She was as ready to solicit favors and pardons as was the Empress Josephine. Sometimes she was even sorely embarra.s.sed to find arguments in favor of her _proteges_. "_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 inst.i.tuted 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 Eugenie. 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 Eugenie were foreigners. She seems to have felt a certain distrust of Frenchwomen; and considering the ingrat.i.tude 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 amba.s.sador. 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 amba.s.sadress; "but _my_ empress is of royal birth.--a real empress; while yours, _ma chere_, was Mademoiselle de Montijo!"
Brought up in private life, not early trained to the self-abnegation demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugenie 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 fete-day, Dec. 15, 1868, after nearly sixteen years of marriage. The emperor had under his control a monthly magazine called "Le Dix Decembre," in which he often inserted articles from his own pen. The ma.n.u.script 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 Sacre 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 Compiegne,"
he also tells us, "nothing can be more attractive than five o"clock tea _a l"imperatrice_; though," he adds slyly, "sometimes she is a little too fond of argument."
a.s.suredly 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 Noe, 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 amba.s.sador.
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 a.s.serted earnestly that he had always been in sympathy with the country that had sheltered him in exile. Count Walewski, whom he sent over as amba.s.sador 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, a.s.sa.s.sination 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 a.s.sembled his great army for the invasion of England, decided to ascertain, through his amba.s.sador 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 FReRE,--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 frere_, I pray G.o.d to have you in his holy keeping.
NAPOLEON.
The prince accepted the invitation, addressing the emperor as "Sire et mon frere." 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."
d.i.c.kens, 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 const.i.tution, not easily excited, but gay and humorous when at his ease. His French is not without a little German accent, and his p.r.o.nunciation 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 inst.i.tutions, 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, a.s.sisted 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 cla.s.ses; 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."