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 NAPOLEON III. 
 
IS^APOLEON III. 
 
 (j/r recollections) 
 
 BY 
 
 SIE WILLIAM FRASER, BAKONET 
 
 M.A. OF Christchurch, Oxford : 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 LONDON SELF-GOVERNED : WORDS ON WELLINGTON : 
 
 DISRAELI AND HIS DAY : HIC ET UBIQUE. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 lAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 ^t. liunstan's fl^ouge; 
 
 Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 
 
 All rights reserved by the Author. 
 
PC 2>S 
 
 Y9> 
 
 r\ 
 
 HENRY MORSE STEPHENS 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS :— CHARLES WHITTIKGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCEKY LANE, LONDON. 
 
etc 
 
 NAPOLEON III. 
 
 NAPOLEON III. when living in 
 London as a young man proposed 
 marriage to two ladies, both of whom I had 
 the honour of knowing: I use the term 
 honour advisedly; f^r the lives of both 
 have shown them to be exemplary women. 
 
 One was the daughter of M' and M" 
 Rowles, who had a large house at the 
 North end of Stratton Street, Piccadilly. 
 The mother of this young lady was an 
 Italian : and may possibly have been con- 
 nected with the Buonaparte family. 
 
 M'* Rowles had been in her youth, as 
 my mother informed me, one of the most 
 beautiful women in Europe. When I knew 
 her, in advanced middle age, I could see 
 no trace of the charms which she had pos- 
 B 
 
 509673 
 
2 Napoleon III. 
 
 sessed ; except a lithe and very sinuous 
 figure ; and a very gentle manner. This 
 lady seems to have had, not only ' the fatal 
 gift of Beauty,' but something of that power 
 of Destiny, which Italians occasionally give 
 to those who are pre-eminent in this respect. 
 
 Residing for the Autumn at Ramsgate 
 with her husband, they became acquainted 
 with a young and rising lawyer. Nothing 
 was ever suggested that was not strictly 
 within the borders of propriety. There 
 can be no doubt that the young man became 
 the victim of one of those infatuations which 
 exist even in this prosaic century. Soon 
 after their return to Stratton Street, they 
 invited him to dine. He accepted the in- 
 vitation ; and showed no signs of emotion, 
 nor broken-heartedness. He went home 
 to his Chambers ; and destroyed himself 
 that night. Many years after this event 
 M" Rowles's husband, an elderly man, 
 whom I can remember, of the most prosaic 
 character, put an end to himself. 
 
 Their daughter, to whom the Emperor 
 
Napoleon III. 3 
 
 proposed marriage, some years later married 
 an Italian holding a high official position 
 under the Papal Government of Rome. 
 
 Prince Louis was a frequent visitor at 
 Camden House, Chislehurst, at that time 
 the property of M' and M'^ Rowles. It was 
 from this lady that I had a letter of per- 
 sonal introduction to the Prince soon after 
 his election to be President of the French 
 Republic : and it was at Camden House 
 that I had an interesting interview with 
 him not long before his death. Of this here- 
 after. 
 
 M" Rowles's second husband was General 
 James Craufurd, a descendant of my great 
 grand-uncle, Quintin Craufurd. 
 
 THE SECOND YOUNG LADY who 
 
 might have been an Empress was the 
 daughter of an Officer of noble Irish family; 
 who served on the Staff at Waterloo ; and 
 was wounded there. Her mother, of a 
 great English family, was the adopted 
 daughter of M" Fitzherbert, well known in 
 
4 ' Napoleon III. 
 
 her relation to George lY. To this adopted 
 daughter M" Fitzherbert bequeathed her 
 large house in Tilney Street, Park Lane, at 
 present occupied by Lord Manvers. The 
 young lady married a nobleman holding a 
 high position in the West of England. 
 
 The marriage took place in Devonshire ; 
 at that time 
 
 ' Penitus toto divisus orbe : * 
 
 the nearest railway station to his Lordship's 
 place being at Tiverton. Prince Louis with 
 chivalrous loyalty attended the wedding : 
 he travelled from Tiverton to the ancestral 
 mansion of the bridegroom in company with 
 the bride's brother; w^ho subsequently in- 
 herited his family Earldom. In the post- 
 chaise he communicated to his companion 
 the fact that King Louis Philippe had given 
 him ten days to escape from his prison at 
 Ham : that he was liberated by the sanction 
 of the King. This was told to m^ by the 
 recipient of the statement many Vears ago. 
 After a long interval I put to him the 
 
Napoleon III. 5 
 
 question as regards this fact; and received 
 precisely the same particulars. 
 
 I have carefully read the account of 
 the escape in ' The Prisoner of Ham/ a 
 book evidently published by authority : I 
 can find nothing inconsistent with this 
 statement. 
 
 I believe that the friend mentioned as 
 providing a pass-port was Lord Malmes- 
 bury. 
 
 AFTER the presentation of my note of 
 introduction, I was invited to an evening 
 partjT- at the Palace of the Elysee Bourbon. 
 Lord Normanby, at the time our Ambas- 
 sador in Paris, introduced me. 
 
 Prince Louis' residence when in London 
 was, P King Street, Saint James's Square : 
 the house bears one of those light blue plaques 
 which seem to be unworthy of The Society 
 of Arts, who placed them: there being in 
 every case a horizontal line between the 
 proper name and the verb. 
 
 When he entered London with the Em- 
 
6 Napoleon III. 
 
 press he pointed down King Street from 
 Saint James's Street. 
 
 SOON AFTER Prince Louis was elected 
 President, I witnessed a Review in the 
 Bois de Boulogne of the Garrison of Paris 
 by General Changarnier. The General 
 wore a brown wig; his uniform, and 'make 
 up * being somewhat old-fashioned. When 
 about half the column had marched past the 
 President cantered up, followed only by a 
 groom; riding, as he invariably did, a 
 handsome English horse. He was in plain 
 clothes, without decoration. He and 
 General Changarnier exchanged salutes; 
 very deferential on the part of the Em- 
 peror; and courteous on that of the 
 General. I could see distinctly in the 
 latter's face that he held the man bearing 
 the august name of Napoleon very cheap. 
 He little knew Avhat was comincr. 
 
 The dress of the Emperor, from the first 
 occasion on which I saw him riding in 
 Rotten Row, was not that of a man who 
 
Napoleon ITT. 7 
 
 knew how to dress. It was not the least 
 careless : it was precisely contrary to the 
 term of the author of ' Pelham,' a ' studied 
 neglige :^ it was distinctly what the French 
 call apprete : represented in some measure 
 by the British term 'got up: ' but without 
 success. I should say that he was dressed 
 after the fashion-books: with considerable 
 tightness; yet not neat: his clothes in- 
 variably of sombre colours; trousers 
 strapped down; a frock coat always but- 
 toned : at that time unusual. 
 
 At no time of his life could the Emperor 
 have been handsome. I remember at Ox- 
 ford an Undergraduate known in Christ- 
 church as ' the sick vulture.' I should 
 say the ornithological resemblance of the 
 Emperor was a sick eagle: his head held 
 slightly on one side ; an abstracted look ; 
 his eyes small, and not at all prominent ; 
 his hair of a fine texture, not profuse; and 
 lying fiat on his head. 
 
 I remember at this period quoting to a 
 3'oung lady in Kensington Gardens from a 
 
8 Napoleon III. 
 
 French newspaper. ' His air is gentle as a 
 young girl: proud as that of a warrior: ' 
 she replied, '' Why he's 'ardly any 'air at 
 all!" This was not true: his hair, which 
 was very fine, was of a dull brown ; it was 
 not allowed to grow long. 
 
 Napoleon II I. 's closest resemblance to the 
 Buonaparte family was in his back. I have 
 seen him and his uncle Jerome, ex- King of 
 Westphalia, riding together at a Review : 
 one could hardly tell one from the other, 
 when seen from behind. 
 
 His feet were not badly shaped, but un- 
 meaning: his hands large, and muscular;' 
 with exceptionally short thumbs. When 
 in uniform his breast was perfectly smooth ; 
 a padded style of uniform. Whether under 
 this he wore, as some believed, a thin coat 
 of chain-mail I do not know : but, did he do 
 so, it was not observable. 
 
 On the morning of the day on which the 
 very serious attempt was made to assassi- 
 nate him near the Opera-House, by means 
 of explosive shells, he happened to drive 
 
Napoleon III. 9 
 
 past the statue of Henri lY. on the Pont 
 Neuf : he remarked to a friend, " The only 
 man whom a Monarch need fear is the man 
 with a knife : that man must be prepared 
 to sacrifice his own life : the others need not 
 be so/' 
 
 I have seen the Emperor in various 
 uniforms : that in which he looked best was 
 a feather-edged, deep-laced cocked-hat, of 
 a somewhat Spanish form ; gold epaulettes ; 
 with the dark blue coat of a French Gene- 
 ral; gold sash; and very full red trousers, 
 with black stripes : not the scarlet worn by 
 some ranks of Officers ; but of the dark red 
 cloth, garance^ of the French Infantry. 
 
 The Uniforms, military, or civil, with the 
 profusion of gold lace on the breast, and 
 elsewhere, seemed too much for him. He 
 looked worst when he wore a costume re- 
 sembling his uncle; the ball-dress of some 
 Cavalry Regiment. 
 
 Napoleon I/s usual dress was that of the 
 Imperial Guard; with white breeches; silk 
 stockings; and buckled shoes. 
 
10 Napoleon IIL 
 
 I once saw Napoleon III. in this dress at 
 a State Ball at the Tuileries. It did not 
 suit him : he was too long in the body and 
 too short in the legs; the latter were not 
 good. 
 
 On horseback he looked well. He had a 
 very good seat; dignified without being 
 stiff: his horses exceptionally tall; and 
 w^ell bred; but not weedy: the horse and 
 the man made a good ensemble : the effect 
 was decidedly picturesque; without appa- 
 rently being studied. 
 
 On one memorable occasion, which I 
 may mention later in this volume, I danced 
 vis-a-vis to the Emperor : it was at a Ball 
 given by the British Ambassadress, Lady 
 Cowley, on the evening when the news 
 arrived of the signature of the Treaty of 
 Peace between Britain, France, and Russia. 
 In compliment to the occasion he was 
 dressed quite a VAnglaise: blue evening 
 coat, with gilt buttons, and velvet collar : a 
 white waistcoat ; black breeches ; black 
 silk stockings ; and buckled shoes : his only 
 
Napoleon III. 11 
 
 decoration that of the Garter ; the blue 
 ribbon crossing his waistcoat; the Star on 
 the left breast; and the Garter below the 
 left knee. 
 
 AMONG the various politic acts of the 
 future Emperor, when President, was the 
 care and minute attention which he bestowed 
 on the Regiments of the French Army. He 
 did all that was possible to enable the 
 French pietons^ mostly recruited from 
 country districts, to enjoy the delights, real 
 or imaginary, of the brilliant capital of 
 those days. 
 
 Whereas the Assembly showed indif- 
 ference in these matters, the President was 
 always careful to enable the French soldier 
 to enjoy life so much as possible. 
 
 After every great review held by him- 
 self, he treated the soldiers to something 
 palatable in food and liquor: and was 
 soon looked upon by each private soldier as 
 a personal friend. 
 
 The cheering by troops and companies, 
 
12 Napoleon III. 
 
 as they marched past on the many occasions 
 on which I saw them, was conventional: 
 the sounds being emitted with the same 
 formal regularity as their muskets were 
 shouldered, and their swords drawn: but 
 there is no doubt that the Emperor's pru- 
 dent conduct in this respect won for him an 
 enormous amount of cordiality from the 
 hitherto neglected recruit. 
 
 I remember upon one occasion a stout 
 young woman, the Vivandiere of a Regiment 
 of Chasseurs, making decided demonstrations 
 towards the King of Italy, who accompanied 
 the Emperor. 
 
 TO HIS SIX YEARS' imprisonment at 
 Ham I attribute, in a great measure. 
 Napoleon III.'s achieving the Sovereignty 
 of France. At a time when his intellect 
 was mature, and when his experience of 
 mankind was considerable, he was com- 
 pelled to reflect, and to consider deeply the 
 means of reaching the object of his 
 ambition. 
 
Napoleon III. IS 
 
 Thoroughly versed in the history of the 
 successes and failures of his uncle, he had 
 the shrewdness to meditate on them; and 
 the good sense to determine to avoid 
 Napoleon I.'s errors. The failure of 
 Napoleon I., particularly as regards our 
 country, were the failures of a man who 
 took a conventional view of human nature. 
 He failed in a great measure because he 
 forced into unappeasable enmity a race who 
 are not conventional. 
 
 In his views of mankind in general he 
 had much correctness. He knew nothing 
 of the British race : and they destroyed him. 
 Napoleon III. had advantages, in this 
 respect, of which his uncle knew nothing : 
 he had lived among us ; he had associated 
 with men and women of various classes : 
 and he had in himself a just appreciation of 
 the British character. This, aided by ex- 
 perience, prevented him quarrelling with 
 a people with whom he had a natural 
 sympathy. 
 
 Soon after he came to the throne he said, 
 
14 Napoleon III. 
 
 *' I must have twenty-five years' peace with 
 England, to consolidate my Dynasty." 
 
 The animosity, arising partly from 
 policy, but more from the personal vanity 
 of the First Napoleon, induced him to 
 oppose Britain: and his ill-judged efforts 
 to attack us in our commercial relations 
 ended in his consummate defeat. Napoleon 
 III. made no such mistake. 
 
 ONE OF THE FIRST HOUSES in 
 
 which the future Emperor was entertained 
 on his arrival in England, after his escape 
 from Ham, was Craven Cottage, Fulliam: 
 for many years the property of my step- 
 father: and here were given by my mother 
 the most brilliant afternoon entertainments 
 that London has known for several genera- 
 tions. 
 
 At the time of the Prince's escape it was 
 the property of the first Lord Lytton : 
 in it he wrote the two novels, * Ernest 
 Maltravers,' and the sequel, 'Alice, or the 
 Mysteries ' : in the former he describes it. 
 
Napoleon III. 15 
 
 The breaking down of the wall which 
 
 ])rotected the place from the Thames 
 
 destroyed the property a few years after it 
 
 had been sold by my step-father: and 
 
 noAV 
 
 ' Etiam periere ruinao.' 
 
 The Emperor describes it in a letter to a 
 friend as ' the most delightful villa/ 
 
 The future Empress was present, as 
 Mademoiselle Montijo, at some of my 
 mother, Lady Howard's parties at Craven 
 Cottage. 
 
 THE HOUSE which the Emperor occu- 
 pied, P King Street, Saint James's Square, 
 was neither the mesquin abode described by 
 his enemies, nor was there anything Princely 
 about it. It was sensibly chosen ; as being 
 within what was described by Theodore 
 Hook as the only real World ; bounded on 
 the West by Saint James's Street; on the 
 East by the Haymarket; on the North by 
 Piccadilly; on the South by Pall Mall. It 
 
16 Napoleon III. 
 
 was adjacent to the Club, of which he was 
 elected an Honorary Member, ' The Army 
 and Navy.' 
 
 I may here observe that the name by 
 which the Club is irreverently spoken of, 
 ' The Rag and Famish,' was far older than 
 Thackeray's time. He speaks of ' Ensign 
 Kag,' and 'Cornet Famish;' but the name 
 was much earlier. 
 
 THERE WAS ONE CLUB to which the 
 Emperor did not belong: election to which 
 he would have valued, so far as such things 
 can be valued, at an enormous sum. Never 
 has so great, so just, so discriminating a 
 tribunal existed as was the White's Club of 
 that period. 
 
 ' White's ' was then a tribunal whose 
 approval was worth all the honours, and 
 decorations, of European Society: and af- 
 forded to those who analyze human nature 
 in its social relations a most interestinsf 
 study. 
 
Napoleon III. 17 
 
 It is sad to think that such an august 
 Court has perished. 
 
 At the worst period of the first French 
 Revolution, even in the Reign of Terror, 
 there were forty men in French Society 
 whose bad opinion no one dared to incur. 
 This was the position which 'White's' 
 held. I have quoted in another work the 
 opinion which the Duke of Wellington had 
 of ' White's bow window ' : and no one 
 who has had experience but will confirm 
 that wise man's view. 
 
 Disraeli in ' Venetia ' makes his idealized 
 d'Orsay, the intimate friend of Napoleon 
 III. in his days of exile, a member of 
 ' White's.' This he never was. He used 
 to come across from ' Crockford's' ; and talk 
 with his friends in the entrance-hall of the 
 Club : but he was never elected a member. 
 
 The Garter and to be a member of 
 'White's' Disraeli places as the highest 
 of human distinctions. 
 
 ONE GRANDE DAME ^Y\io\\o\:i(iQi\ Louis 
 c 
 
18 Napoleon III. 
 
 Napoleon, and who, with her husband, re- 
 cognized his pretensions, was Frances Ann, 
 Marchioness of Londonderry. Sarah, Lady 
 Jersey, on the contrary, who was at that 
 time the supreme head of London society, 
 absolutely refused to give him any position. 
 "With her vigorous appreciation of the 
 monarchical system, with its traditions of 
 many hundred years, the Buonaparte family 
 would not be acknowledged. 
 
 That the Emperor was not a man to for- 
 get his friends nor his enemies is shown 
 by the fact that when Lady Londonderry 
 visited Paris during his J^residency, he 
 walked alone to call upon her at her hotel ; 
 whereas, when seated on the throne as 
 Emperor, he declined to receive Lady Jersey 
 until the Duke of Cambridge, who was in 
 Paris at the time, requested him to do so. 
 
 THE SPEECH which the 'President for 
 Ten years ' made at Bordeaux was almost an 
 absolute avowal of his intention to become 
 Emperor of France. 
 
Napoleon II F. 19 
 
 These words were most significant : '' I 
 may say with a candour, so far removed 
 from pride as from false modesty, that 
 never did a people more directly, more 
 spontaneously, more unanimously, testify a 
 determination to free itself from uneasiness 
 respecting the future by placing in the 
 same hands as heretofore a power which 
 sympathizes with its feelings." He added : 
 ^' In 1852. Society ajDproached its Dissolu- 
 tion because each party consoled itself with 
 the belief that amid the general wreck it 
 might still plant its standard on the float- 
 ing fragments." He speaks of the pre- 
 tended reformers of that day as mere 
 visionaries : that the nation surrounded 
 him with its sympathies because " he did 
 not belong to the family of ideologists." 
 " For these reasons, it seems, France de- 
 sires a return to the Empire. To one 
 objection I will reply: certain minds enter- 
 tain a dread of War: certain persons say 
 the Empire is only War. I say the Empire 
 is Peace : for France desires it. When 
 
20 Xapoleon III. 
 
 France is satisfied, the world is tranquil. 
 Woe be to him who gives the first signal 
 of a Coalition : the consequences of which 
 would be incalculable." 
 
 He spoke of *' assimilating the vast 
 country opposite Marseilles to France." 
 
 In the midst of this glorification, Louis 
 Xapoleon did not forget to perform an act 
 of genuine kindness and chivalry. On his 
 road to Paris the President stopped at 
 the Chateau d'Amboise, where the Arab 
 Chief Ab del Kader had long been impri- 
 soned. He said to the prisoner, '' Your 
 captivity has caused me real affliction : for 
 it incessantly reminded me that the Govern- 
 ment which preceded me had not observed 
 the engagement entered into towards an 
 unfortunate enemy." Thus at the same 
 time performing a generous act; and strik- 
 ing a blow at the Orleans dynasty. 
 
 IN THE YEAR 1856. being at Spa in 
 Belgium, and not finding the place amusing, 
 I agreed with Huddleston^ Q.C , afterwards 
 
Xapoleon hi. 2i 
 
 Baron Iluddleston, who delighted in the 
 title, ' The last of the Barons,' being the 
 last Baron of the Exchequer created, and 
 MacCalrnont of the North of Ireland and 
 Grosvenor Place, who died some years 
 later leaving four millions sterling, of which 
 one at least I think he ought to have be- 
 queathed to each of his fellow-travellers, I 
 agreed to make a short tour in the Pyre- 
 nees: this we accomplished for a month 
 with great satisfaction : making an arrange- 
 ment which I recommend to other travellers. 
 We took it in turns to have, day by day, the 
 command : whoever w^as in command for 
 the day had the choosing of the route, the 
 distance, the hotel, his room, the amuse- 
 ments if any. 
 
 The Emperor and Empress were residing 
 at the ViUa Eugenie at Biarritz. 
 
 We had purchased at Bayonne three 
 caps of cloth, something like the Lowland 
 bonnet; one red, one white, one blue; in 
 which we walked about the watering place : 
 earning, no doubt, from the French resi- 
 
22 NAroiEON III. 
 
 dents, the familiar title of ^les Anglais 
 excentriques.^ 
 
 We occasionally saw the Emperor driving 
 in a brake; accompanied by ladies; and 
 apparently very cheerful. We left our 
 names in his book: a few days later I 
 was invited to an evening party at the 
 Villa Eugenie : and subsequently to 
 another. 
 
 Soon after our arrival at Biarritz three 
 bull-fights took place at Bayonne. They 
 were specially arranged for the gratification 
 of the Emperor and Empress; and were, 
 according to MacCalmont, who had seen 
 many in Mexico, where he said they ex- 
 celled those of Spain, perfect of their sort. 
 Bull-fights have been described frequently 
 and with graphic power. 
 
 By far the best account is in the Intro- 
 duction to Ford's 'Handbook to Spain/ 
 The entire work is worth purchasing; if 
 only for the Introduction, in which the de- 
 scription occurs. *^- 
 
 A very large arena was erected in an 
 
Napoleon III. 23 
 
 open space in Bayonne. Many tliousand 
 persons attended. 
 
 The first bull-fight interested us very 
 much. No horses were present. 
 
 I remember a few years later, speaking 
 with Disraeli on the subject of bull-fights, 
 saying to him, ^' There is one great 
 moment." He said at once, "Yes! when 
 the bull comes in.'' 
 
 The demeanour of the bulls, of which 
 there were a very large number killed, I 
 should say nearly thirty in the two bull- 
 fights which I saw, was, with a very few 
 exceptions, identical. Some showed more 
 fight than others ; and were apparently 
 more ferocious : but the same behaviour 
 appeared in all. At first Astonishment, 
 next Anger, but not Fury; for they re- 
 tained their senses to the last; then Fear, 
 and a desperate wish to escape. The 
 popular idea, that when a bull charges he 
 loses consciousness of where he is going, is 
 quite a mistake : he lowers his head ; but 
 he observes carefully the direction in which 
 
24 Napoleon III. 
 
 he c;in place his horns. The bull- fighters 
 when hard pressed climb over the palisad- 
 ing into the passage between the spectator 
 and the arena : in so doing their legs are 
 exposed ; and I observed several times that 
 the bull moved his head to the right or left, 
 in his endeavours to drive one horn through 
 the leg of his escaping foe. 
 
 In every case of a hat or other garment 
 being dropped by the pursued, the bull 
 invariably stopped for a few seconds to 
 examine it. 
 
 On one occasion only a man was knocked 
 down : and the bull did his best to rip him 
 open : fortunately for him the bulPs horns 
 were so long that he could not get them 
 down low enough to reach the man's body : 
 he tore off his outer clothes, amid the most 
 frenzied shouts of the audience. " Well 
 done. Bull! " was repeated by thousands 
 of voices: in fact the all but successful 
 attack of the bull was greeted with more 
 enthusiasm than repeatedly brave acts of 
 the fighting men. Though the bull's fate 
 
Napoleon III. 25 
 
 Avas sealed, and his death inevitable, one 
 felt that there was something of fairness 
 between the enormous strength of the 
 animal and the skill of the men, who 
 jeopardized their lives for a considerable 
 sum of money. 
 
 The skill of the final act was extra- 
 ordinary: with a short sword, not much 
 longer than an ordinary umbrella, the prin- 
 cipal actor in the scene waves a small red 
 flag : the bull charges, and doubles : on his 
 return, the man slipping aside passes the 
 sword into the bull's back under the near 
 shoulder-blade. Usually the sword was 
 left in the animal : but on one occasion he 
 drew it out as quietly as from a scabbard ; 
 saluted the Emperor and Empress, imme- 
 diately in front of whose box this occurred ; 
 Aviped his sword : and returned it to the 
 scabbard with the most perfect sang froid. 
 The bull on this occasion staggered a few 
 yards; apparently not much injured: then 
 fell absolutely dead ; without the slightest 
 movement. 
 
26 Napoleon III. 
 
 A week later another Bull Fight took 
 place : on this occasion there was a still 
 larger audience : the Emperor and Empress 
 appeared, the former in the full uniform of 
 a General, the latter in a most becoming 
 mantilla, and black dress : they both looked 
 slightly pale on taking their seats : whether 
 they doubted their reception or, what was 
 very possible, threats had been sent to 
 them as regards possible attack, I do not 
 know. 
 
 On the second occasion there were a large 
 number of mounted men in the arena; not, 
 as shown in pictures, mounted upon fiery 
 steeds, glowing with courage, and eager for 
 the fight ; but borne by the most miserable 
 creatures ever seen in the shape of horses. 
 I wondered where such wretched beings 
 could be collected : the poorest quadruped 
 in the shafts of a London night cab would 
 be an Ormonde compared to them : Their 
 very sight ought to, and would, provoke 
 intense pity in the breast of any but the 
 most cruel and hardened. The first bull 
 
Napoleon III. 27 
 
 charged six of these in succession and 
 ripped every one open. The men on their 
 backs ran no risk whatever: instead of 
 charging the bull, as pictured, they kept 
 the unfortunate horse standing quite still : 
 and almost more horrible than the impact 
 of the bull's horns was the terror shown by 
 the poor beasts by their violent perspira- 
 tion : the right eye, towards the bull, was 
 covered with a bandage: and the poor 
 creatures had nothing for it but to await 
 their fate. I will not describe the horrors 
 that took place. I remember one horse 
 whom the bull caught between the forelegs 
 spouting a positive fountain of blood, till 
 he dropped dead. One bull killed twelve 
 horses. 
 
 I observed from the moment that the 
 first horse was killed the Emperor never 
 raised his eyes for a moment from the bill 
 of the performance, which was lying in 
 front of him : indeed the man who had 
 finally to despatch the bulls was obliged to 
 come quite underneath the Imperial box to 
 
28 Napoleon III. 
 
 ask permission ; and even then the Emperor 
 appeared at first not to see him. 
 
 We had tickets for a third performance ; 
 but none of us wished to go. 
 
 Horrible scenes are not wanting in the 
 element of humour. Huddleston and 
 MacCalmont had both English servants ; the 
 former a professional courier, the latter a 
 thoroughly English footman. We had dis- 
 cussed the matter as to whether we should 
 give our respective attendants a ticket for 
 the bull- fights. I think Huddleston said 
 * Certainly not.' I am quite sure that 
 I said that paying the wages that I did, my 
 courier might go or not as he liked : 
 MacCalmont said on the contrary that it was 
 the only opportunity that his servant would 
 have of seeing a bull-fight : he had no 
 doubt the man would very much like to go 
 etc. etc. etc. and that he should present 
 him with a ticket. The carnage which 
 I have described had not long begun, when 
 on the opposite side of the arena, a long 
 distance from us, a commotion was visible : 
 
Napoleon 111. 29 
 
 I borrowed MacCalmont's opera-glasses; 
 and I confess it was not without a sensation 
 of pleasure that I rapidly observed what 
 had taken place. Turning to MacCalmont 
 I described how some poor man, endowed 
 with more kindness of heart, more gentle 
 feelings, and a deeper love of animals, than 
 the rest of the audience, had been so over- 
 come that it appeared that his life had 
 departed : that a body was being handed 
 over the heads of the persons assembled in 
 the cheaper places ; and that it had all the 
 appearance of a corpse. 
 
 MacCalmont expressed the deepest dis- 
 tress that such a contretemps should have 
 occurred. Huddleston, although a Q.C., 
 uttered some words of real or pretended 
 sympathy. 
 
 The reader may picture my delight, after 
 in the morning receiving a lecture on 
 humanity from MacCalmont, to be able 
 to add that the corpse seemed to be that of 
 an Englishman, probably sent to this 
 liorrible scene against his will, by some 
 
30 Napoleon III. 
 
 cruel master : I saw MacCalmont's face 
 change; and it was with honest pleasure 
 and perfect truth, that I added " I see now : 
 it is your servant ! " . 
 The man recovered. 
 
 WHILST STAYING AT BIARRITZ, I 
 
 was invited to two balls given by the 
 Emperor and Empress, at the Villa 
 Eugenie, situated close to the sea. To 
 the first ball I arrived somewhat late. The 
 Duke of Bassano informed me that the 
 Emperor had been anxious I should be 
 presented to him. 
 
 The Emperor danced several dances : 
 and seemed in perfect health. Standing 
 immediately in front of me, in a pause of a 
 waltz, I heard him say, it may have been 
 intended for my ear, " I have not felt so 
 well for a long time : " there had been 
 remarks anent his health. 
 
 He retired with the Empress into a 
 window-recess of the ball-room ; and read to 
 her a letter of some length; apparently 
 
Kapoleon hi. 31 
 
 consulting her as to its contents : at the end 
 he folded up the letter; and I observed 
 that, as they left the ball-room, the 
 Empress was in tears. 
 
 On the week after, at the second ball, 
 I was determined to be in time: when I 
 reached the Villa Eugenie I was shown into 
 the drawing-room : a vast number of books 
 were lying on the table ; many of them of a 
 sacerdotal or episcopal character: they 
 appeared to be presentation copies to the 
 Empress ; and many were signed to that 
 effect by the Bishops and Archbishops of 
 France. 
 
 A number of ' Punch ' was on the table ; 
 lying open at a cartoon called " The Climax 
 of the War." It depicted Palmerston, wear- 
 ing the mask of Britannia, assisting Napoleon 
 to crown the Emperor of Russia. 
 
 Previously to leaving the Hotel where 
 we lodged, my two friends said to me, 
 ''The first question you will be asked will be, 
 ' Did you like the bull-fights ? ' " the second 
 of which had taken place on that day. I 
 
32 Napoleon III. 
 
 replied '' I shall say ' No.' " My host and 
 hostess however were far too well bred to 
 ask any such question. On their entering 
 the drawing-room from the dining-room 
 they received me most cordially. On a 
 marble slab was the broad tricolor cockade 
 and ribbon which had decorated the finest 
 of the bulls. Glancing at this, the Empress 
 said ''You were interested in the bull- 
 fight ? " To this I could conscientiously 
 reply " Yes." The Emperor said " Have 
 you seen them in Spain?" "Never." 
 " You have been in Spain ? " " So far as 
 Saint Sebastian, Sire.'' " Ah I what an 
 interesting road that is: not a mile but 
 what has been the scene of an historical 
 event." 
 
 The Ball was finished by a dance called 
 ' Le Boulanger,' a sort of cotillon : in one 
 figure of which the ladies in succession 
 throw up their handkerchiefs to be caught 
 by the most adroit of the gentlemen pre- 
 sent. I assumed that Avhen the Empress 
 threw up her handkerchief it was previously 
 
Napoleon III. 33 
 
 determined who should catch it : a scramble 
 under these circumstances would have been 
 unseemly. 
 
 The dance lasted a very long time : and 
 the men who played, the band belonging 
 to a line Regiment quartered at Biarritz, 
 must have found their powers woefully 
 taxed. I heard someone say '' They must 
 be very tired." The Empress replied 
 " They must be dead:" soon after the Ball 
 finished. 
 
 WHILE AT BIARRITZ we agreed to 
 cross the frontier into Spain : and had a 
 very pleasant excursion : there is hardly a 
 corner of Europe where in so small a space 
 such great events have occurred. 
 
 I have always been sorry that on the day 
 on which we entered Saint Sebastian I was 
 not ' in command.' I tried to persuade my 
 friends that by going to the theatre at once, we 
 arrived at about nine o'clock in the evening, 
 we should get a better idea of the Spaniards, 
 their appearance, manners, and customs, 
 
 D 
 
34 Napoleon III. 
 
 than in any other method : I did not pre- 
 vail. Both Huddleston and MacCalmont 
 however were candid enough subsequently 
 to express their regret that they had not 
 yielded to my efforts. They preferred a 
 walk round the ramparts: I pointed out 
 the precise spot by which the British 
 forces entered. The British army had 
 been endeavouring to break in on the 
 Western side; without effect: The Duke 
 of Wellington rode over one morning to 
 observe proceedings ; and at once pointed out 
 that the weak side of Saint Sebastian was 
 towards the East. When told that a 
 branch of the sea offered an obstacle he 
 showed that at low water the troops could 
 ford a passage. 
 
 His plan was adopted and Saint Sebas- 
 tian fell. 
 
 I am afx*aid that at few successful sieges 
 was more barbarity shown. Those of the 
 British army who had fought their way 
 from the coast of Portugal to the borders of 
 France were first-rate in every way : but 
 
Napoleon III. 35 
 
 necessity compelled the addition of many 
 men who were the rakings of the gaols : 
 and whose first object in entering a town 
 was plunder; the next useless murder. 
 Among them was a man who subsequently 
 became notorious as the murderer of M' 
 Weare, near Edgware : his name was 
 Thurtell. At his trial he whimpered, and 
 whined his regret that fate had not enabled 
 him to die for his country : the facts being, 
 as he admitted to his personal friends, that 
 the day after the taking of Saint Sebastian, 
 he had observed a French Officer, whom he 
 guessed to have money about him ; he con- 
 fessed that in cold blood he had run the 
 wounded man through the body for the sole 
 purpose of plundering him. 
 
 Nothing can be more picturesque, nor 
 pathetic, than the burial-place of the British 
 Officers and men who fell in this desperate 
 engagement : it is on a plateau about half 
 way up the mountain. 
 
 Previous to our climbing the heights a little 
 incident occurred. Far above us on one of 
 
36 Napoleon III. 
 
 the upper slopes we observed three ladies : 
 their faces were not visible. Huddleston 
 Q.C. said "Now, what country do those 
 people belong to ? " MacCalmont said '' I 
 think they are Germans.'' Huddleston, 
 after consideration, " No, I think they are 
 English." He turned to me, and added, 
 ''Where do you think they come from ?" 
 I replied at once "Ireland." MacCalmont 
 irreverently said, " Do you mean to say 
 that at that distance you can see a difference 
 between an Englishwoman and an Irish- 
 woman ? '' I replied *' I can.'' Half an 
 hour elapsed before we reached the topmost 
 battery. There were the three ladies, con- 
 templating the prospect of the blue Medi- 
 terranean. When they turned round, I at 
 once recognized valued friends : a mother, 
 and her two daughters : the former was 
 not only the wife of an Irish Marquess, 
 but was the sister of an Irish Marquess. 
 When we got out of the hearing of the 
 Ladies I indulged in an intellectual crow 
 at the expense of my friends : As to 
 
Napoleon III. 37 
 
 how I knew the difference I decline to 
 explain. 
 
 As regards the town of Irun which lies 
 between the border of Spain and Saint 
 Sebastian, I may say that I think that the 
 choosing of such a title by Sir de Lacy 
 Evans, who commanded the British detach- 
 ment which took part in the Civil War in 
 Spain, was characteristic of his countrymen. 
 
 I well remember, as a boy, his candida- 
 ture for the City of Westminster; and a 
 man carrying on high a board on which 
 was depicted an Officer in British uniform 
 with cocked hat etc. escaping to the rear: 
 underneath, as might have been expected, 
 was printed in large letters COUNT I 
 RUN. 
 
 AN INCIDENT occurred during my stay 
 at Biarritz illustrating the unceasing watch- 
 fulness necessary in relation to the person 
 of the Emperor. 
 
 Calling on M' Graham, who, though 
 brother to Sir James Graham, Secretary of 
 
38 Napoleon III. 
 
 State for the Home Department, held the 
 comparatively humble office of Consul at 
 Bayonne, I found him closeted with 
 three individuals ; two of them of most 
 sinister aspect. Between these two was a 
 tall portly man, dressed in a long white 
 waterproof coat. M' Graham asked me 
 what I thought of the situation ; which was 
 this. The individual in the centre had 
 just been brought to him by the others, 
 who were of the police in plain clothes. 
 The stout man had stepped, an hour earlier 
 from the train from Paris : on being asked 
 for his pass-port he had none. Being asked 
 who he was, he replied that he had come 
 from Le Havre through Paris to witness the 
 bull-fights which were then taking place. 
 This story appeared so improbable to the 
 police that he had been brought before the 
 British Consul: the man having stated that 
 he was a British subject : and that he had 
 come from British Guiana. 
 
 I suggested to M' Graham that the 
 accused and the accusers mio^ht know that 
 
Napoleon III. 39 
 
 we were discussing them. I watched their 
 faces : M' Graham's reply, that they did not 
 understand a word, was confirmed. The 
 prisoner produced letters addressed to him ; 
 and so far there appeared to be nothing 
 suspicious : but his story was certainly a 
 lame one. That a man should come all the 
 way from South America, land at Le 
 Havre, pass through Paris without stop- 
 ping, and come to Bayonne simply to wit- 
 ness the bull- fights, would hardly 'wash;' 
 to use a vernacular expression. 
 
 I suggested that the man Avas too fat to 
 be a conspirator: the idea of the police 
 being that he might have designs on the 
 person of the Emperor then at Biarritz. 
 M' Graham, to my surprise, told me that 
 had the man come earlier in the day to his 
 office, and demanded a pass-port, simply 
 stating that he was a British subject, he 
 could not by law have refused him: under 
 the circumstances, he said that he must de- 
 cline liberating him : in this case the police 
 declared that they would return him to Paris. 
 
40 Napoleon III. 
 
 When they had left the room, I told M' 
 Graham that I thought the man had made 
 a clumsy mistake: that he lived probably 
 in the Pyrenees : that he had invented the 
 stupid story of coming to see the bull-fights 
 when frightened by the sudden approach of 
 the ' sbirii.^ M' Graham Avas, or appeared 
 to be, softened by this remark; and ran, or 
 affected to run, after the men: he returned 
 however without catching them; and the 
 captive was despatched back to Paris. 
 
 After giving time for him to escape, and 
 M' Graham assuring me that he would take 
 no further steps in the matter, I said what 
 I believe to have been the case, that I 
 thought he was very possibly a political 
 exile banished to French Guiana: that he 
 had succeeded in crossing the frontiers of 
 Dutch Guiana into British Guiana, and 
 hoped to regain home without molestation. 
 Suddenly confronted by the police he had 
 not known what to say : and that this was 
 the cause of his prevarication. 
 
 A few years afterwards I related the 
 
Napoleon III. 41 
 
 story to the Secretary of Lord Gormanston, 
 Governor of British Guiana : he told me it 
 was most probable; for that these escapes 
 on the part of French political convicts 
 were not uncommon. 
 
 WHEN THE BANNER of Louis Philippe 
 was placed in St. George's Chapel at 
 Windsor it caused great emotion among 
 the Eton boys. Tories as they have always 
 been, they could hardly believe that the 
 Arms of ' Egalit^ ' could be placed among 
 those of that very select Order. Who at 
 that time could have predicted that in a 
 few years the arms of a Buonaparte would 
 be suspended in that most fastidious of 
 Chapels. 
 
 At the ceremony of Investiture at Wind- 
 sor some nervousness was displayed. I 
 have heard that the Blue Ribbon was placed 
 on the wrong, that is the right, shoulder. 
 On the Emperor leaving the room in which 
 he had been invested he said '' Enjin je 
 suis gejitilhommey 
 
42 Napoleon III. 
 
 I well recall, on the same afternoon, 
 seeing him at the Review of the Life Guards 
 in the Park at Windsor. He never looked 
 better than when cantering down the Long 
 Walk, from the Castle-gates to Queen 
 Anne's Ride, between the Prince Consort 
 and the Duke of Cambridge. The Em- 
 peror rode an exceptionally handsome 
 English horse, bought of Sir John Gerard : 
 wearing his uniform as a French General ; 
 with the Blue Riband and the Star of the 
 Garter. I was particularly struck with the 
 soldier-like dignity with which he received 
 the salute of the Officers of the Horse and 
 Foot Brigade : and saluted the respective 
 Standards and Colours : his horse standing 
 with mathematical exactness at right angles 
 to the marching-past line : the Emperor 
 sitting with natural ease and dignity. 
 
 OF MARSHAL MACMAHON, filling a 
 high position under Napoleon IIL and sub- 
 sequently President of the French Repub- 
 lic, I did not form a high opinion intel- 
 
Napoleon III. 43 
 
 lectually. So far as outward appearance 
 went there was no trace of superior intel- 
 ligence in him. He was, I should say, a 
 safe and honest man, whom the Emperor 
 knew \vould obey orders : and without suffi- 
 cient vivacity to run the risk of getting into 
 scrapes. 
 
 No one who was present will ever forget 
 the Ball given by him at Versailles during 
 his Presidency. It was well called ' a 
 social Reichshofen.' 
 
 Fifteen thousand persons were invited to 
 a space which fifteen hundred would have 
 amply filled. On arriving, the small room 
 set apart for cloaks, but little larger than 
 the similar receptacle in a London theatre, 
 was a scene of great struggle and confu- 
 sion. The large rooms upstairs were more 
 than filled by an incongruous rabble of 
 persons decently dressed. Any approach 
 to the dancing-room, without actual fighting, 
 was impossible. 
 
 The President stood in an angle of the 
 first room, with his hands clasped in front 
 
44 Napoleon III. 
 
 of him: the motley crowd passed him 
 entirely unnoticed: he appeared uncon- 
 scious of their presence. 
 
 At occasional intervals the monotony of 
 the heated mob was relieved by a rush of 
 3'ouths wearing their hats and shouting 
 " Place au Prince de Galles / " the Prince of 
 Wales not being, of course, even in F ranee. 
 No sooner was the refreshment-room opened 
 than a rush took place of the most formid- 
 able character. 
 
 Soon after this, soldiers appeared on the 
 scene : and blocked the principal staircase. 
 The scene became intolerable. I was for- 
 tunate enough to meet an American gentle- 
 man, whom I had previously known, and 
 who indicated to me a method of escape 
 down the private stairs. 
 
 On seeking my cloak, I found a still more 
 disgusting scene than on arriving. Men 
 were actually fighting : tearing each other's 
 clothes in order to get at their outer gar- 
 ments. In the midst of this most unseemly 
 struggle, a picket of soldiers, on duty at the 
 
Napoleon III. 45 
 
 Palace, were summoned. The Officer of the 
 day, who I observed was a Chasseur com- 
 manding a detachment of soldiers of the 
 Line, shouted " Faites sortir tout le monde ! " 
 I felt this was rather too much. On his 
 approaching myself I produced from my 
 pocket the invitation which I had received 
 from Marshal MacMahon, and I said in 
 very plain language to the officer, '' If you, 
 or any of your men, touch me, I shall 
 go to-morrow, not to the British Ambas- 
 sador, but to the President himself, and I 
 shall make a complaint against you per- 
 sonally for your conduct.'^ This was 
 followed by a chorus on the part of the 
 Frenchmen of " Vous avez tres bien fait^ 
 Monsieur ! " 
 
 Deep snow was on the ground, and on 
 emerging from the Palace, I saw at least 
 twenty ladies sitting on the steps in even- 
 ing dress. I had prudently told the driver 
 of my carriage to be close to the Hotel 
 des Reservoirs: and there I found him. 
 The intense heat of the rooms, more pro- 
 
46 Napoleon III. 
 
 bably than the cold outside, gave me ten 
 days of bed. 
 
 On recovery I went to the Palace of the 
 Elys^e Bourbon, where I was informed that 
 the numerous coats, cloaks, etc., left at 
 Versailles could be obtained. 
 
 I should say above two hundred coats, 
 thirty of which bore the ribbon of the 
 Legion of Honour, were there, unclaimed; 
 and more remarkable still, considerable 
 sums of money, which had been carefully 
 labelled, found in the pockets of the various 
 garments, remained in the hands of the 
 custodian. 
 
 My cloak I never found, but a pair of 
 tawny boots which I had placed in the 
 pocket, contemjilating the possibility of a 
 walk in the snow, I found; and have still. 
 Mv female readers will understand the 
 reason of their preservation ; they were so 
 small that no Frenchman could wear them. 
 
 CERTAINLY with a view to effect, irre- 
 spective of affection, which I have no doubt 
 
Xapoleon III. 47 
 
 was genuine, the Emperor could not have 
 chosen better, in selecting Mad^^^. Montijo. 
 If ever a woman looked an Empress she 
 certainly did. 
 
 ' Incessu patuit Dea : ' 
 
 of stately stature, full of dignity, with a 
 kind and gentle smile, the Empress 
 certainly reached the ideal : and appears to 
 have been far above the pettiness of her 
 fascinating predecessor, Josephine. 
 
 As regards the Empress, it is well known 
 that no object of reasonable charity was 
 neglected by her. Medical and charitable 
 institutions inaugurated or patronized by 
 her were numberless. Not only were sums 
 of money liberally supplied to these, but 
 what exacts more from the minds and hearts 
 of those who so act, a careful discrimination 
 was displayed. No one was neglected, and 
 the heartlessness of the Eirst Empire was 
 not repeated in the case of the Second. 
 
 The fact of his being unfortunate in a 
 single campaign was enough to turn the 
 
48 Napoleon III. 
 
 whole tide of ingratitude against, not only 
 the Emperor, but his Avife, who would have 
 scarcely escaped with her life, had she fallen 
 into the hands of the mob of Paris. 
 
 WITH THE EMPEROR'S great 'Under- 
 taker,' who worked the vast alterations in 
 Parisian streets, Baron Haussmann, I only 
 became acquainted after the fall of the 
 Empire. 1 found an elderly gentleman 
 with closely-cut, chocolate-coloured hair. 
 It was difficult to believe that he was the 
 same individual whom I had seen, when he 
 visited London during the Empire, with 
 white locks flowing over his shoulders. 
 So surprised was I, that I asked him if I 
 had the honour of addressing the ex- 
 Prefect. He said ''I had the honour of 
 filling that position." I said "I had an 
 interview with your august master a short 
 time ago: I thought him looking very 
 well." He replied " Ah ! I was not of 
 his advisers." 
 
Napoleon III. 49 
 
 ANOTHER of the Emperor's intimates I 
 knew for many years : Colonel Fleury : 
 who particularly disliked being spoken to 
 or of as ' de Fleury : ' having no connec- 
 tion Avith that great French name. He 
 was Colonel of the Emperor's Regiment of 
 ' Guides' ; Green Light Dragoons. He dined 
 with me occasionally at the Mess of the 
 First Life Guards : and I remember his 
 describing the ' Queen's Guard ' as the 
 ' Poetry of Soldiering.* 
 
 Practically, he adopted our bits for his 
 own Regiment. His visits to England were 
 usually to purchase horses for the Emperor : 
 of these he was a very good judge. In 
 appearance he was a fine type of French 
 Cavalry Officer : a powerful man ; with fair 
 complexion; a good deal of colour; and 
 great physical strength. His reputation 
 was that of a swash-buckler. I observed a 
 trait in him which to my mind contradicted 
 this : I was at a Review in the Champ de 
 Mars,giventothe Kingof Greece by the Em- 
 peror. I was standing speaking to Colonel 
 
 £ 
 
50 Napoleon III. 
 
 Fleuiy, who was mounted on a very large 
 English horse. After about half an hour 
 the intelligent animal, probably bored by 
 the performance, and weary of standing, 
 placed his off fore hoof on my left foot. 
 We read in Shakspere of ' horsing foot on 
 foot' as a method of occult endearment; 
 and I have heard that the practice is not 
 unknown even in the nineteenth century. 
 However pleasing this may be in the active 
 and passive, I can assure my readers that 
 when performed by a horse it approaches 
 the acme of human torture. I said no- 
 thing: but assume that I had not quite 
 enough of the Spartan boy not to show in my 
 countenance that something had happened. 
 Colonel rieury at once asked me what it 
 was : I pointed to my foot on the instep of 
 which the mark was left. Fortunately my 
 boot was shiny; and my volition quick; or 
 I should have been crippled for life. He 
 said " You must be in dreadful agony." I 
 of course replied " Ce n^est rien ; cela 
 passera^ It gave me a favourable impres- 
 
Napoleon III. 51 
 
 sion of him that five minutes later I could 
 see most unmistakable sio^ns of resrret in 
 his face. He was an honest, and straight- 
 forward friend of the Emperor. 
 
 THE DUKE DE MORNY, his principal 
 adviser, I should describe as being not 
 altogether unlike the Emperor in person, 
 nor in character. Of about the same height : 
 of more delicate features ; and a better 
 shaped head; the expression of his face 
 was less solemn, but more cynical, than the 
 Emperor's. A good-humoured, and 1 should 
 say good-natured face; two qualities that 
 are frequently dissociated ; a neater figure ; 
 more demonstrative manner; who, like the 
 Emperor, played a part : but did it with 
 less effort. Courteous in manner ; and 
 quick in perception. At a reception given 
 by him on the Quai d'Orsay the guests 
 arriving were received by the Duke at some 
 distance from the door of the principal 
 room. Immediately following me was Sir 
 William Clay : when the Duke de Morny 
 
52 Napoleon III. 
 
 shook hands with me, I whispered " The 
 tall gentleman following me is one of the 
 Chiefs of the Radical Party in our Parlia- 
 ment." He seemed to appreciate my 
 thoughtfulness in giving him this hint; and 
 was particularly cordial in his accueil of the 
 democratic Baronet. 
 
 The Duke de Morny before his marriage 
 inhabited a small square building, an adjunct 
 of a large house occupied by Madame Le 
 Hon, a Belgian by birth; who in her early 
 days must have possessed great beauty ; the 
 beaute du diable : large blue eyes ; beautiful 
 complexion; and fine figure. For some 
 occult reason the Parisians called the 
 Duke de Morny's house '' le petit coin 
 d'amoiir,' 
 
 At a Ball given by Madame Le Hon, 
 partly in costume, partly masked, I was 
 amused and somewhat pained to observe 
 on entering, wearing my kilt, an unhappy 
 youth dressed strictly in the style of that 
 wretched character the bridegroom in ^ Lucia 
 di Lammermoor ' : he actually wore silk 
 
Napoleon III. 53 
 
 tights. I may mention, in parenthesis, that 
 it was a great relief to a Highlander piii^ 
 sang when the authorities at the Opera at 
 length discovered that the kilt is not the 
 national dress of the inhabitants of East 
 Lothian. At this Ball almost every dis- 
 tinguished person connected with the 
 society of the Tuileries was present. Look- 
 ing about among them I saw a masked 
 person seated, speaking to the Princess 
 Mathilde, whom I recognized at once as the 
 Emperor. I had the day before been pre- 
 sented to him at the Tuileries. I observed 
 the extreme shortness of his thumbs : his 
 hands resting upon his knees. Soon after 
 I met a lady long resident in Paris, M" 
 Gould. On her arm was a tall lady in a 
 domino. I said, " How do you do, M" 
 Gould?" She was not masked; ''I am 
 glad to see you in such distinguished com- 
 pany." I observed a very slight movement 
 on the part of the masked lady which con- 
 firmed my belief that this was the Empress. 
 The Ball went off with great spirit: not 
 
54 Napoleon III. 
 
 always the case where a portion of the 
 Company is masked. 
 
 At one time the Duke de Morny was 
 
 supposed to be about to marry Miss ; 
 
 one of several sisters living at the Hotel du 
 Rhin, in the Place Yendome, and there 
 were rumours of remonstrance addressed 
 on the occasion to the Emperor by a certain 
 lady. The Duke de Morny did not marry 
 the young lady in question; who was en- 
 dowed with most beautiful ankles : not long 
 after, he married someone else. 
 
 At a great Ball given in the Faubourg St. 
 Germain everybody was invited to wear cos- 
 tume or fancy-dress ; every guest complied 
 with this request. In the midst of the Ball 
 the Duke appeared wearing his ordinary 
 evening dress, with Ribbon and Star: an 
 act of very doubtful taste. 
 
 ON THE NIGHT on which the news ar- 
 rived of the Declaration of Peace between 
 Britain, France, and Russia, Lady Cowley, 
 the British Ambassadress, gave a Ball at 
 
Napoleon III. 55 
 
 the Embassy. A few days before, Lady 
 Cowley said to me, " Morny is going to 
 give a Ball : I will introduce you to him : 
 he is sure to invite you." Accordingly I 
 searched for him in every room of the Em- 
 bassy : he was not to be found. I told Lady 
 Cowley: she replied "He must be here: 
 I certainly invited him." I accompanied 
 her in a second search. He was not at the 
 Ball. I believe that I am not uncharitable 
 in suspecting that the Duke may have been 
 pursuing another occupation, in relation to 
 the Bourse. The news of the actual procla- 
 mation of Peace not being publicly known 
 until the next morning. 
 
 The most interesting fact which I can re- 
 call in relation to the Duke de Morny I have 
 on indisputable authority. On his death- 
 bed he was visited by the Emperor. A 
 friend who accompanied the latter was 
 speaking to him near the window of the 
 bedroom : they heard a feeble voice calling 
 to the Emperor ; who at once stood by the 
 bedside of the dying man. The Duke de 
 
56 Napoleon III. 
 
 Morny's last words were " Sire ! prenez 
 garde a la Prusse ! '* 
 
 NOTHING did Napoleon III. more credit, 
 in the opinion of the best minds, than the 
 utter absence of jealousy in relation to his 
 uncle, and to the earlier dynasties of 
 France. A mean man would have endea- 
 voured to exalt himself, and his memory, at 
 the expense of his predecessors. On the 
 contrary Napoleon III. preserved every- 
 thing carefully which related to the ancient 
 Bourbon race ; to Napoleon L ; and to Louis 
 Philippe. He wisely accepted things as they 
 were : and did not attempt any of the tricks 
 of small minds; nor suppose that he would 
 raise himself by obliterating the acts and 
 memorials of those who had already reached 
 the Sovereignty of France. 
 
 The Republic which followed him showed 
 none of these qualities : wherever his initial 
 letter, or crown, or mark, could be reached, 
 those indications were invariably marred or 
 destroyed. 
 
Napoleon II L 57 
 
 I heard from Lady Cowley that the 
 Emperor regretted nothing more deeply, as 
 regards Paris, than the destruction of the 
 time-honoured Palace of the Tuileries, the 
 scene of such great historical events; pic- 
 turesque from its style, and its antiquity. 
 
 I WAS A MEMBER of the House of 
 Commons, and was present at all the De- 
 bates on the subject of the ' Conspiracy to 
 Murder Bill.' 
 
 On February 8. 1858. Lord Palmerston 
 moved to introduce the Bill. He said that 
 an event had recently occurred, which he 
 was sure the House would agree rendered 
 a revision of a part of our Criminal Law 
 necessary ; that foreign nations, ignorant 
 on the subject, had assumed that in this 
 country indifference existed in relation to 
 these atrocious crimes; that a feeling pre- 
 vailed on the Continent in general that the 
 Government and Parliament should take 
 the steps which would give them power to 
 remove aliens from the United Kingdom on 
 
58 Napoleon III. 
 
 mere suspicion ; that he proposed nothing 
 of the sort to Parliament : that so long as 
 aliens conducted themselves peaceably and 
 within the law Parliament would not con- 
 sent to their removal. He alluded to the 
 addresses from the Colonels of French 
 Regiments published in the ' Moniteur,' the 
 official paper of the Imperial Government. 
 Although some natural irritation might be 
 felt about these addresses, and especially at 
 their official publication, he could not see 
 that this ought to cause us to neglect an 
 obvious improvement in our law in relation 
 to foreigners: that in England conspiracy 
 to murder was a misdemeanour; in Ireland 
 a felony: he could see no reason why the 
 law as applied to Ireland should not be 
 extended to the whole of the United King- 
 dom : he gave the words of the Bill which 
 he described as " exceedingly short." 
 
 To abbreviate it still more, it Avas pro- 
 posed to enact by this Bill that any person 
 within the United Kingdom who should 
 conspire to commit murder within or with- 
 
Napoleon III. 59 
 
 out the dominions of Her Majesty shall be 
 guilty of felony ; and on conviction be 
 liable to penal servitude for life ; or for any 
 time not less than five years; or to im- 
 prisonment with or without hard labour for 
 any time not exceeding three years. That 
 the solicitation of another person to commit 
 murder should come within the law. The 
 third clause was on the subject of the locality 
 of the trial of such persons. The fourth 
 interpreted the word ' Murder ' as meaning 
 the killing of any person in a foreign country, 
 whether a subject of Her Majesty or not, as 
 if the crime or attempt had been done in 
 the United Kingdom. The fifth dealt with 
 the repeal of the Irish Act on the subject. 
 
 Lord Palmerston wound up his brief 
 speech with these words, " I cannot but 
 persuade myself that increasing the penalty 
 to that length of penal servitude which is 
 mentioned in the Bill will have a wholesome 
 effect, in teaching those who might wish to 
 make this country a place in which to hatch 
 or concoct disgraceful crimes that they can- 
 
60 Napoleon III. 
 
 not do so without incurring a liability of a 
 very serious character." 
 
 M' Kinglake rose to move an Amend- 
 ment. Those who have read his History of 
 the Crimean War need not be told of the 
 violent prejudice against Napoleon III. ex- 
 isting in the mind of this Member of Par- 
 liament. ' That this House, while sym- 
 pathizing with the French nation in its 
 indignant abhorrence of the late atrocious 
 attempt against the life of the Emperor, and 
 anxious upon a proper occasion to consider 
 any defects which may be shown to exist in 
 our criminal law, the amendment of which 
 might tend to defeat a repetition of such 
 attempts, deems it inexpedient to legislate 
 in compliance with the demand made in 
 Count Walewski's Dispatch of the 20'^ of 
 January, until further information is before 
 it of the communications between the two 
 Governments subsequent to the date of that 
 Dispatch.' 
 
 He spoke of the British as " a moral and 
 religious people : " and said that the at- 
 
Napoleon III. 61 
 
 tempted assassination was a cowardly and 
 dastardly evasion of those rules of fair 
 "conflict" to which we were accustomed. 
 That the assassins came from this country ; 
 (Cries of " No. No.") at least some of them : 
 he confessed that he was so old-fashioned, 
 so illogical if they chose, as to decline to 
 concur in altering the Municipal Law of 
 England at the instigation of any foreign 
 })otentate. If this measure were merely a 
 piece of law-reform it should have been 
 proposed by one of the Law-Officers of the 
 Crown : he believed it to be a concession to 
 the pressure put upon the noble Lord by 
 the Despatch to which he had referred : he 
 quoted two notices given by the Solicitor- 
 General in relation to the Amendment of 
 our Criminal Law, which had been put 
 down for ' an early day.' He believed that 
 no human ingenuity could give so good an 
 answer to the communication of Count 
 Walewski as would be involved in a simple 
 vote of that House. 
 
 M' Hadfield seconded the Amendment : 
 
62 Napoleon III. 
 
 his speech was principally remarkable for 
 the almost entire omission of the letter H. ; 
 an omission for which the Honourable 
 Member was conspicuous. 
 
 M' Bowyer, the representative of His 
 Holiness the Pope in the House of Commons, 
 spoke strongly in favour of Lord Palmer- 
 ston's proposed alteration in the law. He 
 quoted from Vattel that in case of a great 
 crime the offender ought to be given up to 
 the offended State : and be there brought 
 to justice: that the Sovereign who should 
 refuse to do this renders himself in some 
 measure an accomplice in the injury; and 
 becomes responsible lor it. 
 
 M' W. J. Fox, a man of exceptional 
 intellect. Member for Oldham, opposed the 
 Measure : he spoke of the Bill as liable to 
 wound the feelings and interfere with the 
 comfort of hundreds and thousands of 
 refugees who had found an asylum here: 
 he said that the plotters among them were 
 few : those who submitted to be dragooned 
 into one law might be cajoled or threatened 
 
Napoleon III. 63 
 
 into another: that we ought to set an 
 example to Belgium, Sardinia, and Switzer- 
 land : and that if we passed this Measure 
 we should be the first to lead the dance in 
 the '' progression of infamy.'^ 
 
 M' Gilpin opposed the Bill. Having 
 said very abusive things in relation to 
 the Emperor, he declared, amid laughter, 
 that he did not intend to revile him: he 
 said that Lord Derby in ' another place,' 
 that is the House of Lords, had uttered 
 true English words, " Not for the security 
 of the Sovereign of France, nor of all the 
 Sovereigns in Europe, twenty times over, 
 would I consent to violate in the slightest 
 degree that sacred right of asylum to 
 foreigners by which our history has always 
 been characterized." He reminded the 
 House that in 1802. Lord Hawkesbury had 
 said " Our Government neither has, nor 
 wants, any other protection than what the 
 laws of the country afford : and though we 
 are ready to give to every foreign Govern- 
 ment all the protection against offences of 
 
64 Napoleon III. 
 
 this nature which the principles of our laws 
 and Constitution will admit, we can never 
 consent to new model our laws, nor to 
 change their Constitution, to gratify the 
 wishes of any foreign power." 
 
 Sir John Walsh spoke : he recorded the 
 sarcasms which were directed against the 
 Emperor of the French : and compared 
 favourably his conduct towards this country 
 with that of Louis Philippe. 
 
 Lord Elcho, now Earl of Wemyss and 
 March, said that the effect of the addresses 
 of the Colonels, which were of no great 
 importance in themselves, had acquired 
 great importance by being inserted in the 
 ' Moniteur.' No doubt these Officers were 
 anxious for promotion : in fact he had ob- 
 served in the French papers that the 
 Colonel from whom one of the most violent 
 of these addresses had emanated had been 
 decorated with the Legion of Honour : he 
 thought that the House should express 
 its horror and detestation of the crime; 
 and that a Commission should be ap- 
 
Napoleon III. 65 
 
 pointed to examine the real state of the 
 Law. 
 
 M' Roebuck followed in a vigorous 
 speech, reported in the first person : being 
 in my opinion one of the most incisive 
 speakers that the House of Commons has 
 known. He said, '' We are in the proud 
 position of being the sole depositaries of 
 Liberty in Europe : if we were stricken 
 down to-morrow, Belgium, and Sardinia 
 would not exist for a day." He gave the 
 case thus, " Two men come together and 
 conspire to kill A.B. If one of them only 
 killed A.B. then the one who conspired and 
 did not kill him might be indicted as an 
 accessory before the fact : but if they have 
 only conspired, the conspiracy is misde- 
 meanour." He said that as yet no man 
 had been tried : and spoke of there being 
 " nothing before the world except the 
 vague statements of the newspapers." He 
 said that " the Police of the Empire having 
 utterly failed to prevent this attack, the 
 Emperor turned to us and said ' England 
 
 F 
 
66 Napoleon III. 
 
 is a den of assassins ; for she has sheltered 
 these men : these wretches have come from 
 English shores; and you must alter your 
 police law.' The expression 'a den of 
 assassins ' has found its way into the ' Moni- 
 teur ' : and for this reason I attribute it to 
 the Emperor of the French : it would not 
 have found its way there but for the per- 
 mission of Louis Napoleon. I ^k upon 
 him the responsibility of insulting my 
 country." 
 
 He alluded to the First Napoleon, to his 
 legacy to Cantillon, the would-be murderer 
 of the Duke of Wellington. M' Bowyer here 
 interrupted, " No ! " M' Roebuck turned 
 upon him: ''1 have heard the Honour- 
 able and Learned gentleman defend the 
 King of Naples ! " The speech is of con- 
 siderable length and was delivered in Roe- 
 buck's best manner. A fine speech, but 
 mischievous : the latter part approached 
 malignity, as regards the Emperor; and he 
 called upon the House of Commons " as 
 free men, and the great protectors of the 
 
Napoleon III. 67 
 
 oppressed in Europe, to throw out the Bill 
 of the noble Premier with all the ignominy 
 which it deserved." 
 
 The Debate was resumed by M' Thomas 
 Duncombe, once known as 'Finsbury Tom' 
 a ^ qi-devant jeune hotnme ' ; once the chief 
 admirer of Madame Vestris: a clever and 
 adroit speaker in Parliament. He had been 
 for many years an intimate personal friend 
 of Napoleon HI. : he absolutely denied the 
 statement made by an earlier speaker that 
 the Emperor on landing at Boulogne had 
 shot a man wdth his own hand. I was 
 standing near him at the time he spoke; 
 not far from the Bar of the House: he 
 said that Louis Napoleon had not discharged 
 the pistol, which he had, at any time : but 
 the accidental discharge of the pistol of a 
 follower had wounded the cheek of a man 
 who was crying ' Vive VEmpereur^ : the 
 wound was not serious : that the only per- 
 sons killed at Boulogne were two of the 
 Emperor's followers named Paul and Dunin. 
 
 He believed that the addresses of the 
 
68 Xapoleon III. 
 
 Colonels had been intentionally published 
 in the * Moniteur ' : and he regretted that the 
 Emperor had inserted them. 
 
 ' Tom Duncombe ' was followed by 
 Samuel Warren, author of ' Ten Thousand 
 a Year/ and, a finer book, ' The Diary of a 
 Late Physician.' Somewhat grotesque in 
 manner and appearance, he was a good 
 lawyer : he had a quaintness and originality 
 of style that attracted the attention of a 
 fastidious House of Commons. 
 
 ' Our Sam,' as Punch used to call him, 
 spoke of " the fervent and brilliant speech 
 of the Member for Sheffield " (Roebuck) as 
 one of the finest he had ever listened to. 
 He said that every schoolboy knew that our 
 ancestors, centuries ago, had nobly declared 
 ''NoLUMUS LEGES Angli^ mutari." Pie 
 spoke of " legislation under the pressure of 
 menace." He quoted a strong case of Peter 
 the Great. His Ambassador in 1708. had 
 been taken from his carriage in London by 
 Sherifi*'s Officers for a debt of £50. to a 
 tradesman; and had been locked up all 
 
Napoleon III. 69 
 
 night in a sponging-liouse : he was released 
 in the morning, on making an indignant 
 application to Queen Anne. The affair had 
 led to the interference of the Legislature, 
 thus characterized by Sir William Black- 
 stone, who said that the Czar had resented 
 this affront very highly and demanded the 
 punishment of death to be inflicted on the 
 Sheriff of Middlesex. The Queen to the 
 amazement of that despotic Court directed 
 her Secretary to inform the Czar that she 
 could inflict no punishment upon any, even 
 the meanest, of her subjects unless war- 
 ranted by the law of the land : and there- 
 fore was persuaded that he would not insist 
 upon impossibilities. To satisfy however 
 the clamours of the Foreign Ministers, who 
 made it a common cause, as well as to 
 appease the wrath of Peter, a Bill was 
 brought into Parliament, and afterwards 
 passed into Law to prevent and punish 
 such outrageous insolence for the future. 
 A copy of this Act, elegantly engraved and 
 illuminated, was accompanied by a letter 
 
70 Napoleon III. 
 
 from the Queen : an Ambassfidor Extra- 
 ordinary was commissioned to appear at 
 Moscow, who declared " That though Her 
 Majesty could not inflict such a punishment 
 as was required because of the defect in 
 that particular part of the Established Con- 
 stitution of Her Kingdom, yet with the 
 unanimous consent of Parliament she had 
 caused a new Act to be passed to serve as a 
 law for the future.'' 
 
 This humiliating step was accepted as 
 full satisfaction by the Czar: and the 
 offenders at his request were discharged 
 from all further prosecution. 
 
 Fifty years afterwards, Lord Mansfield, 
 speaking from the judicial seat, said mourn- 
 fully that this Act was passed '' as an 
 apology, and as a humiliation from the 
 whole nation." 
 
 The Ambassador made excuses in solemn 
 oration in presenting the copy to the Czar. 
 
 M' Warren asked " Is this a precedent 
 that the noble Viscount opposite, or the 
 nation, is disposed to follow? " 
 
Napoleon III. 71 
 
 Again he quoted the case in 1802. of 
 Napoleon I 's remonstrance on the subject 
 of libels against himself published in Lon- 
 don : and he added at considerable length 
 the words of Lord Hawkesbury our Am- 
 bassador on the occasion. The narrative is 
 too long for extraction : it embodied George 
 Ill.'s refusal to change those laws with 
 which his people are perfectly satisfied. 
 Later in his speech he suggested, what 
 would have been the answer given by Lord 
 Palmerston to the King of Naples if he '* 
 made a similar application : " the spirit of » 
 * Civis RoMANUs' would have been roused : jj 
 and the noble Viscount would have said in I 
 a towering passion, ' Begone ! we will not 
 be dictated to : we will not be coerced by 
 anyone.' Why should we do otherwise, 
 when we are appealed to by a gigantic sup- « 
 pliant thundering at the gates of the Con- 
 stitution ? " He wound up with these 
 words. "Sir! when I read such painful 
 and disgusting passages in the ' Moniteur ' 
 as these — but No, Sir, I will not irritate 
 
72 Napoleon III. 
 
 myself nor the House by repeating them — 
 we have seen and heard enough of them — 
 they brought to my recollection the words 
 which King Edward III. once addressed to 
 his Parliament ' I have received a blow in 
 the face : all Europe is looking on to see 
 how I bear it.' Then he declared war 
 against France." 
 
 I should say that this speech was the 
 best that Warren ever delivered : it was 
 good as a lawyer ; and as a Member of Par- 
 liament. Reported in the first person in 
 * Hansard/ of which it fills thirteen and a 
 half columns, it may still be read with 
 advantage by anyone who takes an interest 
 in the realities of the British Constitution. 
 
 Sir George Grey followed in a heavy 
 speech. M' Beresford Hope gave his 
 views; as also did Ward Hunt. 
 
 M'Bentinck, known as 'Big Ben,' Member 
 for Norfolk, also took part. 
 
 The Poet Member of Parliament, Monck- 
 ton Milnes, the father of the present Lord 
 Crewe, gave his views. 
 
Napoleon III. 73 
 
 M' Napier, afterwards Lord Chancellor 
 of Ireland, spoke ; followed by Lord John 
 Russell, who denied that legislation such as 
 was proposed would materially interfere 
 with the commission of these crimes, which 
 were usually induced by religious fanati- 
 cism : quoting the cases of Henry III. and 
 Henry IV. of France and Louis XY. He 
 also quoted the case in later days of 
 Mazzini ; who it was said had given a 
 dagger to a person for the purpose of 
 assassinating the King of Sardinia : he said 
 that neither the Avould-be assassin, nor 
 Mazzini himself, would be deterred from 
 crime by any legislation. He concluded 
 his speech with these words " If I were 
 to vote for the introduction of this Bill, I 
 should feel shame and humiliation in giving 
 that vote. Let those who will support the 
 Bill of the Government : in that shame, and 
 that humiliation, I am determined not to 
 share." 
 
 I wish to defend the Tory party in this 
 matter against the aspersions uttered, in 
 
74 Napoleon III. 
 
 rtlation to their expulsion of Lord Palmer- 
 ston on the Second Reading of the Bill, 
 by those too careless, too malignant, or 
 too ignorant, to observe what really took 
 place. 
 
 I give the opening words of Disraeli's 
 speech on the proposed introduction of the 
 Bill precisely as they are recorded ; and as 
 I heard them : 
 
 " The principle projected in the Bill of 
 the Noble Lord I apprehend to be this; it 
 is to change the crime of combining or con- 
 spiring to murder from a misdemeanour 
 into a felony. There has been a consider- 
 able amount of controversy upon that point 
 to-night. So far indeed as the Debate has 
 yet proceeded it may still be deemed a 
 moot point. Mark this ! Nor does it appear 
 to me to be at all necessary, according to 
 the usual course of our business, that that 
 point should be decided at this stage of the 
 proposition before us. The Second Read- 
 ing of this Bill '^ (here Disraeli distinctly 
 turned round ; and by a well-known 
 
NAroLEON in. 75 
 
 gesture attracted the attention, and asked 
 for the approval of his Party) ; "the Second 
 reading of this Bill, if it ever, come to a 
 Second Reading^ will be the legitimate occa- 
 sion upon which the House will enter fully 
 upon that important point. No doubt it is 
 one eminently entitled to the grave and 
 dispassionate consideration of this House: 
 but at this moment there are some other 
 observations which, with the permission of 
 the House, and without offering any opinion 
 upon the principle of the Bill, I would 
 venture to make." 
 
 Later he said '' Without giving any 
 opinion respecting the principle of this 
 Measure, which is at stake, and which I 
 think had better be deferred to another 
 opportunity" : he spoke of Count Wale wski's 
 despatch as an " unfortunate despatch" ; and 
 of the observations of the French Colonels 
 as "extremely impertinent": their inser- 
 tion in the 'Moniteur' was "an act of 
 singular indiscretion." On the other hand 
 " the expression of regret on the part of 
 
76 Napoleon III. 
 
 the Emperor of the French is frank, and 
 full, and satisfactory. '^ 
 
 Disraeli alluded in his best manner to what 
 had occurred in 1853. when Lord John 
 Russell was a conspicuous Member of the 
 Government; "when British Statesmen of 
 the greatest eminence denounced the Em- 
 peror of the French as a tyrant, a usurper and 
 a perjurer." "When a Cabinet Minister, 
 fresh from a Cabinet Council, proceeded to 
 the hustings ; and amused his constituents by 
 depicting the danger of their country from 
 the pending piratical invasion of the French 
 people : we then had a Cabinet Minister 
 asking the people of England what protec- 
 tion they could have for their wives and 
 daughters with such neighbours as the 
 French, and such a Ruler as the present 
 French Emperor." 
 
 " The results of my doing what I thought 
 was my duty in alluding to these circum- 
 stances in this House were that we had the 
 gratifying exhibition of Statesman after 
 Statesman, of Cabinet Minister after Cabinet 
 
Napoleon III. 77 
 
 Minister, rising in his place and apologizing 
 for the offensive expressions which he had 
 used towards the Emperor of the French. 
 That was a very salutary spectacle : it did 
 a great deal of good: it conduced to the 
 maintenance of the Peace of Europe : but 
 it conduced to that end only because the 
 Emperor of the French was a forgiving, 
 and forbearing man. If the French Em- 
 peror, and the French nation, could endure 
 those insults from English Cabinet Ministers, 
 I really think that the people of England 
 can noAV afford to pocket the impertinence 
 of the French Colonels." 
 
 Later in his Speech Disraeli said '' We 
 must remember the difficulties which Napo- 
 leon III. has to encounter in carrying out 
 that policy of personal friendship towards 
 ourselves. We must recollect that although 
 from his own experience, the character of 
 his mind, and the numerous other in- 
 fluences which operate with a person of his 
 lofty intellect, in his elevated station, he 
 may have arrived at the conviction that the 
 
78 Napoleon III. 
 
 maintenance of the alliance between the 
 two countries is eminently conducive to the 
 welfare of the land he governs, still he is 
 himself the principal representative of that 
 belief, and of that policy: that although, 
 in prosperous times, and in moments of pro- 
 longed tranquillity, he may by virtue of his 
 commanding ability, and great resources, 
 be able successfully to manage the relations 
 of the two countries, and to cherish and 
 increase the nascent and gradually spread- 
 ing sympathy with England, which is be- 
 ginning to pervade France, still, in moments 
 of public excitement, when the mind of that 
 ingenious but irritable people is agitated, it 
 is clear that the position of such a ruler of 
 France must be one of immense delicacy. 
 In a moment of difficulty, our faithful and 
 generous ally comes to the Government of 
 this country and says, ' I do not disguise 
 the difficulties I have to contend with ; 
 assist me to encounter them : assist me, 
 consistently with your laws, and con- 
 sistently with your privileges and rights. 
 
Napoleon IIL 79 
 
 I have lived too long in your country not 
 to be aware that no British Minister could 
 dare for a moment even whisper a proposi- 
 tion by which those rights and those privi- 
 leges should be violated, or diminished : 
 but aid me at this moment; when hostile 
 factions are raising their head, and taunting 
 me with the vanity of that English alliance 
 on which I have wished to build my policy : 
 show to France that my confidence has not 
 been misplaced.' " 
 
 *' I think that under these circumstances 
 it was the duty of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment to respond to that faithful ally. I 
 think that it was their duty not to turn 
 a deaf ear to an appeal of such a character. 
 I feel that there is nothing humiliating in 
 attempting to support any Government 
 in any effort it may make to maintain that 
 alliance between England and France, 
 which I believe to be the key and corner- 
 stone of modern Civilization. 
 
 *' As to the mode in which Her Majesty's 
 Government has attempted to carry this 
 
80 NArOLEON III. 
 
 policy into effect, that is another ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " I make a full and fair admission that a 
 proposition thoroughly satisfactory never 
 appears to me to have been offered to the 
 consideration of this House of Parliament. 
 When the French Nation, through their 
 Ministers and Rulers, had placed before us 
 a statement of their fancied grievances, 
 an English Minister should in some 
 immortal State-paper, breathing the fire and 
 the logical eloquence of Chatham, have an- 
 swered that Despatch. He should have 
 placed upon this table a manifesto of her 
 rights and privileges : and at the same time 
 have combined with it a glowing expression 
 of sympathy with a powerful and faithful 
 ally. That is what I expected : and the 
 Minister who missed that opportunity 
 missed a great occasion. Such a Despatch 
 would have been the keynote to our 
 Country : In the face of Europe we should 
 have given to the French people, that 
 people w^ho are misled by calumniators, 
 
Napoleon III. 81 
 
 a bright and living proof of the respect 
 and sympathy of the Parliament of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 *' Such a course has not been proposed: 
 and all that we are asked to do is to abro- 
 gate the old penal law of Ireland on the 
 one hand, and to retrograde the law of 
 England on the other. I cannot suppose 
 that any such project can give the shghtest 
 satisfaction to the Emperor of France. 
 When a man has been elected by millions 
 in a great country he is above petty 
 criticism. So far as I am concerned, I 
 consider it the most unfortunate part of 
 the position in which we are placed that 
 this opportunity has been so mismanaged 
 by Her Majesty's Ministers as to have 
 alarmed England, without ]: leasing France. 
 Still, I cannot but think that we ought not 
 to take the course which may lead to long 
 and mischievous discussions because we dis- 
 approve of the clumsy and feeble manner 
 in which the Government has attempted to 
 deal with this difficulty : we must not seize 
 G 
 
82 Napoleon III. 
 
 this opportunity because we wish to inflict 
 a check upon the Government; nor do that 
 which might be misconstrued into an in- 
 sult to that Prince, who, I think, deserves 
 well of this country ; and therefore it is my 
 intention to vote for the bringing in of the 
 Bill. But I am not prepared, as at present 
 advised, to take any further part in its 
 defence. I reserve to myself, when the 
 Measure shall be again brought before us, 
 the power of considering the principle upon 
 which it is founded: and I shall be ready 
 to listen to any arguments which may 
 induce me to believe, what I do not yet 
 believe, that it will accomplish the purpose 
 for which it is projected. 
 
 '' Because I am desirous to show to the 
 Ruler of France, and to the French people 
 that at this moment, when a horrible 
 enormity has been perpetrated in their 
 metropolis, when the life of that Ruler has 
 been endangered, when every attempt has 
 been made to arouse the passions of the 
 people of France, and to misrepresent the 
 
Napoleon III. 83 
 
 feelings of the people of England, because 
 I am desirous of showing to the people of 
 France that there is in the Parliament 
 of Great Britain that noble, genuine, and 
 generous, sympathy with them, it is for 
 this reason that I vote for leave to bring in 
 this Bill." 
 
 M' Sidney Herbert followed Disraeli: 
 he also, in stating that he should support 
 the First Reading of the Bill, carefully and 
 conspicuously guarded himself against any 
 promise or undertaking that he would vote 
 for the Second Reading. 
 
 Lord Palmerston wound up the Debate : 
 his speech containing little more than a 
 repetition of his earlier arguments. He 
 spoke of Napoleon III. as having been 
 eloquently described by the Member for 
 Buckinghamshire as a steady and faithful 
 ally of this country. 
 
 Bathos interfered, as it usually does on 
 solemn occasions ; M' Cox, the cause of the 
 term ' Cox's Castles,' moved the adjourn- 
 ment of the Debate. Lord Palmerston 
 
84 Napoleon III. 
 
 hoped that his Honourable Friend would 
 defer his speech until the Second Reading. 
 The House divided on leave being given 
 to introduce the Bill ; in which case the 
 First Reading would be taken as a matter 
 of course : M' Kinglake withdrew his 
 Amendment : the House divided : on the 
 question of the Bill being introduced the 
 Numbers were : 
 
 Ayes . . . 299. 
 Noes ... 99. 
 
 It was felt throughout the House that 
 this was a courteous method of convincing 
 Napoleon III. and the French people that 
 we deeply sympathized with them on the 
 hideous crime which had been attempted : 
 a crime rendered more hideous by the full 
 knowledge of its perpetrators that innocent 
 lives would be sacrificed. 
 
 LADY COWLEY told me that the Em- 
 peror had felt deeply the fact of the mob 
 outside the Old Bailey cheering when they 
 heard of the acquittal of Dr. Bernard. 
 
Napoleon III. 85 
 
 I expressed my surprise that the Em- 
 peror, who knew London well, should be 
 affected by this : a very small sum of 
 money would induce a mob to hoot or 
 cheer anybody : I have no doubt that this 
 was carefully organized by Napoleon III.'s 
 enemies in England. 
 
 I quoted to Lady Cowley the familiar 
 case of Charles I. when leaving West- 
 minster Hall after his mock trial: Crom- 
 well's soldiers puffed tobacco and spat in 
 the King's face : " Poor souls," said he, 
 ^' they would do the same to their Officers 
 for sixpence." 
 
 I was present at the trial of Simon Ber- 
 nard at the Old Bailey. He was a tall, 
 dark, somewhat cadaverous man; with long 
 black hair reaching to his shoulders; a 
 large nose ; and general dingy appear- 
 ance. In a performance of ' Faust ' in the 
 theatre of a country fair he would have 
 well represented Mephistopheles. Low 
 cunning, with mediocre intellect, showed in 
 his face. 
 
86 Napoleon III. 
 
 He watched the evidence carefully. The 
 Attorney-General made a good, practical, 
 fair, and logical speech: but even he did 
 not appear to me to press the case very 
 hardly against the prisoner : he seemed 
 more anxious to preserve as a lawyer his 
 reputation among lawyers than to obtain a 
 conviction. 
 
 Bernard was defended by the blustering 
 bully of the bar, Edwin James : I attribute 
 the verdict mainly to his domineering 
 rhetoric. Great excitement had existed for 
 some time out of doors, in consequence of 
 the violent addresses to the Emperor by 
 the French Colonels; who had described 
 this country as 'a den of assassins;' and 
 had requested their Sovereign to lead them 
 to our destruction. These addresses, in- 
 serted in the ' Moniteur,' had prejudiced 
 the unthinking public, of a section of 
 whom the jury was composed, against 
 Napoleon III. Of this, of course, Edwin 
 James made ample use: he declared that 
 this prosecution was not made by the Crown 
 
Napoleon III. 87 
 
 with any view to secure Justice; that it 
 was made at the dictation of the Emperor, 
 whom the Government thought it necessary 
 to conciliate : he said that the solicitor for 
 the Treasury had been directed to ransack 
 the archives of Parliament to find a law, 
 under which a prosecution and a conviction 
 could be obtained for the crime of wilful 
 murder: he added that the Government of 
 the day had wanted the courage to submit 
 a fresh Bill on the subject to the House of 
 Commons. Lord Palmerston's Government 
 had been wrecked in endeavouring to pass 
 a Bill for the purpose. Lord Derby who 
 had succeeded to power did not know what 
 to do : he knew that the House of Commons 
 would not pass a Bill to produce the effect 
 wished : and he had recourse to this prose- 
 cution to conciliate the Emperor; of whom 
 he was afraid. He described the statute 
 under which his client was being tried as 
 ' a musty Act : ' and that a special Com- 
 mission of Judges had been appointed to 
 endeavour to enforce an Act of Parliament 
 
88 Napoleon III. 
 
 which had never been intended by its 
 framers to apply to a similar case. 
 
 Edwin James continued that the real 
 object, in endeavouring to obtain a con- 
 viction, was to abolish the right of refuge 
 in this free country : and to prevent political 
 refugees obtaining safety when landing on 
 our shores. Liberal invectives were hurled 
 by this Radical * Buzfuz ' against Monarch s 
 in general : he used with effect the argu- 
 ment that Napoleon III. himself had 
 arranged his conspiracy for storming the 
 Sovereignty of France when resident in 
 London. He contrasted the 'fifty-one 
 wounds ' inflicted by Orsini and his gang, 
 which had been dwelt upon in the Attorney- 
 General's speech, against the shooting down 
 on the Boulevards of ''les passants^^ in 
 December 1851. 
 
 As regards the detonating shells, by 
 which the Emperor's destruction had been 
 compassed, he declared that there was no 
 proof that they had ever been in the 
 possession of Bernard. Here I think was 
 
Napoleon III. 89 
 
 his strong point: and the argument that 
 because a letter had been found, addressed 
 to " My dear Doctor," from one Allsopp, 
 which was dwelt on by the Prosecution, was 
 decidedly a weak one. Lawyers hold that 
 letters addressed by A. to B. cannot com- 
 promise B. but that B.'s reply to these letters 
 can decidedly do so. 
 
 His peroration, no doubt, affected a 
 Petty Jury at the Old Bailey : " Tell the 
 French Emperor that he cannot intimidate 
 an English jury: tell him that the jury- 
 box is the sanctuary of English Liberty: 
 tell him that on that spot your predecessors 
 have resisted the power of the Crown; 
 backed by the influence of crown-serving, 
 and time-serving Judges; tell him that, 
 panoplied in armour, no threat of arma- 
 ment, nor of invasion, can intimidate you : 
 tell him that though six hundred thousand 
 French bayonets glittered before you; 
 though the roar of French cannon thundered 
 in your ears ; you will return a verdict 
 which your own hearts and consciences will 
 
90 Xapoleon III. 
 
 sanction, and approve : careless whether 
 that verdict please, or displease, a foreign 
 despot; or scares, or shocks, and destroys 
 for ever the Throne, which a Tyrant has 
 built upon the ruins of the Liberties of a 
 once free and mighty people." 
 
 The Lord Chief Justice summed up on 
 the whole favourably to the prisoner: he 
 pointed out that technically the prisoner 
 was charged with being accessory before 
 the fact to the murder of Nicholas Battle : 
 that, though the death of Nicholas Battle, 
 one of the bystanders, might not have been 
 in his contemplation, yet if it were a 
 natural, and probable consequence of the 
 attempt to assassinate the Emperor, the 
 charge would be established against those 
 who were accessory to that attempt. The 
 prisoner was not liable on this charge for 
 anything he might have done out of the 
 United Kingdom : they must consider 
 whether he had been proved to have done 
 anything within the United Kingdom, 
 which made him an accomplice in this 
 
Napoleon III. 91 
 
 design. Did he authorize the employ- 
 ment of the grenade for the purpose of 
 assassinating the Emperor? 
 
 He concluded, '' Now, gentlemen, I must 
 tell you at once, that if you should come 
 to the conclusion that those grenades were 
 to be used for military purposes, your 
 verdict ought in my opinion to be one of 
 ' Not Guilty : ' because to prepare means 
 for invading a foreign country is not the 
 offence which is laid to the charge of the 
 prisoner. If you believe that he, as there 
 is strong evidence to show, knew how 
 Allsopp had got these grenades, and 
 assisted in having them transported to 
 Brussels; if you believe that he bought 
 in this country the materials for making 
 the fulminating powder with which those 
 grenades were charged ; if you believe that 
 he, living in this country, sent over re- 
 volvers with the view that they should be 
 used in the plot against the Emperor of the 
 French; and if you believe that he incited 
 Rudio to assist the others assembled in 
 
92 Napoleon III. 
 
 Paris, knowing what their design was, then 
 it will be a fair inference, I think, to draw 
 that he had a guilty knowledge of that 
 plot : it is for you to draw your own con- 
 clusions. The right of asylum in this 
 country amounts to this; that foreigners 
 are at liberty to come to this country, and 
 to leave it, at their own will and pleasure ; 
 that they cannot be disturbed by the 
 Government of this country, so long as 
 they obey our laws: they are under the 
 same laws as native-born subjects: and if 
 they violate those laws, they are liable to 
 be prosecuted and punished in the same 
 manner as native-born subjects of the 
 Queen.'* 
 
 At the conclusion of the Chief Justice's 
 address to the jury the prisoner exclaimed 
 that the shells which were taken to Brussels 
 were not those which were used in Paris. 
 He said that he had not hired assassins : 
 that his only wish was to crush Despotism 
 and Tyranny everywhere. The jury in an 
 hour and a half declared him ' Not Guilty.' 
 
JN"apoleon in. 93 
 
 My own impression is that Simon Ber- 
 nard was guilty up to the chin : that he had 
 a full knowledge ; and determination to 
 assassinate Napoleon III. by the hands of 
 others. At the same time, I consider that 
 on the whole the verdict was a right and 
 just one ; looked at from a legal point of 
 view : and I felt at the time great doubts 
 whether the grenades found ostensibly in 
 possession of the prisoner had not been put 
 there by other hands. 
 
 OX THE 19™ OF FEBRUARY the 
 
 Second Reading of the 'Conspiracy to 
 Murder Bill ' was moved by Lord Palmer- 
 ston. 
 
 I may mention here that among the more 
 illiterate voters of the Kingdom great anxiety 
 was prevalent as to who ' Bill ' was : and 
 why his life had been conspired against. 
 
 Lord Palmerston took the rather weak 
 ground of saying that one of the motives of 
 those who introduced the Bill was to assimi- 
 late the law of the three portions of the 
 
94 Napoleon III. 
 
 United Kingdom. He said that in the im- 
 proved state of society in Ireland it was 
 not desirable that this exceptional law 
 should be continued. His speech was 
 prudently short. 
 
 M' Milner Gibson, who after losino^ his 
 seat had again been returned to the House, 
 and who obviously, to the knowledge of all, 
 owed Lord Palmerston a grudge, followed. 
 He commented with considerable sarcasm 
 on the political character of the noble Vis- 
 count. He quoted from ' The Times ' of 
 some years before one or two disagreeable 
 passages. As he spoke, he smiled con- 
 tinuously upon Lord Palmerston; a smile 
 of derision, which later in the night 
 changed to triumph. He said that in June 
 1850. * The Times ' spoke of the noble 
 Lord in these words ' There is no con- 
 stituted authority in Europe with which 
 Lord Palmerston has not quarrelled : there 
 is no insurrection that he has not betrayed : 
 the ardent partisans of Sicilian, Italian, and 
 Hungarian, independence have certainly no 
 
Napoleon III. 95 
 
 especial cause for gratitude to a Minister, 
 who gave them abundance of verbal en- 
 couragement, and then abandoned them to 
 their fate. On the other hand, mark this ; 
 when Lord Palmerston has made up his 
 mind to court the goodwill of a Foreign 
 Power, no sacrifice of principle nor of interest 
 is too great for him.' M' Milner Gibson 
 said that the passage concluded in these 
 emphatic terms, ' From first to last his 
 character has been the want of a firm and 
 lofty adherence to the known interests of 
 England : and it is precisely from such 
 guiding laws of conduct that our Foreign 
 Policy has degenerated into a tissue of 
 paltry machinations, petty condonations, 
 and everlasting disputes.' 
 
 After reading out these unpleasant quota- 
 tions with marked and judicious emphasis, 
 M' Milner Gibson proceeded to question 
 the discretion which had been exercised by 
 her Majesty's Government. He repeated 
 that if a proper reply had been sent to the 
 dispatch of Count Walewski we might not 
 
96 Napoleon III. 
 
 have been called upon to legislate upon this 
 subject : that if the sympathy of this country 
 had been expressed for the unfortunate 
 circumstances which had taken place in 
 Paris, the excitement would have passed 
 away without the necessity of involving the 
 House of Commons in a controversy with 
 the French Emperor and the French nation. 
 
 Having moved his Amendment, M' 
 Bright seconded it without a Speech. 
 
 M' Baines spoke : and M' Walpole 
 followed at considerable length. Sir George 
 Grey addressed the House. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel expressed his astonish- 
 ment that the head of a Liberal Government 
 should propose such a Bill to the House, 
 Sir Robert had always the ear of the 
 House : differing utterly and entirely in 
 appearance, manner, and style of elocution 
 from his father, there was a freshness about 
 him which from the first time I heard him 
 in 1852. always seemed peculiarly attrac- 
 tive : with some deficiencies of temper and 
 of tact, Sir Robert, whom I knew well, was 
 
NArOLEON III. 97 
 
 a man of unquestionable ability: he had, 
 what few members of Parliament have, 
 great dramatic power : his voice was very 
 good : his manner, though slightly artificial, 
 was artistic : and I believe that he was 
 incapable of making a pointless speech. The 
 House always listened to him with attention : 
 and the attention was well deserved : he was 
 never a frequent speaker. 
 
 A characteristic story is told of him and 
 Lord John Russell. Sir Robert Peel having 
 held Office undera Whig Government, Secre- 
 tary for Ireland, it was decided subsequently, 
 on the Whigs returning to power, that he 
 was not to have a place : it was necessary 
 for Lord John Russell to intimate this to 
 him. Accordingly he requested Sir Robert's 
 attendance at his house. The wish was 
 complied with: and Lord John Russell 
 with some circumlocution, intimated to Sir 
 Robert that the Queen had been pleased to 
 confer on him the honour of the Grand 
 Cross of the Order of the Ba,h, Sir Robert 
 being the youngest Memb.r upon whom 
 n 
 
98 NAroLEON III. 
 
 the Order had ever been conferred. Pro- 
 bably from fear of immediate consequences, 
 Lord John did not make it clear to Sir 
 Robert's mind that he was not to be re- 
 appointed to Office. After Sir Robert had 
 left him, the Prime Minister felt that he 
 had lost his opportunity : and that it would 
 add to the distress of the situation if Sir 
 Robert Peel, in announcing to his wife, as 
 of course all married men do at once, the 
 honour which had been conferred on him, 
 did not add that its value was considerably 
 diminished by his claims for Office being 
 totally neglected. Accordingly * Little 
 Johnny^ despatched a confidential agent in a 
 cab : he reached the doorstep of Sir Robert's 
 house in time to put matters plainly before 
 him : and thus prevent a painful scene, which 
 might otherwise have occurred. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel said that this Bill would 
 entail shame and degradation on the House, 
 and on the Country : it was a sham and a 
 pretext. He quoted the words of one of 
 the Officers inserted in the * Moniteur,' 
 
Napoleon III. 99 
 
 * May tliese miserable murderers, the hired 
 agents of black deeds, receive the punish- 
 ment which is their desert : but let that in- 
 fernal den {repaire infame)^ in which these 
 assassinations are hatched, be destroyed for 
 ever ! ' He w^ould ask, Has any apology 
 been offered for the very strong and un- 
 seemly expressions that recently fell from 
 the Presidents of the two Legislative 
 Chambers of France? both of whom a|)pear 
 to have been utterly forgetful of their 
 position, and of that careful expression of 
 feeling, and dignified demeanour, which are 
 so conspicuous in the persons holding kin- 
 dred Offices in this country. What has 
 Monsieur de Morny to say? That England 
 is a '' lair of savage beasts " and ^' a labora- 
 tory of assassins." '' I am ready to make 
 every excuse for the courtiers of Louis 
 Napoleon. I know perfectly well the con- 
 ditions attaching to a position like that. 
 Monsieur de Morny is only imitating the 
 predecessor in the Office which he holds in 
 the time of the First Napoleon, Champigny, 
 
100 Napoleon III. 
 
 who said that his master Napoleon Buona- 
 parte was 'an angel sent from hcavtn to 
 bless mankind : and, like the great Invisible 
 Being, he governed the world by his power 
 and his influence.'" He said, ''In 1850. 
 Lord Palmerston was a Roman Citizen : 
 that time, alas ! had long gone by: the 
 Bill bore, to use the words of Byron, the 
 
 ' Meanness, and weakness, and the sense 
 
 of shame 
 ^Gainst which thou canst not strive, thou 
 
 durst not murmur.' " 
 
 M' Henley spoke: and M' Gladstone; who 
 felt an insuperable objection to the Measure 
 before the House. The Attorney-General 
 spoke at some length. The Debate on the 
 Opposition side was wound up by Disraeli. 
 He said that ten days ago the Question 
 before the House was a question between 
 the Parliament of England and the people 
 and Government of France. He for one, 
 and a great majority of the House, sympa- 
 thized with the people and Government of 
 
Napoleon III. 101 
 
 France under the circumstances which had 
 recently occurred. It would have been 
 most impolitic that we should hastily have 
 shown that there was on the part of the 
 House of Commons a want of sympathy 
 with the Nation and Government of France. 
 The permission to introduce the Bill was a 
 declaration that there was an earnest desire 
 on the part of the Parliament of England 
 to show that they sympathized with the 
 Emperor of the French, and the French 
 people, in their condition. He had himself 
 treated the proposal of the Government as 
 inadequate : in the meantime no reply had 
 been sent, although hoped for by himself, 
 to the Minister of France. He added that 
 negligence had been shown by the English 
 Government " occasioned no doubt by 
 perplexity of opinion, and timidity of senti- 
 ment." The Greek Kalends may be the 
 period for the repartee of the Government. 
 Lord Palmerston had declared in scoffing 
 tones that we, the Opposition, thought that 
 a highflown dispatch should have been 
 
102 Napoleon III. 
 
 written; that he, Lord Palmerston, thought 
 that a Despatch was not at all the proper 
 mode of meeting it : in fact that it was im- 
 possible to answer the Despatch of the 
 French Minister; and therefore he, Lord 
 Palnierston, offered a substitution, in the 
 shape of altering our legislation, which they 
 will receive as a great compliment; and 
 which, as -the Honourable and Learned 
 Attorney-General told us to-night, was 
 already prepared ; and about to be intro- 
 duced. We have been treated to-night by 
 the learned Lord Advocate with scoffing 
 words, in which he told us that our specific 
 for a difficult diplomatic conjunction was 
 the composition of a smart Despatch. 
 
 Disraeli concluded, " I think that it would 
 have been well to have taken the oppor- 
 tunity of asserting the principles of the 
 public law; of vindicating international 
 rights; of appealing to the deep pathos of a 
 nation's dignity; of appealing, not merely to 
 the litigious spirit, but to the nobler emo- 
 tions of the French Government : a course 
 
Napoleon III. 103 
 
 which, had it been pursued with frankness 
 and self-respect, would, in my mind, have 
 prevented the necessity of this Bill being 
 presented to Parliament and to the people." 
 " To-night we have really to decide only 
 upon that question. Those who may follow 
 me, if I be followed, may attempt again to 
 rouse the passions, or to stimulate the fears, 
 of this House by allusions to possible mis- 
 conceptions between the two countries. I 
 have no such fears : the vote which we 
 arrived at ten days ago upon the introduc- 
 tion of this Bill has been perfectly under- 
 stood. It is not a diplomatic, it is not a 
 political, issue : it is indeed an issue of the 
 greatest importance ; but narrowed to a 
 very small limit. It is a question between 
 this House and the servants of the Crown. 
 Have they, or have they not, done their 
 duty? I will not enter into a discussion of 
 the merits, nor even of the character of the 
 law which they have placed on our table. 
 If the Amendment proposed by the Right 
 Hon. Member for Ashton be carried, there 
 
104 Napoleon III. 
 
 will be nothing to prevent us from proceed- 
 ing to the consideration of this Measure: 
 and of this Measure I give that same guarded 
 opinion that I have given before. I reserve 
 to myself the right of deciding upon it on 
 its merits. What we have to determine 
 now is whether the Resolution of the Right 
 Hon. Gentleman is a just and proper Reso- 
 lution : whether its allegations are accurate : 
 whether its sentiments are those which this 
 House ought to sanction: whether the 
 regret which we express as Englishmen has, 
 or has not touched the heart of the entire 
 nation. That, Sir, is the issue. I protest 
 against any foreign element being imported 
 into it. Let us decide whether or not the 
 Amendment of the Right Hon. gentleman 
 is justified by the circumstances. 
 
 " I think that it is expressed in moderate, 
 though grave, language. I think that in 
 supporting it we are fulfilling a public duty : 
 and that if we carry it we shall accomplish 
 a public benefit." 
 
 I have frequently heard Lord Palmerston 
 
Napoleon III. 105 
 
 make very flat, and occasionally pointless, 
 speeches : on this occasion he appeared to 
 me not only to be considerably below par, 
 but, what I do not remember to have ob- 
 served on other occasions, it seemed that he 
 genuinely lost his temper. 
 
 lie said that M' Milner Gibson and M' 
 Gladstone, leaving the subject under dis- 
 cussion, had entered into a long and elabo- 
 rate attack upon his former conduct when 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs : that they 
 had ransacked the files of old newspapers 
 for the purpose of attacking him ; that it was 
 fortunate for them that his industry had not 
 led hirn to ransack some old newspapers 
 to see what they had said : that it was the 
 first time that he had seen M' Milner Gibson 
 in the character of champion and vindicator 
 of the honour of England : whenever the 
 Rights of England had been called in ques- 
 tion by a foreign country the Right Hon. 
 gentleman had been the advocate of the 
 foreign country against his own. The Right 
 Hon. gentleman had invariably advocated 
 
106 Napoleon III. 
 
 the policy of submission ; of crouching to 
 every foreign power. He declared that 
 M' Milner Gibson had been the mouthpiece 
 of a small party, who in public had said 
 " What care we if this country should be 
 conquered by a foreign force? if we were 
 conquered by a foreign Power, they would 
 allow us to work our mills.'' (Cries of Ques- 
 tion.) ''Will the House stultify itself? 
 Those who are prepared to do so cannot be 
 expected to acknowledge it. None are so 
 unconscious of stultifying themselves as 
 those who actually do it," etc. 
 
 The Question was then put ; the numbers 
 being 
 
 Ayes . . . 215. 
 Noes . . . 234. 
 
 The precise words of M' Milner Gibson's 
 successful Amendment I give verbatim ; 
 
 Resolved, ' That this House hears with 
 much concern that recent attempts upon the 
 life of the Emperor of the French have been 
 devised in England : and expresses its detes- 
 
Napoleon III. 107 
 
 tation of such guilty enterprises : that this 
 House is ready at all times to assist in 
 remedying any defects in the Criminal Law 
 which after due investigation are proved to 
 exist : yet it cannot but regret that Her 
 Majesty's Government, previously to in- 
 viting the House to amend the Law of 
 Conspiracy by the Second Reading of this 
 Bill at the present time, has not felt it to be 
 their duty to make some reply to the im- 
 portant Despatch received from the French 
 Government, dated Paris, January 20. 1858. 
 and which has been laid before Parliament.' 
 
 So ended Lord Palmerston's Administra- 
 tion. I remember the radiant smile upon M' 
 Milner Gibson's face, which I have alluded 
 to, increase when the fate of the ' vertgalant ' 
 Premier was announced. 
 
 Descending to Westminster Hall, I found 
 three persons ' waiting for the verdict ' : they 
 were alone : Lord Granville, Lord Stanley 
 of Alderley,and,I think, Lord Bessborough. 
 Lord Granville said '' What are the num- 
 bers ? " I replied " A majority of nineteen." 
 
108 Napoleon III. 
 
 ^'Whicli way?" "I am too polite to tell 
 you." 
 
 THERE WAS ONE CLASS of persons 
 that Napoleon III. must have found it 
 difficult to deal with. Living in London in 
 a somewhat mesquine society, there were 
 those who hung about him because he was 
 a Prince, though only titular; persons who 
 could never creep into really good society; 
 and a good many who were not fit for any 
 society bearing the name. 
 
 Bohemian as he was by na':ure, and mix- 
 ing with this class in his daily life in London, 
 he must have been hampered when he came 
 to the throne, and supreme power, not only 
 by the pecuniary applications of many, but 
 by their wish to re-establish social relations. 
 Some of them no doubt were decently 
 respectable; and of a class to whom he 
 might show hospitality : but there must 
 have been many more whom he could not 
 possibly invite to meet men nor women 
 whose friendship he wished to cultivate. 
 
NArOLEON III. 109 
 
 I have no doubt that Napoleon IIT. sepa- 
 rated pleasure and business with the exact 
 line of demarcation made by every wise man. 
 Like his uncle, I doubt if females influenced 
 him in any degree : except in the case of his 
 wife. No doubt he felt that it was neces- 
 sary latterly to place confidence in some- 
 one : and that prudence suggested to him 
 to trust the one person who had most interest 
 in preserving for the throne of France him- 
 self and his dynasty. 
 
 I THOUGHT at the time, and think still, 
 that the Emperor committed an error in 
 giving to the soldiers of his army a political 
 vote. 
 
 In his Proclamation he expressed a hope 
 that they would vote like citizens, but 
 always would remember that their first duty 
 as soldiers was implicitly to obey orders. 
 
 Nothing can be more fatal to discipline 
 than ' a divided dutv.' It would embarrass 
 an astute and philosophical mind so to 
 separate conscientiously his actions. To 
 
110 Napoleon III. 
 
 vote against A. B. or C. on one day, and on 
 the next shoot down those who were 
 opposing A. 13. or C. is an anomalous posi- 
 tion. How could he expect from the average 
 French soldier, a man of small education, 
 and not enlarged intellect, to discrimi- 
 nate ? 
 
 A soldier is taught that Obedience is 
 his first duty: What advantage would be 
 gained by distracting him from this duty, 
 and making him a politician ? 
 
 The votes obtained by Napoleon III. 
 were so enormous that the addition of the 
 vote of the French army would not have 
 been material. The result, as we have 
 seen, was a diminution, that could not 
 be concealed, of his popularity among his 
 troops. Had the French soldier had no 
 vote, this diminution would not have 
 been palpable to the French nation : I am 
 surprised that a man with the astute in- 
 tellect of Napoleon III. did not take this 
 view. 
 
Kapoleon hi. Ill 
 
 ONE OF THE BEST of those employed 
 by the Emperor was the Count de Sartiges, 
 his Ambassador at the Court of the 
 Pope. 
 
 I had seen a good deal of him during my 
 stay at Rome : on the evening before I left 
 the Eternal City I was at an evening party 
 at the Embassy. He asked me to wait: 
 saying that he wished to speak tome after the 
 rest of the company were gone. I waited. 
 Leaning on the stove in the principal room 
 he told me that the next morning at eleven 
 he was to have an interview with Pius IX. to 
 endeavour to settle this everlasting ' Question 
 Romaine.^ He said to me, " If you were 
 the Pope, what would you say ? " 
 
 I replied " I should say, ^ If you go,' 
 meaning of course the French Army of 
 Occupation, ' I shall go. I shall, for the 
 sake of effect, put the Bible under my arm, 
 and a scudo in my pocket.' " 
 
 The Ambassador paused : then said, 
 " A woman's method : and a very powerful 
 one." 
 
112 Napoleon III. 
 
 I added, '' You cannot afford to quarrel 
 with a man, who, by a dozen strokes of his 
 pen, can set every priest in France against 
 you." 
 
 Count Sartiges said '' Quite true ! with 
 universal suffrage it is impossible." 
 
 " The Pope knows that so well as your 
 Excellency and I do." 
 
 I left Rome the next day : from what I 
 gleaned in the European newspapers this 
 was not unlike what passed. 
 
 I have never met a more pleasant speci- 
 men of a diplomatist than Count Sartiges. 
 I hinted that I hoped to see him fill a high 
 position in the Government of the Emperor. 
 He said " If I can but once get rid of this 
 wearisome question, I have but one ambi- 
 tion : my apartment in Paris, and my cigar." 
 
 He died not long ago, at a great age : 
 being deservedly a Grand Cross of the 
 Legion of Honour. 
 
 TO ONE QUESTION I have never ob- 
 tained an answer. Why was Napoleon III. 
 
Napoleon III. 113 
 
 not crowned ? Fond of spectacles as are 
 the French people, and with the sense of 
 the dramatic, which was one of his charac- 
 teristics, one might have anticipated that 
 the Cathedral of Notre Dame would have 
 been made the scene of a display un- 
 equalled except at the Coronation of 
 George lY. 
 
 I can only conjecture that the Emperor 
 considered that there was one person alone 
 who could perform the function: the 
 Pope. His uncle had been crowned by 
 Pius VII. who was more or less under 
 duresse at the time. Napoleon I. took the 
 crown with his own hands from the Pope : 
 and placed it on his head. This action may 
 have been a warning to Pius IX. not 
 to risk being placed in a similar position. 
 
 OF THE NUMBERLESS portraits in oil, 
 engravings, and photographs, I think that 
 the best is that in the Royal Palace of 
 Turin painted by Paul de la Roche. All 
 the photographs are more or less like him. 
 I 
 
114 Napoleon III. 
 
 One, in a favourite pose, leaning with 
 his elbow on his knee, with the little Prince 
 Imperial, a child in a frock, in the fore- 
 ground, is very good : Napoleon III. had a 
 particularly good-natured smile, which con- 
 trasted remarkably with his usually sombre 
 expression. 
 
 His mustachios contrasted curiously with 
 his hair : the latter was peculiarly soft, and 
 silky; whereas the mustachios were very 
 coarse, and thick. 
 
 Both Napoleon III. and Victor Em- 
 manuel were right to ' plant out ' their faces : 
 neither would have responded to Madame 
 de StaePs ideal: '' I like a bare face," said 
 she, " but it must be a good one." 
 
 I CANNOT OMIT from my recollections 
 the name of a lady who arrived in France 
 in the winter of 1855. and who took Paris 
 by storm. I was at a private Ball at the 
 Tuileries at which were assembled almost 
 all of those who had taken part in the 
 recent Crimean War. 
 
Napoleon III. 115 
 
 I remember speaking to Marshal Can- 
 robert, to whom I was presented. He said 
 to me, " Monsieur does not dance? '' " And 
 you, Marshal ? '^ *' I dance no more!" 
 "But you can make others dance!" I 
 heard afterwards that this was a mot of the 
 first Emperor. 
 
 I thought, of all the distinguished men 
 present, that General Niel was the best 
 bred. 
 
 On returning from a quadrille I observed 
 a lady sitting against the wall, whom I had 
 not seen before. I said to my partner, '' If 
 you want to see my idea of a woman, there 
 she sits." The lady in question was badly 
 dressed, her dressmaker certainly not being 
 of Paris ; she was sitting between two ladies 
 whom evidently she did not know. I 
 was very much struck by her beauty. 
 Thoroughly English in appearance and 
 style, a most symmetrical figure, and 
 beautiful face, no attempt at ' make up ' : 
 it was real, genuine Beauty, such as I have 
 never seen surpassed. 
 
116 Napoleon III. 
 
 I had no idea who she was : I learned 
 that this was the Countess Castiglione. 
 
 While speaking with Lady Cowley the 
 Empress came up : she had on a pale yellow 
 dress. Looking at the lady in question, of 
 whom she had evidently heard, the Empress 
 said — And now I feel sure that my readers, 
 especially my female readers, would like 
 very much to know what it was that the 
 Empress said. I must tell them at once 
 that for the small price at which this 
 volume is sold I do not think it right to 
 give the words. 
 
 Later in the evening General La Mar- 
 mora, the Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Italian army, offered to introduce me to 
 Madame Castiglione : he said that he had 
 just presented to her Lord Lyons, the first 
 of the title, the distinguished Admiral and 
 Ambassador. 
 
 General La Marmora used an expression, 
 not uncommon among the French ; but 
 which I had not heard before. Speaking 
 of the Admiral he said, '' II est tres amateur 
 
Napoleon III. 117 
 
 de plies femmes " : a good description of 
 some of the greatest of mankind ; the types 
 of Augustus, not of Antony. The lady 
 was sitting in the midst of a semicircle of 
 five admirers, whom she appeared to hold 
 very cheap indeed. I expressed a hope 
 that she would visit London, and I ven- 
 tured to add that though we should admire 
 her very much we should not show quite 
 the same idolatry as the French evidently 
 were prepared to show. Madame Cas- 
 tiglione expressed her views tersely and 
 vigorously in relation to the value of an 
 Englishman's admiration. When in the 
 tea-room the inevitable mother-in-law 
 appeared. I made my bow, and went 
 to the end of the room where the Cotillon 
 was being danced : the Valse being played 
 was the melody in ' II Trovatore,' where 
 the prisoner appeals to the lady from 
 his dungeon tower. Having, I can assure 
 my readers, a great quantity of Sentiment, 
 I presumed to look at the lady, who was at 
 some little distance, when it came to that 
 
118 Napoleon III. 
 
 part of the melody " Non ti scordar ! non 
 ti scordar di me ! ^^ The same thought had 
 apparently occurred to this marvellous 
 beauty : and a slight bow, full of dignity 
 and appreciation, was my reward. 
 
 Absolute, perfect, unanswerable proof of 
 pre-eminent and undoubted superiority was 
 shown to Madame Castiglione then, and for 
 some time afterwards. Every sort of 
 envious gossip, old, stale, ridiculous, and 
 contemptible, was uttered of her. 
 
 It is possible that her object in coming 
 to France may have been to persuade the 
 Emperor to liberate her country : and I 
 feel sure she must have charmed him, and 
 every sensible person with whom she came 
 in contact. 
 
 One story was that the Emperor asked 
 her if she did not care for Admiration. 
 Madame Castiglione replied, '' If your 
 Majesty from the time you were six years 
 old had heard nothing but ' How beautiful 
 she is !' you would be as sick of it as I am.^' 
 .On being asked by the same illustrious 
 
Napoleon III. 119 
 
 person if there was anything she cared for, 
 she replied " My husband, and my children." 
 
 I left Paris a few days after my intro- 
 duction. Some time later I saw Madame 
 Castiglione at the Queen's Ball: and a few 
 days after at Locke's shop in Regent Street. 
 She was accompanied in her carriage en 
 tete-a-tete by M. Corti, Charg^ d' Affaires 
 of the Italian Embassy. The little man 
 harped my thoughts as I was leaning against 
 the carriage. " Ah ! Sir William," said 
 he, " you see what it is to be de ogly man." 
 I replied " A very enviable condition I 
 have always thought." 
 
 If ever a woman had a triumph in the 
 Capital it was Madame Castiglione. Arriving 
 in Paris almost unknown she took the 
 world absolutely by storm, and was the 
 object of admiration, for a very long time, of 
 every circle. 
 
 ON THE VISIT of the Emperor and 
 Empress to London the crowds were, of 
 course, enormous. . , 
 
120 Napoleon III. 
 
 My brother, the late Lieutenant-General 
 Keith Fraser, commanded the escort which 
 brought the Emperor and the Empress 
 through the City to the West End. Oppo- 
 site to the Mansion House the pressure 
 was enormous: my brother, who was 
 riding close to the carriage, observed a man 
 dressed as a labourer, who pertinaciously 
 insisted upon placing his hand on the 
 upper edge of the door of the open carriage, 
 occupied by the Sovereigns. Of course the 
 strictest orders had been given to prevent 
 anything like personal access : after speak- 
 ing several times to this persistent prole- 
 taire^ my brother gave him a broad hint by 
 thrusting the point of his sword through 
 his hat, and throwing it away some distance 
 over the heads of the crowd. The man 
 took but little notice: as he still retained 
 his position, Captain Eraser did his duty by 
 giving him a violent kick with his left boot 
 in the centre of his back. The man still 
 held on. The servant, who was on the 
 seat at the back of the carriage leant for- 
 
Napoleon III. 121 
 
 ward ; and whispered, " The head of the 
 detectives, Sir." 
 
 Every possible precaution was taken by 
 the Government to protect the person of 
 the Emperor. I know that their anxiety 
 was great during the time he was in 
 London. Indeed it speaks volumes for the 
 skill of our detective system that no attempt 
 was made on his person during his stay. 
 
 On his return to Paris the Emperor, with 
 the thoughtful good-nature which was his 
 characteristic, sent four breast-pins of some 
 value to the Commanding-Officer of the 
 First Life Guards, to be given to the 
 Officers who had served him in command- 
 ing his escorts. Some time after, my 
 brother told me a fact which I could not 
 have believed except from his own lips. 
 The Officers of the First Life Guards have 
 been for several generations gentlemen, in 
 the best possible sense of that term. I 
 relate with regret a miserable exception. 
 Colonel X., on receiving the pins, gave 
 three of them to the Officers who had com- 
 
122 Napoleon III. 
 
 manded tlie Emperor's escorts. He passed 
 over my brother, who it so happened had 
 twice commanded an escort, and gave the 
 fourth to an Officer junior to him, who had 
 commanded the escort only once. His 
 reason for doing so was that my brother 
 was Captain Eraser, his junior was the 
 eldest son of the Earl of Wilton. I did 
 not hear of this disgraceful act till some 
 time afterwards. I still regret that I did 
 not write to General Fleury, asking him to 
 suggest to the Emperor that he should 
 send another pin. I have not the least 
 doubt that he would have done so : but I 
 was so wounded by the idea that anyone 
 commanding that honourable Regiment 
 should behave in such a manner that the 
 thought did not occur to me. 
 
 I WAS PRESENT at the Opera when 
 Napoleon III. accompanied the Queen in a 
 visit of State. The Royal and Imperial 
 box was formed in the centre of the 
 house. 
 
Napoleon III. 123 
 
 The Opera was Beethoven's chef-d'oeuvre 
 ' Fidelio : ' the sombre character of the 
 drama was redeemed by the scene enacted 
 off the stage. After the conclusion of 
 the first Act loud vociferations resounded 
 in the theatre in honour of the Queen's 
 Imperial guest. The Queen and the 
 Emperor rose from their seats; at a 
 moment selected with admirable judgment 
 the Queen turning to the right made a low 
 curtsey to Napoleon. Nothing could be 
 better done, nor have produced a greater 
 effect. The cheers that followed this 
 simple act were deafening; and even the 
 Emperor's sombre countenance visibly 
 brightened in accepting this great compli- 
 ment. 
 
 AN ENIGMA connected, in his own 
 opinion, with Napoleon III., and known as 
 ' The Carpet-Bag Mystery,' has never been 
 solved. 
 
 A carpet-bag was found in the early 
 morning on one of the piers of Waterloo 
 
124 Napoleon III. 
 
 Bridge : it contained a number of human 
 limbs belonging to the same body ; without 
 the head : some clothes were there ; but 
 nothing to indicate the name of the person 
 who had been murdered. From the place 
 in which the body was found, it was con- 
 jectured not unreasonably that, so far from 
 wishing to hide the crime, the object of its 
 perpetrators had been to attract public 
 attention to it. It had obviously been 
 carefully lowered from the parapet to the 
 position in which it was found. Some 
 indications pointed to the theory that the 
 murdered man was a foreigner. 
 
 I know that it was the firm conviction of 
 the Emperor that the limbs discovered were 
 parts of the person of a spy employed by 
 him. 
 
 As regards the question of Conspiracy in 
 this country it may be wise to reflect that 
 the infamous scoundrels who perpetrate 
 murder are known almost to a man to the 
 detectives of London : that they work in a 
 glass hive : that their movements are care- 
 
Napoleon III. 125 
 
 fully, and loyally, watched in favour of 
 Foreign Powers: and that in no country 
 can it be so difficult to arrange their vile 
 schemes as in this. 
 
 No sooner has an Anarchist, or one 
 following the various unpractical, and 
 nonsensical, creeds made up his mind to 
 leave this country for Paris than his name 
 and intentions are telegraphed to the Police 
 of that Capital; inferior, I believe, on the 
 whole to our own : from the moment that 
 he arrives in Paris his movements are 
 watched ; or, if they be not, it is the fault 
 entirely of the French Police. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY upon the election of 
 Louis Napoleon as President for ten years 
 a Monarchical change took place. I ob- 
 served that on the State box at the Theatre 
 Fran§ais, instead of the initials K. F. 
 (R^publique Frangaise) were placed at 
 once the letters L. N. In this, as in other 
 things, France felt with relief that the 
 strong hand of one man was to rule her. 
 
126 Napoleon III. 
 
 I WROTE the folio wingaccount at the time : 
 relating the triumphal entry of such French 
 troops as returned from the Crimea, at the 
 close of 1855. 
 
 ' Shortly before noon I found myself on 
 the Place de la Bastille, where the troops 
 about to make their solemn entry were 
 already drawn up. There appeared to be 
 some of every service except Cavalry : Artil- 
 lery, Engineers, Grenadiers, Gendarmerie 
 of the Guard, Zouaves, Chasseurs, and In- 
 fantry of the Line were present. In front of 
 the line were paraded in undress uniform 
 the wounded of the different corps. The 
 houses surrounding the Place de la Bastille 
 were crowded to the roof. Looking down 
 the Boulevards, myriads of faces could be 
 seen: not a point of view was unfilled. At 
 ten minutes past twelve the Emperor ar- 
 rived; followed at an interval by his 
 Staff. Amidst the beating of drums and 
 cries of " Vive VEmpereur^''^ his Majesty 
 rode down the front of the line. The troops 
 then formed a square, facing inwards ; and 
 
Napoleon III. 127 
 
 while the 15,000 soldiers and the vast mul- 
 titude held breathless silence Napoleon III. 
 addressed his gallant army in those heart- 
 stirring words, in the use of which he is a 
 master. 
 
 By the politeness of the French Officers 
 I was enabled to approach very near to the 
 Emperor ; and had an excellent opportunity 
 of observing his manner of speaking; as 
 well as of hearing him most distinctly. The 
 Emperor was mounted on a dark chestnut 
 English horse, called ' Phillij^s.' He wore 
 the uniform of a Lieutenant-General, with 
 the Riband and Star of the Legion of 
 Honour, and the Military Medal. His 
 speech, which was spoken with great em- 
 phasis, gave me the impression of having 
 been learnt by heart. He spoke most 
 clearly, and without the nasal intonation 
 frequent in Frenchmen. He used no gesti- 
 culation; except at the end of his address; 
 when he raised his right hand. 
 These were the Emperor's words : 
 "Soldiers! I come to meet you, as the 
 
128 Napoleon III. 
 
 Roman Senate of old came to the gates of 
 the City to meet their victorious legions. 
 I come to tell you that you have deserved 
 well of your country. 
 
 " My emotion is great : for with the 
 happiness of again beholding you, are 
 mingled deep sorrow for those who are no 
 more, and a profound regret not to have 
 been able myself to lead you to glory. 
 
 " Soldiers of the Guard ! and soldiers of 
 the Line! you are welcome. You both 
 represent that Army of the East whose 
 courage and perseverance have newly illus- 
 trated our Eagles; and re-conquered for 
 France the rank that was her due. 
 
 '' Our Country, attentive to all that has 
 been accomplished in the East, welcomes 
 you with so much the more pride, that it 
 measures your efforts by the obstinate re- 
 sistance of the Enemy. 
 
 " I have recalled you, though the war is 
 not ended, because it is just to replace by 
 turns those Regiments that have suffered 
 most. Each will thus go to take its share 
 
Napoleon III. 129 
 
 of Glory : the land that maintains six hun- 
 dred thousand soldiers is interested that 
 there should be, now in France, a numerous 
 war-trained army ready to turn where 
 necessity may require. 
 
 " Carefully, then, preserve the habits of 
 war : strengthen yourselves in the experience 
 you have gained : hold yourselves ready to 
 answer, if need be, to my appeal. But, to- 
 day, forget the trials of a soldier's life : 
 thank God for having spared you : and 
 march proudly amid your brethren-in-arms, 
 and your fellow-citizens, whose acclamations 
 await you." 
 
 The Speech was followed by loud cries of 
 ' Vive V Empereur : ' and the troops marched 
 off through the Boulevards to the Place 
 Yendome. 
 
 Along the whole line of march not a 
 window was vacant : banners, inscriptions, 
 wreaths of laurel; in short every possible de- 
 vice was resorted to, to welcome ' les braves.'' 
 Two enormous triumphal arches spanned 
 the road. These were covered with the 
 
 K 
 
130 NArOLEON III. 
 
 emblems of Victory. * Alma,' ' Inkermann/ 
 ' Traktir ' (Tchernaya), ' Sebastopol,' were 
 conspicuous on both. 
 
 On arriving at the Place Yendome I 
 found the Emperor and his staff fronting 
 the Column of Austerlitz ; with their backs 
 to the Ministry of Justice. On the first 
 floor of this building, under a splendid 
 canopy of crimson velvet and gold, was the 
 Empress, who appeared to take the most 
 eager interest in the scene. 
 
 On the opposite side, under the Column, 
 stood a group, for they were hardly more, 
 which recalled my imagination from the 
 present to the past. Those old men, in 
 uniforms so faded, and so old-fashioned that 
 they seem to have been dressed in masque- 
 rade, are the relics of the ' Grande ArmeeJ 
 
 Those twenty-five shrivelled and decrepit 
 forms represent the myriads who once 
 conquered Europe. These two with scarlet 
 coats and trousers are the once famous Red 
 Lancers of Napoleon ; their feathers rise at 
 least two feet above their battered caps. Who 
 
Napoleon III. 131 
 
 is that being with the gigantic cocked-hat 
 and gauntlets up to his elbows ? He is a 
 Gendarme of the Empire. Who is he on the 
 right of all with the black gaiters buttoned 
 up the thigh and the rusty old bear-skin 
 cap? Room for him 1 He eat horse-flesh in 
 the Kremlin; and charged us in the Old 
 G uard at Waterloo ! 
 
 The marching past has begun. At the 
 head of all comes the hero who refused the 
 coveted honour of a Marshal's baton, lest it 
 might diminish the glory of his brother 
 general. On his heart is England's Star of 
 Honour. A hundred thousand voices shout 
 '^ Vive Canrohert I " The column of troops 
 is ' left in front/ ^o that the Regiments 
 of the Line pass first. Numbers of men 
 carry the wreaths of laurel thrown to them 
 on their passage. As they approach the 
 Emperor they shout " Vive VEmpereur : 
 Vive r Imperatrice " ; that lady waves her 
 handkerchief, and claps her hands, with no 
 feio:ned emotion. One Eao^le has been 
 pierced through the left wing by a bullet. 
 
132 Napoleon III. 
 
 The wounded of each corps march in front 
 of their regiment. Many had lost an arm ; 
 some a leg, or an eye; but all seemed to 
 brighten up as they approached the Emperor. 
 A more touching sight could not be seen. 
 To reflect that for every man who reaped 
 this small harvest of glory two lie 
 
 * In those neglected graves 
 "Where Valour sleeps unnamed, forgot ! ^ 
 
 might make the hardest heart bleed. 
 
 Nothing could be more successful as a 
 display. The Emperor rode off to the 
 Tuileries ; and the vast crowd dispersed. 
 
 Paris is illuminated to-night: it is re- 
 marked that the devices are more numerous 
 than usual. Opposite where I write is a 
 transparent inscription, with which I shall 
 conclude my letter : 
 
 ' Gloire aux heros de la Crimee ! 
 Paris ria pas de plus heau jour : 
 La jUle de la Grande Armee 
 Console sa mere an tombeau,^ ' 
 
Napoleon III. 133 
 
 NAPOLEON III.'s address to the Senate, 
 the Legislative Corps, and the Council of 
 State, in announcing his marriage, won for 
 him many hearts among the sensible por- 
 tion of mankind. 
 
 He described the Empress Josephine as 
 'the good and modest' wife of General 
 Buonaparte : and he speaks of the decided 
 satisfaction of national pride in the second 
 marriage of his uncle to the daughter of 
 the Ca3sars. The passage which produced 
 the greatest effect was that in which he 
 speaks of himself as a ' parvenu Emperor.' 
 He adds, ' A glorious position, when success 
 is achieved by the free suffrage of a great 
 people ' : he pointed out that his intended 
 wife had, as a Spaniard, the advantage of not 
 having in France a family to whom she 
 would wish to give honours, and dignity. 
 He said truly that she would be an orna- 
 ment of the throne: and, 'in the day of 
 danger, would become one of his most 
 courageous supports ' : 'a pious Catholic, 
 gracious, and good, she will exhibit in the 
 
134 Napoleon III. 
 
 same position the virtues of the Empress 
 Josephine.' 
 
 The prophecy of the last sentence has 
 certainly been more than fulfilled. 
 
 In choosing his wife Napoleon III. de- 
 clared that 'he had consulted his reason, 
 and his convictions ; that he had placed in- 
 dependence, and qualities of heart and 
 family happiness, above dynastic prejudices 
 and the calculations of Ambition.' He said 
 to the collected Legislative bodies of France 
 that in learning to know her they would be 
 convinced that on this occasion he had been 
 inspired by Providence. 
 
 History will record that the lady chosen 
 by the Emperor proved herself to be a 
 warm friend of her adopted country; and 
 an energetic advocate of all measures that 
 would benefit France. More than this ; 
 placed in a most exceptional position both 
 socially, and as a handsome woman, no 
 whisper of scandal has ever attached to her 
 name. Determined to play an honourable 
 and prudent part in her great position, 
 
Napoleon III. 135 
 
 she fulfilled the anticipations of her hus- 
 band* 
 
 SPEAKING with an American of some 
 eminence I described Napoleon III., with 
 hesitation, as having the eyes of that most 
 intelligent of animals, the pig. General 
 R. observed, '' That was the term ap- 
 plied to Washington : ' the pig-eyed 
 Washington.' " After hearing this, I do 
 not hesitate to put it down. 
 
 I may remind my readers that a pig 
 was taught to play 'Whist' fifty years before 
 a dog: I know how it is done. 
 
 Napoleon III.'s general regard reminded 
 me of the line, 
 
 ' A sly, slow, thing ; with circumspective 
 
 eyes.' 
 
 I have alwavs considered that the foot 
 
 ./ 
 
 and the boot together strongly mark the 
 characteristics of human beings. 
 
 Napoleon III. had little to admire in 
 
136 Napoleon III. 
 
 this respect: beyond his feet being of 
 moderate size in proportion to his height. 
 
 There was none of that muscular and 
 nervous individuality about his feet which 
 adds to the dignity of a human being. 
 They were what I should describe as 
 ' saw-dust feet.' 
 
 In this respect he was not unlike his 
 uncle. One would have supposed that a 
 man of such exceptional nervous superiority, 
 as the First Napoleon would have had highly 
 articulated feet. None of his portraits show 
 this. 
 
 One day conversing with Baron Maro- 
 chetti, the sculptor to whom we are in- 
 debted for the statue of Kichard I. 
 near the Houses of Parliament, speaking of 
 Napoleon I. I expressed a doubt whether 
 his feet were exceptionally small. The 
 Baron replied, '' We can test that at once : 
 I have a pair of his boots upstairs, lent to 
 me for a statue : we Avill see." I ventured 
 to say that I was five feet ten and that the 
 Emperor was five feet seven and a quarter: 
 
Napoleon III. 137 
 
 I had no doubt I could put on his boots. 
 The boots were produced : they were of the 
 kind known as ' Napoleon ' or ' butcher ' 
 boots, ending below the knee. I put them 
 on Avith great ease. Baron Marochetti said, 
 ^' Yes, but the Emperor never wore boots 
 that he could not kick off." I kicked off 
 the left boot with one kick: the right re- 
 quired two. 
 
 I may say, what probably no one else 
 can say, that I have worn the boots of 
 Napoleon, and the cloak of Wellington. 
 The latter was shown to me by the second 
 Duke on my first visit to Apsley House, 
 after the death of his father. 
 
 He said " That was my father's cloak." 
 It was of thick, white, cloth; very much 
 frayed at the collar. This was the cloak 
 that he wore in his battles in Spain : it is 
 depicted in the great picture of the Battle 
 of Yittoria in the United Service Club. 
 
 He did not wear this at Waterloo : the 
 cloak he did wear was blue, with a white 
 lining. 
 
138 Napoleon III. 
 
 I WROTE the following account of the 
 Queen's visit to Cherbourg at the time. 
 
 ' I left Paris on Tuesday evening, after 
 a struggle at the Station ; and after sixteen 
 hours of crowded misery, reached Cherbourg 
 at half-past one p.m. the proper time being 
 half-past seven a.m. After a good deal of 
 hunting in the crowded roadstead, I gained 
 the hospitable deck of the ' Pera; ' and once 
 more felt myself a Briton. 
 
 I found the Members of the House of 
 Commons had, for once, exactly imitated 
 their great prototypes, the Conscript Fathers, 
 and taken a boat for a place which may some 
 day be a Philippi. 
 
 I looked round in wonder and admira- 
 tion at the glorious scene spread before 
 me. On every side, ships, forts, and batteries, 
 great and small. Here, the ships of the 
 ' Tall Ammirals,' French, and English ; 
 there, the smart frigate 'Euryalus;' here, 
 the finest ship in the French Navy, the 
 ' Napoleon : ' and, more purely ornamental 
 than these, the limitless squadron of yachts, 
 
Napoleon III. 139 
 
 with their tiny flags displayed, forming a 
 ' countless smile ' of colours. Nothing could 
 surpass the brilliance of the weather; a 
 bright sun, with a cool north-east breeze; 
 the rocks, and trees, and town, all combined 
 in a lovely picture. 
 
 Soon after reaching the ' Pera,* we set 
 out in the 'tender' 'Pleiades,' to see the 
 wonders of the ' Digue : ' this is exactly like 
 our familiar breakwater, with the addition of 
 three very heavily-armed forts. Admiral Sir 
 Charles Napier, K.C.B.,who was among the 
 M.P.s, did not seem to think much of the 
 latter : they are, how^ever, about to be added 
 to. The ' Digue ' commands a fine view 
 of the shore batteries, bristling with the 
 heaviest cannon, and of the Fort du Boule^ 
 perched on an eminence behind the town. 
 
 If this scene was grand in the silence of 
 a sunny afternoon, what was it when bells 
 tolled the hour of six. At that instant the 
 Queen, who had been on shore with the 
 Empress, stepped into her barge: suddenly 
 a noise resounded, to which the loudest 
 
140 Napoleon III. 
 
 thunder was as a child's rattle : from every- 
 one of the French ships, and from every 
 port was discharged a salute that might 
 have awakened the gallant old Truguet 
 himself. Everything you have ever ima- 
 gined of noise must be a joke to that 
 tremendous roar. Unlike our sullen, though 
 dignified, twenty-one guns, the French men- 
 of-war fire a feu-de-joie with their great 
 guns, down one deck and up another, with 
 a rapidity equal to that of a line of musketry, 
 and as each gun is a 68-pounder, the effect 
 on your tympana lasts some time. The 
 forts fire volleys: all the guns at once. 
 Each salute is repeated three times. 
 
 At seven the Queen's barge and the Em- 
 peror's were manned; and both Sovereigns 
 went on board the French Admiral's ship 
 the ' Bretagne ' to dine. The same tremen- 
 dous clatter took place; and as the Em- 
 peror and Queen stepped on the quarter- 
 deck, the Royal and Imperial standards 
 were hoisted at the main-masthead. I 
 noticed that the Royal Standard absolutely 
 
^^APOLEON III. 141 
 
 refused for at least two minutes to join 
 company Avith the Imperial tricolor: absit 
 omen ! At last a sailor managed, by climb- 
 ing, to disentangle the aristocratic folds; 
 and the union was consummated. By the 
 bye, I may as well here mention one proof 
 of our decided superiority over our ' gallant 
 allies.' The French did not dare in any of 
 their ships to man their top-gallant yards : 
 while, not only did our men do so, but to 
 the intense delight of every Briton looking 
 on, a sailor in five ships stood on his head 
 on the truck of the top-mast, which is, as 
 you know, the extreme point : and on the 
 Admiral's ship, the man at the main-mast- 
 head in the same position stretched out both 
 arms and waved a flag ! '' Truly " I said 
 to myself, as I went down to an excellent 
 dinner, '' we are a great people : the 
 greatest the world has ever seen." 
 
 The dinner on board the French Admiral 
 was a success : the Queen was much pleased : 
 the Emperor made one of his short and most 
 admirable speeches, comparing the good 
 
142 Napoleon III. 
 
 sense of England and France to the break- 
 water, which would stem the waves of evil 
 passion. 
 
 At ten o'clock began a scene which no one 
 present will ever forget: the whole of the 
 double fleet was simultaneously lighted up : 
 fireworks of the most brilliant sort soared 
 into the air; a splendid band of music 
 broke the silence; one seemed to be trans- 
 ported to some other region, far away from 
 this dreary planet. At length the Queen 
 bade fare^yell, and on her leaving the 
 ' Bretagne^^ the French men-of-war woke 
 the echoes for miles and miles with their 
 thundering salvoes. The effect of this was 
 more than sublime. Each minute the whole 
 sky was lighted up, and every ship visible ; 
 then darkness, and a roar that was deafen- 
 ing, varied only by the British cheer: a 
 sound that has never failed to flush my 
 cheek, and to make me thank God that I am 
 a Briton. 
 
 At length there was perfect silence, and 
 no one would have fancied, looking across 
 
Napoleon III. 143 
 
 the calm moon- lit bay, that such mighty 
 engines of destruction were waiting upon 
 passions not less tremendous. 
 
 On Friday morning the Queen departed. 
 The Emperor called on her early ; his beau- 
 tiful white and gold barge, with its green 
 velvet canopy dancing over the waves; 
 and at eleven the royal yacht, escorted by 
 the Squadron, left the roads with the usual 
 honours. 
 
 I devoted the day to inspecting the won- 
 ders of the docks, with an intelligent friend, 
 an Officer of the ' Pera.' Our boat was 
 nearly fired at on going in by an officious 
 sentry : but finally escaped. 
 
 I will defer my description of the ' Bassin 
 Napoleon I 11.^^ as it then appeared. Suffice 
 it no^y to say that I had to abandon my 
 berth on board the ' Pera,' as the Senate 
 chose to depart, very unadvisedly as I 
 thought, before the great ceremony of 
 Saturday took place. 
 
 I might amuse you were I to relate some 
 of the incidents which occurred during my 
 
144 Napoleon III. 
 
 sojourn on board the Senatorial vessel. I 
 might tell you how an elderly county 
 Member fell out of his berth, and all but 
 obliterated his nose: owing, of course, to 
 the motion of the vessel : how there was an 
 adjourned debate on the question of return- 
 ing or remaining: how a certain Admiral 
 announced in the midst of this the comple- 
 tion of the Atlantic cable, amidst frenzied 
 shouts of '' Question ! " '' Divide ! " '' Non- 
 sense ! '^ " Sit down ! " " Bravo Charley ! " 
 etc. etc. : how a certain learned member, 
 Sam. Warren, attempted a set speech on 
 the poop, amid showers of rockets ; and was 
 summarily ' shut up ' by a suggestion to 
 try a certain blacking: how two members 
 of the Commons' House all but came to 
 fisticuffs; and growled at each other in a 
 frightful manner: all this, I say, I might 
 relate, but it would be, I think, a breach of 
 Privilege. 
 
 The last I saw of the House of Commons 
 was on the Quay near the great statue of 
 Napoleon I. They had j ust heard that their 
 
Napoleon III. 145 
 
 steamer was aground : and I left them in a 
 ' sorrowful mood ' : A County Member, a 
 family man of course, attempting, in the 
 character of Don Juan, to address the veiled 
 Emperor as '''' gentilissima statuaT^ 
 
 1 had an opportunity of carefully inspect- 
 ing the great works in the course of comple- 
 tion at Cherbourg ; a privilege accorded to 
 but few. 
 
 Nothing in England can compare with 
 these works for size. Neither Keyham nor 
 any other basin at all approaches the new 
 * Bassin Napoleon III.' which, when I first 
 saw it, the day before the immersion, was 
 perfectly dry ; and looked larger than when 
 subsequently filled with water. Nothing 
 can surpass the perfection with which the 
 stone work has been done. The whole 
 20 acres of granite are as carefully and 
 elaborately finished as an inlaid table of 
 Tuscan marble. There is not the slightest 
 appearance of hurry or want of care ; in 
 short, it is so perfect as the work of man 
 can be. 
 
 L 
 
146 Napoleon III. 
 
 I was able to observe closely the ma- 
 chinery by which the sea was, for the first 
 time, to be let into the grand basin. Like 
 most French arrangements, it was very 
 ingenious, and succeeded as the result 
 proved. 
 
 I was much struck with the admirable 
 design of the triumphal arch built at the 
 head of the grand basin. It was formed 
 entirely of ships' tanks ; these cube-shaped 
 iron boxes taking the place of granite 
 blocks, and the whole of the ornaments of 
 the arch, which was most exquisitely pro- 
 portioned, were formed of ships' stores. A 
 number of men-of-war's lanterns crowned 
 the edifice ; and on either side were trophies, 
 executed in the most perfect taste, of guns, 
 cannon-shot, rammers, etc. with a large 
 anchor most gracefully formed, and a brass 
 screw of large dimensions. I never saw a 
 more perfect result of good taste, and really 
 artistic design. 
 
 I descended into the basin and read the 
 plate so soon to be covered for ever ; it 
 
Napoleon III. 147 
 
 bore the names of the Emperor and 
 Empress. 
 
 I must now tell you of the splendid cere- 
 mony which took place on this spot on the 
 following morning, Saturday. By eleven 
 o'clock I was at the place allotted to me, 
 and which commanded the best view of 
 everything that was done. The first thing 
 which attracted my attention was the bank, 
 or dam, of sand, which was to restrain the 
 sea until the desired moment. This had 
 partly given way, and I saw at once, that 
 this part of the performance was manque ; 
 however there was no help for it. It was a 
 curious sight to see the myriads of people 
 assembling round this vast crater: it was 
 the only reality approaching Martin's ideas 
 that I have ever seen : it was a subject 
 worthy of his pencil. 
 
 Next me was a French priest, very 
 anxious indeed to have any ' Lord Anglais ^ 
 pointed out to him; I was rather amused 
 by his eager curiosity. " Sir Williams '' 
 and ''Sir Codlington" were among the 
 
148 Napoleon III. 
 
 early arrivals ; also " Sir Napier *' in a 
 cocked hat of most preposterous dimensions, 
 placed ath wart-ships ; he distinguished him- 
 self by occupying a gorgeous arm-chair, 
 placed under a canopy, prepared for the 
 Bishop who subsequently blessed the basin. 
 The priest was very anxious to know the 
 name of a ' General ' in the crowd. After a 
 good deal of trouble I made out whom he 
 meant ; he looked very much astonished 
 when I told him that the dignified indi- 
 vidual was not a General nor a soldier at 
 all ; but a real Poet ! In fact, it was 
 Monckton Milnes, disguised in a Deputy- 
 Lieutenant's uniform. 
 
 The Emj)eror at length arrived; and 
 immediately giving his arm to the Empress, 
 descended the long staircase into the basin. 
 Here His Majesty placed the stone, and 
 invested the Architect with the Legion of 
 Honour. I may mention, for the benefit of 
 the Ladies, that the Empress wore a white 
 dress, white bonnet, and a Napoleon green 
 mantle, edged mth black lace. 
 
Napoleon III. 149 
 
 Finding that the grand rush of water 
 would not take place, the Emperor set off to 
 inspect the ateliers ; and I went back to the 
 'Prince Frederick William,' Capt. Smithers; 
 where I was most hospitably entertained, 
 and had a very good luncheon. On the 
 way I stopped to observe the casualty which 
 had occurred ; and while upon the broken 
 dam, the caisson suddenly floated, and a 
 tremendous rush of the sea took place, 
 the basin gradually filling. This the Em- 
 peror did not see; but my old acquain- 
 tance Gudin, the marine painter, made a 
 sketch for an historical painting of the 
 event. I met the Duke de Malakoff on my 
 way, who shook hands most cordially, and 
 seemed in great spirits. 
 
 At half-past six I returned to the basin, 
 now quite filled, just in time to see the 
 ' Ville de Nantes ^^ a 90-gun ship, launched. 
 She slid into the basin very gracefully. I 
 observed that an immense cloud of smoke 
 followed, showing great friction. Nothing 
 could surpass this sight; the bright setting 
 
150 Napoleon III. 
 
 sun; the myriads of people; the thunder of 
 three thousand cannon, never can be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 In the evening there was a Ball at the 
 Hotel de Yille, to which I was invited. It 
 was, as usual, a great crowd. I was for- 
 tunate enough to find myself in a room into 
 which the Emperor and Empress came. I 
 thought them both looking well : the Em- 
 peror rather aged since I saw him at 
 Biarritz : but apparently in good health. 
 The Empress looked very well; she wore a 
 white dress worked with flowers in silk ; 
 and had a splendid tiara on her head. 
 There were not many English at the ball. 
 I observed Lord Seymour, Lord and Lady 
 Wilton, and a few others. I was told that 
 Madame Guiccioli, Lord Byron's love, was 
 there, but I did not see her. 
 
 The Fetes were brought to a close by 
 the final ceremony of unveiling the statue 
 of Napoleon I. on the Quay. I was curious 
 to see this, and reached the spot early. 
 After a good deal of delay the Emperor and 
 
Napoleon III. 151 
 
 Empress ai^rived : at the moment of their 
 arrival the cloth was instantaneously drawn 
 from the Statue, which is in my opinion a 
 good one. I observe that some of the 
 newspapers say the Emperor is pointing to 
 the works at Cherbourg. Now this is non- 
 sense: it is true that the horse's head is 
 towards the west, but the Emperor's head 
 faces the north-west ; and a straight line 
 drawn from the middle finger of his right 
 hand, which is stretched out in a most 
 menacing attitude, would bisect the Isle of 
 Wight. 
 
 No one could look at the statue without 
 seeing the scowl of the face; and that he 
 points to England. I can assure you of 
 this ; for I examined the statue carefully 
 later in the day with my pocket- compass. 
 
 The Addresses were then read; here I 
 observed an excellent piece of stage-business. 
 A crowd of old men, decorated with the 
 ' Medaille de St. Helene,^ approached ; one 
 was in the uniform of a Voltigeur of the 
 Old Imperial Guard, with his gigantic 
 
152 Napoleon III. 
 
 feather, and short waist. As he drew near, 
 the Emperor stepped forward, and spoke to 
 him. The old man apparently related some 
 anecdote of former days; and, in his eager- 
 ness, took hold of the Emperor's button. 
 The Emperor chatted to him for some few 
 minutes, and at length, to the delight of the 
 public, permitted the veteran to kiss his 
 cheek. There was an old soldier, aged 102, 
 quite blind, wheeled in a chair ; to whom 
 the Empress talked for some time, and 
 gave some souvenirs. 
 
 After this the troops marched past. I 
 observed one of the Emperor's aides-de- 
 camp, with doubtful tact, pointing out to 
 the Empress a wound in one of the carriage- 
 horse's legs, made by the shells in the Rue 
 Lepelletier. 
 
 I saw the last of the Imperial fleet as 
 they left the roads, amid the renewed 
 thunders of the morning. As I returned 
 alone, from the point where I had watched 
 them, I pondered on the future of Cher- 
 bourg. That it is thrown out as a direct 
 
Napoleon III. 153 
 
 menace I do not think consistent with the 
 policy of the present ruler of France : but 
 that it is a power lying in our path, and 
 close to our door, is obvious. One thing 
 appears clear, the Battle for British supre- 
 macy must be fought at sea; and, unless 
 we are prepared to yield in our policy to 
 France, ( I do not anticipate an open rupture, ) 
 Ave must have a fleet so numerous and so 
 manned as to make Cherbourg useless for 
 offence. We can do this : and unless we 
 do it, we deserve to be laughed at, and 
 degraded.' 
 
 ONE OF THE EMPEROR'S principal 
 allies was Count de Flahault, the life-long 
 friend of his mother, Hortense Queen of 
 Holland. With the wife of Count Flahault 
 I was well acquainted. 
 
 I first knew her at Rome; she living in 
 the Palazzo Mignianelli. Her father. Ad- 
 miral Viscount Keith G.C.B. one of the 
 most brilliant sailors of his epoch ; to whom 
 Napoleon surrendered his person after 
 
154 Napoleon III. 
 
 Waterloo, was a relation and most intimate 
 friend of my grand-father: it was the in- 
 tention of Sir William Fraser that his eldest 
 son and heir should marry the heiress of 
 Lord Keith. Her considerable fortune, and 
 above this the two ancient Scottish Baronies, 
 Keith and Nairn e, which descended in the 
 female line, would no doubt have suited 
 Sir William's views admirably. 
 
 It is not necessary to quote F^nelon's 
 trite dictum ' Vhomme propose ^ etc. : what 
 must have been the feelings of the British 
 Admiral, a red-hot Tory, with a lively 
 appreciation of the horrors of Republican 
 France; who no doubt followed Lord 
 Nelson's advice to ' hate a Frenchman as 
 you do the devil ; ' when he discovered the 
 smart young Frenchman, closely connected 
 with ' the Corsican ogre ' aspired to the 
 hand of his daughter, and heiress ! 
 
 During the short-lived peace of 1814. the 
 young Count de Flahault was in England : 
 and contrived to win the affections of Miss 
 Elphinstone. 
 
Napoleon III. 155 
 
 The fine old Admiral came to mj grand- 
 father, in a condition approaching fury. He 
 said " Fraser, You have a dozen daughters : 
 you rule them all : I have one : and she is 
 too many for me. What can I do ? There is 
 this damned Frenchman hanging about: I 
 cannot get rid of him ! " 
 
 Sir William, with the practical good sense 
 which I hope has not yet abandoned his 
 race, replied, '' Nothing is so easy : lock her 
 up till the Frenchman leaves the country." 
 
 This sound advice was not followed : and 
 the ' damned Frenchman ^ married the 
 heiress of the Elphinstones. 
 
 I have related in ' Words on Wellington ' 
 the incident which occurred on the evening 
 before Waterloo ; when Captain Elphinstone 
 with others of the 7^^ Hussars, was taken 
 prisoner near Genappe. Count Flahault 
 was personal aide-de-camp to Napoleon 
 at that time : and, influenced probably by 
 the fear of being supposed to lean towards 
 the British, by whom in the previous year 
 he had been so well received, standing be- 
 
156 Napoleon III. 
 
 hind the Emperor's chair, he made some 
 offensive remarks. Although subsequently 
 he married Captain Elphinstone's cousin, 
 the insult was never forgiven. 
 
 I used to dine very frequently with 
 Madame de Flahault at Rome : the rest of 
 the party invariably consisted of the Prince 
 and Princess de Broglie, and Lady Canning. 
 
 In that season at Rome, before the British 
 colony had been broken up, and the Revo- 
 lution had taken place, there were three 
 ladies of formidable aspect and demeanour, 
 known there as ' Les Trois Parcs,^ The 
 Countess of Beverley, the Countess of Lich- 
 field, and the Countess de Flahault. They 
 well deserved their name. However 'the 
 Fates ' were very favourable to myself: and 
 I appreciated the three, as being women of 
 strongly- marked character; with decided 
 likes and dislikes ; and without the shabby 
 flabbishness of conventional judgment. 
 
 In the evening one or two friends visited 
 the Palazzo Mignianelli, according to the 
 charming custom of Roman society. The 
 
Napoleon III. 157 
 
 practice of ^ prima sera^ where friends 
 visit each other immediately after dinner, 
 and before going to a ball, is excellent in 
 small societies. It has been tried occa- 
 sionally in London, notably by the first 
 Countess of Ellesmere, when living at 18 
 Belgrave Square: but the result in London 
 was not satisfactory. Those whom she 
 wished to visit her did not always come : 
 whereas those whom she was inclined to ex- 
 clude invariably attended. 
 
 The Duke of Devonshire occasionally 
 looked in ; an agreeable, but rather languid 
 nobleman; teeming with good-nature, and 
 thoughtful kindness ; who gave you the 
 impression of one who, having been from 
 youth at the top of the tree, hardly thought 
 it worth while to pick the fruit. 
 
 The reader may forgive me here for a slight 
 digression. A question arose, and was for 
 many years a matter of discussion, whether 
 this Duke was really the offspring of his 
 ostensible mother. The theory was that his 
 mother, having borne a female child, an ex- 
 
158 Napoleon III. 
 
 change was made ; and a son of Lady Eliza- 
 beth Foster, who subsequently became the 
 Duke of Devonshire's second wife, had been 
 substituted. I lately heard very strong 
 evidence absolutely contradicting this sug- 
 gestion. A person upon whose authority 
 I can rely, in no way connected with the 
 family of Cavendish, told me this fact. One 
 of the most vehement, not to say venomous, 
 supporters of the substitution theory was the 
 Countess of Cork, an old lady who late in 
 life was supposed to have imperfect per- 
 ception of the laws of ' meum ' and ' tuum ' : 
 and figured in London society as ' a snapper- 
 up of unconsidered trifles.' This lady per- 
 sisted under all circumstances in declaring: 
 that there had been an exchange of children. 
 She became a complete convert to the 
 opposite belief from what occurred to her- 
 self. Driving in an open carriage with the 
 Duchess and her son, then a child, through 
 the crowded streets, an accident occurred^ 
 The horses escaped from the controul of the 
 driver; dashed among the vehicles; jeo- 
 
Napoleon III. 159 
 
 pardizing the lives of the three. Lady 
 Cork declared for the rest of her life that 
 the conduct of the Duchess proved beyond 
 all question that she was the mother of the 
 future Duke. She appeared reckless of her 
 own life : but showed the most terrible 
 anxiety in relation to the life of her child. 
 Stronger evidence could hardly be brought 
 than this. The oft-quoted sagacity of the 
 Jewish monarch might be cited. 
 
 The other guest who was an habitu6 of 
 Madame de Flahault's receptions was one 
 who played a most conspicuous part in 
 Italian history. 
 
 At the time that I speak of Count Rossi 
 was French Ambassador at the Court of 
 Pope Pius IX. 
 
 Night after night the double doors of the 
 drawing-room were thrown open; and the 
 servant in a loud and dignified voice pro- 
 claimed the entrance of ' H Ambassadeur de 
 France.'' 
 
 Count Rossi was a short, slight man; 
 small-limbed; with a dignified presence; 
 
160 Napoleon III. 
 
 and a stately walk. I can best describe his 
 appearance by saying that he conspicuously 
 resembled the profile portraits of Dante. 
 This he knew: and posed slightly for that 
 effect. In conversation he said but little: 
 and that little very slowly. 
 
 Pius IX. was so impressed by him that 
 he requested the French Government to 
 permit him to become his Prime Minister. 
 
 This he was until his murder. 
 
 The question of the impossibility of a 
 Constitutional Pope is too large to be dis- 
 cussed here. I still feel sure, as I felt at 
 the time, that if it were possible to conduct 
 the subjects of the Pope into the path of 
 constitutional government, Rossi was the 
 man to do it. 
 
 What was the result ? 
 
 He was cruelly and brutally slaughtered. 
 The one man who brought good sense to 
 bear upon so-called Liberal principles was 
 exterminated. 
 
 Going unguarded to the legislative body 
 assembled in the ' Cancelleria,' passing 
 
Napoleon III. 161 
 
 through the crowd, a man standing at the 
 foot of the staircase touched him on the 
 shoulder : he turned towards him, and was 
 at once stabbed on the opposite side. I 
 have seen the spot where he fell. 
 
 Of course the hypocritical wretches, who 
 shrieked for liberty at the time they de- 
 stroyed him, pretended, as they always pre- 
 tend, that this foul assassination came from 
 personal motives. For this absurd theory 
 there was not a shadow of foundation. 
 
 Macdonald the sculptor, who for many 
 years occupied part of the Barberini Palace, 
 was at Rome at the time; and related to 
 me the following circumstance. 
 
 He had gone, as he did daily, to the Caf6 in 
 the Ruspoli Palace. He found, to his surprise, 
 instead of the few guests who frequented the 
 caf6, a dense crowd. Wondering what could 
 be the cause, and observing in a corner 
 a large number of flags, he waited. Pre- 
 sently a messenger entered the room; 
 and said something which he could not 
 catch. Immediately the flags were taken 
 M 
 
162 Napoleon III. 
 
 from the corner: and a procession was 
 formed, which proceeded up the Corso. 
 The messenger had brought the news of 
 the assassination of Rossi : for which these 
 vile wretches had been waiting. 
 
 Whenever I have been to Rome since 
 that time I have visited Rossi's monument 
 in the Church adjacent to the spot where he 
 met his death : and I have been pleased to 
 read the words, ' Meditatd ccBde^ engraved 
 on the marble. 
 
 THE EMPEROR, like most great men, 
 occasionally said good things. 
 
 It is recorded of him that, announcing 
 to the Emperor of Russia that he was 
 seated on the throne of France, and re- 
 ceiving Nicholas I.'s reply, addressed 
 not to '' Mon frere^ as is usual between 
 crowned heads, but ' Mon ami^'' the Em- 
 peror at once said, *' This is most flattering. 
 We choose our friends : we cannot choose 
 our relations." 
 
 On being asked his opinion, after reading 
 
Xapoisos III. 163 
 
 KingLdke's Histoiy of the Crimean War, lie 
 summed ap the Timlent zj^suk. upon himself 
 in three words ^Cest ignMe2* 
 
 OXE OF THE MOST EXVIABLE cii»- 
 racteristics of Xapoleon IIL was his patienee 
 witk fools. This priceless gift he posseted 
 in a high d^^ree. It would ha^e been to 
 most mai of exo^ticmal intelligence a most 
 sore trial to 'bear and fcxbear' widi the 
 empty-headed necessities of his podlion. 
 With one fixed otgect^ he eartymade op his 
 mind that iJiis conduct was necessary to 
 attain it: but to many men such a ^ice 
 would haTC been too high to be compensated 
 by any ultimate success : I am willing to 
 bdicTe that he could not ha¥e carried out 
 persastently his intentions in this reject 
 had he not been influenced fay a loftier 
 feeling than perscMial ambition. I beliere 
 that he really had the interests of France 
 at heart. As a philoso^iic strtipsman he 
 wished for the opportunity of carrying out 
 his theories. This to a great extent he 
 
164 Napoleon III. 
 
 obtained: certainly as regards social ame- 
 lioration he benefited France enormously. 
 It would not be just for us, men of a race 
 utterly different from the French, to judge 
 him entirely by our standards. Napoleon III. 
 believed that the French people could best 
 be governed by a benevolent despotism: 
 our experience of their later history shows 
 that he was right. Passionate jealousy as 
 regards each other has prevented anything 
 like a real constitutional government taking 
 root in France. 
 
 What the French have never been able to 
 endure is that the man whom they meet on 
 the boulevard every day, and to whom they 
 breakfast opposite at a Cafe, or dine with at 
 a Restaurant, should be promoted over 
 their heads; should receive decorations, 
 titles, office, while they are destitute of 
 these objects of ambition. 
 
 A gloomy, and kind-hearted Sovereign, 
 within the sombre walls of the Tuileries, 
 was not an object capable of disturbing 
 daily their spleen. In theory they groaned 
 
Napoleon III. 165 
 
 under his yoke: in reality they thought 
 little about him. 
 
 As regards the multitude, not unfrequent 
 fetes ; his splendid cortege when he appeared 
 on state occasions; clever, well-balanced 
 appeals to their supposed patriotism; the 
 movement well kept up by provincial pro- 
 gresses; and an occasional war, in which 
 their persons were not exposed, but which 
 was fought by poor rustic conscripts; all 
 tended to the aggrandizement of the 
 Monarch. 
 
 That Napoleon III. was the Man for the 
 French Nation of his period no one can doubt. 
 
 As regards the final act of his Presidency, 
 it is diiiicult to judge. The theory of his 
 friends has been that, had he not acted as 
 he did, within a few days or even hours, he 
 would have been imprisoned by the sup- 
 porters of both branches of the Bourbons ; 
 aided possibly by the Red Republicans : and 
 certainly the movements, at the time, of the 
 Princes of the House of Orleans, go some 
 way to confirm this belief. 
 
166 Napoleon III. 
 
 It is also fair to add that the Constitution 
 which Louis Napoleon had solemnly sworn 
 to preserve had been most materially altered 
 from the universal suffrage, which existed 
 at that time, to a very much modified 
 form of voting. The Constitution of '48 
 did not exist in '52 : the Republican 
 Constitution, which existed at the time of 
 his election to be President, was abolished 
 before the Coup d'Etat: however on this 
 subject I distinctly refrain from expressing 
 an opinion. 
 
 OF COUNT WALEWSKI I saw something 
 during the time he was Ambassador in 
 London. Madame Walewska gave brilliant 
 balls at the Embassy at Albert Gate; at- 
 tended by the smartest set in London 
 society. They both played their parts 
 well: and were in every way well received. 
 Count Walewski, whose relationship to the 
 First Napoleon was well known, was an 
 exceptionally tall man; broad and deep- 
 chested; with a small head in proportion to 
 
Napoleon III. 167 
 
 his size: smooth, dark, hair, cut short; a 
 somewhat classic face, pale complexion, and 
 mournful look : a man whom you could not 
 imagine laughing : nor do I remember to 
 have ever seen him smile. I should say 
 his general look was not so much pre- 
 occupied as blank: not wanting in intelli- 
 gence ; but as one who looks on circum- 
 stances Avithout being impressed by them. 
 His wife w^as an agreeable woman ; naturally 
 lively; not French in her manners; hardly 
 to be called pretty: perhaps the word 
 ' pleasing ' would best describe her. 
 
 COUNT DE PERSIGNY I also knew: a 
 greater contrast than between him and the 
 last-described cannot be imagined. I think 
 the best term to be applied to him would be 
 * dapper ' ; small, dark, lively, no good looks 
 of face, nor form: very quick, intelligent, 
 and very much in earnest. He also was for 
 some years French Ambassador in London : 
 and his wife entertained all the smart folk. 
 His principal characteristic was quickness, 
 
168 Napoleon III. 
 
 not unmixed with shrewdness : more or less 
 conventional in his ideas : and enthusiastic 
 in the Imperial cause. 
 
 Madame de Persigny, the grand-daughter 
 of Marshal Ney, was a w^oman of strongly 
 marked character ; and much determination ; 
 reserved, except to her intimates, and pleased 
 with the high position which she occupied in 
 London society. 
 
 I HAD AN AUDIENCE of the Em- 
 peror at the Tuileries. He had just 
 returned from Mass. The only other 
 persons present, besides Lord Cowley the 
 British Ambassador, were the wddow of 
 Major Henry Baring, M.P. for Marl- 
 borough, formerly in the First Life 
 Guards, and her step-daughter. The Em- 
 peror entered the room. Marshal Vaillant, 
 Minister for War, leading; then the Em- 
 peror; followed by General Magnan, the 
 Commandant of the Garrison of Paris. All 
 were in full uniform. Nothing passed be- 
 yond a few commonplace remarks. I told 
 
Napoleon III. 169 
 
 His Majesty that the Officers of the First 
 Life Guards had received official informa- 
 tion that the Eegiment would not be sent 
 to the seat of war: he observed '* Vous 
 etes trop heaux^ 
 
 I was subsequently at several balls given 
 in the Palace: the crowding was great; 
 and the proceedings generally not charac- 
 terized by dignity. A quadrille was formed 
 in the ' Salle des Marechaux ' : on one occa- 
 sion only the Emperor appeared in a dress 
 easily recognized as a copy of his uncle's : 
 the blue or-~green coat, with a plastron ; 
 white breeches ; silk stockings ; and 
 buckled shoes. This costume did not suit 
 his Majesty. A very indifferent pair of 
 legs were too much en evidence. The 
 crowding towards the quadrille was very 
 great: and the arrangements not suffi- 
 ciently complete to prevent somewhat un- 
 seemly disorder. 
 
 I WAS PRESENT at a remarkable 
 scene in the ' Salle des Marechaux ' : a vast 
 
170 Napoleon III. 
 
 square room in the precise centre of the 
 Tuileries : the balcony, over the ' Place du 
 Carrousel^ projected from it. The occasion 
 was the distribution of medals to the 
 French Army who had taken part in the 
 Crimean War, by the Duke of Cambridge. 
 Only five British subjects were invited to 
 this specially select apartment. Lord and 
 Lady Cowley, the British Ambassador and 
 Ambassadress, were there, of course : but 
 all other Embassies, including their Chiefs, 
 were placed in an adjoining room. The 
 five who were selected were Lord Hertford, 
 Lord and Lady Gray of Gray, the author 
 of this volume, and a fifth, whose name I 
 cannot recall. The highest Oflicers of 
 State, corresponding to our Cabinet 
 Ministers, were in the room : but no sub- 
 ordinate member of the Government. 
 
 It was certainly a remarkable scene. 
 To stand on the very spot on which the 
 unfortunate Louis XVL, Marie Antoi- 
 nette, and the Dauphin, had stood : ' The 
 Baker: The Baker's Wife: and the Baker's 
 
Napoleon III. 171 
 
 son : ' Tvhere the poor King had injudi- 
 ciously put on ' the red cap : ' to witness 
 from thence, on the very place of the 
 butchery of the Swiss Guards, standing 
 beside the grandson of the Corsican at- 
 torney, a British Prince distribute military 
 decorations to a French army, was indeed 
 marvellous. 
 
 I was invited to a dinner-party at the 
 British Embassy. Lady Jersey and her 
 daughter were there ; Lord and Lady Gray 
 and others. The French and English guests 
 were placed alternately : the former being 
 the Emperor's Ministers. 
 
 AT A BALL given by Lady Cowley on 
 the occasion of the signing of Peace between 
 Britain, France, and Russia, I danced vis-a- 
 vis to the Emperor, with a young lady for 
 whom his Majesty had at one time a 
 Platonic admiration : indeed he is related 
 to have said to her ''''Mademoiselle^ Vlmpen^a- 
 trice vous trouve trop belle. ^^ 
 
 Curiously enough, an incident occurred on 
 
172 Napoleon III. 
 
 that night resembling that which happened 
 at the Ball given to celebrate the Marriage of 
 Napoleon I. with Marie Louise. The cur- 
 tains of the room in which supper was 
 prepared caught fire: and, but for the 
 presence of mind of some French Officers, 
 who happened to be in or near the room, a 
 conflagration might have occurred: or, 
 worse, a fatal panic, such as cost the lives of 
 many on the occasion to which I allude. 
 
 THERE WERE of course divided councils 
 as regards the Emperor's action in en- 
 deavouring to give to France constitutional 
 liberty. I assume that he was personally 
 the first party who wished to make the 
 experiment: he knew France well enough 
 to be sure that it could only be an experi- 
 ment. 
 
 The reaction against the Revolution of 
 1789, with its horrors, and its shams; and 
 the reaction against the undisguised des- 
 potism of Napoleon I. which followed, 
 made the throne of the astute Louis X VIII. 
 
Napoleon III. 173 
 
 and even of the bigoted and obstinate 
 Charles X. fairly safe. This reaction had 
 worn out: and the mock freedom, and 
 corrupt constitutional 'Estates' of Louis 
 Philippe, had turned the latter form of 
 Government, which had lasted for eighteen 
 years, into a farce. ' Hommes d moi^^ the 
 list of whom were found in the Tuileries 
 after Louis Philippe's flight, and the well- 
 known corruptibility of many of the so- 
 called ' Representatives of the People,' had 
 shaken the belief, and encouraged the 
 fickleness, of the French. 
 
 These were followed by the carnage of 
 June 1848; brought about mainly by the 
 futile efforts, and failure, to organize State- 
 employment for the workmen of Paris. 
 
 For a very short time all went well: 
 national workshops were established : every 
 working man had a claim for labour on the 
 State. This state of things, as might have 
 been expected, endured only so long as 
 money was abundant. When the State 
 could no longer afford to pay the workmen. 
 
174 Napoleon III. 
 
 and by means of constant and lucrative 
 employment to keep them engaged, the 
 halcyon days were over. The king-fisher 
 could no longer build his nest 
 
 ' On the smooth surface of a summer s sea ; ' 
 
 the winds began to whistle, and the 
 tempests to roar ; murmurings were heard ; 
 soon followed by a desperate out-break; 
 crushed by the firm hand of a thorough 
 soldier. The most desperate fighting that 
 France has known was in June 1848, when 
 Cavaignac put down with his iron hand, 
 not wearing the silk glove, the uprising of 
 the Parisian workmen. Seven Generals 
 were seen at once lying on the steps of the 
 Madeleine Church, desperately wounded. 
 The Mobile Guards, the very men who had 
 fought against Order in February, had 
 been disciplined in the ranks of Order : and 
 fought with heroic courage against those 
 who endeavoured to sack the Capital. 
 
 As the time grew on for a new election 
 for the Presidency, all classes in France 
 
Napoleon III. 175 
 
 felt that a crisis was inevitable. The flag 
 of the Red Republic existed; though it 
 was not yet waved : the recollections of 
 former blood-shed had not yet faded : and 
 certain French lovers of Order were looking 
 for a Saviour. 
 
 Louis Napoleon had manoeuvred with 
 consummate skill, so as to make himself 
 inevitable. The force, at least the non- 
 military force, under his influence, although 
 powerful, was not coherent : all his skill 
 was required, and shown, to place that 
 force, civil, and military, in the position of 
 being compelled to support him in his 
 intentions, or to accept a contumelious 
 defeat. 
 
 I am willing to give him credit, in acting 
 as he did, for being moved by patriotic 
 intentions. That he had through life 
 dreamed, and cherished the dream, of 
 succeeding to the position of his uncle 
 there can be no doubt : but I believe that, 
 while taking advantage of the falseness and 
 mistaken actions of his adversaries, it was 
 
176 Napoleon III. 
 
 not a solely personal ambition which 
 actuated him. 
 
 He had had ample opportunities of re- 
 flecting upon the character of the French 
 People during his long imprisonment in the 
 Castle of Ham: and had studied carefully, 
 and minutely, all the works written by, and 
 recorded of, his Imperial predecessor. At an 
 age when reflection is mature, and general 
 experience of life considerable, he had 
 brought his intellect to dwell upon one 
 subject. 
 
 It may be paradoxical, but I may here 
 say that I beUeve that his dominant charac- 
 teristic was * good-nature.' I have related 
 in * Disraeli and his Day' the remark of 
 Disraeli, when I told him that I had lately 
 had an interview with the deposed Monarch 
 at Chislehurst : I can trace his errors, and 
 his ultimate failing, in a great measure 
 to a genuinely kind-hearted belief in the 
 French people. 
 
 It is not easy for a successful candidate 
 after a contested election not to believe that 
 
Napoleon III. 177 
 
 every man in the town is his friend. His 
 imagination forgets the few enemies which 
 success always brings : this was the feeling 
 which Napoleon III. had towards the French 
 people. 
 
 The ejaculation of Napoleon III., made 
 early in his career, impressed thinking 
 minds favourably towards him. On some 
 public occasion he was not well received : 
 he said, addressing the French multitude, 
 " You do not love me now : I will make 
 you love me." Whatever might have been 
 his motives. Napoleon III. showed one 
 marked characteristic. Not altogetherdivert- 
 ing his attention from the applause of the 
 upper gallery, he kept his eyes steadily fixed 
 on the private-boxes : and in all his actions 
 he showed himself most anxious to win the 
 good opinion of honourable men. 
 
 The ' Coup d^Etat ' put an end to the fears 
 of the mass of the French people; and to 
 the hopes of those who were zealously in- 
 triguing to bring about a change of dynasty ; 
 even by the means of a bloody revolution. 
 
 N 
 
178 Napoleon III. 
 
 Napoleon III.'s addresses on this and 
 other occasions were marvellously astute : 
 he succeeded in convincing the money- 
 loving and money-making French people 
 that his hand alone would enable them to 
 carry on their various trades and money- 
 earning occupations in safety : that his 
 powerful political organization would stem 
 the tide of Revolution : he convinced them 
 that a man was at length seated on the 
 throne of France who was so able, to use 
 his own simile, to prevent a deluge of Red 
 Republicanism as to compel the rivers of 
 France to remain within their safe borders. 
 
 No wiser words were uttered by Monarch 
 than when he told the industrious and in- 
 telligent people of his Monarchy, ''''Pour 
 Vordre fen reponds,''^ 
 
 He encouraofed them in viijorous words 
 to pursue Arts, Manufactures, Commerce: 
 and convinced them that while they were 
 so occupied no enemy, either foreign or 
 domestic, should attack them. 
 
 It had been said of him, whether truly 
 
Napoleon III. 179 
 
 or not I do not know, that on being asked 
 at the ' Army and Navy Club,' " Shall you 
 not find it difficult to rule the French?" 
 " Oh no ! '^ he replied, " nothing is more 
 easy : // leur faut une guerre tous les quatre 
 ansJ'' 
 
 He followed this programme : first at- 
 tacking Russia, he aided, and was aided by, 
 ourselves. No doubt the close alliance of 
 Britain, if it did not * wipe out the stain of 
 Waterloo,' went a long way to induce the 
 French to forget it. It established Napo- 
 leon III. as one of the fraternity of European 
 Monarchs. Accepted as an equal, and re- 
 ceived by the most ancient and most re- 
 spectable dynasty as a sincere friend, it 
 enabled him to crush for a time the power 
 of the one man who had refused to ac- 
 knowledge him as a ' brother.' 
 
 His war ao^ainst the Austrians enabled him 
 at length to fulfil his vow as a * carbonaro ' 
 to ' free Italy,' in one sense of the words, 
 ' from the Alps to the Adriatic' 
 
 Through all success he bore himself 
 
180 Napoleon III. 
 
 calmly and well. He showed consummate 
 tact in dealing with the fastidious Court of 
 "Windsor: genuine tears were shed at the 
 departure of himself and his wife from that 
 ancient abode of British Kings. The banner 
 of the Buonapartes was hung in St. George's 
 Chapel : his advent to London was welcomed 
 by enthusiastic acclamations. 
 
 It is true that the War in the Crimea 
 terminated at the precise time for his own 
 advantage: the British army was getting 
 on its legs : the early miseries had been 
 remedied : and the thirt}^ thousand men 
 who left the Crimea formed probably the 
 finest army that England has ever possessed : 
 whereas the French army was reduced to 
 almost desperate conditions : twenty-five 
 thousand died after the last shot had been 
 fired. 
 
 In the War in North Italy also he stopped 
 in time. He was accused by his insatiable 
 enemies of having, like the witches in Mac- 
 beth, ' fulfilled the promise to the ear, and 
 broken it to the hope : ' but the words 
 
NArOLEON III. 181 
 
 ' from the Alps to the Adriatic ' had been 
 well chosen : and the humanity ascribed to 
 him when riding over the field of Solferino 
 was not the sole motive in terminating a 
 successful war. He had received the inti- 
 mation from Prussia, '' Thus far shalt thou 
 go; and no further:" and the somewhat 
 unexpected ' Peace of Villa Franca ' was 
 brought about in a great measure by a dis- 
 tinct threat that the Prussian armies would 
 cross the Rhine, if further advances were 
 made against Austria. 
 
 As regards Peace in relation to the Pope, 
 Napoleon III. must have found himself in 
 a difficulty. As the guardian of the Pope 
 he occupied the position of ' Eldest son of 
 the Church : ' the proud title borne by 'Their 
 Most Christian Majesties,' the Kings of 
 France. On the other hand he appeared 
 to be the one obstacle against a united 
 Italy. 
 
 ON THE THIRD OCCASION of a great 
 French war, the red spectre who patronized 
 
182 Napoleon III. 
 
 Napoleon I. on similar occasions, might have 
 waited upon his nephew : and Wolsey's 
 words might have sounded in his ears ; 
 
 ' And when he thinks, good easy man, full 
 
 surely 
 His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root/ 
 
 The war with Germany of 1870. cannot 
 be imputed absolutely to either of the 
 Powers. Napoleon had abstained from in- 
 terfering to check Austria and Prussia when 
 attacking Denmark; and he had aided 
 neither, when the two great German powers 
 fought with each other. That Napoleon 
 IIl.'s conduct in relation to the proposed 
 placing of a Coburg on the throne of Spain 
 was provocative there can be no doubt; 
 but I believe firmly that all could have been 
 arranged, had not the King of Prussia 
 wished for a war with France. It was the 
 best means of consolidating Germany. It 
 united the North Germans in a common 
 cause for the protection of their frontier. 
 
Napoleon III. 183 
 
 The unity, so brought about, abolished then* 
 mutual jealousies; the German mind be- 
 came bent upon a solid Empire. 
 
 It is needless to repeat even in outline 
 the circumstances of France's last great 
 war. Napoleon III. must from the first 
 have had doubts of success. The men in 
 whom he had reposed most confidence, who 
 had helped him to a throne, who had great 
 knowledge of, and great influence with, the 
 French soldier were dead. His own health 
 he knew was precarious. 
 
 His taking his son to the seat of war 
 had great eflect in France, where the dra- 
 matic is always powerful. 
 
 Soon after his leaving Paris, with the 
 ' Marseillaise,' played for the first time in his 
 reign, ringing in his ears, the want of power 
 of mobilization in his army became des- 
 perately apparent. No doubt the Regiments 
 were, as his Minister of War had assured 
 him, in perfect order : but he must at once 
 have felt that the enormous masses of men 
 to be wielded had not been organized ; and 
 
184 Napoleon III. 
 
 could not be organized with sufficient rapidity 
 to inflict an overwhelming blow upon the 
 enemy. 
 
 The condition of health of Napoleon at 
 this time was very bad. Suffering from a 
 most painful complaint, which French tra- 
 dition has described as the curse of usurpers, 
 of which our Henry Y. died, his physical 
 sufferings during his campaign must have 
 been fearful. Mind and body acted upon 
 each other. The acute sufferings of the 
 short and final campaign of Napoleon III. 
 must have equalled the desolate ennui 
 which devoured the exile on the Atlantic 
 rock. 
 
 Napoleon III. showed a far loftier 
 spirit. 
 
 It must have been a trying moment 
 w^hen the man, ' but yesterday a King,' 
 found himself surrounded by a squadron 
 ironically called a ' Guard of Honour,' 
 leaving France never to return. In all this 
 no weakness was shown. At no time from 
 his fall to his death ^vas weakness nor mean- 
 
Napoleon III. 185 
 
 ness shown by him : a great actor, he knew 
 how to quit the scene with dignity: his 
 whole conduct to the last, prolonged 
 through trying months and years, was so 
 great in its effect as the folding of his robe 
 by the first Cfcsar. 
 
 There was no imputation at Sedan of mis- 
 conduct against his Generals. The utterly 
 false and cruel accusations made after 
 Quatre Bras and Ligny were entirely want- 
 ing : he accepted his fate as a philosopher. 
 
 Silly and shallow people have spoken as 
 if he should have destroyed himself by 
 rushing on the German bayonets. 
 
 Napoleon III. had too manly a character 
 for this. He exposed himself to death for 
 some hours on the field of battle : but he 
 did not ' like the Roman fool, die on his 
 own sword.' 
 
 AS REGARDS money matters Napoleon 
 III. showed the greatest punctilio: had he 
 perished in any of his unsuccessful attempts, 
 he would have left no debts behind him. 
 
186 Napoleon III. 
 
 AS AN ILLUSTRATION of the care 
 which the Emperor wisely took of the in- 
 terests of foreio^ners travellino: in his 
 dominions, and also of the system of es- 
 pionage, I relate the following facts. 
 
 In the month of August I left Paris for a 
 tour in the Pyrenees. Between Bordeaux, 
 where I had slept, and Tarbes, I remem- 
 bered afterwards that a man sitting oppo- 
 site to me, with the appearance of a 
 superior bagman, asked to be allowed to 
 examine the case of the pair of dust-spec- 
 tacles, which I was wearing to protect 
 my eyes from the black ashes of the 
 engine. 
 
 On arriving at the station of Tarbes, 
 about a mile distant from the town, I was 
 surprised by a gendarme asking some- 
 what peremptorily for my ' papers.' I told 
 him that I was a British subject; and did 
 not require a pass-port. He repeated the 
 request twice. I gave him the same 
 reply. He beckoned to his Serjeant; 
 who told me that I must produce my 
 
Napoleon III. 187 
 
 pass-port. I gave him the same answer; 
 adding '' There is my luggage, bearing 
 my name : there is my servant, whom 
 you can see at once is British: that is 
 ample evidence. ^^ He replied very rudely 
 that I was to accompany him. I told him 
 that I did not wish to make a scene of 
 violence : but that I should not go unless 
 force were used. He then tapped me 
 on the shoulder; and I left the railway- 
 station. 
 
 In due time we reached Tarbes. I was 
 taken to the house of the Sous-Pi^efet ; who 
 possessed a good-looking housemaid. 
 
 The Sous-Prefet^ a young man, was at 
 the Prefecture: thither I was conducted. 
 I entered the large building and found 
 the Official seated at a table in a vast 
 saloon. I at once took a chair; carefully 
 keeping my hat on; and requested to be 
 informed what was the meaning of this 
 behaviour. 
 
 The gendarmes, who already appeared 
 somewhat scared, replied that they had 
 
188 Napoleon III. 
 
 done what they believed to be their duty. 
 The Sous-Prefet asked me who, and what, 
 I was. I told him it would require some 
 time to tell : but that I should content my- 
 self by saying that I was a Sous-Prefet 
 (Deputy-Lieutenant) and a Member of the 
 House of Commons: that if he wanted any 
 more personal information he had better 
 write to the British Ambassador at Paris, 
 with whom I had three nights before dined. 
 I then asked " What is this place called? " 
 He replied, with ill-judged impertinence, 
 " You had better ask the porter at the door." 
 I told him I should be compelled to state 
 his offensive reply in the proces verbal^ which 
 I should at once despatch to Lord Cowley : 
 and added that I had acted strictly within 
 French law ; for that in the ' Moniteur ' I 
 had read that henceforth no British subject 
 travelling in France should be required to 
 produce a pass-port. I said that, considering 
 that I had been led through the streets 
 of Tarbes as a criminal, without the just 
 imputation of any offence, the least thing 
 
Napoleon III. 189 
 
 he could do would be to order the two 
 gendarmes to accompany me to the Hotel 
 du Soleil, where I intended to lodge. He 
 replied that that was not their business. 
 
 After a night's consideration, I wrote 
 to Lord Cowley. 
 
 I received in due course a letter from the 
 Emperor's Minister of Finarce, M, Achille 
 Fould : he stated that in the absence of his 
 colleagues, the Minister for the Home 
 Department, and the Minister for War, the 
 former the head of the Department of Pre- 
 fecture through France, the second in com- 
 mand of the Gendarmerie of the Empire, 
 he was acting in their place. He expressed 
 the most heart-felt regret for the treatment 
 to which I had been subjected: and added 
 his personal sorrow that such an event 
 should have occurred within a Department 
 with which he was personally connected : 
 he was for many years Deputy for Tarbes. 
 
 Under these circumstances I think that 
 I was right in not proceeding further in the 
 matter. 
 
190 Napoleon III. 
 
 I was amused during my tour to hear the 
 matter frequently discussed at the various 
 tables d'hote : and to make the matter com- 
 plete I met one day, on one of the mountain 
 paths of the Pyrenees, the individual who 
 had examined my spectacle-case in the rail- 
 way carriage. I did not suspect him at the 
 time. I remembered afterwards that he 
 looked very much confused when in con- 
 versation I mentioned M. Fould's letter : it 
 was not till some time later that I felt cer- 
 tain, and am still certain, that he was the 
 originator of the affair. 
 
 At the period of the Empire everyone 
 who could give information, valuable or 
 not, was either rewarded, or registered 
 as being well-affected towards the Govern- 
 ment: no doubt contemptible wretches, 
 such as the man in question, were only too 
 glad by this vile sycophancy to get their 
 names into the category. 
 
 Two years later on visiting Tarbes, the 
 heat being intense, I wished to continue my 
 journey from the plain into the mountains : 
 
Napoleon III. 191 
 
 and intended to start after dinner for 
 Lourdes. I went to the office of the 
 depot for post-horses. I found the head of 
 the office smoking his cigar in the garden 
 in front of his house. I told him my 
 object : he replied that it was too late ; that 
 no horses could be had. I heard the 
 animals inside the adjacent stable : and 
 asked him to enter his parlour, in which 
 a lamp was burning. I then said " I do not 
 know whether you have a personal acquain- 
 tance with the SouS'Prefet : no doubt you 
 know him officially. I think that if you 
 showhim this," laying my visiting-card upon 
 the table, '' I shall have so many horses as 
 I require : I wish you good-evening." I 
 walked back to the Hotel. By the time 
 I had changed my dress : and was seated at 
 the table cVhbte^ I received a note saying 
 that I could at once have whatever horses I 
 required. 
 
 There are few characters more offensive 
 than the small French Official. There is 
 but one way to deal with them : to use no 
 
192 Napoleon III. 
 
 expressions that can be used against you : 
 to be very cool; and perfectly determined: 
 keeping well within the law. There are 
 few cases, where such conduct is followed, in 
 which the British traveller does not get the 
 best of it. 
 
 The object of the French policeman does 
 not vary: his purpose in molesting the 
 harmless foreigner is to bring his own name 
 before the Authorities : to append it to a 
 ^proces verbal ^ : if he can get the words 
 ' trop de zele ' added he believes himself to 
 be on the high road to fame, and promotion. 
 He fears to insult a native; because the 
 native remains, and may be nasty: but the 
 foreign traveller, here to-day and gone to- 
 morrow, is a safe victim. 
 
 Another illustration I may give. Travel- 
 ling with a relation, we talked freely, but not 
 disrespectfully, of the Emperor. 
 
 A few days later, walking in Paris, we 
 met and recognized an individual, our only 
 companion in the railway carriage ; he 
 recognized us, and stopping said, '' You 
 
Napoleon III. 193 
 
 will forgive me, Gentlemen, for reminding 
 you that you left a traveller's guide-book in 
 the carriage." I replied *'I think not: 
 there were five ; and I took them all away." 
 " Oh No ! I beg your pardon : you left 
 one. Will you allow me to ask you where 
 you live : and I shall send it." I gave at 
 once our address ; but repeated my certainty 
 that we had not left a book behind. When 
 we reached our hotel, we found the guide- 
 books complete. I have no doubt that this 
 individual, like the character in my former 
 story, had repeated our conversation in the 
 proper quarter. 
 
 THE ONLY OCCASION on which I met 
 M. Guizot in a small society, was dining 
 with D' Hawtrey, the Head Master of Eton. 
 My step-father, Sir Ralph Howard, had 
 been his pupil when at Eton : and I, to use 
 a strictly Etonian expression, ' knew him at 
 home.' I used frequently to breakfast with 
 him, nearly every school-time : this hospi- 
 tality was offered by him and his two elderly 
 o 
 
19^ Napoleon III. 
 
 sisters, known among the boys as ' Ele- 
 phantina ' and ' Rhinocerina,' two dear old 
 things, occasionally within a short time of 
 an interview of a totally different description 
 in the ' Library ' ; so called because there 
 are no books in it: and but one piece of 
 furniture; the use of which every Eton 
 boy, worthy of the name, has thoroughly 
 appreciated. 
 
 M. Guizot was a little man, with a thin 
 face, good features, very dark complexion : 
 his hair white at that time ; not loquacious, 
 but quick and intelligent in manner. I 
 remember that Lord Castlereagh, later 4^^ 
 Marquess of Londonderry, proposed that we 
 should drink M. Guizot's health. My step- 
 father, his cousin, subsequently expressed 
 annoyance at his having done so, for poli- 
 tical reasons. 
 
 As regards M. Guizot's conduct subse- 
 quent to the fall of Louis Philippe, it seems 
 obscure. From his past life, and natural 
 prejudice, he must have inclined to a Con- 
 stitutional Monarchy, provided that he was 
 
Napoleon III. 195 
 
 the Prime Minister, and chief or only- 
 adviser of the Constitutional Monarch. The 
 President would no doubt have consulted 
 him, if possible; but I should say that 
 M. Guizot did not perceive the dominance 
 which the actual head of the French Re- 
 public would in the end acquire. 
 
 At the time of the fall of Louis Philippe 
 I had a strong suspicion that it was the 
 result of a clumsily managed conspiracy. 
 The impression on my mind was that, find- 
 ing that Guizot could not be got rid of by 
 other means, Thiers and Odilon Barrot in- 
 tended to dislodge the King, and place the 
 boy Prince, his grandson, upon the throne ; 
 the Duchess of Orleans being appointed 
 Regent. If this were their traitorous plan, 
 it was demolished by the mob breaking into 
 the Chamber of Deputies, and forcing the 
 Duchess and her son, who stood in the 
 midst of the Members, to leave the build- 
 ing. Sooner or later the truth as to this 
 will probably be known. 
 
196 Napoleon III. 
 
 ONE OF THE BEST characteristics of 
 Napoleon III. was his eager desire to win 
 the good opinion of those whose good opinion 
 he had sagacity enough to know was worth 
 winning. 
 
 I looked upon him, as I looked upon 
 Disraeli, as actors. Such is the fair way to 
 consider those who have occupied their 
 great positions. The inner character of such 
 men cannot be subjected to true criticism : 
 reserve must be one of their necessary cha- 
 racteristics : in the case of these two men, 
 few, if any, can have been able to probe 
 their secret motives, and their personal in- 
 clinations. King-craft is an art difficult to 
 judge of: for we have comparatively few 
 examples to study: and no Monarch has 
 hitherto given his contemporaries nor suc- 
 cessors the means of judging him as he 
 really was. 
 
 THAT THE EMPEROR was personally 
 friendly to us, I have no doubt : had it suited 
 his policy to have broken the political 
 
Napoleon III. 197 
 
 friendship, I feel sure that he would have 
 done so : but it would have been Avith re- 
 luctance: and, so far as he was concerned, 
 a peace would have been early sought. 
 That he instructed his son, on the other 
 hand, not to quarrel with Britain I feel 
 equally sure. In the difficulties which he 
 must have well foreseen for his heir a 
 serious dispute with us would have been 
 almost fatal. 
 
 Previous to sending his son to our British 
 Military School he took the opinions of 
 experienced men as to which was most 
 desirable, as affording an excellent military 
 education, Germany or England. He de- 
 cided on the latter: his judgment and in- 
 clination in this went together. 
 
 The question arose as to what the heir to 
 the French Empire when in exile should be 
 called. The final decision was 'Prince 
 Imperial.' I remember an illustrious per- 
 son saying with some humour, " It would 
 have been impossible to say Napoleon lY. 
 face to the right ! or draw your sword ! " 
 
198 Napoleon III. 
 
 The fact of his father's abdication would 
 not prevent him from being a scion of an 
 Imperial family. 
 
 Had Napoleon IV. ascended the French 
 throneweshouldhave had, attheleast, twenty 
 years of friendly alliance with France. The 
 poor young Prince had all the happy asso- 
 ciations of his youth connected with London, 
 and the best British society : his character 
 was one to thoroughly appreciate the highest 
 qualities of the Briton. 
 
 THE WISELY DISDAINFUL manner 
 with which Napoleon III. treated Calumny 
 was one more proof of his greatness of mind. 
 After reading the scurrilous attack upon 
 him by Victor Hugo, he quietly remarked, 
 ''^''Napoleon le Petit \' par Victor Hugo le 
 Grand V and on being reproached by a 
 subordinate member of the Buonaparte race 
 " Vous rHavez rien VEmpereur^'' he replied, 
 '' Helas! fai sa families 
 
 IT WAS WITH great regret that I found 
 myself unable to be present at a great his- 
 
Napoleon III. 199 
 
 torical event, the Queen's presence at the 
 Ball given by the Emperor at the Palace of 
 Versailles. 
 
 I had an invitation : but I was engaged 
 to pay a visit to Sir William Middleton's 
 house, Shrubland, in Suffolk, and I do not 
 break engagements : it is not easy to fill up 
 a place in a country-house. The party how- 
 ever broke up in time to enable me to be 
 present at a most interesting scene. This 
 was a Review by Her Majesty of the Imperial 
 Army on the sands at Boulogne. Nothing 
 could be more artistic than the arrange- 
 ments : the tide at low water: a magnifi- 
 cent sunset: several French men-of-war, so 
 near the shore as they could float, thunder- 
 ing occasional salutes : 70,000 men paraded : 
 everything was magnificent. The expres- 
 sion on the Emperor's face on his return 
 after accompanying the Queen on board her 
 vessel was radiant. I could not have be- 
 lieved that his sombre countenance could 
 have lighted up as it did. His delight at 
 having been enabled to receive the most 
 
200 Napoleon III. 
 
 respectable Monarch in Europe was evidently 
 acute. 
 
 THE EMPEROR on being asked how it 
 was that he was so merciful to the sacer- 
 dotal party, who had not befriended him in 
 the earlier part of his career, replied '' Re- 
 venge is a dish that one must eat cold;" 
 using the words as a proverb. Simply 
 translated they make an admirable French 
 line. 
 
 La Vengeance est un plat quHl faut manger 
 au froid. 
 
 If this is to be found, I should be glad to 
 hear. 
 
 AT THE TIME when I was elected a life- 
 member of the Cercle de 1' Union, the 
 ' White's ' of Paris, the Club had its habita- 
 tion at the corner of the Rue de Gramont; 
 a more central, and more amusing locality 
 than its present abode. The looking-glass 
 in the principal room bore a memorandum 
 
Napoleon III. 201 
 
 of the Coup d'Etat ; a neatly starred hole, 
 made by a bullet fired through the window, 
 remained as a gentle souvenir. 
 
 A British member of the Club had been 
 seated at the time in an armchair reading 
 his newspaper: the bullet passed close to 
 his head, and there were some members of 
 the Club ill-natured enough to express, if 
 they did not feel, a wish that the bullet had 
 diverged slightly from its course. 
 
 I WAS PKESENT at the closing of the 
 first Great Exhibition in Paris, in the build- 
 ingwhich still stands in the Champs Elysfes. 
 The Emperor sat on the North side, in the 
 centre of the building, with his principal 
 Ofiicers round him. Lord Hertford, who 
 was one of the British Commissioners of 
 the Exhibition, took part ; wearing a very 
 old diplomatic uniform, the Ribbon and 
 Star of the Garter ; and round his neck the 
 red ribbon of the Third Class of the Leo^ion 
 of Honour. The building was of course 
 filled. The Emperor read in a perfectly 
 
202 Napoleon III. 
 
 clear voice the closing harangue. I recall 
 the last words perfectly. 
 
 " Let us be great by the arts of Peace, as 
 of War : let us place our confidence in God ; 
 to enable us to triumph over the difficulties 
 of the Present, and the Chances of the 
 Future." 
 
 The official report bears the final words 
 ' les difficultes du Jour : ' the words used 
 by the Emperor were ' du Present,'' 
 
 Strict orders were given that any officer 
 of the 1'^ Life Guards attending a Review 
 in Paris was to appear in ' Guard Order : ' 
 as in ' Review Order ' our shabracques 
 bear the word ' Waterloo.' 
 
 NAPOLEON in. had no great discrimina- 
 tion in works of Art. In these matters he 
 trusted implicitly to advice. I feel sure 
 that he wished to do all that he could to 
 encourage Art in France. To all artists, 
 plastic and literary, his accueil was always 
 most gracious. 
 
Napoleon III. 203 
 
 IT HAS BEEN SAID that all ambitious 
 men are melancholy : in the three cases of 
 Wellington, Disraeli, and Napoleon III. the 
 saying was, I think, true. The great Duke 
 said '' Life has but few enjoyments, even to 
 the best." Disraeli was decidedly sad : 
 Gray's line, describing himself, might cer- 
 tainly have been applicable to one whose 
 career was dazzling in its brilliancy, 
 
 ' And Melancholy marked him for her 
 own ! ' 
 
 The first Napoleon, from constitutional 
 causes, and a very imperfect digestion, which 
 required the constant stimulus of coffee 
 and snuff, could never have enjoyed the 
 light-heartedness which is worth all earthly 
 success. 
 
 DUEING THE EMPIRE I occasionally 
 visited the Chamber of Deputies. On the 
 first occasion, having received an Order 
 from the President of the Chamber for the 
 select box, I found myself in a very unselect 
 
204 Napoleon III. 
 
 company. In a few minutes a huissier 
 arrived with a great many apologies: he 
 showed me into the adjoining box. There 
 I found, the only occupant, the wife of 
 Marshal Canrobert, whom I remembered, 
 when quartered at Windsor, a very pretty 
 girl, with whom I was not acquainted. She 
 spoke with some reserve of the orators 
 of the Chamber: I remember she men- 
 tioned Glais-Bizoin, apparently with some 
 apprehension. 
 
 I told Madame La Mar^chale that she 
 ought to direct her energies to be sent as 
 Ambassadress to London : and pointed out 
 to her that there is no position in the world 
 equal to that of a woman sent as Ambassa- 
 dress to a country of which she is the 
 native. 
 
 Afterwards, wandering through the cor- 
 ridors of the Chamber, I agreed with a 
 friend to point out the Members who re- 
 sembled in character those of our House of 
 Commons. The best shot, and the one I 
 remember, was that of Cremieux. On 
 
Napoleon III. 205 
 
 seeing him approach I said ' This is Roe- 
 buck.' 
 
 I WAS IX PARIS at the time when the 
 Proclamation of the Confiscation of the 
 property of the House of Orleans was made 
 public. 
 
 This was wittily said to be ' Le premier 
 vol de raigle.'' Many of the best friends of 
 the Emperor, who had supported him in 
 his most adventurous efforts, drew back at 
 this; and openly expressed their opinion 
 that it was a mistake. It seemed to me at 
 the time, and looking back after many 
 years, that their view was right : and I am 
 surprised that so sagacious a man as 
 Napoleon III. should have so acted. 
 
 The property of the Princes of the 
 House of Orleans was gigantic ; approach- 
 ing to twelve millions sterling. No doubt 
 this gave them great power. It is true 
 that the Government of Louis XVIII. 
 when he regained the throne of France, 
 confiscated the property of the Buonapartes. 
 
206 Napoleon III. 
 
 Louis Philippe confiscated the property of 
 the elder branch of his own family: it has 
 been said that the reason of his quitting a 
 very shaky throne was in the dread of his 
 personal property being confiscated by the 
 ensuing Republic. 
 
 Putting all these facts on one side of the 
 balance, it still seems to me to have been 
 contrary to the sagacious and cool policy 
 of Napoleon III. I can only suppose that 
 seven years of solitude, seven years of 
 brooding, seven years of misery, had caused 
 the plant Revenge to take deep root in his 
 mind and heart : he had implored per- 
 mission to visit his dying father; this was 
 refused to him : he had been satirized by 
 the organs of Louis Philippe as a contemp- 
 tible impostor. No weapon of ridicule had 
 been spared in relation to himself. The 
 contumely of his intellect, utterly unde- 
 served as it turned out to be, must have 
 stung sharply, and deeply. Impostor, 
 rogue, madman, fool, were terms that had 
 been for years liberally applied to him by 
 
Napoleon III. 207 
 
 the members of the family whom he had 
 not displaced; but who had been driven 
 from the throne of France. One can 
 hardly be surprised that when the hour of 
 retribution arrived, in spite of prudence, he 
 drank the cup of Revenge. 
 
 We must remember that the Emperor 
 was a Corsican and that there the spirit of 
 Revenge is proverbially deep. In this 
 case he by no means reduced the Orleans 
 family to poverty : they still had four 
 millions. We must remember that not a 
 shilling of this was appropriated by him- 
 self; that it was entirely applied to the 
 pensions of old soldiers; the organization 
 for the relief of the poor; and other objects 
 in themselves beneficent. 
 
 I HAVE THE VOLUME which the 
 Emperor was reading at the moment when 
 the King of Prussia called upon him at the 
 Chateau de Belle Yue near Sedan, after 
 his surrender. 
 
 Inscribed on the fly-leaves is as follows, 
 
208 Napoleon III. 
 
 ' The Emperor Napoleon was reading 
 this book at the time the Emperor Wilham 
 arrived to have the celebrated interview, 
 after the Battle of Sedan: page 259 having 
 been turned down by Napoleon at the 
 moment that the Emperor William was 
 coming. 
 
 (Signed) N. W. J. Strode. 
 
 Presented to M' Strode by R. H. 
 Armit R.N., Special Correspondent of the 
 ' Manchester Guardian,' during the whole 
 war; with the German H.Q^". 
 
 RoBT. H. Armit. 
 
 This volume formed part of the library 
 of Monsieur Amour, Chateau de Belle Yue, 
 near Sedan : and was placed in Napoleon's 
 room while he rested there, during the 
 2"^^ September, 1870. Was presented to 
 me by the Bavarian Officer who is now 
 quartered there this day at the Chateau. 
 Domchery, 8^^ September, 1870. 
 
 RoBT. PI. Armit.' 
 
Napoleon III. 209 
 
 The volume is the '' Essais de Montaigne^ 
 Paris. Fume, Quai des Augustins N" 39, 
 
 MDCCCXXXi: 
 
 On page 259. the following passage from 
 Book II. Chapter 12. was deeply scored by 
 the Emperor. I have retained Montaigne's 
 quaint spelling. The passage previous to 
 this is on the subject of the Immortality of 
 the Soul, which Cicero describes as ' Rem 
 gratissimam promittentium, magis quam 
 probantium.' 
 
 ^ Deux choses lew rendoient cette opinion 
 plausible: Vune^ que sans Vimmiortalite des 
 ames il n'y auroit plus de quoy asseoir les 
 vaines esperances de la gloire^ qui est une 
 consideration de merveilleux credit au monde ; 
 I'aultre^ que c'est une tres utile impression 
 come diet Platon^ que les vices^ quand Us se 
 desroheront de la veue et cognoissance de 
 riiuinaine justice^ demeurent tousiours en butte 
 a la divine^ qui les poursuivra ; voire aprez 
 la mort des coulpables. Un soing extreme 
 tlent Vliomme d^alonger son estre : il y a 
 prouveu par toutes ses pieces.^ et pour la con- 
 
 V 
 
210 JN'apoleox III. 
 
 servation dii corps sont les sepultures; pour 
 la conservation du nom^ la gloire : il a employe 
 toute son opinion a se rebastir^ impatient de 
 sa fortune^ et a s'estansomier par ses in- 
 ventions.'' 
 
 SOON AFTER the Franco-German War I 
 met Count Bernstorff, the German Am- 
 bassador at the Court of St. James's, near 
 the Guards' Memorial in Pall Mall. 
 
 He said to me, " Do you remember a 
 conversation which we had at Brighton 
 some time ago?" I said "Perfectly: it 
 was opposite to Eastern Terrace." " Do 
 you remember your prophecy?" "Yes: I 
 told your Excellency that you were going 
 to have a great war with France ; in order 
 to consolidate Germany into an Empire. I 
 remember that your Excellency and the 
 Ambassadress spoke in German. I was 
 walking between : and that Madame l^erns- 
 torff spoke of Bismark as * von Bismark.' 
 I think that my prophecy was a true one." 
 
 Count Bernstorff replied " Perfectly 
 
Napoleon III. 211 
 
 true. Do you remember your second pro- 
 phecy?" ^'I do not." "You turned to 
 me and said, 'I shall see your Excellency 
 wearing "the Black Eagle." ' I was invested 
 this morning," pointing to his house, close 
 by, " by the Imperial Prince." 
 
 I added, " You see what a useful 
 thing it is to have a friend gifted with 
 second sight." The Ambassador answered, 
 " I assure you that both your prophecies I 
 considered equally impossible." 
 
 THE LAST OCCASION on which I saw 
 Napoleon III. was a few months before his 
 death : he was o*ood enouoh to let me know 
 through the Duke of Bassano that he would 
 see me on an afternoon named. On reach- 
 ing Chislehurst I was ushered into the long 
 corridor which runs the length of the house 
 by a certainly ill-dressed servant : there the 
 Duke of Bassano met me; and at once led 
 me into the principal drawing-room ; where 
 the Emperor was seated: he shook hands; 
 and motioned me to a chair : we sat for half 
 
212 Napoleon III. 
 
 an hour at a buhl table : he spoke on general 
 topics. I, of course, was unable by c tiquette 
 to ask him questions : but so far as I was 
 able I endeavoured to lead to interesting 
 matters. 
 
 The Emperor spoke to me of the bull- 
 fights, which I have mentioned, when he 
 was living afc the Villa Eugenie, at Biarritz ; 
 and said ''What events have occurred in 
 France since that time! *' He spoke of the 
 changes which had taken place in England, 
 and I alluded to our Revolution of 1867. 
 
 I remarked that we had passed through 
 in 1832. and 1867. nearly so great a change 
 as France had in 1789. and subsequent 
 years. The Emperor said, and repeated 
 several times, ''Oh! you have so much 
 good sense : you have so much good sense I 
 you cannot be destroyed." 
 
 I suggested that low wages, and empty 
 stomachs, were formidable rivals to good 
 sense. However he seemed to hold to his 
 opinion. I suggested that our building our 
 Parliament House close to the river, and our 
 
Napoleon III. 213 
 
 objection to a predominance of lawyers in 
 the House of Commons had tended to our 
 durability. This remark appeared to please 
 him : he said more than once " What sasra- 
 city ! what sagacity ! Oh, what sagacity ! " 
 and I think expressed some wish that the 
 French people had done the same. 
 
 Speaking of the Republic, I said, " Your 
 Majesty left them too rich: they can dis- 
 pense with you for a time: but only for a 
 time : " he replied " Yes ! the Republic of 
 '48. was bankrupt." 
 
 I did my best to lure the Emperor to ex- 
 press an opinion on Lord Beaconsfield : the 
 Imperial countenance clouded over at once : 
 I suggested that the Emperor had met him 
 frequently at Lady Blessington's receptions 
 at Gore House in former days: at last 
 Napoleon III. said '' I am told that he 
 speaks well." What Lord Beaconsfield said 
 of Napoleon III. I have related in ''Dis- 
 raeli and his Day : " I saw him soon after 
 my interview. 
 
 One fact in the conversation impressed 
 
214 Napoleon III. 
 
 me deeply. I did not make the remark 
 with a view to observing the effect ; 
 indeed I was not looking at the Emperor 
 at the moment; I spoke of the British de- 
 mocracy in whose hands the Reform Bill of 
 1867. placed us: and made the remark that 
 those who did not know Britain so well as 
 his Majesty supposed that the British de- 
 mocracy were money-loving and peace- 
 loving : that this to a great extent was true : 
 that they had an eye to their own interests ; 
 but that they were by no means peace- 
 loving. I meant to express that the British 
 voters of the future would be ' sudden and 
 quick in quarrel;' and quite ready to 
 take offence; ready to go to war without 
 adequate means or motive : but that what I 
 dreaded was that they would be too anxious 
 to leave off, either after a defeat, or, more 
 probably, after a victory. To other re- 
 marks he had acquiesced or demurred ; but 
 when I used these words he held his breath : 
 it was easy to see that he was registering 
 them in his mind. 
 
Napoleon III. 215 
 
 Reflecting on the conversation afterwards 
 I thoroughly made up my mind that in case 
 of his return to the throne he would have 
 turned his mind to an attack upon this 
 Empire : not in the least from any personal 
 feeling against us; but from the feeling that 
 it was the one card which he had left; and 
 that if successful in some small thing, such 
 as the capture of Saint Helena, or an en- 
 largement of France's small possessions in 
 Hindostan, he would offer to shake hands : 
 contented with this success against our- 
 selves. At the same time I felt sure, and 
 still feel sure, that his daily advice to his 
 son was, and would be, " Do not quarrel 
 with England." Napoleon III. knew well 
 from living amongst us our power, and our 
 will to use it when necessary : he could 
 have had no illusions on the subject: but I 
 have no doubt that he would have liked to 
 have written on his tombstone, 'Napoleon III. 
 did what Napoleon I. could never do : ob- 
 tained a success against Britain.' 
 
 I alluded to the Prince Imperial whom I 
 
216 Napoleon 111. 
 
 had seen twice : at a lecture at the Royal 
 Institution; and later at a reception at the 
 Foreign Office. The Emperor brightened 
 up; and seemed very much pleased at my 
 description of the Imperial Prince. I did 
 not know him : but I observed that he 
 seemed a high-bred gentleman, full of life 
 and intelligence, capable of making friends, 
 and wishing to do so : and added '' With 
 quite enough of the gamin in him to please 
 the Parisians." 
 
 In the course of conversation I said with 
 perfect truthfulness, " I am no courtier, 
 Sire, I do not pay compliments : but I am 
 convinced that, barring the accidents of 
 time and health, I shall see your Majesty in 
 Paris." 
 
 At the expiration of half-an-hour the 
 Emperor stood up; and held out his hand. 
 Before leaving the room I said, " You pro- 
 bably do not remember, Sire, that 1 had a 
 letter of personal introduction to you when 
 you were President by M"' Rowles." He 
 said at once, '' She w^as a great friend of 
 
Napoleon III. 217 
 
 mine. I used to be here frequently in 
 former years." Camden House was the 
 home of M' and M" Rowles for some years. 
 
 Frequently as I had seen the Emperor, I 
 never saw him look in better health, nor 
 more cheerful in every way than on that 
 afternoon . 
 
 At Chislehurst, as at the Tuileries, and at 
 the Villa Eugenie, the rooms were well fur- 
 nished : but bore no trace whatever of a 
 love for Art, nor for beautiful things. The 
 house excellent : well situated ; and the 
 apartments exceptionally handsome. 
 
 THE ABODE of so interesting a cha- 
 racter has an interest in itself. After the 
 Emperor's death I paid a visit to Camden 
 House. My motive in going there was not 
 only to see again the residence of so remark- 
 able a man, but also to explore the scene 
 of an awful tragedy, which had occurred 
 immediately before its occupation by M' and 
 M" Eowles. 
 
 I drove through the beautiful lanes and 
 
218 Napoleon III. 
 
 suburban towns of North Kent on a toler- 
 ably fine afternoon. Camden Place origi- 
 nated with Camden, the Antiquary and in 
 1765. was sold by Pratt, Lord Camden. 
 
 Later it was purchased by M' Thomson 
 Bonar, who had made a large fortune in the 
 City, and was connected with the Russian 
 Trade. Immediately after the event which 
 I am about to narrate, the place was 
 bought by M' and M" Rowles, of Stratton 
 Street, to whom the late Emperor of the 
 French was a frequent visitor. 
 
 On Sunday evening, the 30*^^ of May, 
 1813. M' Bonar, the wealthy proprietor of 
 Camden Place, went to bed at his usual 
 hour. M" Bonar did not follow him till 
 two o'clock. No disturbance was heard 
 during the night. At seven the next morn- 
 ing the maidservant, whose duty it was to 
 call her mistress, on opening the door of 
 the spacious bedroom, still the principal 
 sleeping-room of the house, found that the 
 toilet-table and other articles of furniture, 
 were upset, and strewed over the carpet. 
 
Napoleon III. 2-19 
 
 Returning downstairs she called another 
 maidservant: and together they entered the 
 room. The first thing visible was the dead 
 body of M' Bonar, a tall and powerful man 
 of seventy years of age. The next object 
 was the person of M" Bonar, still in her 
 bed; but desperately wounded. The re- 
 spective beds of M' and M'^ Bonar, placed 
 side by side, were drenched in blood. 
 Blood was on the walls and carpet, and the 
 mark of a bloody footstep was conspicuous 
 in the small room that leads to the large 
 bedroom. M' Bonar's nightcap, with a lock 
 of his grey hair sticking to it, lay at some 
 distance from his body; having apparently 
 been struck from his head by a blow from 
 the poker, which lay on the floor not far 
 from him. His hands were dreadfully 
 mangled; he had received a most violent 
 blow across the nose, and across the knees : 
 and the pillow, with which he appears to 
 have attempted to defend himself, was lying 
 close by, also covered with blood. M" 
 Bonar, though not actually dead, expired 
 
220 Napoleon III. 
 
 in the course of a few hours. Durino^ this 
 time she was unconscious : and only uttered 
 the words once, " Oh ! dear." 
 
 The footman, Philip Nicholson, an Irish- 
 man who had formerly served in the 12^** 
 Dragoons, was despatched to London for 
 the assistance of M' Astley Cooper, and was 
 ordered to communicate with M"^ Ano^er- 
 stein, jVr Bonar's partner. At seven in the 
 evening M' Bonar, jun., Avho was serving as 
 Colonel with his Regiment, the local Militia 
 of Kent, arrived at the house, exclaiming, 
 " Let me see my father ! Lideed I must 
 see him ! " He burst into the bed-chamber, 
 and locked the door after him. After some 
 time, fearing for his safety, the door was 
 broken open. He was found kneeling with 
 clasped hands over the body of his father. 
 
 No part of the house had been broken 
 into. The front door was unclosed. Some 
 of the shutters below stairs were also open. 
 The only marks of blood, except in the 
 bedroom, wera a few drops in the ante- 
 room. No motive was apparent for the 
 
Napoleon III. 221 
 
 deed: and it was clear that no robbery had 
 been committed, nor, apparently, attempted. 
 M' and M" Bonar were persons of proverbial 
 benevolence; and much beloved in their 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 A butler of the name of Dale had been 
 discharged for misconduct a fortnight before. 
 M" Bonar had wished him to be prosecuted, 
 but M' Bonar was content to dismiss him. 
 The servant, Philip Nicholson, proceeded 
 to London, and, having intimated to M' 
 Astley Cooper that he was wanted at Cam- 
 den Place, he proceeded to ' The Red Lion,' 
 near Bethlehem Hospital. Here he saw 
 the discharged butler. Dale, to whom he 
 used these Avords, " The deed is done ; you 
 are suspected; but you are not in it." 
 Leaving Dale, he proceeded to the police 
 office at Bow Street. Here he gave infor- 
 mation of the murder; adding that he had 
 seen Dale at ' The Bed Lion.' His insinua- 
 tions induced the Bow Street officers to go 
 after Dale. 
 
 Dale, in consequence of what was said by 
 
222 Napoleon III. 
 
 Nicholson, underwent an examination before 
 the magistrates. He was fortunately able 
 to prove that he was at ' The Red Lion ' 
 from eleven o'clock on Sunday evening till 
 six on Monday morning. He was released. 
 From his manner and conduct, suspicion 
 then fell upon Philip Nicholson, the Irish 
 servant ; and, a warrant having been issued 
 by the Lord Mayor, he was at length found, 
 on horseback, not having returned to Chisle- 
 hurst, drinking at the door of the ' Three 
 Nuns,' in Whitechapel. A scuffle, apparently 
 provoked by himself, in which he received 
 some bruises, ensued. He was conveyed to 
 the Giltspur Street Compter. 
 
 In the life of Sir Astley Cooper, the great 
 Surgeon, the intimate friend of the mur- 
 dered Bonar, who was immediately sent for, 
 a curious incident is mentioned in relation 
 to the crime. 
 
 A gentleman named Tyrrell, with whom 
 Nicholson had lived, who believed in his 
 innocence, called at the Compter prison. 
 He was accompanied by the Governor of 
 
Napoleon III. 223 
 
 the gaol to the cell of the accused man. 
 Whilst speaking to hhn, a little black and 
 dun terrier placed its forepaws on the 
 prisoner's knees, and began to lick his 
 breeches, which were of some dark coloured 
 velveteen : they were examined ; and on 
 the front of each thigh were found stains of 
 blood. The Governor remarked to M' 
 Tyrrell that his dog was ' a sagacious little 
 fellow : ' to which he replied that he had 
 never seen the dog before. No one could 
 make out how the dog could have got into 
 the prison: no one there owned him; and 
 strict orders were on the gates excluding 
 all dogs. In the evening M' Tyrrell sent 
 to the prison : saying that he w^ould keep 
 the dog. The intelligent animal, however, 
 had disappeared : and was never seen again. 
 Being brought before the Lord Mayor the 
 next day at the Mansion House, Nicholson 
 declared that he had gone to bed about 
 twelve o'clock on the night of the murder ; 
 and knew nothing, until called by the 
 housemaid at eight the next morning. He 
 
224 Napoleon III. 
 
 declared that he had fastened some of the 
 windows inside at the usual hour; the rest 
 were attended to by the housemaid. 
 
 It appeared that on the murder being 
 discovered, and the servants assembled, he, 
 with the others, went to the room where 
 his master and mistress lay. He placed his 
 car to the mouth of his mistress, and de- 
 clared that she still lived ; he then took the 
 sheets from his master^s and mistress's 
 beds ; and with them wiped the floor, which 
 was in the state described. He then took 
 the linen to the room where he slept ; and 
 having wrapt the sheets in the sheets from 
 his own bed, hid the bundle underneath it. 
 On being asked by the Lord Mayor for 
 his motives for doing this, he said it was to 
 hide so unpleasant and horrid a sight. On 
 being asked as to a footmark in blood on 
 the stairs leading from the scene of the 
 murder to his own room, he declared that it 
 must have arisen from his carrying the 
 sheets covered with blood down the stairs. 
 It was, however, pointed out to him that the 
 
Napoleon III. 225 
 
 raark was found there before he had re- 
 moved the sheets. As regards the bruises 
 found on his person he declared that those 
 came from the scuffle with the City officer. 
 It appears that on the road to London he 
 had taken a dram at several places. The 
 coroner's inquest held on the bodies found 
 a verdict of wilful murder against Nichol- 
 son. He was visited by the neighbours, 
 including Lord Castlereagh, Lord Camden, 
 and Lord Robert Seymour. The next in- 
 cident that occurred was an attempt at 
 suicide on the part of the prisoner. Being 
 a catholic he was visited by M' Bramston, 
 a priest; and on Tuesday morning, the 8^^ 
 of June, he confessed in the presence of 
 Colonel Bonar, and signed a statement, that 
 he was the murderer. On being asked 
 where he had put the clothes which he had 
 worn, he said outside the house, near the 
 front door. The clothes were found, covered 
 with leaves, on the spot indicated ; his shirt 
 being torn to rags, no doubt in the struggle 
 with his victim. Nicholson was tried at the 
 Q 
 
226 Napoleon III. 
 
 Maidstone Assizes next following for * Petty 
 Treason ; ' the Indictment differing from a 
 common Indictmsnt for Murder by aver- 
 ment that Nicholson, being a servant of 
 M' Bonar, had traitorously, as well as felo- 
 niously, murdered his master. He pleaded 
 on the trial ' not guilty,* and formal evidence 
 was therefore necessary. 
 
 After Nicholson's confession, corroborated 
 by circumstances, the evidence given by 
 servants was of no great importance. It 
 appeared that his shoes, on which were 
 blood, were odd ones; and one of each pair 
 was found in a wood-closet. The instru- 
 ment with which the crime was committed 
 was the poker of the servants' hall ; about 
 2 f ^ 4 in. long. The declaration of Nichol- 
 son, in essential particulars, was as follows. 
 
 I believe the tale, though extraordinary, 
 to be a true one. 
 
 He said that he, Philip Nicholson, to 
 clear the innocence of others, and tell the 
 truth of himself, states that he committed 
 the murder. Asked whether he had ac- 
 
Napoleon III. 227 
 
 complices, he replied, '* No, sir. I would 
 tell you if I had. I did not know it myself 
 five minutes before." He declared that 
 after the groom had left him at twelve 
 o'clock he was perfectly sober; and fell 
 asleep on a bench in the servants' hall, where 
 his bed was; that he woke about three 
 o'clock, and felt a sudden and uncontrollable 
 impulse to murder his master and mistress. 
 He wrapt a sheet round him in order that 
 he might not be recognized, and, arming 
 himself with the poker, which was lying in 
 the grate, went upstairs. On entering the 
 room he struck M" Bonar first — she uttered 
 no sound; he then walked round to the 
 other bed, and struck M"" Bonar a violent 
 blow. Roused by the blow, M'^ Bonar, 
 supposing that it was his wife who had 
 entered the room, uttered a few words to 
 her. On another blow being given he 
 sprang from the bed, ami grappled Avith his 
 dastardly assailant. A struggle of the most 
 violent kind ensued: the brutal murderer 
 striking his master with the poker re- 
 
228 Napoleon HI. 
 
 peatedly. After an encounter of fifteen 
 minutes M' Bonar became exhausted, and, 
 to use Nicholson's words, " I left him groan- 
 ing on the floor." 
 
 Then, leaving the room, he endeavoured 
 to destroy the traces of the crime on his 
 own person by washing himself at the sink 
 in the offices, opening the front door and 
 the shutters, in order to misdirect suspicion. 
 He then went to bed, but not to sleep; and 
 remained there until called in the early 
 morning. 
 
 This statement had been made after his 
 attempted suicide ; and under the belief that 
 he was about to die. It was clear that he 
 had made no attempt at robbery ; and in a 
 further declaration Nicholson said, *' The 
 idea of plunder never presented itself to 
 my mind. I can attribute these unnatural 
 murders to no other cause than a temporary 
 fury through excessive drinking." Colonel 
 Bonar, the son of murdered parents, never, 
 so far as was permitted, lost sight of their 
 murderer. He was either on the scaffold, 
 
Napoleon III. 229 
 
 or close to it, when Nicholson was executed 
 at Maidstone. 
 
 While the cord was round the neck of 
 the criminal, he was asked whether he had 
 any accomplices. He distinctly stated that 
 he had not. In reply to a question, he said, 
 *' There is no creature living on the earth 
 who had anything to do with the murder but 
 mj^self." Asked, " Had you any antipathy 
 to your master or mistress before you com- 
 mitted the murder? " he replied, clasping 
 his hands together as well as his heavy 
 irons would permit him, " As God is in 
 heaven, it was a momentary thought; as I 
 have declared before.'' 
 
 THE THOROUGH appreciation of Emile 
 Augier, one of the noblest and wisest 
 Dramatists and Philosophers whom France 
 has produced, is a clear indication of Napo- 
 leon III.'s intellectual capacity. To have 
 seen his Dramas played by Regnier, at the 
 Theatre Fran^ais, reconciled one to exis- 
 tence. 
 
230 Napoleon III. 
 
 ON ENTERING LONDON, crossing Tra- 
 falgar Square, when passing Lord Nf^lson's 
 column, Napoleon III. rose in the carriage, 
 and saluted the Great Admiral : an act 
 utterly above the apprehension of the 
 lookers-on. Every sort of idiotic lie was 
 uttered, as an explanation of this chival- 
 rous act : Philistinism declared that the 
 Emperor had heard that he was to be killed 
 on that spot ! 
 
 I WAS WELL ACQUAINTED with one 
 of the Emperor's most faithful and per- 
 sistent friends, who from time to time in- 
 formed me of facts which he had good means 
 of knowing. 
 
 M. C. whose ' limited service,' not menial, 
 it was to attend the Emperor daily, awoke 
 him on the morning of the attempt at 
 Strasburg, and on the morning after the 
 fatal day of Sedan. 
 
 On the establishment of the Empire M. C. 
 who had married an Englishwoman of 
 comely appearance, was enabled to form a 
 
Napoleon J II. 231 
 
 magnificent establishment, forming part of 
 the ground floor of the original Hotel du 
 Louvre, in the Rue de Rivoli, in Paris. 
 
 M. C. told me several years before the 
 cataclysm of the Empire that things were 
 going badly. I asked him "Why?" He 
 replied " Socialism in the Army." 
 
 I asked him whether, when he entered the 
 Emperor's bedroom on the morning after 
 Sedan, the Emperor was asleep: he said 
 " He appeared so." By the side of his 
 bed was Lord Lytton's novel, ' The Last of 
 the Barons,' which he had probably found 
 in the library of the Chateau. 
 
 I did not, of course, from a feeling of 
 delicacy, ask him many questions as to the 
 idiosyncrasies of his master : but I re- 
 member him telling me that the Emperor 
 detested 'phrase-makers.' This confirmed 
 my view of the Emperor's character, that he 
 thoroughly appreciated honesty. 
 
 M. C. gave me an interesting account of 
 the Emperor's first hearing of the fall of his 
 Empire. By surrendering his sword at 
 
232 Napoleon III. 
 
 Sedan he thereby abdicated all political 
 power : and judiciously left the King to deal 
 with the Regent Empress in Paris. He was 
 removed to Wilhelmshohe by the Belgian 
 Railway, and on the train stopping for vrater 
 at Yerviers he heard for the first time that 
 his dynasty was deposed. A newspaper boy 
 on the platform was shrieking '^ Chute de 
 V Empire I Fuite de V Imperatricey It was 
 thus that the Third Napoleon heard that 
 his race for a time ceased to rule France. 
 
 M. C. leaving his own seat approached 
 the window of the Emperor's carriage. He 
 said '' My wife, Sire, and my children are in 
 Paris. Will your Majesty give me permis- 
 sion to return there ? " The Emperor replied, 
 " Certainly : I hope that we shall soon meet 
 again in happier circumstances.'^ 
 
 IN NOTHING did Napoleon III. show 
 more greatness than after his Fall. The 
 history of Napoleon I. at Saint Helena 
 is a record of querulous, unphilosophical, 
 irritability. Unlike the first Caesar, he knew 
 
]S"apoleon III. 233 
 
 not how to die with dignity. An opportunity 
 was afforded him, and, with his strong 
 sense of the dramatic, it is remarkable that 
 he did not use it, having proved to the 
 world his marvellous skill as a General, a 
 Statesman, and a Diplomatist, of leaving 
 behind him the record of the last years of 
 a Philosopher. He did nothing of the sort. 
 For the many deeds in his career, which 
 he must have known required explanation 
 to the minds of honest, honourable, and 
 wise men, he left no, or little, excuse. His 
 life at Saint Helena has been recorded by 
 those friendly to him, and who were evi- 
 dently, and naturally, impressed by the 
 vast intellect of the man to whom fate had 
 given them peculiar propinquity: but not 
 one of the records of the closing Act of the 
 great Drama, in which Napoleon I. was 
 the principal actor, show him to have been 
 great. Querulous complaints, relating to 
 the details of the necessary watchfulness 
 of his person, and a general pettiness in his 
 behaviour afford melancholy proofs of this, 
 
234 Napoleon III. 
 
 in the sense in which the word is understood 
 by the loftiest, and most honourable, minds. 
 
 The disease from which he suffered, 
 hereditary in his family, and of which he 
 related that his father had died, may have 
 been to some extent the cause of the peev- 
 ishness which he displayed. One would 
 fain hope that his legacy to the intended 
 assassin of Wellington, which I read in 
 his own hand-writing, when his will was 
 at Doctors' Commons, must have been 
 caused by the irritability of his system 
 at the time : but his illness was not of a 
 character over which real greatness of mind 
 would not have triumphed. Xo one can 
 study his life attentively from the beginning 
 to the end without feeling certain that the 
 elements of real greatness were wanting. 
 
 His cruel and absolutely false imputations 
 on those who had served him bravely and 
 faithfully can never be forgiven. His cruel 
 denunciation of Grouchy at Waterloo, and 
 his absolutely and intentionally false abuse 
 of Ney at Quatre Bras, who jeopardized his 
 
Napoleon III. 235 
 
 life, and sacrificed his honour in his cause, 
 can never be effaced. 
 
 My readers should contrast with this the 
 conduct of Napoleon III. When in the 
 last throes of agony at Sedan, when he knew 
 that his last hour as a Sovereign was 
 approaching, he performed none of the 
 dastardly tricks of Napoleon I. Had the 
 latter been in his place he would un- 
 doubtedly have attributed the annihilation 
 of the French military power to his Generals: 
 he would have proclaimed to France that 
 the capture of Sedan, and the surrender of 
 the Army, were due to the imbecility, if not 
 the cowardice, of Marshal MacMahon or 
 GeneralWimpfen: he would have told a story, 
 utterly regardless of facts, to endeavour to 
 persuade the French nation that everyone 
 was to blame but himself: he would have 
 declared to the French people that his 
 orders had been disobeyed : that a scheme 
 of consummate skill had been arranged by 
 himself; but that his Generals had failed to 
 carry out the scheme; and had disobeyed 
 
236 Napoleon III. 
 
 his orders : in short he would have done 
 everything which a consummate charlatan 
 could have conceived. 
 
 Napoleon III. did nothing of the sort. 
 Having been instructed from Pa,ris by those 
 whom he had left in authority that his re- 
 turn, unless victorious, was impossible, he 
 moved to the West, to Sedan; making, as 
 I believe, the mistake of supposing that this 
 fortress was much larger than it is. Instead 
 of preserving his army within the Avails, he 
 found it was absolutely necessary to fight 
 on the plain outside. 
 
 As regards that portion of the army 
 which was within the walls of Sedan, it is 
 recorded that, entering the principal bar- 
 racks, and addressing the soldiers, he pro- 
 posed, should it be thought desirable by 
 their Generals, to lead them through the 
 gates of the town in a desperate attempt to 
 force their way through the enemy. To 
 anyone who has visited Sedan, and observed 
 the size of the gates, such an attempt would 
 have been more than desperate : the narrow 
 
Napoleon III. 237 
 
 causeways which lead through the walls of 
 this very old fortress could be blocked 
 absolutely by two field-pieces in front of 
 either gate. For a column of men to force 
 their way out would have been impossible. 
 
 Bat far greater than the personal courage 
 which induced him to expose his life for 
 many hours, whilst suffering from an in- 
 tensely painful malady, was tlie excep- 
 tional heroism which induced his last act. 
 
 Had a small mind been his, he could 
 easily have made the final act appear that 
 of the Officer commanding the Army. It 
 would have rung through France that 
 Wimpfen had hoisted the flag of surrender 
 at Sedan. So far from thus acting. Napo- 
 leon III. sent his personal aide-de-camp 
 to hoist the white flag on the Citadel: 
 thus putting a stop to the absolutely use- 
 less slaughter of the French soldiers. He 
 must have known at the time the risk that 
 he ran by this act for the future of his 
 dynasty. 
 
 Ultimately, when it is to be hoped that 
 
238 Napoleon III. 
 
 Justice will be done to all those who have 
 been deeply wronged, this act will be appre- 
 ciated as a true deed of greatness. 
 
 I KXOW that Napoleon III. on his return 
 to those in whose hands he had placed the 
 responsibility of Government when leaving 
 Paris for the fatal campaign, never, from 
 the first to his last hour, uttered one word 
 of blame in relation to their conduct. 
 Whether that conduct was wise or not no 
 one can judge who is not thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the reasons, many of them 
 occult, which led to it. He possessed suffi- 
 cient philosophy, and strength of mind, not 
 to throw blame upon those who were the 
 participators in a possibly inevitable cata- 
 clysm. The greatest forbearance, the 
 greatest gentleness, were shown through- 
 out by the Emperor: and no word of re- 
 proach at any time escaped his lips. 
 
 I VISITED SEDAN not long after the 
 conclusion of the Franco-German War. The 
 
Napoleon J II. 239 
 
 first thing that struck me about the place 
 was the small space within the walls. I 
 visited the Chateau de Belle Vue, in which 
 Napoleon slept the night after the battle : a 
 modern villa. Also the room in the 
 weaver's house at Domchery, from which 
 he surrendered his person. As described 
 to me by the occupants of the cottage, he 
 sat for some time with his elbows on the 
 table, in silence. General Ney once or 
 twice looked into the room : seeing the 
 Emperor abstracted, he said nothing. Over 
 the chimney-piece were the three gold 
 pieces : one bearing his own ' picture in 
 little' : Avhich, on leaving the cottage, he 
 had desired General l^lej to give to the 
 occupants. 
 
 From the door of this buildinof Belo:ium 
 can be seen. It must have tried many a 
 brave soul on that bloody day, to know, 
 when looking towards those grass hills, 
 that almost within rifle-shot safety might 
 be had: but could not be reached. 
 
 It seemed strano^e that the scene of such 
 
240 Napoleon III. 
 
 a tremendous event should be so little 
 altered : the weaver and his wife continued 
 their usual occupation : and, with the excep- 
 tion of the mounds, in which the driver of 
 my carriage was careful to tell me only 
 horses had been interred, no trace could be 
 found of the eno^ao^ement. 
 
 I observed on the blanket of my bed 
 in the Inn at Sedan unquestionable spots of 
 blood : a circumstance which I related, on 
 leaving, to an old lady who sat next to me 
 at the table d'hote : this appeared to create 
 in her great consternation : and she spoke 
 of leaving the hotel at which she had just 
 arrived. I declined to give her the number 
 of my room : and I hope that she was no 
 worse for my information. 
 
 I also visited the ruined village of 
 Gravelotte, reduced to almost complete 
 ruin. A little circumstance occurred there 
 which impressed me more than, perhaps, it 
 ought. I found a family of a grandmother, 
 lier daughter, and grandchildren in a half- 
 destroyed abode : they described the 
 
Napoleon III. 241 
 
 horrors of the winter which they had 
 passed in their crushed dwelling. From a 
 feeling of kindness, wishing to do them 
 some good, I asked them if there was any- 
 thing they would like to sell as a relic 
 of the Battle : they produced a half-calcined 
 coffee-pot : I put down on the table a gold 
 ten-franc piece : and I confess that it gave 
 me a pang when each member of the family 
 took it up, examined it, and shook her head. 
 I assume that it was a coin they had not 
 before seen. I left the house with a sting- 
 ing sense of the utter incapacity to appre- 
 ciate disinterested kindness on the part of 
 the greater portion of human beings. It is 
 only fair to say that a child pursued me 
 with the lid of the coffee-pot; and mur- 
 mured something which was, I suppose, 
 meant for gratitude : they having dis- 
 covered the value of this not very un- 
 common coin. 
 
 THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT, that the 
 Emperor intended to return to Paris. The 
 
 R 
 
242 Napoleon III. 
 
 popular idea Avas that his ambition was 
 only for his son : no doubt this would 
 be his ultimate object; but he was too 
 sagacious not to know that the best method 
 of ensuring his throne for his heir would be 
 to regain it in the first instance for 
 himself. 
 
 THE SERIES of painful operations which 
 the Emperor went through were not neces- 
 sary to preserve his life : the sufferings 
 which he endured during the fatal battle of 
 Sedan continued at intervals during his 
 exile. They were performed entirely in 
 consequence of the necessity, not of course 
 expressed by him to his Surgeons, of 
 riding back to Paris at the head of his 
 Army. 
 
 Everything had been arranged for his 
 return. He said ''I cannot walk back 
 at the head of an Army: it would have 
 a still worse effect to enter Paris in a 
 carriage : it is absolutely necessary that 
 I should ride : " it was to enable him to 
 
Napoleon III. 243 
 
 do this that he submitted to the operations 
 which cost him his life. 
 
 As regards his projected return, I had the 
 following from a person who had the best 
 possible means of knowing the facts : he 
 was to have supplied a large sum of money 
 to the enterprise. I related what I had 
 heard to a person holding a very high 
 official position in a distant country. The 
 latter said to me " Your information is 
 perfectly correct:" he added "I was to 
 have played a somewhat conspicuous part 
 in the drama." 
 
 During the time the Emperor resided at 
 Chislehurst he was only on horseback three 
 times ; once for a military inspection of the 
 troops from Woolwich. On the last occa- 
 sion on which he rode the effect upon him 
 was so bad that he did not again remount a 
 horse. 
 
 The ailment from which the Emperor 
 suffered was of a serious kind : but such as 
 has been borne by many men without fatal 
 result: but to produce an effect on the 
 
244 Napoleon III. 
 
 Frencli people it was, as he wisely said, 
 absolutely necessary to appear in all the 
 
 * Pride, Pomp, and Circumstance of glorious 
 War.' 
 
 Upon this he staked everything : his last 
 card was fatal. 
 
 SINCE THE DEATH of Napoleon III. I 
 have ascertained the following facts. Not 
 only was his return to Paris intended, but 
 every detail had been arranged. 
 
 A private yacht was to be used to land 
 the Emperor at some port undetermined : 
 in the Northern corner of France; or pos- 
 sibly in Belgium. 
 
 I had this from the proprietor of the 
 yacht, the late James Ashbury: he had 
 more than once mentioned the circumstance 
 to me : and he repeated it the evening 
 before his death. 
 
 Landing secretly, the arrangement was 
 that the Emperor should proceed at once 
 to the camp at Chalons, where forty or 
 
Napoleon III. 245 
 
 fifty tliousand men were assembled for the 
 purpose of manoeuvre : declaring himself, 
 he was to head this Army, and march at 
 once upon Paris. 
 
 I WAS IN PARIS when the return of the 
 Comte de Chambord, as King of France, was 
 expected. 
 
 The real history of this contemptible 
 fiasco has yet to be learned. The Pro- 
 clamation put out by the Count de Chambord 
 is too childish to have been earnest : after 
 professing during his whole life that he was 
 the only legitimate Sovereign of France, 
 when an admirable opportunity occurred, 
 when his rivals were discounted, and when 
 the French, looking for a Ruler of some 
 sort, were prepared to receive him, ' the only 
 legitimate monarch ' throws down his cards ; 
 and disappears from the scene. 
 
 The silly stuff of ' Henry the Fifth' and 
 ^ The White Flag ' must have sickened his 
 supporters. With ordinary good sense he 
 would have seated himself on the throne, 
 
246 Napoleon III. 
 
 without saying a word as to the flag which 
 he intended to hoist: the flag, which he 
 should properly and prudently have hoisted, 
 should have been the heraldic flag of the 
 France of this century; the Tricolor: the 
 white, central, part being sprinkled, or, what 
 heralds call seme of 'Fleurs de Lys.^ This 
 would have been accepted as a wise and 
 conciliatory concession to France herself: 
 it would have been in heraldry strictly cor- 
 rect. The personal arms of the individual 
 representing a Dynasty are always dis- 
 played on the National Flag. The King of 
 Greece when placed on the throne depicted 
 the arms of his native Bavaria on an 
 ' escutcheon of pretence ' in the centre of 
 the National flag. The arms of the House 
 of Hohenzollern were so placed on the 
 Imperial flag of united Germany: the 
 arms of the House of Savoy were so 
 emblazoned on the tricolor of Italy. In 
 former years the golden bees of the 
 Buonapartes had been shoAvn on the tri- 
 color: and the substitution for these of 
 
Napoleon III. 247 
 
 the ' Fleurs de Lys ' would have satisfied 
 everyone. 
 
 With very little management, and an 
 apparent unwillingness to force the ' White 
 Flag ' in any way upon the French people, 
 nothing would have been easier than to set 
 the fashion of ' White ' in Paris, and else- 
 where: as at the time of the First Re- 
 storation, W^hite would very soon have 
 become the fashionable dress of Paris : the 
 ladies of the beau monde^ the Duchesses 
 who were vowed to the old dynasty, would 
 have worn White : the priest party would 
 have supported it: the toy shops would 
 have teemed with little white flags; and 
 not a child in the Garden of the Tuileries 
 but would have waved one in honour of the 
 new King. 
 
 M^ GEORGE HUDSON, the railway king, 
 on our hearing at the Carlton Club of the 
 failures of Worth and Reichshofen, said to 
 me, with a compliment which I do not 
 quote, " Sir William, what will be the 
 
248 Napoleon III. 
 
 terms?" I replied, ''An indemnity, and 
 Strasburg." 
 
 A few days later my brother introduced 
 me to a friend who had served in the 
 Cavalry in these disastrous battles : he was 
 a particularly gentlemanlike young man : 
 he asked me what I thought of the situa- 
 tion: I asked him two questions, "Will 
 your National Guard in Paris fight? " 
 " Against the mob. Yes." " Will they fight 
 against the Germans?" "I think not." 
 " Then you had better tell your friends to 
 make peace to-morrow." 
 
 Had real Statesmanship been shown in 
 France, half her disasters might have been 
 spared : thousands of lives would have been 
 saved : and the great fortress of Metz would 
 not have passed to the enemy. 
 
 NAPOLEON III. would never have com- 
 mitted the foul crime, and hideous blunder, 
 of the murder of the Duke d'Enghien. It 
 surprises me that historians can have dis- 
 puted or doubted the motive of Napoleon I. 
 
Napoleon III. 249 
 
 in this act of infamy. I have no doubt 
 that his object in committing the crime 
 was to convince the Republican Party in 
 France that he could not thereafter restore 
 the Sovereignty to the House of Bourbon : 
 it was the conviction of a large number of 
 the Republican Party that Napoleon was 
 playing his part with a view to the restora- 
 tion of the Bourbons. It was to render 
 this impossible that he perpetrated an act 
 hardly to be surpassed in the annals of 
 crime. 
 
 SOON AFTER my first election to the 
 House of Commons I happened to enter a 
 shop at the corner of Lombard Street, after 
 a visit to my Bankers, for some light 
 refreshment. By mere accident I found a 
 greasy copy of a West of England news- 
 paper. The Editor had devoted two 
 columns to a comparison between myself 
 and the newly- elected Emperor of the 
 French. The asserted resemblance between 
 the proclamations of Napoleon III. and 
 
250 Napoleon III. 
 
 those of the humble individual who writes 
 this book were most diverting. 
 
 The only thing which struck me as being 
 an honest comparison was a certain banner, 
 which I always had carried before me on 
 two poles, on which were blazoned in large 
 gold letters the words 'Fraser the Free- 
 man's Friend.' I have always been a 
 staunch believer in 
 
 ' Apt Alliteration's Artful Aid.' 
 
 I WISHED TO SEE those who had played 
 a consj)icuous part in the great drama of 
 1870: an opportunity came at the meeting 
 of the three Emperors at Berlin. 
 
 I was at Homburg-es-Monts at the time : 
 I travelled four hundred miles to Berlin, 
 and four hundred miles back ; and con- 
 sidered myself repaid for the journey. The 
 City was full of the brilliant Staffs that had 
 accompanied the Emperors of Austria and 
 Russia, and of those of the Military House- 
 hold of the new Kaiser. I had many 
 
Napoleon III. 251 
 
 opportunities of observing the appearance 
 and demeanour of the principal actors of 
 the play, upon which the curtain had fallen 
 not long before. 
 
 I witnessed a remarkable scene when the 
 German Emperor brought from the railway 
 station in his droschski the Emperor of 
 Austria. I could hardly have believed that 
 any countenance could express the delight 
 which the Emperor William displayed. 
 Whilst the Emperor of Austria, on his right, 
 was saluting the multitudes which cheered 
 him, the German Kaiser looked as if his 
 happiness was far beyond conception. He 
 felt no doubt on that day that he was 
 accepted in the brotherhood of Emperors. 
 The Emperor of Russia represented a 
 dynasty of yesterday : but that the descen- 
 dant of the Caesars should visit him, and 
 embrace him as a brother, was indeed a 
 recognition to be proud of. 
 
 I carefully observed the various manners 
 in which the principal actors returned the 
 salutations of those whom they met in the 
 
252 Napoleon III. 
 
 streets of Berlin. I do not hesitate for a 
 moment in saying that the one who tran- 
 scended all in this respect was Bismarck. 
 Moltke's appearance was more dignified: 
 stiff ; impassive ; with a deep-thinking 
 countenance, and regular features; he was 
 quick in returning salutes ; but did so 
 mechanically ; with a peculiar gesture ; 
 touching his helmet above the peak ; a sort 
 of combination of the military salute and 
 kissing the hand : he did not show the least 
 emotion. Bismarck on the contrary gave 
 you the impression that you were the one 
 individual whose recognition gratified him : 
 the expression on his face was as if he 
 would wish you to believe that, whereas 
 honours had accumulated upon him, titles, 
 decorations, and wealth, all were insignifi- 
 cant compared to the salute which you had 
 just offered. 
 
 Bismarck's dress, whether in the uniform 
 which he usually wore, or in plain clothes, 
 was badly made. I saw him in plain clothes 
 during the few days I was at Gastein. The 
 
Napoleon 111. 253 
 
 only man whom I have ever seen resembling 
 Bismarck in dress was D' Hawtrey, for 
 many years Head-master and Provost of 
 Eton. He usually wore a black frock-coat, 
 with velvet collar, ill-fitting black trousers, 
 too tight, and a rather badly brushed 
 hat. 
 
 A Grand Review for the three Emperors 
 was held on the Plain of Tempelhof. There 
 was a splendid display of Horse, Foot, and 
 Artillery. The Infantry seemed to me to 
 be very good : but I was more impressed 
 with the Cavalry : each man and horse 
 seemed part of the same perfect machine. 
 I never saw mounted soldiers more practical 
 in appearance. 
 
 The march-past was never ending: the 
 three Emperors with the respective Otficera 
 of their Staff of about three hundred, 
 covered with Stars and Ribbons were a 
 dazzling sight. I noticed a large number 
 of Cossacks wearing a sort of crimson long 
 shirt, with a girdle at the waist. Most of 
 these wore an infinite number of small 
 
254 Napoleon III. 
 
 medals, not larger than a fourpenny piece, 
 pendant to narrow ribbons. 
 
 I watched tlie Regiments march past for 
 upwards of two hours ; the heat was scorch- 
 ing; and it was with surprise and pride 
 that I observed our military representative, 
 Lord Strathnairn, sitting on his horse, very 
 much as he now does near Albert Gate, 
 apparently unconscious of the more than 
 tropical temperature of that day. 
 
 1 waited with curiosity to observe whether, 
 among the many Marches played, the one 
 so well known to our grandmothers when 
 children, * The Fall of Paris,' from the 
 ' Battle of Prague,' would occur. It came 
 at last. 
 
 After some time Bismarck fell out of the 
 Imperial line, and, while talking to some 
 ladies in a carriage, was eating a sandwich. 
 In a few minutes an p]nglish Member of 
 Parliament, like myself, came up to him 
 and spoke for ten minutes or so; being 
 obviously on easy terms: the M.P. was 
 known, and with very good cause, as ' The 
 
Napoleon III. 255 
 
 Pious Fraud.' He spoke to me: I said, "I 
 have come four hundred miles : this is the 
 one chance in life I shall have of being 
 presented to Bismarck : " the little snob 
 turned away with the words, "Quite out 
 of the question." 
 
 Soon after this I returned to Berlin ; the 
 Review not being nearly over : here one of 
 those incidents occurred that 
 
 ' Urge the lingering tide of Life.' 
 
 The road from the Tempelhof to Berlin is 
 precisely like the deep cutting of a railway ; 
 the banks on either side were closely covered 
 with people awaiting the return of the three 
 Emperors. 
 
 Soon after leaving the Review-ground 
 three men took post, two on the right of my 
 droschski, and one on the left: each put 
 one dirty paw on to the edge of the carriage ; 
 with the other gesticulating, and pointing to 
 myself, whilst uttering detrimental remarks 
 in relation to my country. Whenever they 
 became particularly offensive their words 
 
256 Napoleon III. 
 
 were followed by loud cheering. I con- 
 tinued, of course, to take no notice ; affecting 
 to read my ' Pall Mall Gazette ' as if uncon- 
 scious of their brutal proceedings. When 
 I got within the gates of the town I observed 
 among the groups scattered in the open 
 space several gigantic ' blue-bottles,' form- 
 ing the Police of Berlin : these men are of 
 enormous stature, all I believe old soldiers ; 
 and so far as I observed of ferocious con- 
 duct towards the mob. I said to my ser- 
 vant who was on the box seat of the carriage 
 in English, " Don't look round : listen to 
 what I say: so soon as you get near a 
 Policeman stop the carriage ; and bring him 
 to me at once : " he nodded his appreciation. 
 While uttering the words, the two men on 
 my right disappeared. I watched the one 
 on my left; and made up my mind exactly 
 how and where I should seize him : I put 
 down my newspaper very quietly; and in 
 an instant placed my left foot on the step 
 of the droschski, and caught him by the 
 collar. Judginij; from his appearance I 
 
Napoleon III. 257 
 
 should say he was a hair-dresser : no sooner 
 had I reached the ground than a rush of 
 the mob took place : they seized me by the 
 shoulders, arms, legs, and waist: in a few 
 seconds one of the scoundrels who had 
 marched on the right of the carriage re- 
 turned : he was a big man with red hair; 
 and was apparently in a state of frenzy; 
 the saliva dripping from his mouth: his 
 friends however laid hold of him ; and pre- 
 vented him carrying out his views on my 
 person. Had he got loose, the reader 
 would have been spared these recollections. 
 I did not relax my hold of my prisoner for 
 a moment : a ' blae-bottle ' appearing on 
 the scene I desired my servant to take out 
 of my left-hand pocket a note ; to read it to 
 him in German. It had ' British Embassy ' 
 stamped on it : and was a brief invita- 
 tion from the Ambassador, Lord Odo 
 Russell, to dine with him the evening 
 before. The ' blue-bottle ' took the hint 
 and the man : and at once marched him 
 off. We went through one or two empty 
 S 
 
258 Napoleon III. 
 
 streets, and turned into Police Office 
 No. 132. 
 
 The statement of my servant was taken 
 down : he gave a fair account of the trans- 
 action. I once interrupted him as to a 
 mistake : the Commissary told me I must 
 not say a word: when the statement was 
 signed by my servant a side-door was 
 opened : into which the man was marched, 
 and the door locked. I said, " I do not 
 want anything but Justice : but that I 
 must have : and unless you assure me 
 that that man will be dealt with accord- 
 ing to law I shall make a serious matter 
 of it with the Ambassador. I tell you 
 now, what I did not tell you before, I 
 am a Member of the British Parliament: 
 and you know enough about such things 
 to be aware that, if I choose, it is in 
 my power to make myself extremely dis- 
 agreeable : and to give a great deal of 
 trouble." The Commissary answered very 
 quietly, " You need have no anxiety what- 
 ever : we know perfectly how to deal with 
 
Napoleon III. 259 
 
 such characters : and we shall not lose our 
 opportunity." 
 
 I was quite convinced that he spoke the 
 truth: not only from his demeanour, but 
 from the look of abject terror depicted in 
 the face of the ruffian ; who, from the 
 moment that I caught him until the key 
 was turned upon him, never uttered a single 
 word. 
 
 A terrible retribution fell upon the mis- 
 guided people whose prejudices against 
 Britain for not interfering in their quarrel 
 with France had been roused. That night 
 a grand ' Watch-setting ' by the collective 
 Bands of the garrison of Berlin took place, 
 opposite to the Imperial Palace. I should 
 have been glad to hear it : but I found that 
 not only was it impossible to approach the 
 * Place ' where the bands were playing, 
 but that the broad street leading to the 
 Palace was so wedged that it was impos- 
 sible to enter, much less to move in it. 
 After trying several bye- streets I gave it 
 up ; and went back to bed. The next 
 
260 Napoleon III. 
 
 moming a fearful disclosure took place. It 
 appeared that, notwithstanding the condi- 
 tion of the broad street, a Regiment of 
 Infantry had actually forced its way through 
 the dense crowd : the flankers carrying 
 torches. The result was such as might 
 have been anticipated ; a fearful destruction 
 of life. Two hundred corpses were found : 
 and the number of persons injured was of 
 course far greater than this. 
 
 I anticipate that sooner or later a massacre 
 will take place of the Police of Berlin. In 
 what I have related my prejudices might 
 be against the mob : but I have never in 
 any country seen such ferocious brutality 
 exercised as I witnessed on the part of the 
 Police. 
 
 TO PROPHESY the future of France as 
 regards its Government is very difficult. 
 The old Regime, which, under a kind- 
 hearted but not very wise monarch, broke 
 up in the last decade of the eighteenth 
 century, can of course never be renewed. 
 
Napoleon III. 261 
 
 The epoch of successive revolutions, which 
 culminated in the hardly-disguised des- 
 potism of Napoleon I., will, I should say, at 
 intervals recur: possibly under similar, 
 though diminished, circumstances. 
 
 ' Le premier qui fut Roi fut un soldat 
 heureux : ' 
 
 a General successfully commanding the 
 French army in a great war will always 
 have a good chance of being placed by this 
 vast body of Praetorians on the throne. 
 
 As regards the several dynasties, each of 
 which has a certain claim upon the 
 Sovereignty of France, much will depend 
 upon the individual head of each. 
 
 The successors of Louis Philippe may 
 point to his nominally constitutional Govern- 
 ment : a government which among a wise and 
 Conservative people might have lasted longer 
 than it did : the difficulty of course being the 
 opportunities for corruption; as exercised 
 by our Kings who followed the Revolution 
 
262 Napoleon HI. 
 
 of 1688: a corruption largely developed in 
 the reign of ' The Citizen King/ 
 
 On the other hand the collateral descen- 
 dants of Napoleon Buonaparte, ' The Cor- 
 sican Ogre,' as he was known in England, 
 may point to his marvellous capacities as a 
 Soldier, a Statesman, and a Law-giver. 
 
 They may say that the founder of that 
 Dynasty elevated France to a political posi- 
 tion in Europe unequalled by any nation 
 since the days of Charlemagne: that he 
 raised himself to be for many years the 
 greatest individual power in the world : that 
 he dictated terms to the proudest Empires : 
 that he married the daughter of the Caesars : 
 and gave to his brothers and other rela- 
 tions, none of them men of conspicuous 
 ability, several of the most ancient thrones : 
 that he changed their Crowns from one 
 Kingdom to another at his caprice: that 
 his dominant mind regulated the details of 
 the various Sovereignties: and that he 
 pandered successfully to the strongest of 
 French passions, national vanity. 
 
Napoleon III. 263 
 
 They may add that his nephew rose to a 
 position, not so great, but more enduring: 
 that, not inebriated by success, as was his 
 uncle, he used to the benefit of France the 
 Vanity, and the Avarice, of Frenchmen: 
 that, under his leading utterance, ''Pour 
 VOrdre fen re'ponds^ he enabled French 
 Commerce, Manufactures, and Interior 
 Economy to develop themselves to a 
 degree that, up to that time, had been 
 unequalled : that he waged war success- 
 fully with great and ancient Empires : that 
 he was the main cause of establishing 
 Italy for the first time as a united and 
 independent Kingdom : and that he wisely 
 maintained peace with England; with- 
 out lowering the dignity of France; or 
 wounding the susceptibility, much more 
 acute than is supposed, of the British 
 race. 
 
 The Italians have been called ' a race of 
 slaves always rebelling' : the restlessness 
 deeply seated in the French character, and 
 the intelligence, and political feeling, which 
 
264 Napoleon III. 
 
 exists in that people, more perhaps than in 
 any other, must always make the destiny 
 of a Dynasty in France insecure. 
 
 Napoleon III. appealed, not so much to 
 the turbulent agitators of the towns of 
 France, as to the homely class of Agricul- 
 turists, and to the holders of small pro- 
 perties. This class,, existing in all countries, 
 though little heard of in France, showed 
 their appreciation of a strong hand : although 
 their sons were taken off, to be made 
 soldiers in spite of themselves, even this was 
 borne by the compensation of a form of 
 Government which was strong enough to 
 enable them to pursue their peaceful avoca- 
 tions with profit. 
 
 The ultimate cataclysm of the Empire 
 produced for some time a reaction on the 
 part of this fickle people against the 
 Buonaparte Dynasty : but it will ultimately 
 be remembered that when an off*er was 
 made by the Emperor of Germany to the 
 wife of Napoleon III., after his descent 
 from the throne, to restore hira by means 
 
Napoleon III. 265 
 
 of German bayonets, on condition of his 
 surrender of territory, the Empress, acting 
 under the strict injunctions of her hus- 
 band, absolutely refused these tempting 
 terms. 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Ab del Kader, 20. 
 
 AUsopp, 91. 
 
 Appearance, 7. 
 
 Army and Navy Club, 16. 
 
 Ashbury's statement, 244. 
 
 Augier, 229. 
 
 Austria, Emperor of, 251. 
 
 Bassano, 30. 
 Bayonne, 38. 
 Berlin Review, 250. 
 Bernard, 84. 
 Bernstorff, 210. 
 BiaiTitz, 21. 
 Bismarck, 253. 
 Blackstone, 69. 
 Bordeaux, 19. 
 Boulogne, 67. 
 
268 Napoleon III. 
 
 Bowyer, 62. 
 British Embassy, 54. 
 Bull-figlit, 23. 
 Byron, 100. 
 
 Cambridge, Duke of, 170. 
 
 Canrobert, 115. 
 
 Care of his soldiers, 11. 
 
 Carpet-bag Mystery, 123. 
 
 Castiglione, Countess de, 116. 
 
 Cavaignac, 174. 
 
 Chamber of Deputies, 203. 
 
 Chambord, 245. 
 
 Changarnier, 6. 
 
 Charles X., 173. 
 
 Cherbourg, 138. 
 
 Chislehurst, 211. 
 
 * Conspiracy to Murder Bill,' 1st Reading, 57. 
 
 ' Conspiracy to Murder Bill,' 2nd Reading, 
 
 93. 
 Contempt of calumny, 198. 
 Conversation, 212. 
 Cork, 158. 
 Coronation, 113. 
 Coup d'Etat, 177. 
 
Index. . 269 
 
 Cowley, 10. 
 
 Craven Cottage, 14. 
 
 Cremieux, 204. 
 
 Cyphers, etc., preserved, 56. 
 
 Derby, 63. 
 De Stael, 114. 
 Devonshire, 157. 
 Disraeli, 74; 100; 176. 
 Divisions, 84; 106. 
 Domchery, 239. 
 Dress, 7. 
 Duncombe, 67. 
 
 Edward III., 72. 
 
 Ellesmere, 157. 
 
 Elphinstone, 155. 
 
 Emperor, German, 251. 
 
 Empress, 15; 47; 134. 
 
 Enghien, 248. 
 
 Escape from Ham, 4. 
 
 Evans, 37. 
 
 Exhibition in Champs Elys6es, 201. 
 
 ' Fates, the Three,' 156. 
 
2^0 Napoleon III. 
 
 Flahault, 153. 
 Fleury, 49. 
 Fould, 189. 
 Eraser, Keith, 120. 
 Eraser, Sir William, 154. 
 French Colonels, 58. 
 French police, 192. 
 Future of France, 260. 
 
 Garter, 41. 
 Graham, 40. 
 ' Gramont ' Club, 200. 
 Granville, 107. 
 Gravelotte, 240. 
 Gray of Gray, 170. 
 Grouchy, 234. 
 Guizot, 193. 
 
 Ham, 12. 
 Hawkesbury, 71. 
 Hawtrey, 193; 253. 
 Health, 184. 
 Hertford, 201. 
 Huddleston, 21. 
 Hudson, George, 247. 
 
Index. 271 
 
 James, Edwin, 86. 
 Jersey, Lady, 18. 
 
 Keith, Lord, 153. 
 KiDglake, 60; 163. 
 
 La Marmora, 116. 
 Londonderry, 194. 
 Londonderry, Lady, 18. 
 Louis Philippe, 41. 
 Louis XVIIL, 172. 
 Lyons, 116. 
 
 MacCalmont, 21. 
 Macdonald, 161. 
 MacMahon, 42. 
 Mansfield, 70. 
 Marriage, 133. 
 Marseillaise, 183. 
 Mazzini, 73. 
 M. C, 230. 
 
 Medals, distribution of, 169. 
 Milner Gibson, 94. 
 Monckton Milnes, 148. 
 Montaigne, 209, 
 
272 Napoleon III. 
 
 Morny, 51; 56; 99. 
 Murder of Bonar, 217. 
 
 Napoleon I., 13; 232. 
 Napoleon I.'s boots, 137. 
 Napoleon lY., 198; 215. 
 National workshops, 173. 
 Nelson's column, 230. 
 Ney, 234, 
 Nicholas I., 162. 
 Niel, 115. 
 No reproaches, 238. 
 
 Old soldiers, 151. 
 Orleans, 165. 
 
 Palmerston, 59. 
 Patience with fools, 163. 
 Peace proclaimed, 55. 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 96. 
 Pelissier, 149. 
 Persigny, 167. 
 Peter the Great, 68. 
 Pius IX., 160. 
 Pope, 111; 113. 
 
Index. 273 
 
 Proposals, 1. 
 
 Punctilious in money matters, 185. 
 
 Queer friends, 108. 
 
 Residence in London, 5. 
 Return from the Crimea, 126. 
 Return to France arranged, 241. 
 Review at Boulogne, 199. 
 Roebuck, 65. 
 Rossi, 159. 
 Rowles, 1; 216. 
 Russell, Lord John, 73; 76. 
 Russell, Lord Odo, 257. 
 Russia, Emperor of, 251. 
 
 Saint Sebastian, 33. 
 
 Sartiges, 111. 
 
 Sedan, 207; 232. 
 
 S., Miss, 171. 
 
 Soldiers voting, 109. 
 
 Spies, 190. 
 
 Statue at Cherbourg, 151. 
 
 Strode, 208. 
 
 Surrender, 237. 
 
274 Napoleon III. 
 
 Tarbes, 186. 
 
 Thiers, 195. 
 
 Thurtell, 35. 
 
 ' Times ' on Palmerston, 94. 
 
 Tuileries, 57; 168. 
 
 Uniforms, 9. 
 
 Versailles, 43. 
 Victor Emmanuel, 114. 
 Victor Hugo, 198. 
 Villa Franca, 181. 
 Visit to Opera, 122. 
 
 Walewski, 60; 75; 166. 
 Warren, 68. 
 Washington, 135. 
 Wellington, 34; 137. 
 White's, 17. 
 Wimpfen, 235. 
 Windsor, 42. 
 
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