Empress Eugenie in exile

Preface

During the ten months in 1886 that it was my good fortune to spend at Farnborough in the household of the Empress Eugenie (good fortune which I owe to an old family friend, who was intimate with the Empress), I kept up my life-long habit, when absent from home, of daily correspondence with my family. Hence these pages, culled from letters and diaries.

However disconnected and fragmentary the following account of the Empress may be, it has one merit, — truth to fact. Anecdotes and an account of events were hastily scribbled at the close of each busy day. Realizing the value of spontaneity, I have purposely kept as much as possible to the wording of these notes, — written while the actual words the Empress spoke, and her impressive face and gestures, were fresh in my mind. Other incidents, since learned, might have inspired better stories, but would not be the words that came from her own lips. So I have

vii

PREFACE

preferred to give only what I positively know she said, merely adding a few words here and there for the sake of clarity.

Richard Watson Gilder was anxious to have me publish parts of this book many years ago, but during the life of the Empress I felt it would be an unpardonable breach of confidence, so I refused. Now that the end of her ninety-four eventful years has come, the "Empress in Exile" belongs to history,

Agnes Carey.

VUl

Contents

PAGE

Paet I Farnborough Hill, an Empress's

Home 3

PART I FARNBOROUGH HILL, AN EMPRESS's HOME

"Meet the Empress at Wilton Crescent tomorrow Wednesday at four. Arcos."

This telegram from Mme. de Arcos, an old friend of my aunt's, was the prelude to some of the most pleasant and interesting months of my life. Needless to say the message was speedily obeyed, and a few hours after its receipt, I was already whirling away in an express train toward London. It was the following afternoon, February 10, 1886, that I started for Mme. de Arcos's house in Belgravia, where after waiting a few moments in the drawing-room with Mrs. Edmund Vaughan I was taken upstairs by her and her sister to see the Empress, who had come to London expressly for this interview,

Mme. de Arcos had already told me that I should find Her Imperial Majesty most gracious and I need not be in the least intimidated by her, but in spite of this reassuring assertion, my heart beats quickened a little, just as I entered her presence and made my first low court courtesy. The Empress half rose from her seat, at the same time motioning me to a chair, and in the conversation which ensued praised my French unstintingly, put me so completely at my ease, and interested me so much as she sat there in her widow's weeds, in the dim hght of a foggy winter's afternoon, — once the most beautiful woman of Europe, — that I quite forgot to lose my self-possession.

In less than half an hour I had made another deep courtesy and had taken leave of the Empress under Mme. de Arcos's wing, was complimented by her downstairs on my tenue, and had a few friendly hints given me on court ways and the little difficulties I should be ready to encounter. Shortly after five o'clock I was back again with my family, and able to give them the good news, — that the Empress had received me most kindly, that all was satisfactorily settled, and the j r^ m

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!= 9 o details of my future life at Farnborough arranged; even to the hour of the train which was to carry me thither on the fifteenth.

From my diary:

It was quite dark when I reached Farnborough station about 6 p. m. on the appointed day, and I was glad to find a carriage waiting for me. On the platform stood a smart but most good-natured French footman, with a cockade on his hat and, five minutes later, I had driven through the lodge gates and had arrived at Farnborough Hill, where, through many circuitous passages, I was passed along by various pleasant men-servants, and finally shown up to my room.

While I was waiting there, not knowing what to do next, there was a knock at my door and a maid came to offer her services, which I declined. Then Mme. Le Breton walked in, accompanied by the Empress's two Spanish nieces, Maria and Antonia de Vejarano, whom she introduced as well as herself, and welcomed me most warmly to my new home, while apologizing for not having been at the entrance when I arrived. The coachman had brought me to a side entrance instead of the principal one, where Mme. Le Breton and the girls had long been vainly waiting for the carriage to drive up. At last they discovered the error, found that I was already in the house, and came up to me at once. Mme. Le Breton then rang for some tea, which was brought up on a dainty httle silver tray. We talked a good deal about Chislehurst, and Mme. Le Breton was very much astonished when I told her that I knew her and the other inmates of the imperial household perfectly by sight, having constantly seen them all there on Sundays in the little Church of St. Mary's during 1879 and 1880. The nieces were rather shy and quiet, but very courteous and affectionate, and they appeared to my English eyes absolutely grown up, though only about sixteen and eighteen years old.

At seven-thirty my visitors all three left me to unpack the necessaries and dress hastily for dinner, M. and A. promising to return and fetch me, which they did at a few minutes to eight. They led me first through intricate passages, and then down a handsomely carved staircase into a splendid gallery, beautifully fiu-nished, and filled with oh jets d' art and jardinieres of sweet-smelling flowers. Mme. Le Breton, carefully gantee, was already waiting there with M. le Due de Bassano and M. Pietri, both of whom she introduced to me. Almost immediately afterward the Empress made her appearance, we ladies courtesying and the gentlemen bowing low.

Her Imperial Majesty welcomed me most kindly, hoped I had had a pleasant journey and had left my grandmother well; and then, after a ceremonious bow from the maitre d' hotel, who announced, "Le diner de sa Majeste est servi," the Due de Bassano offered the Empress his arm, M. Pietri took in Mme. Le Breton, and we three girls followed, passing into the dining-room at the end of the gallery.

It seemed strange to realize, a moment later, that I was comfortably seated at the Empress's table, and stranger still, that I did not feel a little out of it, as I probably should have done anywhere else on a first evening, but I suppose the charm and perfect good-breeding of the Empress account for my ease in these new surroundings. H. I. M. was very much struck, when Mme. Le Breton told her about my sejour first at Chislehurst, and then in the house the imperial party had just vacated in London.

"Vous voyez. Mademoiselle," she said, "le sort voulait absolument que nous nous connussions [You see. Mademoiselle, Fate was determined we should meet] !"

She asked me many questions about Chislehurst, — one of them when it was I first went there to live. I tried, but vainly, to avoid answering, as it was the sad year (1879) of the

Prince Imperial's death, and I saw tears gather in her eyes immediately I was forced into mentioning it.

After dinner, the two girls and I walked up and down the gallery for about half an hour with the Empress, who told us all sorts of interesting things about her past life. Then we went into the drawing-room and I was asked to play the piano ; my pieces were apparently much hked and the Empress seemed pleased and anxious for more. After a little while, thinking I might perhaps be giving them a dose, I left off, but the Empress said with so much insistence, "Encore un petit morceau, Mademoiselle, si vous n'etes pas f atiguee; vous nous faites tant de plaisir [Another piece please. Mademoiselle, if you are not tired; you give us so much pleasure]," that I acceded to her wish. At ten o'clock the gentlemen came in from the bilhard-room, and then, on a sign from the Empress, M. and A. got up, and kissed their aunt's hand (a custom in Spain). We three then shook hands with Mme. Le Breton and the gentlemen, courtesied to the Empress and retired.

Here follows the usual order of the day: At eight o'clock M., A. and I breakfasted in the dining-room at a little table laid for us in the bay-window. From eight-thirty to twelve we devoted ourselves to English and music. Then usimlly a tap at our door and a little visit from the Empress, with whom we nearty always went for our morning walk. At one o'clock luncheon all together; then another walk or drive — after which, at four-forty-five, rosary for the whole household in the chapel, the Empress herself saying all the prayers, both before and after. At five o'clock, afternoon tea all together in the salon du matin and after a more or less prolonged general conversation, the girls studied again till dressing-time at seven-thirty. At eight o'clock, dinner, after which our usual little walk up and down the gallery with the Empress, followed by needlework and conversation in the drawing-room, and bed at ten; — to begin again the same next day, till visitors or some unusual event occasioned some slight change of program. Farnborough Hill is a beautiful dwelling, much finer than Camden Place, the Empress's Chislehurst home for a good many years. Had it been possible for her to remain at Camden Place, she would never have made a move into Hampshire. Mr. Stroud, owner of Camden Place, would willingly have sold her his property, but the Empress could not succeed in getting possession of the adjoining land necessary for building the mausoleum for husband and son which she had set her heart on. In telling us about her efforts, she spoke with much sadness and not a little bitterness: explaining how hard it had been for her to beg permission to buy a little land wherein to bury her husband and son, and to be refused it by a man who owned such broad acres as did Mr. E., a rich German toymanufacturer, who seemed disinchned to sell an inch of land to the French Empress.

My letters, written at the time, give a most minute description of Farnborough Hill, and in the following pages I give some of the more important details, nearly always using the original words.

Farnborough Hill, February 28, 1886.

The accompanying plan gives a little idea of how the reception rooms all open out on to the first central gallery, or hall, which is about 120 feet long by 20 feet broad, and filled with most artistic and lovely things. Grouped about the entrance to the grand salon are two lovely Louis XVI arm-chairs, some smaller chairs of the same period, two sofas, footstools to match, and four beautiful cabinets with splendid Sevres plaques let in. These cabinets, even years ago, were each valued at 100,000 francs, according to Mme. Le

Breton. They belonged formerly to Napoleon Ill's mother, Queen Hortense, daughter of Josephine Beauliarnais (by a marriage previous to that with Napoleon Bonaparte) later the beautiful Creole Empress. At the lower extremity of the gallery are the Empress Eugenie's own private sitting-room and another called the "Prince

Imperial's room" ; beyond which, following along to the left, is a sweet little boudoir called petit salon de Vlinperatrice; then come, beyond, the handsome old carved staircase, le salon des dames used as a study, and the large salon die matin. Further on, three enormous oriel windows, in front of which are tiled jardinieres, whose fragrant flowers perfume all the gallery, and so on to the dining-room door which ends the gallery. On the wall opposite each oriel window hang magnificent Gobelins, three of a series of six, which is completed in the dining-room. They represent different episodes in the life of the illustrioiis Don Quixote, and are always much admired by connoisseurs.

Next in sequence, on our return down the gallery, comes the billiard-room; then the grand salon and the entrance to the handsome vestibule, and back again to the Empress's apartments, whence we started on our travels.

Farnborough Hill, February 28, 1886.

Scattered about among the Queen Hortense cabinets and other historic furniture, are palm trees, and a few good pieces of modern statuary by the best sculptors of the day, including a great number of busts. Napoleon I's immediate family has certainly not been neglected. They are all there: Charles Bonaparte, his father; Letitia, his mother, styled Madame Mere; his brothers — Josej^h, King of Spain, Jerome, King of Westphalia, and Louis, father of Napoleon III, King of Holland; Caroline, who married Joachim Murat, King of Naples; and finally, Eliza and Lucien, these two being the only ones of the family who never wore a crown. Then, too, there is a bust of the great man himself, and many of Napoleon III ; Queen Hortense ; Princess Mathilde; and Prince Napoleon-Louis, brother of Louis- Napoleon.

The walls of the gallery can boast some very fine paintings; a large, life-size portrait of the Empress and baby prince, by Winterhalter; a sweet one of the Duchesse de Mouchy, the Princesse Anna Murat, Her Imperial Majesty's niece ; and the Duchesse d'Albe, the Empress's own sister, also by Winterhalter; also a wonderful Sunset on the steppes of Russia by Aivasovski; An Eastern Woman; a Madonna with the Infant Jesus and St. John by W. Bouguereau, and others more or less important.

In the outer vestibule, which opens into the gallery opposite the old staircase, are also some fine canvases, and one in particular. The Empress and her Ladies, painted by Winterhalter in 1855. It is a large picture about 10 by 18 feet, I should say, containing a life-size portrait of Eugenie seated in the midst of her ladies-in-waiting. When she showed me this picture one day, she gazed at it in a wistful way, while naming the different ladies and expatiating on the beauty of nearly all of them. She specially pointed out the Princesse d'Essling, her grande maitresse (Mistress of the Robes) ; the Duchesse de Bassano, her dame d'honneur; the Comtesse de Montebello; the Vicomtesse Aguado ; the Marquise de Latour- Maubourg, and made interesting remarks about many of them. On either side of the handsomely carved fireplace hang life-size portraits of Prince

Eugene de Beauharnais (adopted son of Napoleon I) and his sister Princesse de Beauharnais

(Princesse en Baviere) both by Reisner. In front of these stands a bath chair, ornamented with gilding and pastel medallions, given by Queen Victoria to the Empress, when she, with the Emperor, came over to England as her guest to visit the first International Exhibition

Leaving the lower gallery and ascending the grand staircase, which half-way up branches off to right and to left, we come upon a very striking portrait of Napoleon I during the Italian campaign. He is mounted on a white charger, full of life, clambering up a steep snow-covered ascent in the Alps. This is by David, and has been reproduced under the title of Napoleon the Great Crossing Mount St. Bernard, May, 1800. An enormous picture by Gerard, Queen Hortense and her Two Boys, and Troops at Sunrise by Protais, are other paintings on the staircase. By the time we have passed a few other smaller pictures on our way up, we find ourselves in a gallery the counterpart of the one below. In this upper gallery, besides more statues and paintings, there are several glass show cases filled with all sorts of interesting autograph letters, etc.

Farnborough Hill, February 20, 1886.

After luncheon one Sunday, on returning from a little walk in the park with the Empress, she very kindly showed me over the reception rooms, telling me the history of the beautiful things in the vitrines, and pointing out the best paintings, etc. I certainly could not have had a more interesting cicerone. First we went into the grand salon, which is a large room about 30 feet square with a deep bay-window, and the ceiling like the dining-room, painted to imitate sky and clouds; there is also a simulated balcony covered with creeping roses, the perspective of which is so good, that you think you need only climb upon it, to find yourself in the open air. Some of the furniture is modem, but most of it old — Louis XVI meuhle — saved from the burning of the Tuileries, and covered with handsome Gobelins. In one corner of the room is the piano, in another a sofa, in front of which is the large oval table, around which we play cards or work of an evening. Here is where the Empress usually sits — bolt upright, but gracefully nevertheless and without stiffness, very rarely if ever leaning back. She has an inveterate hatred of modern sprawling.

On each side of the grand salon door are glass cabinets which contain interesting historical and other souvenirs, endless miniatures of the Empress Josephine, and a gold snuffbox, with a miniature of Napoleon I and his little son, le Roi de Rome, The Empress told me that Napoleon had this in his hand when he breathed his last at St. Helena. There is also a feather fan, brilliant with iridescent beetle-wings, the gold handle of which is set with large oriental pearls, given by the ladies of Algiers to the Empress during an official journey in 1860. In connection with it, she told me amusingly of her miseiy at a wedding in Algiers, in having constantly to swallow the jams and preserves made of violets and roses, which were presented at every minute. She remembered vividly also the penetrating smell of attar-of-roses which permeated even the food and nauseated her. A beautiful gold tea service brought back for her from India by the Prince of Wales after his official trip in 1875; a shapely little marble hand (that of Princess Maud of Wales) and some splendid jewels, given the Empress by the different cities of France, when during her husband's absence in the Crimean and other wars, she was three different times (1859; 1865; 1870) proclaimed Regente. A sweet little Union Jack, too, in diamonds, rubies and sapphires, given by Queen Victoria, after the signing of some treaty between England and France, and numberless other fascinating things.

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A TYPICAL MENU AT FARNBOROUGH HILL

In this room are some of the best and most important pictures of the house, nearly all life-size and full length, by Gerard or David, which is praise enough. Ehza and her daughter by David; the Empress Josephine; Louis, King of Holland, and his wife Hortense in their royal robes and insignia, all by Gerard. There are also two pastels, Princess Mathilde, the sister, and Princess Clotilde, the wife of Prince Napoleon (Plon-Plon), and two beautiful pictures, at least I call them that, a St. John and a copy of Raphael's Vierge a la Chaise, which are so marvelously executed that I had to be twice assured by the Empress before I could believe they really were mosaics. They had been sent for some faraway birthday, to the little Prince Imperial by Pope Pius IX, who was his godfather.

In the petit salon de I'lmperatrice there is no modern furniture, all is Louis XVI, and the pictures themselves are mostly of that epoch. A painting of Marie Antoinette by the celebrated Mme. Vigee-Lebrun, who mentions the sittings for that very portrait in her Memoirs, which I have just been reading; several Wouvermans; two delightful heads by Greuze ; a very sad looking head of poor little Louis XVII painted about the time of the Revolution, and several by Alexandre Couder and others.

In a glass case lies a pocket-knife and a few 17 other relics of Louis XVI. The Empress told me she had formerly possessed quantities of other things belonging to him, but they were all burnt at the Tuileries during the Commune. In another carefully locked case, there are more miniatures of the different Napoleons, and one representing the Due de Bassano's father, the first duke of that name and minister under Napoleon I ; a simple but very lovely diamond and sapphire ring, Empress Josephine's engagement ring; the Empress Eugenie's own marriage prayer book of repousse silver incrusted with diamonds; the Prince Imperial's noeud de premiere communion (a white ribbon badge he wore French fashion around his arm on his First Communion day) ; magnificently jeweled porte-bouquets presented by diff^erent towns during her journey in Algeria; and so many other beautiful and interestingthings, that it is impossible to enumerate them all today.

From the petit salon de VImperatrice I was taken one day by the Empress into the so-called cabinet du Prince. This was a great exception in my favor. It is a large room in which the Prince's things are arranged exactly as they were in the one he was occupying at Camden Place, Chislehurst, before leaving for Natal, — his writing materials and still unopened letters lying on his desk ! She told me, poor Empress, — crying bitterly all the time, — that though she did not really expect such a terrible blow, she never could shake off a strong presentiment of danger, and as soon as ever her son had started for Zululand (having wrung an unwilling consent from her), she had all his belongings covered up carefully, the place of each marked with a piece of chalk, and the room locked, that nothing might be touched. She said that the niglit before she learned the news of his death, she wakened up suddenly, hearing her son's voice distinctly calling her. Of course, her extreme anxiety might easily account for this, but she herself quite believed it was no hallucination, but his real cry of distress, — 31 ere! Mere — which reached her; telepathy in fact. The Empress showed me an album given her since that sad event by Queen Victoria. It contains sketches of the events of the Prince Imperial's entire English career, at Chislehurst and Woolwich, and during the fatal campaign in Natal. In this album is a water color representing the Last Bivouac; the Prince is depicted sitting on a little mound making a sketch, while the savages crept up stealthily behind him. The Empress afterward showed me the Prince's own sketch. In looking through the Prince's private photograph-album with his mother that day, among those of his relations and college friends I came across the picture of E. S., one of three very beautiful sisters, cousins of mine, who hved at Cliislehurst during the Prince's youthful years there. 1 had heard he was in love with E. S. and was told by Mme. Le Breton that he was often seen, when passing in and out of church, looking at her with admiring eyes. He gave her his photograph one evening, on returning from the opera while traveling down from London in the train. This was just before leaving for South Africa.

Nearly all round this cabinet du Prince are bookcases, containing his favorite books. On the mantelpiece stands an old clock formerly in Napoleon I's room at Longwood House, St. Helena; there is also a bronze bust of Napoleon III, and one of the Abbe Duguerry, one time the Prince's tutor, shot during the Commune. Near one of the windows is a beautifully carved silver bassinette, swinging between two solid imperial eagles, and decorated with the Prince's arms and those of the ville de Paris, a gift from the city at the time of his birth.

There are several veiled pictures in this same room, representing the tragic moment of the Prince's death, pierced with Zulu assagais. These the Empress passed rapidly by. Here also are two glass cases, containing all the little personal treasures and souvenirs of his father and of his childhood ; his first little uniform ; presents given him by sovereigns, among others a beautiful httle diamond-sheathed scimitar, from the Sultan of Turkey ; all of the personal effects he had with him at the Cape — his sketch-books, plans, maps, check books, and note-books, and also the sword (originally his father's) with which he so bravely defended himself on that fatal day against the Zulus, until overpowered by numbers.

In the center of one of these cases is a small ebony compartment. It contains the shirt stained with his blood and torn with assagais, together with the medal and gold chain his grandmother, Countess Monti jo, put around his neck at his birth. This he retained to the last, the Zulus being afraid, when stripping him of everything else, to touch it, thinking it was a charm. Over this sad little sanctum is written in large letters: "Que votre volonte soit faite [Thy will be done]," and in front of it on a slab is a little white marble cross, on which Princess Beatrice has painted very prettil}^ the word ''Fiat" surrounded by violets.

The Empress, naturally, did not open this compartment for me, but silently passed it by with a lingering look of infinite sadness and a sigh. Her nieces tell me she has never yet had the courage to look on these sad relics, and Uhlmann, the Prince's faithful body-servant, keeps the key. Most of the above named things of the Prince's were obtained from the Zulu king, Cetewayo, by Queen Victoria, through the instrumentahty of Sir Redyers Buller, or Sir Bartle Frere, the Empress said. Only one thing was never recovered ; it was destroyed through the ignorant superstition of the Zulus — and that was the Prince's watch. An old warrior who was questioned concerning it by Dr. Scott, when accompanying the Empress on her journey to Zululand in 1880, said very innocently: "The little beast, you mean? — Oh, we were afraid of it, so we killed it." Having no notion about the nature of mechanism, they thought the ticking of the watch indicated a live creature, and so they stamped it out of existence.

The Empress next took me into the dining-room, through looking-glass doors with gilt framework, saved from the Tuileries, and which make the already long gallery look interminable. It is a very handsomely proportioned room, about 45 feet long, the ceiling like that of the grand salon imitating clouds and sky, and the walls covered with priceless Gobelins framed with carved oak. There are two huge bay-windows, in one of which as I have already told you, our little breakfast table is placed. The parquet floor is highly pohshed and in the center, on a thick Turkey carpet, is the dining table. Though reallylarge, it looks almost lost in that immense room.

Over the large marble fireplace, in which a glorious wood fire now nearly always sparkles and crackles, is a bust of the Empress Marie Louise; and on each side of a very valuable Louis XVI dressoir stand two large gilt candelabra, each about seven or eight feet high, supported by Sevres figures. There, too, on one side, is a beautiful marble statue, L,' Innocence, and on a console a clock from Toledo, given the Empress by King Alfonso and Queen Christina of Spain, the case of which is most elaborately worked in steel and gold, a curious but rich effect.

Now for the dining table itself. In the center is a silver basket, well filled with growing ferns; salt-cellars and finger-bowls are placed around the table for everybody; and each person, too, has a toothpick, — to be used or not, according to inclination. I do not patronize mine, but I am the exception — the other diners use them conscientiously, I assure you! I shall be perhaps less horrified at the thought, as time goes on.

The chef sends up good and varied dinners, but never too long. The carving is done at a side table, and the food handed around in silver dishes by the maitre d' hotel, old Schmidt. The plates, with the exception of a few Sevres china ones used for dessert, are all plain silver, and have a large "N" and imperial crown engraved on the edge. This simple service, so called, now in every-day use, belonged formerly to the Emperor's campaigning kit. The regular table silver used at the Tuileries was stolen, so the Empress told us, before the burning of the palace. At Farnborough for grand occasions, when, for instance the Queen dines here, there appears a lovely and very complete vermeille service, which once belonged to Queen Hortense, the Emperor's mother. I, for my part, do not enjoy using it, for unaccustomed as I am to eating off such precious metal, I never can quite get over the impression that it is brass my food is resting on instead of silver gilt.

All the men-servants except an English under-butler, have been soldiers in the French army and are anciens serviteiirs des Tuileries. They look very trim standing behind the chairs, — soldierly, but less stiff and more human than the English flunky, and they serve so well! Every want is instantly noticed if not anticipated. Poor old Schmidt makes us all laugh sometimes, for as he hands around each dish his duty is to name it, and being very deaf and unable to control his own voice well, he often screams it out rather louder than necessary, to the surprise and amusement of every one. The menu is always headed thus: