Mr Legge, who published ' The Empress Eugenie : 1870 — 1910/ and who has an expansive literary manner, has ransacked for piquant detail all the chief sources of information (he even quotes from M. Ollivier's latest volume), and quotes the original documents — telegrams between the Emperor and Empress during the first weeks of the war — with much effect." The amiable reviewer might have added that I was an eyewitness of many of the events described in my previous volumes. This may also be said of the present work. I prefer writing of people and things, " seen with my eyes " to writing about what I have " heard with my ears." What I see I can narrate accurately. What I hear depends for its value upon the truthfulness of my informants. I have never had the slightest cause of complaint on this score. From all alike I have received invaluable assistance.

From the beginning of this trilogy down to its completion in January-February, 19 16, I have had the most liberal and valued assistance of many who are justly entitled authorities; others have given me their encouragement and countenance. Among them was the late M. Emile Ollivier, whose final volumes of " L'Empire Liberal " * I have now analysed for the purpose of giving some at least of the readers of these pages information

* The last of the series was issued in August, 191 5, and the first review of it in this country was written by me for the " Pall Mall Gazette " before copies of the work were obtainable in London.

which will enable them to realise more completely than they have perhaps hitherto done the facts concerning the two foremost personages in the narrative.

To M. Lucien Alphonse Daudet I am particularly indebted for permission to present what is certainly the most perfect, as it is the most charming and faithful, portrait of the Empress hitherto given to the world. This minute psychological study will be, I think, regarded by competent judges as a gem of literature. It could not have been achieved by anyone else for the simple reason that, as a protege of her Imperial Majesty, M. Daudet has had for many years exceptional facilities for accomplishing his task both at Farnborough Hill and Cap Martin (Villa Cyrnos, which the Empress has not seen since the summer preceding the war). Moreover, as a Frenchman he has gifts of style and expression in this branch of literature which have been denied to most writers of other nationalities, those of Italy excepted. Among our own living authors I think he is most nearly approached by Mr Filson Young. Friends of the Empress (and of M. Daudet) whose acquaintance I have been privileged to make have been not unfriendly to me — far from it. Of such was the late Mme de Arcos, one of the two best-loved friends of the Empress, the other being her sister, Mrs Vaughan, whose daughter. Miss Vaughan, has long been one of her Majesty's companions and favourities.

In justice to M. Daudet I wish to make it quite clear that he is not responsible (so to put it) for a single line or word in this volume other than the pages from his own pen. He did not know what I was going to write and have written and quoted from M. Ollivier's works and those of other and lesser authors; nor will he know until he sees this volume. I think it quite possible that Mme de Arcos, in her kindly, benevolent way, may have hinted to him that I had maintained a sympathetic attitude towards her Majesty. But there is a gulf between sympathy and servility. And above all else I had to write impartially and conscientiously according to my lights. This a " hired " author, or one upon whom pressure had been put, could not have done. That devoted friend of Napoleon III., Lord Glenesk, did not hesitate (when Mr Algernon Borthwick) to criticise the Empress and some of those who surrounded her at Chislehurst in 1 87 1 when the Emperor was at Wilhelmshohe, and on occasion I also have spoken my mind.

In introducing M. Daudet to that large circle of readers whose favour I have enjoyed through my Second Empire, King Edward, and Kaiser books, I should like to reinforce my expressed view of his charm and gift of personal analysis by citing a few lines from a review of his " LTmperatrice Eugenie " in the " Times " Literary Supplement. Speaking of his " portrait (or at least a sketch from life) of one of the most enigmatic of historical personages " the writer said : " We all know the Empress of modern legend : frivolous and dangerous, loveliest of women, high-spirited, irreductible, ^ more clerical than the Pope — the Empress on whose slim shoulders the Republicans laid all the weight of the war — ' Ma guerre a moi.' ... In M. Daudet's likeness there is just enough of these lineaments for us to understand all the cruelty of the democratic caricature ; as Perseus looked at the image of Medusa in a fountain, let us consider the redoubtable Sphinx of modern France as she is mirrored in

* Irreductible : that cannot be reduced. Vide Tarver's Royal Phraseological Eng-lish-French, French-English Dictionary (Dulau & Co.). The word is not given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, adapted from the Oxford Dictionary, edition 19U, the consciousness of a young novelist, prepared to understand her by character, heredity and circumstance. . . . Like the Empress of Austria, she might say : ' Nous ne marchons pas comme doivent marcher les Reines. Les Bourbons, qui presque jamais ne sont sortis a pied, ont pris une allure speciale — celle d'oies majestueuses.' There was nothing of the majestic goose in either of these intrepid, solitary and courageous Empresses — they were eagles rather, the eagles of their empires — eagles or swans. In both of them the final note is a solitary self-sufficiency, a secret source of courage, sufficient to all the hard trials of their existence."

It will assist the readers of my pages to form a just estimate of the Empress if I quote a few other lines from the " Times " appreciation of M. Daudet's " portrait (or at least a sketch from life)," for the article is a masterly one throughout. " The Empress of the French [the title sounds oddly in 19 16] is a woman of the keenest positive intelligence and rare political capacity." This much I claimed for her after reading a long letter which she wrote to one of her oldest and dearest woman friends on the day after King Edward's death— a letter in which she dwelt in statesmanlike fashion upon the possible European results of that calamity.

She has a feehng" not uncommon in the Stoics (nor in the least contrary to their doctrine) for certain personal advantages often conducive to morality, or at least conformable to the ideal of human nature — such as beauty, health, streng-th, wealth, honour, breeding-, high connexions, which increase the usefulness and influence of those who possess them. She is full of experience and often formulates, with singular eloquence, the result of her observations ; but these axioms and views, however original, have something precise and individual — " I'lmp^ratrice n'aime que les certitudes et la lumi^re." [This is an extract from M. Daudet's "portrait."] Beautiful, witty and wise, just sufficiently capricious still lo PREFACE

to enchain the attention of her courtiers, she has kept in her old ag^e and after all her sorrows a freshness of sentiment, a keenness in simple pleasures, which endear her to the young-. Yet behind this agreeable surface the depth is an entire renunciation, with never a reminiscence, with never a complaint. Voluntarily anonymous henceforth, the mistress of the Tuileries lives these many years in a Hampshire manor which bears on its stone frontage neither the bees nor the eagle of Imperial France, but the blazon of a London publisher. * Unmoved she stays in Paris in one of those cosmopolitan hotels whose balconies look out on the gardens where she used to reign and where the Prince Imperial had his playground.

Nearly thirty-seven years have elapsed since the Zulus' assegais robbed the Empress of her son. After the tragedy French authors and journalists began a new campaign against the mother, based upon statements purporting to have been made by various persons, admirers of the Prince Imperial, but hostile to the Empress, who was alleged to have made the young man's life at Chislehurst unbearable. Hence his departure for Zululand. All these malevolent assertions and innuendoes have naturally deeply grieved the Empress, and I am glad of the opportunity which has been given to me to refute them en bloc. No exculpation of the Empress could be more complete. I present it as a souvenir of the boy of fourteen whose " baptism of fire on the heights overlooking Saarbriicken I witnessed forty-four years before the second invasion of France by the fiendish Huns in 19 14; while a month after the " baptism " I was a spectator of the crowning French disaster at Sedan and a participant in the conquerors' march upon that Paris which for nearly six months so heroically defied the besieging hosts.

The collection of Cardinal Bonaparte's letters relating to Napoleon HI., the Empress and the

* The reference is to the late Mr Thomas Longman. >

PREFACE II

Prince Imperial is, I submit, a primeur of value. This hieroglyphical correspondence was translated for me by my esteemed young friend, Father Gougaud, O.S.B., of St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough. He was one of the first to be called to the colours in 19 14, was taken prisoner in the battle of Maubeuge, after a few weeks' service, and in February, 19 16, was still a captive. Another of the Benedictines is a prisoner at Stuttgart, three have been and are doing infirmary work, one is in the trenches, one has been missing from April, 19 1 5, and one (of Italian birth) is a chaplain with the Italian forces. Brother Emile Moreau (whom most visitors to St Michael's Abbey will remember at the lodge, at which picture post cards, photographs, etc., are obtainable) has two nephews, eight cousins and several friends all on active service with the French armies.

As St Michael's Abbey Church was the Empress's free gift to the Benedictines, it is no more than their due to record here their patriotism. At " Farnborough Court," their property, they began war relief work on October 16, 19 14, when they took charge of twenty-five wounded Belgians, tending them until they were cured. Since then there have been regularly occupied by British wounded or ailing thirty-five, forty, or fifty beds. This good work, of which hitherto no public mention has been made, is under the personal surveillance and direction of the revered Lord Abbot, the Very Rev. Dom Cabrol, whose erudition is known to Benedictines all over the world, and particularly in England, France and Italy. This Benedictine foundation is not now dependent in any way upon the Imperial donor of the extensive property; it supports itself, with the aid of any donations it may receive voluntarily.

The Imperial chronicle of every-day events is continued, in a composite chapter, from 1910-1911 to the beginning of February, 19 16.

The late M. Emile Ollivier, who was President of the Council when France declared war with Prussia in 1870, was not much beholden to English writers, some of whom have regarded him as a target for their barbed shafts. His own countrymen made the author of " L'Empire Liberal," the Emperor, the Empress and Marshal Bazaine scapegoats, and in France and England he has been held up to ridicule as the man who declared that he entered upon the war " with a light heart," his qualifying words being "burked." In many parts of Ollivier's gigantic work the Empress is a prominent figure. The final volume appeared in the autumn of 19 1 5, and of that and its predecessor I have given some account and a friendly letter (one of several) which I received from M. Ollivier in reference to some observations by her Majesty.

As this volume is appearing at an opportune moment and will probably divert the thoughts of many to Farnborough Hill, I am emboldened to hope that some at least will be sufficiently sympathetic to fallen greatness to wish her (as I respectfully do) " many happy returns " on her " ninetieth " (May 5).

E. L.

Contents

I. The Empress's "Ninetieth"

II. Le Quatorze Juillet, 19 15

III. A Lifelong Friend of the Empress .

Chapter I The Empress's " Ninetieth "

The little old lady — so very old — swathed in black of unfashionable cut, with no eyes for anything but her Prayer Book, follows the annual Mass of Requiem for her husband and her son at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, with the assiduity of a young nun in her novitiate. And presently she toils down the staircase to the crypt, the Imperial Mausoleum, and glances up at the cavity in the wall behind the altar in which she will sleep the last sleep. A strange idea, perhaps, but she is original in all she does and all she says, as some day the world — the English world — will learn for itself. It has fallen to my lot to see her in all her hours of agony — the passing of the Emperor at Chislehurst, the slaughter of her son by the Zulus' assegais and his burial within sight of his Kentish home, and the removal of the two coffins from the little church in the lane to the glorious fabric which she built on the knoll among the pines and the rhododendrons, which she can gaze upon from her room. She landed at Ryde from Sir John Burgoyne's yacht in September, 1870, a fugitive — youthful-looking, sunny-faced, golden-haired, a paragon of beauty and grace — one (I suspect) of King Edward's " three most beautiful women I have ever seen."

The Empress Eugenie's whim in 19 15 was to have B 17 her yacht fitted with a wireless installation. The Imperial idea would not have given occasion for comment in peace times ; but her friends at a distance marvelled as to what may have been her Majesty's object.

The war had the effect of cutting the Empress off from France in a manner which she could never have seriously contemplated, although when the " declarations " began flying about in August, 19 14, she professed no surprise. As a rule she has passed the latter part of the winter and the early spring months at Cap Martin. She was in Italy shortly before the war broke out and returned to England in mid-July.

One of the Empress's greatest delights is to see King George drive up to the picturesque house in which the most remarkable of women will probably end her days. The King, Queen Mary, the Prince of Wales and Princess Mary had a long chat with the Empress in 19 15, driving over from Aldershot. King Edward's son reminds her in many ways of her only child, the Prince Imperial, who was, however, nearly ten years King George's senior, and died at three-and-twenty.

On the 29th of May, 19 15, the King and Queen (then at Aldershot) were accompanied to Farnborough Hill by Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria. The august widow of Edward VII. had not often visited the Empress, for whom she has the highest regard. The venerable lady could not restrain her emotion when greeting King George's mother. Needless to say. Prince and Princess Napoleon were gratified at this opportunity of meeting Queen Alexandra and her daughter.

THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 19

Few visitors to Farnborough Hill get a warmer welcome than the Due d'Albe, a descendant of the wealthy Spaniard who married the Empress's only sister some sixty odd years ago. That Duchesse d'Albe is supposed to have been preferred to her more beautiful sister, Eugenie, who had not at the time ever dreamt of one day becoming Empress of the French. The Due d'Albe, one of King Alfonso's intimates, is a champion polo player, and has been seen in many games with our crack poloists. He was among the Empress's visitors at Farnborough in 1915; and, as noted elsewhere, his brother, the Due de Penaranda, was the guest of her Majesty in the middle of December in the same year.

Even in her dreams (and they were many), the Empress could never have imagined —

That at the age of forty-four and three months she would be compelled to fly secretly from Paris and take refuge in England ;

That less than three years later her consort, Napoleon III., would die quite unexpectedly at Chislehurst ;

That in another half-dozen years her only son would be slain by Zulus;

That, from and after the 8th of September, 1870, her permanent home would be England ;

That forty-four years after Sedan and the dismemberment of France by the Germans she would still be living, while the Kaiser's armies were once more attempting to conquer the country over which her husband had ruled and she had throned it for eighteen years ;

And that two months before entering upon her ninetieth year the son of her dear friend, Edward VII., would, with his consort, their eldest son and their daughter, be " five-o'clocking " with her, Eugenie de Montijo, the one-time Empress of the French, at her beautiful Hampshire home.

No crazy prophet or prophetess ever predicted any of these things, but, like so many other events in this marvellous woman's history, they have all come to pass, and none can say what may be in store for her between now and the celebration of her ninetieth birthday on the 5th of May, 19 16.

Surely one of the strangest episodes in the Empress's long life of surprises is that which we witnessed for ourselves at the beginning of August, 19 14, when the Imperial mistress of Farnborough Hill, a refugee herself, threw open her doors to Prince (Victor) Napoleon, his wife and their children — all equally refugees ! The Prince is still theoretically the Bonapartist Pretender to the Throne of France, which has had no occupant since the 4th of September, 1870. Princess Clementine is a daughter of the late King of the Belgians, cousin of the present warrior-King, and she and her consort were living in their home of treasures. Avenue Louise, Brussels, when the rapid march of events converted them, like tens of thousands of others, into refugees. With their august relative they are, and have been from the first, thoroughly at home. That " Farnborough Hill " will ultimately be their permanent abode is now practically certain. They would be less happy at the Tuileries than among the Hampshire pine-trees.

When, if ever. Princess Napoleon finds time hanging heavily on her hands, she can slip on an apron and become an infirmiere. To see and cheer her wounded compatriots she journeyed to Manchester — the first

THE EMPRESS'S " NINETIETH " 21

time a Princess Napoleon had been seen in those parts. She had only to be seen to conquer, for not only is she a beautiful woman, but versed in all those little ways which inspire admiration and love. Needless to say how the hearts of the sufferers went out to their charming compatriot or how delighted the Empress was to hear her experiences.

The Empress passed her twenty-fourth successive season at Cap Martin in 19 14. The spring of 19 15 found her in England, and here she will probably remain until the nations are at peace.

A personage now seldom seen at Farnborough Hill stayed there for a few days in October, 19 15. This was the widowed Duchesse de Mouchy, who is still often spoken of as Princess Anna Murat, her maiden name. She is the oldest surviving friend of the Empress.

Although in all works of reference the Empress is described as " Eugenie de Montijo," she has always signed, and still signs, legal documents " Eugenie de Guzman," one of her twenty-one titles, fewer than those which were borne by her sister, the Duchesse d'Albe.

Chapter II Le Quatorze Juillet, 1915

The Empress Eugenie has lived to see France again invaded by the relentless foe of 1870; to see the armies of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Russia, Italy, Montenegro and Serbia massed against the Hunnish legions; and to see London and many provincial centres honour the Republic by an enthusiastic observance of the Fete Nationale !

In many respects the celebration in Monarchical England of the National Fete of the French Republic in 191 5 was the most striking episode in the history of the two countries for three centuries. It was one of those unanticipated events which confirm the Disraelian axiom : " It is the unexpected which always happens." While we are maintaining, and shall successfully maintain, the existence of the Republic it is well to remember that for centuries France was as Monarchical as England — that for a thousand years she was ruled by Kings and by two Emperors. Not to be forgotten, either, is the fact that, as recently as 1873, there was for a brief space the likelihood that France would again place a King on the overturned throne of her last Imperial ruler. In that year the Comte de Paris (grandson of Louis Philippe, who had abdicated and taken refuge in England as " Mr Smith" in 1848), and the other Princes of the Royal House of France, declared to the sensitive Comte de Chambord, then at Vienna, that they

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 23

recognised in him " the head of our House and the sole representative of the principle of Monarchy in France." But in the November of that year " Chambord," at Versailles, definitively refused to accept the tricolour and stubbornly stood out for the White flag as the emblem of sovereignty. From that moment it was " all up " with the Monarchy, and the National Assembly confided to Marshal MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, a Royalist sailing under Bonapartist colours, the powers appertaining to the Presidency of the Republic for seven years. France has flourished under the wise rule of the Republic, which was never stronger, never more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, than on the anniversary (July 14, 19 15) of the taking of the Bastille, the opening event of the French Revolution, the anniversary likewise of the liberation of France.

The Royalists had sworn that, come what may, the Bastille should never be given over to the " Reds," the originators of that " Terror " with which every schoolboy is supposed to be familiar. Its custodian was one De Launay, and Carlyle has depicted it in its death throes : " What shall De Launay do ? One thing only De Launay could have done : what he said he would do. Fancy him sitting from the first with lighted taper within arm's length of the Powder Magazine; motionless, like old Roman Senator or Bronze Lampholder ; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was. Harmless he sat there while unharmed; but the King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would, or should, in nowise be surrendered save to the King's Messenger : one old man's life is worthless, so it be lost with honour; but think, ye brawling mob, how it will be when the whole Bastille springs skyward. And yet, withal, he could not do it. . . . De Launay could not do it. Distracted, he hovers between two hopes in the middle of despair; surrenders not his Fortress ; declares that he will blow it up, and does not blow it. Unhappy old De Launay, it is the deathagony of thy Bastille and thee ! Jail, Jailering and Jailer, all three, such as they may have been, must finish."

The first to " finish " was the " Jail," the Bastille, which, after the outbreak of the Revolution, was attacked and razed to the ground on July 14, 1789.

Every year the French Royalists commemorate the tragedy enacted on that winter day in 1793, the execution of Louis XVL They assembled, as of yore, on the 21st of January 19 15, at the church of Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois, formerly the parish of the Kings of France, when Mass was celebrated for the repose of the august victim of the " Terror." It was the 122nd anniversary of the crime. There were to be seen the fine fleur of Parisian Royalist society — the presidents of the Royalist Committees, the provincial delegates of the Due d'Orleans (the banished Pretender to the Throne), and Baron Tristan Lambert, formerly a Bonapartist, who accompanied the Empress Eugenie's son, the Prince Imperial, to the little church at Chislehurst on the morning of his departure for Zululand, there to meet his fate at three-and-twenty.

The register of death was not drawn up until two months after the execution of Louis XVI. This document is now in the archives of the City of Paris, and it is a memento of the event which may be recalled a propos of the National Fete. It is textually as follows : —

LE QUATORZE JUILLET, 1915 25

" Monday, i8th March 1793, second year of the Republic. Act of decease of Louis Capet on the 21st of January last, at 22 minutes past 10 in the morning. Profession — last King of the French. Age — 39. Native of Versailles, in the parish of Notre Dame. Residing at Paris, Tour du Temple. Married to Marie Antoinette of Austria. The said Louis Capet [was] executed on the Place de la Revolution in accordance with the decrees of the National Convention."

The " Acte de Deces " states that the execution took place in the presence of two members of the Directory of the Seine, the commissaires deputed by the Provincial Executive Council, and two commissaires of the Paris Municipality.

The Fete Nationale of to-day is the Fete Imperiale of yesterday. " Change but the name, and the tale is told of " it. The latter, founded by the Great Corsican, was kept on the 1 5th of August, the Church Festival of the Assumption, and it was celebrated for the last time in 1869. When the next Assumption Day came France, after thirteen fateful days' fighting, was being pulverised and disintegrated by the predecessors of the ruthless foes of 1914-1916. But that would not have happened had the Anglo-French Alliance been in existence.

The reasons for the defeat in 1870 have been eloquently and adequately explained by M. Emile Ollivier and many other authorities of varying degrees of eminence. Of these one of the most recent is General Bazaine-Hayter, who, in an elaborate defence of his relative, Marshal Bazaine, from one of innumerable attacks, wrote in 191 1 : —

" It took a fortnight to get together 203,000 men, who were opposed to 434,000 perfectly-equipped Germans. We had made no preparations. There were no horses for the artillery reserve and the wagons carrying the bridges (pontoons) ; no tools for making trenches. Our mitrailleuses arrived direct from the manufacturers, and those who were to serve them were quite ignorant. Our artillery was inferior in numbers and in efficiency — in short, powerless. We had no regularly-formed service for the transport of food. Our formation in battle, which was old even in 1859, was entirely out of date. Our rosters were thirty years old. Our method of command was very defective, and without initiative. These were the causes of our defeats — of all our defeats."

From the middle of August the functions of the generals in the field were usurped by the Empress and General de Palikao. Distracted by telegrams from the Tuileries, Marshal MacMahon made the fatal mistake of concentrating all his available forces in and near Sedan. " Now we have got him in the mouse-trap," said Moltke. It was true.