YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

«P£S&

THE PRINCE IMPERIAL

THE COURT
OF THE SECOND EMPIRE

BY

IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND

TRANSLATED BY
ELIZABETH GILBERT MARTIN

WITH PORTRAITS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1898

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

SottoaoH $KBSS
J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smitli
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

CONTENTS

GHAPTEB PAGE
I. Napoleon TH  1
II. The Empress Eugenie  13
in. Count Walewski  25
IV. The Treaty of Paris  33
V. The Spring of 1856  45
VI. The Inundations  54
VTI. The Baptism of the Prince Imperial  60
VIII. The Baptismal Festivities  66
IX. Count de Morny  72
X. The Embassy to St. Petersburg  82
XI. The Coronation of the Czar  92
XII. The Fetes of Moscow  101
XIII. Prance and Russia  107
XIV. The Prince of Prussia  114
XV. The Commencement of 1857  121
XVI. A Ball at the Foreign Affairs  129
v

vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XVII. The Grand Dcke Constantine and the
King of Bavaria  137
XVIII. Prince Napoleon in Germany  149
XIX. The Internal Situation  159
XX. The Question of the Principalities  166
XXI. The Osborne Interview  176
XXII. The Opening of the New Louvre  186
XXIII. Biarritz  192
XXIV. The Camp of Chalons  200
XXV. Strasburg and Baden  207
XXVI. The Stuttgart Interview  214
XXVII. The Results of the Interview  222
XXVIII. The Beginning of 1858  231
XXIX. The Attempt of January 14  240
XXX. After the Outrage  248
XXXI. General Della Rocca  257
XXXII. The Orsini Trial  269
XXXIII. General Espinasse  279
XXXIV. Count de Persigny  289
XXXV. Marshal Pelissier as Ambassador  301
XXXVI. Count Cavour  310
XXXVII. Plombieres  318

CONTENTS Vll

chapter PAnn
XXXVIII. The Cherbourg Interview  320
XXXIX. The Tour in Brittany  331

PORTRAITS
The Prince Imperial  Frontispiece
Count de Morny  Face page 74
Alexander II, Emperor of Russia,  " " 216
Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia  " " 266

THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
1856-1858

CHAPTER I
NAPOLEON III
A SINGLE portrait of those who have played
a great part in history is not enough ; to
represent them fairly it is essential to sketch the
different phases of their career. In age and ill
health they were no longer the same, morally or
physically, as when young and strong. There is
as much difference between the periods of a human
life as there is between the seasons of a single year.
Aided by the impressions and recollections of our
contemporaries, we are about to attempt the repro
duction of the historic figure of Napoleon III. as
we saw him from 1856 to 1859, and we hope that
those who lived in Paris at that period will find
the likeness faithful.
On the morrow of the birth of the Prince Imperial
the Second Emperor was a happy man and one who
enjoyed his happiness. Neither on his countenance
nor in his heart at that time was there a trace of
B l

THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE

melancholy. Appearing at Rome in the character
of another Charlemagne, and throughout Europe as
an arbiter and peacemaker, if he recalled the painful
experiences of childhood and youth, it was only by
way of contrast with his actual prosperity, and as
yet he foreboded none of the calamities awaiting
him in the future.
Princes born on the steps of the throne and who
have never known adversity have not the same
enjoyment of power as a man like Napoleon III., for
whom the fortress of Ham was the vestibule of the
Tuileries. If in earlier days he had been flouted,
jeered at, contemned, in 1856 at least he was lauded
to the skies. Foreigners courted him even more
assiduously than the French. Take, for example, a
telegram sent from Sebastopol, March 23, 1856, to
the Minister of War by Marshal Pelissier: —
" Your despatch of the 16th announcing the happy
delivery of H. M. the Empress and the birth of the
Prince Imperial did not arrive until Sunday morning,
the 23d. At noon the news was greeted by one
hundred and one salvos of artillery fired simultane
ously by the French, English, and Sardinian armies
and by the fleets. At the same moment a Te Deum
was chanted in every army corps in presence of all
the troops. During the day the commanders-in-chief
of the English and Sardinian armies came to offer their
congratulations, which I beg you to lay with mine and
those of the generals under my command at the feet
of Their Imperial Majesties. Our soldiers have ended

NAPOLEON 111 3

the day by continued cheering around a multitude
of fires which give our camps the appearance of a
splendid illumination. The Scotch and Sardinians
encamped on the heights of Kamarak wore able to
build such enormous fires that the light from them
could be seen at immense distances. And lastly, the
Russians, taking part in our special manifestations,
suddenly illuminated the whole line from Inkermann
to Corol&s, thus completing this unique spectacle."
As soon as Napoleon III. was made acquainted
with Marshal Pelissier's despatch, he sent an aide-de
camp to Lord Clarendon, Count Cavour, and also to
Count Orloff, thanking them for the demonstrations
by which the birth of his son had been celebrated in
the Crimea. The attentions he received from the
powers, and the extraordinary respects paid to the
cradle of his heir delighted him both as a father and
a sovereign. He was particularly pleased at seeing
the court of Russia display exceptional courtesy even
before peace was concluded.
People forgave Napoleon III. his success because
he used it in moderation and without conceit or
violence. His past misfortunes had left behind them
no trace of bitterness or rancor. Nearly all his
ministers had formerly been Orleanists, and if the
most advanced republicans had presented themselves
at the Tuileries, they would have received a cordial
welcome. Napoleon III. had forgotten the injuries
inflicted on Louis Bonaparte. He left the salons
which opposed him entirely undisturbed, and no such

4 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
persecutions as those of which Madame de Stael was
the victim under the First Empire occurred during
his reign.
Invariably self-possessed, the former outlaw and
captive was as tranquil in gladness as in sorrow. If
his letters are ever published, as has happened in our
day to those of Napoleon I., we do not believe they
will be found to contain a single phrase, a single word
of hatred or anger. M. Pinard, one of his ministers,
has said : " He became familiar with those who had
been his earliest friends without permitting them to
cross the distance separating them. He was always
the Emperor ; but his voice at that time had inflec
tions of great sweetness, and, I may add, of great
power as well. The sovereign whom the political
world sometimes called William the Silent had in
private conversation a seductive charm which the
firstcomer might not suspect, but of which women
had an intuition."
The imperturbable apathy of the Second Emperor
was only a mask. At bottom, no disposition could
be more impressionable, ardent, or passionate than
his. Naturally violent, it had cost him much to
acquire that self-mastery which was afterwards the
principal trait of his character. Madame Cornu,
the companion of his earliest years, has said : " As a
child he was subject to such fits of anger as I have
never seen in any one else; while they lasted he
knew neither what he said or what he did." Ex
perience and misfortune taught him to control him-

NAPOLEON III 5

self, and he succeeded in making his thoughts as
impenetrable as his face. "When I met him again,
in 1848," says Madame Cornu, " I asked what was
the matter with his eyes. ' Nothing,' said he. I saw
him again a day or two later. His eyes seemed still
more singular. Finally I noticed that he had con
tracted a habit of keeping the lids half-closed and
assuming a vacant and dreamy expression."
Napoleon III. has often been called a dreamer by
those who judged him by his manners and facial
expression. It would be much truer to say that he
was a man of action, for there are few political per
sonages who have had a hand in so many things
or broached so many formidable problems. Not
all of his attempts succeeded, but every one of
them, in Asia and America as in Europe, was
marked by an adventurous spirit and an audacity
truly extraordinary.
The sovereign whom, in the final period of his
career, we shall see timid and undecided, wavering
between the most contradictory resolutions, and let
ting himself be dragged by a sort of fatality into a
war to which he was averse, displayed in 1856 a
coherency, a vigor, and energy which nothing could
withstand. His power was essentially personal ; his
policy originated entirely with himself. He reigned
and governed. Having succeeded in spite of the
predictions of all others, he had no confidence in
any opinions but his own, and no one ventured to
advise him.

6 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
The powerful monarch applied when on the throne
the programme which the prisoner had elaborated. His
ministers were mere docile instruments in his hands.
There was but one will at that time, and it was his.
" If a minister," says M. Pinard, " developed an idea
coincident with his, his eyes, ordinarily half-closed,
lighted up in a singular manner, although the face
still remained grave and almost impassible. If the
speaker had not succeeded in convincing him, the
Emperor maintained a significant silence which often
disconcerted the most resolute ; he seemed to forget
those who were near him, and even him who had
just been speaking. When he expressed his own
opinion, the deliberate slowness of his speech was
not unlike that of his gait : it seemed to indicate a
man who was listening to an interior voice. At such
times he appeared to be talking with himself."
Everything great and useful that was done during
his reign bears the sign manual of the sovereign.
Baron Haussmann, that prefect to whom grateful
Paris ought to raise a statue, has admitted that he
could have done nothing without Napoleon III.
" Alone," he says, " I should never have been able to
continue, much less to carry to a successful termina
tion, the mission confided to me by the Emperor,
and for the accomplishment of which his increasing
confidence left me by degrees a greater freedom of
decision. I could never have struggled successfully
against the inherent difficulties of each operation;
against opposing wishes, whether due to sincere con-

NAPOLEON III

victions or to unavowed but implacable jealousies
in the great governmental bodies, and oven in His
Majesty's immediate circle; nor against the open
attacks of parties inimical to the imperial regime,
which, not daring to censure the policy impressed
on the country by the sovereign, endeavored to
oppose him indirectly in the municipal enterprises
due to his initiative and executed under his inspira
tion; if I had not been really the expression, the
organ, the instrument of a great idea, the conception
and merit of which I must in the first place attribute
to him, and whose realization he invariably guarded
with a firmness never belied." In reality, the trans
formation which has made Paris the capital of capi
tals is the personal work of Napoleon III.
The Second Emperor was a cosmopolitan sovereign.
During his long exiles his character had assimilated
somewhat from each country in which he had lived.
From the Italian carbonari he had borrowed the
inclination to conspiracy ; from German philosophers
the tendency to dream ; from English statesmen the
habit of combining business and pleasure. Humani
tarian rather than patriotic, a citizen of the world
still more than Emperor of the French, he may be
accused of having entertained projects too vast, and of
sacrificing the special interests of France to what he
considered the general interests of civilization. His
policy may have aimed too high, but its noble and
chivalric aspects cannot be despised. To better the
moral and material conditions of the majority, not

8 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
merely in France but throughout Europe, to proclaim
the principle of nationalities, to maintain the right
of peoples to dispose of their own destiny, to unite
them by commercial treaties, the multiplicity of
exchanges, the rapidity of communications, — such
was the object of his efforts. Never would he have
vaunted the programme of blood and iron, nor
have declared that force takes precedence of right.
The policy of M. von Bismarck, his successful rival,
was a survival from the Middle Ages. His own was
modern, and it may be affirmed that if he had
triumphed in 1870 as he did in 1855 and 1859,
general civilization, instead of being retarded, would
have advanced with giant strides.
It might have been believed in 1856 that Napoleon
III., pleased with his unexpected successes and at
the summit of his fortunes, would be contented
tranquilly to enjoy the benefits of a peace which
public opinion desired and which had been pur
chased by so many heroic sacrifices. But, on the
contrary, his ambition as the apostle of nationalities
sought new aliment, and he began conspiring to
deliver the country of Machiavelli from Austrian
domination as seriously as he had conspired to gain
the throne of France. After the hecatombs of one
of the most sanguinary struggles of modern history,
all Frenchmen, with the single exception of the
Emperor, longed for the maintenance of peace.
Even at the moment when the signing of the treaty
of Paris was causing universal joy and satisfaction,

NAPOLEON III

and when people supposed that the sovereign was
definitively returning to the programme of the
famous speech of Bordeaux and could once more
say with sincerity, " The Empire is peace," he
alone had an approaching war in prospect. His
passion for military affairs, his youthful memories,
his temperament as a political gamester, his adven
turous spirit, his pretensions as the champion of the
cause of nationalities, all combined to drag him into
a path the end of which was an abyss.
Napoleon III. believed himself a military man of
the first order, and nothing interested him so much
as the army. His greatest amusement as a child was
to play soldier. In Switzerland, as a young man,
he had been the pupil of a great tactician, General
Dufour. He was especially occupied with the
artillery branch of the service, and had published
works on this subject of which he was very proud.
Full of confidence in his talents as a strategist, he
had a presentiment of winning great victories. He
had keenly regretted his inability to go to the
Crimea, and when his troops returned triumphantly
to Paris it afflicted him to think that it was not he
who had conducted them to victory. But that, he
told himself, was but a game deferred ; the day
would come when he would gain battles, and when
his head on the coins would be crowned with laurels.
Up to the present he had fought during a few days
only, — in the Romagna, in 1832, — and then he had
suffered a lamentable defeat. He wanted his revenge.

10 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
It has been said that Napoleon III. was more of
an Italian than a Frenchman. That is an exaggera
tion, but it may be affirmed that he considered Italy
as his second fatherland, and thought that he had
duties toward it. He said it was the land of his
ancestors ; that Napoleon First had been crowned
in the cathedral of Milan as well as in Notre Dame
de Paris; that Italians, companions in arms of
Frenchmen throughout the whole duration of the
Empire, had shed torrents of blood for France under
Murat, King of Naples, and Prince Eugene de
Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. The insurgent of
1832 had made promises to Italian liberals which the
powerful Emperor desired to keep. The recollection
of that fatal expedition of the Romagnas, where he
made his first campaign, was destined to exert the
greatest influence over all his subsequent career.
There his brother died, and he longed to avenge him.
Such were the thoughts by which the Emperor
was obsessed. Persuaded that it was his providential
mission to do away with the treaties of 1815 and
assure the independence of Italy from the Alps to the
Adriatic, he likewise believed that in so doing he
would serve the interests of France, which, after a
successful war with Austria and an accession of
territory to Piedmont, would regain its own natural
frontier on the southeast. Madame Cornu has
written: "A war intended to drive the Austrians
out of Italy, in which he should have command, has
been his dream from childhood. He once said to me

JSA.rULEON III 11

at Ham : ' I feel that I shall command a great army
some day; I know that I shall distinguish myself;
I am conscious of possessing all the great military-
qualities.' " A triumphant entry at Milan at tho head
of a victorious and liberating army, amidst a tumult
of applause and under a rain of flowers, was a vision
which delighted his ardent and poetic fancy.
But the realization of such a dream was by no
means easy ; in Fiance the impediments were as
many and as serious as in foreign parts. To sur
mount them Napoleon III. summoned in the first place
cunning, dissimulation, mystery, to his assistance.
He concealed his Italian schemes from his wife and
his ministers just as he had concealed the Strasbourg
expedition from his mother. He had had but two
confidants at Ham : his physician, Doctor Conneau,
and Charles Thelin, his valet. The confidants of his
designs on Italy were hardly more numerous between
1856 and 1859. Whom will he send to Turin in May,
1858, to arrange his interview with Cavour at Plom-
bi&res ? Doctor Conneau, who was far more conver
sant with his plans than his Minister of Foreign
Affairs. Napoleon III. had relapsed into his inveterate
habit of conspiring. The apostle of nationalities took
good care not to prate about his programme. lie
never mentioned it during the Crimean War, for then
he absolutely needed Austria ; if that power had
taken sides with Russia, it would havo drawn all
Germany in its train, and the Crimean War would

12 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
have resulted in frightful disasters to France and
England. Hence Napoleon III. was mute. It was
not one of his own plenipotentiaries who brought up
the Italian question at the Paris Congress, but Count
Cavour, secretly supported by him. And as if to get
his hand in while awaiting the day when he could
openly concern himself with Italy, the Emperor
sought to constitute a nationality : that of Roumania.
The idea that Piedmont and Prussia might play a
similar part in Italy and Germany, far from alarming
him, was agreeable. He foresaw an agreement
between Turin and Berlin, and made special advances
to the Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Emperor
of Germany, the man who was to be his deadliest foe.
Under the most pacific appearances, amidst incessant
festivities at Fontainebleau and Compiegne, at Biar
ritz and Plombieres, at the Tuileries and Saint-Cloud,
the crowned conspirator pursued his purpose patiently
and mysteriously. The period we are about to
retrace may be summed up in one phrase : prepara
tion for the Italian war. The apostle of nationalities
never suspected that he would be its martyr.

CHAPTER II
THE EMPRESS EUGENIE
fT^HE Empress had just fulfilled her principal
mission. She had given a son to her husband
and an heir to the Empire. The child was born on
Palm Sunday, a day of triumph. She did not fore
bode that he would end his brief existence by a
calvary. What delighted the happy mother above all
was that this longed-for child was not merely a son
of France but a son of the Church, and that as a god
son of the Pope, the benediction of the Holy Father
had rested on his cradle.
There was not a cloud on the relations between
the Empire and the Holy See at this period. French
troops were on guard at the doors of the Vatican.
Pius IX. had written to Napoleon III., February 8,
1856 : " I feel bound to tell Your Majesty that God
has inspired me with a pleasing hope. I flatter my
self that He is about to shed abroad new mercies
which will descend abundantly upon you, Sire, in
proportion as you fulfil your promise to support and
protect the Church in whose bosom you were born.
As for me, my words and prayers have no object but
the glory of God, the salvation of souls, the propaga-
13

14 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
tion of the faith and the honor of Catholic princes.
. . . Receive, Sire, the apostolic benediction which
I give Your Majesty from the bottom of my heart, as
well as to Her Majesty the Empress and the august
infant she carries in her womb, and to all France."
The tidings of the birth of the Prince Imperial
reached Rome just as the Pope was celebrating the
Mass of Palm Sunday in the basilica of Saint Peter's.
A salvo of one hundred and one cannon, fired from
Castle Saint Angelo, announced it to the crowds
assembled for the ceremonies of Holy Week. In
the evening the palace of the French embassy, the
academy of France, the national churches, and the
military club were illuminated.
Count de Rayneval, French ambassador at Rome,
wrote on March 29 to Count Walewski, Minister of
Foreign Affairs : " I had the honor to present in per
son the letter by which the Emperor acquainted the
Holy Father with the birth of the Prince Imperial.
The Holy Father availed himself of the occasion to
express in most affecting terms the extreme interest
he takes in this auspicious event, the wishes he
forms for the welfare of the young Prince and for
the speedy restoration of Her Majesty's health. So
evident a sign of the favor of Heaven cannot fail to
have the best results. Security of the future will be
a powerful assistance in overcoming the difficulties
of the present. The prayers of His Holiness will
never be lacking to Their Imperial Majesties nor to
France. The Holy Father was very keenly affected

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 15
by the mention in His Majesty's speech of the pontifi
cal blessing which reached the young Prince almost
at his birth. Aside from his personal interost in this
display of the Emperor's sentiments, His Holiness
greatly praised this striking testimony to the union of
the two powers and their mutual sympathy. Under
every aspect their cause cannot but be the gainer by it."
Count de Rayneval announced at the same time a
piece of news which delighted the Empress Eugenie.
" His Holiness," he added, " has decided that the
golden rose which he blesses annually during Lent
shall be sent this year to Her Majesty the Empress.
This pious custom, the origin of which it would not
be easy to discover, is not often carried out. The
last occasion was when the golden rose was given to
Her Majesty the Queen of Naples at the time the
Holy Father returned to his States, in grateful recog
nition of the generous hospitality he had received at
Gaeta and Portici during his entire exile." No gift
could have been more acceptable to the Empress
than the golden rose. Her ardent faith and her
devotion to the interests of the Holy See made her
deserving of it. Throughout her reign she acted
like a faithful daughter of the Church, and the diffi
culties which sometimes arose between the Empire
and the Papacy were the greatest annoyances of her
life. But on the morrow of the birth of the Prince
Imperial there was as yet no symptom of dissension
between Napoleon III. and Pius IX. Their agree
ment seemed absolute and definitive.

16 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
The Empress showed herself as charitable as she
was devout. The numerous foundations placed
under her patronage received her constant solicitude.
She took great interest in the Eugdnie-Napoleon
asylum, the first capital for which was the six hun
dred thousand francs intended by the city of Paris
for the purchase of a necklace for the sovereign ;
the Sainte-Euge"nie hospital, founded in 1854, and
the orphanage of the Prince Imperial, created in
1856. The salvage society for the shipwrecked, like
all other asylums, was placed under the protection of
the Empress. Committees were organized in Paris
and its suburbs to collect subscriptions for a testi
monial of devotion to her at the time of the Prince's
birth. The lists were speedily filled up in every
quarter. More than six hundred thousand sig
natures were collected in a few days, and the sum
raised exceeded eighty thousand francs. The
amount received from each subscriber being limited
to between one and five cents, the number of names
proved that the working classes had been especially
anxious to show their sympathy with the sovereign.
The presidents of the committees having inquired
to what purpose Her Majesty desired this sum to be
devoted, M. Billault, Minister of Internal Affairs,
replied, May 20: "The Empress thanks you for
herself and her son. She will gratefully accept
the volumes of signatures, eloquent witnesses of the
sentiments of the inhabitants of Paris, but as to the
sums realized from the subscription, you will permit

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 17

her to devote them to some benevolent work for the
children of the people, as was done with the six
hundred thousand francs voted by the municipality
of Paris at the time of her marriage. Herself the
patroness of the maternities and refuges, she wishes
to place the poor orphans under the patronage
of her son. She desires that the poor workman
carried off prematurely from his family may at
least have in dying the consolation of knowing
that imperial benevolence will watch over his chil
dren. A gratuitous and permanent commission will
seek out in Paris both orphans and families of
honest workingmen, by whom, in consideration of an
annual payment, these poor children will be taken,
brought up, given a new family and apprenticed to
a trade. . . . Thus the Empress will have realized
the tender and pious desire of assuring to these poor
little creatures, deprived by death of their natural
supporters, not the shelter of an asylum but the aid,
affection, and care of a new family."
We cite also this extract from the journal of
M. Pinaud: "The role of a charitable lady who
never tells her name to any one and who visits the
sick and poor in person, was very attractive to the
Empress. At certain dates she made discreet excur
sions to humble dwellings and climbed many pairs of
stairs, accompanied only by a lady of the palace
dressed as simply as herself. One day she was
recognized and followed. From that time two
agents were designated to assure her safety, but dis-

18 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE

creetly and without her knowledge, whenever these
charitable pilgrimages were renewed."
The Empress was really popular at the time of
the Prince Imperial's birth. People were pleased
with her kindness and her beauty. To charm, to
console, and to do good seemed to be her motto.
People liked to fancy her as the Emperor's good
angel and the Providence of the poor. As yet no
trait of the female politician had been discovered in
her. Her husband reserved to himself all the duties
and responsibilities of power.
The Empress was really happy at this period. The
clergy treated her as a second Blanche of Castile.
If she entered a cathedral, it was beneath a canopy
and surrounded by a cloud of incense. She enjoyed
all the prestige of supreme rank without being sub
jected to the minute and fastidious details of anti
quated royal etiquette. Her ladies of the palace
were young, agreeable, and distinguished women.
The chateau of the Tuileries had lost its sombre
appearance and no longer suggested the terrible
catastrophes which are a part of its histoiy. The
sovereign's apartments were a model of luxury and
elegance. Instead of being imprisoned there as
Louis Philippe and his family had been, she could
walk in the private garden in front of the chateau
without being exposed to the curiosity of the crowd.
The palaces of Saint-Cloud, Fontainebleau, and Com-
piegne were delightful residences in which she
quietly enjoyed the most agreeable pleasures of

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE It)

country life and according to her taste could choose
between the pomp of an empress and the privacy of
a simple chatelaine.
We would not guarantee that Napoleon III. was
an absolutely faithful husband in 1856. But as to
that, we remind our readers that where sovereigns are
in question, certain weaknesses do not belong to his
tory except when made so notorious by display — as
during the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. —
that they become public scandals. What may be
affirmed is that Napoleon III. never ceased to display
towards the companion whom his heart had chosen
the most respectful and affectionate attention, and
that he always professed profound love and admira
tion for her. In July, 1856, having left her at Saint-
Cloud to go and take the waters at Plombi&res, he
wrote : " You and the little one are everything to
me. ... It makes me happy to see the moment
drawing near when I shall see you and our child
again, and I am so contented about it that I torment
myself with thinking that it is really too good to be
true, and that between now and then one or other of
you will certainly fall ill, or that they will not be
careful enough when he goes near the pond. Be
sure not to tire yourself too much. All these recom
mendations are stupid, perhaps ; but when I am so
happy I am frightened."
Barring a few escapades which never attained pub
licity and which were perhaps more excusable in a
sovereign exposed to every sort of temptation than

20 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
they would be in a private citizen, Napoleon III. was
a very good husband. Madame Cornu said of him :
" Under various aspects his temperament is feminine.
His love for his son is rather that of a mother than a
father." Gentle and kindly, affectionate and senti
mental, he displayed in private life an affability,
good nature, and equanimity that nothing disturbed.
It pleased him to see the Empress play her part as
sovereign so well, and he eagerly sought occasions
to amuse her, bring her into prominence, and make
her admired. The things of the mind entertained
her more than those of art, and her husband was
never better contented than when he saw her taking
a brilliant lead in conversation and charming her
interlocutors. We have remarked already that Napoleon had for
gotten the injuries done to Louis Bonaparte. We
may add that the Empress Eugenie forgave the per
sons who had been inimical to Mademoiselle de
Montijo. She bore no grudge against those who
had opposed her marriage, although there was a
spice of malice in her occasional allusions to that
fact. M. Mesnard, for example, former vice-presi
dent of the Senate and at one time counsellor to the
Court of Cassation, had not approved of this mar
riage. After reading the message in which the
Emperor announced and gave reasons for it, he
had said: "A fine discourse, but I like the sauce
better than the fish." Not long afterwards M.
Mesnard was dining at the Tuileries and sat very

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 21

near the Empress. Just as he was accepting some
turbot the sovereign addressed him : " Ah ! sena
tor, I thought you merely liked the sauce and not
the fish." Surprised for a moment, M. Mesnard
bowed and said that he had changed his mind.
The three prosperous and peaceful years we are
about to describe were the happiest period of
Eugenie's life. Anxieties about her future, the
anguish of the Crimean War, the dread of remaining
childless, had disturbed the beginning of her reign.
But as a mother she touched the summit of her
fortune as well as of her beauty. The Countess
Stephanie de Tascher de la Pagerie describes her
at this epoch : " I have seen women as pretty as the
Empress, but I have never known a finer or more
distinguished beauty. It is perfection in the most
minute details. And the most remarkable thing
about this beauty is that it is peculiar to herself;
she is no more like a Spanish woman than a French
or English one. There is this about her, — that
wherever she appears she takes the precedence by
her brilliancy and distinction."
Hence at this time the Empress united the satis
factions of the heart with those of gratified vanity.
She saw that France, and one might say the world,
took a sympathetic interest in the birth of her son,
that child whose advent had been made the occasion
of so many amnesties, pardons, and favors.
There was at this time a journal whose editors had
several times been sentenced to fines and imprison-

22 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
ment. It was the Figaro. Its sale had been for
bidden on the streets, and its days appeared to be
numbered when its editor-in-chief, M. de Villemes-
sant, had the ingenious idea of addressing to the
Prince Imperial the subjoined letter, dated March 20,
1856, the anniversary of the birthday of the King
of Rome : —
" Monseigneur, forty-five years ago to-day a Prince
was born at the Tuileries. A few days after this
event, a solicitor presented himself at the palace with
a petition addressed to the King of Rome. The
Emperor, your great-uncle, ordered the petition to
be handed to his heir in person. Then he said,
smiling, to the petitioner : ' What did the King of
Rome reply ? ' — ' Nothing, Sire ; but as silence gives
consent, I am authorized to suppose that the Prince
grants my request.' — Napoleon ratified the tacit
promise of his son.
" Monseigneur, availing itself of this precedent,
the Figaro presents its petition to you to-day.
The one hundred and one discharges of cannon
which saluted your birth permit us to hope; for
we know that you came into the world with your
hands filled with pardon and indulgence.
" Hence the Figaro has thought that, as an intelli
gent prince, you would say to yourself on entering
the world: 'I come to dry many tears. Figaro is
certainly much less guilty than many whom I have
pardoned. Let us restore Figaro to life, so that he
may learn from us to be indulgent even to vice and

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 2:3

ridicule.' Behold our petition, then, Monseigneur,
in your hands. Do not say no, and Figaro will be
saved." Figaro was saved. The penalties it had
still to undergo were remitted. Its sale on the
public streets was once more allowed. The dead
journal returned to life.
The public naturally supposed that the birth of
the Prince Imperial would be the signal for an era
of happiness and prosperity. Parisians are very fond
of children. Whenever the little Prince appeared on
the promenade, everybody praised his pretty ways
and looks. The motherhood of the Empress had
given her a greater prestige than the throne itself.
Her husband took good care not to disturb her joy
by hinting at his ulterior warlike schemes. In talk
ing with her, he scrupulously avoided all that might
afflict or disquiet her. If he referred to his Romagna
expedition of 1832, he told her that he had never
been affiliated to the Carbonari, and that his ideas
were such as those which Pius IX. had himself en
tertained at the beginning of his pontificate. He
insisted that the liberals ought not to be identified
with the revolutionaries, and that his own policy,
inspired by generous and civilizing principles, would
always remain a policy of order and progress.
Before launching France into the adventures and
perils of another war, Napoleon III. intended to
allow her to enjoy for awhile the delights of peace.
Hence the programme was to avoid all disagreeable
forebodings and secure the confidence so essential to

24 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
industry and commerce. 1856 was the best year of
the Second Empire. Happy year, when, the foreign
policy was as calm as that of the interior ; when the
eyes of France, instead of being fixed, as in 1855, on
the horrors of a terrible and sanguinary war, rested
upon the cradle of an infant ; and when the eagle's
claws no longer grasped the thunderbolt, but an olive
branch. This is the period which may be called the
happy days of the Empress Eugenie.

CHAPTER III
COUNT WALEWSKI
TN 1856 the diplomacy of France was as brilliant
and as much in vogue as its army and navy.
People admired the heroic combatants of Sebastopol,
and were grateful to the diplomatists who had ar
ranged an honorable peace. The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, where the sessions of Congress were held,
attracted general attention. Situated on the quai
d'Orsay, beside the Seine and next to the Corps
Le'gislatif, this mansion, proportioned like a palace,
whose first stone had been laid by M. Guizot, Sic vos
non vobis, had replaced that on the boulevard des
Capucines, under whose windows had been fired the
fusillade of February 23, 1848, which ushered in
the revolution of the following day. The new min
istry had just been installed. There is nothing re
markable in the offices, which occupy the adjoining
house, but the reception rooms and those of the Min
ister are superb and very well arranged.
The leader of French diplomacy in 1856 was Count
Walewski, Polish by origin, but naturalized a French
man, who had served both his countries nobly. Alex
ander Colonna, Count Walewski, belonged to a very
25

26 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
old family, related to the Colonnas who gave a Pope
and several cardinals to the Church, and to Italy
generals and diplomatists. Born May 4, 1810, at
the chateau of Walewice, his mother was the woman,
famous for her beauty and her patriotism, who in
spired a passion in the First Napoleon, and he was
reputed the son of the Emperor. At the time of
the abdication, the Countess Walewska repaired to
Fontainebleau to testify her devotion to the unfortu
nate sovereign. And when the Emperor of the
French was merely the monarch of Elba, a woman
and a child arrived mysteriously to console him.
People supposed it to be the Empress and the King
of Rome. It was the Countess Walewska and her
son. Still a child when he lost his mother, the young
Count Walewski terminated his studies at Geneva
and then went to France, where he made his entry
into society during the winter of 1829-30. He was
one of the handsomest men of his time. His lofty
bearing, his head like a Roman medallion, his grand
manners, his perfect tone, his origin, made him the
fashion at once. Count d'Haussonville, member of
the French Academy and father of the present
Academician, tells us in his Souvenirs, as a singular
thing and a sign of the times, that the entry of the
young Polish nobleman into legitimist salons was
effected under the auspices of all that was purest
and most exclusive in the aristocratic society of
Paris.

COUNT WALEWSKI 27

"It was," he says, "the order of the day, so to
speak, among the most fastidious ladies of the fau
bourg Saint-Germain, to give the most cordial wel
come to the young man whose features recalled in a
striking manner, but with a prepossessing and gentle
expression, those of the celebrated cast. Notwith
standing this feminine eagerness to please him, M.
Walewski, to his credit be it spoken, remained per
fectly modest."
After the Revolution of 1830 the man of fashion
did not hesitate to detach himself from his social
successes in order to seek more serious ones, and
hastened to defend his country. He ardently em
braced the cause of Polish independence, took part
in the battle of Grochow, and was sent to London
along with Count Zamoyski and Marquis Wielopol-
ski to ask the intervention of England. When
Poland fell, he returned to France, and thanks to the
Orleans princes, who treated him as a friend, he
obtained, August 10, 1833, the rank of captain in the
foreign legion. Naturalized a Frenchman December
3 of the same year, he was a brilliant officer in the
2d African chasseurs, and afterwards in the 4th
hussars. After performing a confidential mission to
Abd-el-Kader, and acting as director of Arabian
affairs at Oran, he quitted the military service in
1838 and returned to Paris, where, not contented
with his social successes, he aspired to those of a
publicist and dramatic author. Among other pam
phlets, he published one entitled, Un mot sur la ques-

28 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
tion oV Afrique, and another called V Alliance anglaise.
Founder and editor of the Messager, he supported
the policy of M. Thiers, whose friend he remained
forever afterwards. At the same time he occupied
himself with the stage. It is claimed that he col
laborated with Alexandre Dumas pere in the pro
duction of one of his best plays, Mademoiselle de
Belle-Isle. He brought out at the Theatre Francais,
January 8, 1840, a comedy in five acts, of which he
was the sole author, the Ecole du monde, or the Co
quette sans le savoir. Although admirably played by
Menjaud, Mirecourt, Geffroy, and Madame Plessy,
the piece was a failure.
Renouncing forever the hope of success as a dram
atist, Count Walewski became a diplomatist and
entered the path which led him to the highest posi
tions. President of the Council of Ministers from
March 1, 1840, his protector, M. Thiers, bought the
Messager newspaper for him and sent him to Egypt
on an important mission to Mehemet Ali.
At that time Count Walewski was sincerely de
voted to the July monarchy, and though everybody
believed him to be the son of the Emperor, nobody
considered him an imperialist. Under the ministry
of M. Guizot, he continued the career he had begun
under that of M. Thiers, and he was directing the
French legation of Buenos Ayres when the Revolu
tion of 1848 broke out.
After the election of December 10, he rallied to
the support of the Prince-President, who appointed

COUNT WALEWSKI 29

him minister of France to Florence in 1849 and to
Naples in 1852. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and
the King of the Two Sicilies received him in the
most flattering manner. Becoming the friend of
both sovereigns, he always desired the maintenance
of their dynasties, and if Napoleon III. had heeded
his advice, there would have been no Italian unity.
He married a pretty and very attractive Florentine,
Mademoiselle Ricci, niece of Prince Joseph Ponia-
towski, minister of Tuscany to Paris, and subse
quently a French senator. She managed her salon
admirably. Made ambassador to London in 1854,
Count Walewski and the charming ambassadress
were the greatest success. This was the finest
moment of the English alliance. When the Coun
tess Walewska left London, the ladies of the aris
tocracy clubbed together to present her with a
bracelet as a keepsake.
The Emperor was pleased with Count Walewski
for the reserve and tact which he displayed under
every circumstance. No one ever heard him allude
to his mother's relations with the First Napoleon.
Some one having said to him one day : " You who
are the son of a great man," he replied : " I did not
know that my father was tall." They say that
Morny wanted to pose as the brother of Napoleon
III. Never did Count Walewski take the attitude
of a cousin-german to the Emperor.
M. Drouyn de Lhuys, having handed in his resig
nation on May 7, 1855, was succeeded as Minister

30 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
of Foreign Affairs by the ambassador of France
at London, Count Walewski. An experienced and
conscientious diplomatist, laborious and devoted to
his duties ; solid rather than brilliant, and cloaking a
natural timidity and an unalterable kindliness under
a somewhat haughty bearing; calm, well balanced,
full of tact and good sense ; an honest man in every
sense of the word, and possessing a noble character
and generous sentiments, Count Walewski was a
good minister. " In power and out of power," M.
Pinard has said, "he never sought for money nor
the affairs which lead to it. He thought the role of
a financier incompatible with that of a statesman.
He admired and wished to imitate those Corsicans
who twice saw a Napoleon on the throne without
increasing their patrimony under either Caesar. He
spent freely the large emoluments pertaining to the
posts he occupied and was able to die poor. That is
one of his titles to the esteem of all men."
I shall never forget that I owe my own entry to
the diplomatic career to the kindness of Count Wa
lewski. It was he who appointed me an attache" of
the political department of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, September 1, 1855. I recollect the prestige
then surrounding the ministers of Napoleon III.,
and the impression they produced on their subor
dinates. It was my business at that time to write
out the minutes of the committee on disputed
claims, then under th.e presidency of Count Por-
talis. As the members of the committee had just

COUNT WALEWSKI 31

completed the preparation of an arbitrament which
the Emperor was to render, I was, to my great sur
prise, ushered into the minister's private office as
soon as they had left it. I recall the emotions I
experienced in crossing for the first time the thresh
old of this sanctuary of diplomacy ; I remember
what pleasure, what gratitude, were aroused in me
by an encouraging word which the minister honored
me by speaking.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was at that time
as eminent from the social point of view as from that
of politics. Nothing could be more brilliant than
the balls and dinners given there. The Countess
Walewski received every Wednesday evening, and
the plenipotentiaries of the Congress and the elite of
Parisian society were invariably present. No salon
was more elegant than hers, and there was no Minis
try of Foreign Affairs in all Europe as splendid and
as much frequented as that of France.
This was the apogee of Count Walewski's career.
He presided at the Congress of Paris with much
authority and dignity. His imperturbable calm, his
exquisite politeness, his perfect courtesy, his thor
ough acquaintance with the technical details and
questions of every kind, were remarked by his col
leagues. They appreciated his spirit of conciliation,
his impartiality, his faculty of stating the points in
litigation with precision, and of summing up the
debates intelligibly. The foreign policy of France,
which later on was frequently subjected to well-

32 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
founded criticism, was at this time, one might almost
say, uncensured by either the public or the press.
With the exception of a few observers more prudent
and perspicacious than the rest, people approved the
Crimean War and considered its results not dispro
portionate with the sacrifices it had entailed. The
work of the army and of French diplomacy was
favorably considered not merely by imperialists but
even by the older parties. This is the epoch when
M. Thiers wrote in the preface to the twelfth volume
of his History of the Consulate and the Empire : " The
greatest compensation for being unimportant in one's
country is to see that country all that it should be in
the world."

CHAPTER IV
THE TREATY OF PARIS
TTTHEN the Congress of Paris resumed its ses
sions, interrupted for four days, on March
18, 1856, two additional members were present : the
Prussian plenipotentiaries. Prussia had been neither
a belligerent nor an ally of either Russia or the West
ern powers, and it seemed as if she ought not to
figure in the Congress. Such was the opinion of
England. Prince Albert had written to the King of
the Belgians : " Great powers can take no hand in
the great game of politics unless they put their
money on the table." But in the end Napoleon III.
contrived to make the opposite opinion prevail. Un
der pretext that the court of Berlin had concurred in
1841 with the stipulations concerning the closing of
the Dardanelles, he obtained not merely that Prussia
should be represented in the agreement relating to
the straits, but that she should sign the general
treaty of peace. Her two plenipotentiaries, Baron
Manteuffel, Prime Minister of Frederick William IV.,
and Count Hatzfeldt, minister of Prussia at Paris,
although introduced at the eleventh hour to the Con
gress, were treated on the same footing as the repre
sentatives of the other powers.
d 33

34 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
At noon on Sunday, March 30, the plenipotentia
ries assembled in uniform at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to sign the treaty. Peace was signed at one
o'clock. Directly after the session they repaired to
the Tuileries, where they were received by the Em
peror. At two o'clock a salvo of one hundred and
one guns from the Invalides announced to the people
of Paris that peace was concluded. In the evening
there was a dinner of sixty covers at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs to celebrate the great event. Count
Walewski offered a toast to the duration of peace.
"It will be durable because it is honorable to all."
On Tuesday, April 1, Napoleon III. held a review
on the Champ de Mars in honor of the peace. Pre
ceded by his equerries, aides-de-camp, orderlies, and
followed by a numerous staff, among whom were
seen Prince Napoleon, Prince de Reuss, General
Count Orloff, and the Russian officers attached to
his mission, Marquis Villamarina, the Sardinian min
ister, Marshal Narvaez, Baron Seebach, minister of
Saxony, Marshal Vaillant, General Prim, Marshal
Canrobert, he traversed the garden of the Tuileries,
the Place de la Concorde, and followed the Cours
la Reine and the quays. When he came out on the
Pont dTe"na, the troops paid him military honors and
joined their acclamations to those of the crowds that
covered the rising grounds of the Champ de Mars.
The Countess de Damre'niont wrote to M. Thou-
venel, then minister at Constantinople : " I wish you
could have seen Paris last Tuesday to get an idea of

THE TREATY OF PARIS 35

the public satisfaction. In the first place, the morn
ing review was magnificent. An immense multitude
of spectators had assembled at the Champ de Mars,
and the weather was in unison with the prevailing
sentiments. Everybody seemed happy, the head of
the State especially, since by a firm and stable policy,
full of moderation, he has raised the country to the
rank from which it descended nearly half a century
ago. "The Emperor beheld himself followed by repre
sentatives of the greatest powers of the world, and
at the summit of the most incontestable glory.
These representatives were there, ten paces behind
him, in brilliant uniforms, and witnessing by their
presence to the sympathies which the wisdom and
loyalty of his policy have inspired even in those who
not long since were still his enemies. It seems to
me that no finer or more amazing procession was
ever known than that which accompanied him that
day. Among others was seen — and everybody
wanted to see him there — Count Orloff, the very
man who, forty-two years ago, March 30, 1814, after
the battle fought under the walls of Paris by the
allies, had been the third to enter our capital, follow
ing Counts Nesselrode and Paar."
During the entire day of the review the people
kept holiday. Their manifestations of joy were pro
longed through the evening. The illuminations
were general. As if to demonstrate their spontane
ity, the public buildings remained dark, in striking

36 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
contrast to the brilliancy of private houses. In the
business quarters the crowd was so great that it was
not easy to penetrate it. The sky glittered with
stars. Every countenance shone with joy.
It was said that the treaty had been signed with
the quill of an eagle, procured at the Jardin des
Plantes by M. Feuillet de Conches, introducer of the
ambassadors. Nemo — the pseudonym by which M.
de Pene signed his articles in the Nord newspaper —
wrote on April 6 : " But this was a radiant week ! A
cloudless sky, joy in every heart, a pacific salvo of
one hundred and one cannon which found an echo
in the hearts of all mothers, windows draped and
illuminated, satisfaction for all honest men, who, for
once, were included in a single party ! To write the
chronicle of this happy week an iron pen would be
too bellicose, a goosequill too stupid. As for an
eagle pen, it needs a congress to procure such a
thing and a M. Feuillet de Conches to dare to pluck
it from the bird of Jove. We cannot sufficiently ad
mire the courage displayed by M. Feuillet de Conches
in his expedition against the dangerous penholder
from which it was a matter of detaching a fraction of
his plumage. No adequate details have been given
of this bold larceny accomplished in honor of the
Congress of Paris and its labors of pacification."
Ratifications of the treaty having been exchanged,
it appeared with its annexes in the Moniteur of April
29, and the protocols were published April 30 and
May 1. In drawing up these diplomatic instruments

TnE TREATY OF PARIS 37
scrupulous care had been taken to avoid anything
which might wound Russian self-esteem. M. de
Bourqueney said to Heir von Beust: "One can read
the treaty of March 30 without discovering which is
the victor and which the vanquished." Not a word
was said of the question of the Holy Places which
had been the beginning of the quarrel between the
cabinets of Paris and Saint Petersburg. The claim
of the Emperor Nicholas to take the orthodox subjects
of the Sultan under his protection was likewise passed
over in silence. The principal stipulations of the
treaty applied to all the powers, and their general char
acter was not such as to offend the feelings of Russia.
The powers collectively received an official ac
knowledgment of the firman by which the Sultan
improved the condition of his subjects without dis
tinction of race or religion (Article 9).
The Black Sea was made neut-al. Open to the
merchant marine of all nations, its waters and its
ports were interdicted to all ships of war, whether of
the riverside or any other powers (Article 11).
Article 22 stipulated that no exclusive protection
should be exercised over the Danubian Principalities
by any one of the guaranteeing powers. By Article
23 the Sublime Porte pledged itself to ensure an in
dependent and international administration to the
Principalities. A committee was to be formed
whose business it would be to learn their actual
condition and propose the bases for their future
organization.

38 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Article 28 stipulated that the principality of Servia
should preserve its independent and national admin
istration, as well as full liberty of worship, legisla
tion, commerce, and navigation.
Article 15 proclaimed the free navigation of the
Danube. A permanent committee was to undertake
the removal of existing impediments to this, and to
enact regulations for policing the river.
The only clause in the treaty which offended
Russia was that which took away from her a portion
of Bessarabia and delivered it to the Moldavian prin
cipality. The territory ceded was insignificant, but
it annoyed Russia to include no part of the Danube
within her limits. It was Austria that insisted on
the adoption of this clause, and the Russians were
correspondingly bitter against the cabinet of Vienna.
Count Orloff said to Cavour : " The Austrian pleni
potentiary does not know what tears and blood this
rectification of the frontier will cost his country."
The Russians might well have been vexed with
Piedmont, which, although not in any way menaced
by them, had gone to the Crimea to fight against
their country and take part in a quarrel which con
cerned in no wise the house of Savoy. But their
resentment against Victor Emmanuel was much less
keen than their wrath against the Emperor Francis
Joseph. Alexander II. was convinced that if Austria
had not issued her ultimatum Russia would have
been victorious in the Crimean War. To the Czar
this conduct on the part of Austria, which Russia

THE TREATY OF PARIS 39

had saved at the time of the war with Hungary, was

o

a monstrous ingratitude. Napoleon III. viewed with
satisfaction the bitterness of Russian enmity towards
Austria, intended to make use of it, and in 1856 was
already making ready for what he was to accomplish
in 1859. But, true to his instincts as a conspirator,
he was careful not to alarm those whose interests
.were concerned and felt his way at first with much
prudence. His Minister of Foreign Affaire, Count
Walewski, was an essentially conservative diploma
tist, and extremely opposed to a war in Italy. Yet
it was he whom the Emperor charged to lay before
the Congress what has since been known as the
Italian question.
After signing the treaties the plenipotentiaries held
several additional sessions. During that of April 8,
Count Walewski remarked that it would be well if,
before separating, the plenipotentiaries should ex
change ideas on various subjects demanding a solu
tion and sure to crop up later if not considered now.
He added that Lord Clarendon would undoubtedly
unite with him in declaring that while France and
England awaited with impatience the moment when
the present business could be concluded, yet to ter
minate it without considering important modifica
tions in the existing condition of things in Greece
would entail serious inconveniences.
The first plenipotentiary of France next reminded
the Congress that the Pontifical States were also in
an abnormal condition, and that the necessity of not

40 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
delivering the country over to anarchy had decided
both France and Austria to comply with the request
of the Holy See, the former by occupying Rome with
troops and the latter by sending its soldiers to the
legations. On one hand, declared Count Walewski,
the title of eldest son of the Church, on which the
sovereign of France prided himself, made it the
Emperor's duty to give aid and support to the Sov
ereign Pontiff. On the other hand, said he, it was
impossible to deny the anomalous condition of a
power whose maintenance depended upon foreign
armies ; adding that France earnestly longed for the
moment when she could withdraw her troops with
out endangering the interior tranquillity of the
country and the authority of the pontifical govern
ment. Not content with formulating the Roman question
in this manner, Count Walewski inquired whether it
were not desirable that certain governments of the
Italian peninsula, rallying to their support by well-
devised acts of clemency minds that were misled but
not perverted, should put an end to a system which
instead of reaching the foes of order resulted merely
in weakening governments and increasing the number
of demagogues.
Lord Clarendon not merely abounded in the same
sense but he put into the shape of a formal indict
ment what Count Walewski had expressed in very
measured terms. The first Austrian plenipotentiary
declared that it was impossible to discuss the internal

THE TREATY OF PARIS 41
condition of independent States not represented at
the Congress. Count Orloff excused himself by
alleging the absence of instructions. Count Cavour,
however, developed and emphasized tho grievances
mentioned by Count Walewski and Lord Clarendon.
The Italian question was formulated.
Protocol XXII. — that of the session of April 8,
1856 — concluded as follows : " The exchange of
ideas which has taken place is not without utility.
The first plenipotentiary of France establishes that
there does in fact result from it : —
" 1. That no one has disputed the necessity of
maturely considering the necessity of ameliorating
the situation of Greece, and that the three protecting
courts have recognized the importance of a mutual
understanding on this subject ;
"2. That the Austrian plenipotentiaries join in
the desire expressed by the plenipotentiaries of
France to see the Pontifical States evacuated by the
French and Austrian troops as soon as it can be
done without inconvenience to the tranquillity of
the country or the consolidation of the authority of
the Holy See ;
" 3. That a majority of the plenipotentiaries have
not disputed the efficacity of measures of clemency
opportunely taken by the governments of the Italian
peninsula and especially by that of the Two Sicilies ;
"4. That none of the plenipotentiaries, even those
who have felt bound to reserve the principle of the
freedom of the press, have hesitated to blame em-

42 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
piratically the excesses to which the Belgian journals
have gone with impunity, or to recognize the neces
sity of remedying the inconveniences resulting from
the unbridled license so greatly abused in Belgium."
The members of the Congress completed their
work by a declaration of principles concerning mari
time law. It related to the four points subjoined : —
" 1. Privateering is abolished ;
" 2. Neutral flags protect an enemy's merchandise
with the exception of contraband of war;
" 3. Neutral merchandise, contraband of war ex
cepted, is not liable to seizure under an enemy's flag ;
" 4. Blockades to be obligatory must be effective."
Thus the labors of the Congress terminated by the
proclamation of reforms in harmony with the progress
of general civilization.
Public opinion was satisfied. Certain minds more
perspicacious than the others alone foreboded the
war of which Protocol XXII. contained the germ.
With the exception of mothers who bewailed the
loss of their sons, nobody thought of the torrents of
blood that had been shed in the gigantic struggle
just concluded. According to the statistics men
tioned by M. de La Gorce {Histoire du Second Em
pire'), the losses of France amounted to ninety-five
thousand men, twenty thousand of whom were shot,
and seventy-five thousand stricken down by illness.
Of the English twenty thousand had succumbed, but
only four thousand in battles or assaults. The Sar
dinians had lost only twenty-eight men killed at the

THE TREATY OF PAFIIS 43

battle of Traktir, but to these must bo added more
than two thousand who died in the hospitals, mostly
from cholera. The losses of the Turks were reckoned
at about thirty thousand men, nearly all killed in the
battles of the Danube or struck down by epidemics
in the bivouacs of the Crimea. As to the Russians,
their losses were estimated at one hundred and ten
thousand killed or dead, not counting the innumera
ble victims who had succumbed on the long Russian
roads before reaching the Crimea, nor those who died
of typhus during the second winter. During that
winter old military men were worn out by fatigue
and younger ones were not yet inured to the rigors
of a terrible climate ; more than forty-seven thousand
men entered the hospitals of the Crimea, and nearly
nine thousand died there.
The evacuation of that scene of combats and suffer
ing began in April. It was over by the end of June.
Nothing was left of those earthworks whose posses
sion had been disputed with such bitterness. The
treaty of Paris did not deprive Russia in the Crimea
of an inch of her territory nor a stone of her fortresses.
Kamiesch and the entire Chersonese plateau was given
back to her July 4. Marshal Pelissier was the last
to leave this region, from which he took his title of
Duke of Malakoff as a souvenir.
What remains at present of the treaty of Paris?
In 1871 Russia resumed her former place in the
Black Sea. The treaty of Berlin restored to her that
portion of Bessarabia the loss of which she had felt

44 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
so keenly. The traveller who now visits Sebastopol
and its environs finds there but one trace of the Cri
mean War: the cemetery.
In 1856 the victors did not ask whether the results
of the struggle in which they had taken so glorious a
part could be lasting. They returned home with a
sentiment of legitimate pride, and knew that grateful
France did them full justice. "Perhaps you will
not believe me," wrote Captain Charles Bocher, " but
I do assure you that notwithstanding the pleasure it
will give me to see Paris once more, I shall regret
leaving this famous plateau of the Chersonese where
I have experienced many griefs and undergone many
sufferings, but where I have also had the greatest
joys in the satisfaction that arises from duties ful
filled and the spectacle of the great deeds I have
witnessed." General Fay thus ends his Souvenirs:
" Of course, we suffered ; but we knew very well
that these sufferings were not in vain, for we had
cicatrized in part the wounds inflicted on our fathers,
and replaced France in the rank which after such
great reverses and such great victories had been taken
from her for a day."
At present the Crimean War is the object of many
criticisms. In 1856 the only sentiment which it in
spired in Frenchmen was admiration.

CHAPTER V
THE SPRING OF 1856
/"^NE should have lived in Paris in 1856 to form
^^ an adequate idea of the brilliancy of the great
capital, newly embellished and transfigured, in the
springtime of that radiant year. In France nothing
dries tears and blood so quickly as the sunshine of
victory. People compassionate the sufferings and
calamities of war only when they have not resulted
in success. Nobody dreamed of blaming either Na
poleon III. or Queen Victoria for the hecatombs of
slaughtered men which had reddened the Chersonese
plateau. Her national pride satisfied, although she
had obtained neither a cession of territory nor any
personal advantage, France told herself that she was
the great nation, and that thought sufficed her. The
journals persuaded the country that the world ad
mired her, that the French soldier was the soldier of
God, gesta Dei per Francos, and that the Crimean
War had not merely saved European equilibrium but
the cause of universal civilization. Military men
forgot their sufferings in looking at the decorations
and promotions they had so gloriously obtained.
Civilians were proud of the army. The inhabitants
45

46 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
of Paris are never so happy as when their vanity is
gratified. Success is what they prefer before all
things. The great city is like a pretty woman.
What she wants is to be admired.
In the spring of 1856, Paris, full of admiration,
excitement, and gaiety, presented a fairy-like aspect.
More brilliant equipages, richer toilettes, more ele
gant houses at the theatres had never been seen.
Pleasure was the order of the day. Official society
and that of the faubourg Saint-Germain vied with
each other in luxury and entertainments. Parisian
newspapers at this period paid very little heed to
anything but what are nowadays called worldly
vanities, mondanites. The Paris letters published
at Brussels by Le Nord and the Independance Beige
furnish the details of the social whirl.
The most brilliant of the legitimist feles was the
masked ball given April 2 by the Duchess Pozzo di
Borgo in her house on the rue de i'Universite-. It
was followed on the succeeding evening by a ball
at the house of the Prussian legation, on the rue
de Lille, occupied by Prince Eugene under the First
Empire, and at present by the German embassy.
Count Hatzfeldt and his wife, the daughter of Mar
shal de Castellane, gave it in honor of the pleni
potentiaries of the Congress. The embassies and
legations were then a neutral ground where the
heads of the different parties met each other. At
the Prussian ball M. Guizot ran across Count
Walewski, Count de Montalembert, M. Rouher,

THE SPRING OF 1S5G 47
M. Dumont, and M. Achille Fould. As usual, the
members of the Congress engrossed most of tho
attention. But the Princes de Reus; were also
pointed out, and Marshal Naivaez, M. Olozaga,
Lady Clarendon, the Countess de Montijo, accom
panied by a young and beautiful Spanish girl,
Mademoiselle de la Paniega, who had just arrived
in France, and who married the Marshal Duke of
Malakoff two years Inter.
" The ball of the Prussian legation," wrote Nemo
(Henry de Pene) in the Nord, "has brought to light
a difficulty singularly embarrassing to the great per
sonages who are here in an official capacity. They
are confronted by a Parisian society divided into
two very distinct camps : those who go to the Tuil
eries and those who do not. Personal sympathies,
family affinities, mutual esteem, unite the representa
tives of powers friendly to France to a goodly num
ber of recalcitrant Parisians. On the other hand,
it is undeniable that their natural and indispensable
place is at the court to which they are accredited."
The Turkish ambassador, Mehemet Djemil Bey,
gave a ball to more than twelve hundred guests on
April 10. And as the Sultan had attended a ball
given by the French ambassador, the Emperor re
turned the courtesy by attending that of the Otto
man embassy. Two days afterward the Grand- Vizier,
Ali Pasha, wrote from Paris to M. Thouvenel: "The
Emperor deigned to honor our fete of the 10th by
his presence. I cannot tell you how happy this great

48 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
imperial favor has made me. It is an additional
title to the hatred of the envious."
April 12 Napoleon gave a banquet at the Tuil
eries to the members of the Congress. The cardi
nals, marshals, presidents of the great bodies of
State and grand officers of the crown were present
with the foreign ministers. At the right of the
Emperor, who sat at a table shaped like a horse
shoe, was Lord Clarendon, and on his left Count
de Buol. Prince Napoleon was opposite the sover
eign, with Count Orloff on his right and Ali Pasha
on his left. Towards the end of the dinner, Napol
eon III. rose to his feet and said: "I propose a
toast to the union so happily restored between the
sovereigns. May it be lasting, and it will be so if
it rests on right, justice, and the real and legitimate
interests of peoples."
The relations between those who yesterday were
enemies had become most cordial. General Duke
de Mortemart, then commanding the division of
Bourges, wrote to Marshal de Castellane : " This
is a fine peace, and I can assure you of one thing,
namely, that my old camp companion in the war
of the Balkans in 1828, Count Orloff, is enthusiastic
about our Emperor. He declares that he is the
arbiter of what is just and true throughout the
world." Napoleon entertained especially friendly relations
with Prussia and all Germany. In May the King
of Wurtemberg was his guest. Reaching Paris on

THE SPRING OF 1S5G 49

the 3d, this monarch occupied the pavilion of Mar
san at the Tuileries. The 5th he dined at the
Palais-Royal with his brother-in-law. King .leronie.
Prince Napoleon, the Princess Mathilde, Haron
Waechter, minister of Wiirtemberg in France, and
Baroness Waechter, Baron Fatenheim, grand equerry
of the Wurtemberg sovereign, were among the guests.
On the 13th the King left Paris to return to his
dominions, enchanted with the reception given him
by the Emperor. The former quarrels of Germany
and France seemed to be forgotten forever.
May 13, the Emperor and the Empress installed
themselves at the chateau of Saint-Cloud with their
son, who now left Paris for the first time. Just a
month earlier, the Duke of Alba had brought the
Grolden Fleece from Queen Isabella to the little
prince who, on the 28th April, the day when the
treaty of peace was published by the Moniteur, had
been inscribed as child of the regiment on the roll of
the 1st regiment of grenadiers of the imperial guard.
His baptism, which was to be celebrated with extraor
dinary pomp at Notre Dame de Paris, was fixed for
the 14th of June.
Nor was it the court alone which was perpetually
keeping holiday. The city seemed equally delighted.
As people made a good deal of money, so they spent
it with great readiness. All the industries of Paris,
especially those of luxury, realized unexpected gains.
The optimism of the financial world was imperturba
ble. Any one who had pointed out the least cloud

50 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
on the horizon would have been treated as an alarm
ist and a coward. The transformation of Paris, ef
fected as it were by the wand of a magician, coincided
in the happiest manner with the conclusion of peace.
The predictions of the great prefect, Baron Hauss-
mann, were fulfilled. He had asserted that extraor
dinary disbursements are not injurious to the budget,
but, if intelligently made, enrich instead of impover
ishing, and bring about a general increase of the
revenue. He had quoted the remark of Louis XIV.
to Mansard : " Build, keep on building ; we will
make the advances and foreigners will repay them."
Foreigners ! they had come in crowds to admire the
marvels of the new Paris, now the cosmopolitan city
by excellence. The Parisian, critical at first of the
work of transformation, began to applaud the moment
it was completed. He halted in front of the squares
which distributed light, air, and verdure so widely and
in so doing restored or preserved the public health.
He went with pleasure through the new streets. He
looked at the Louvre, still surrounded by scaffold
ings, but soon to display its splendid and majestic
ensemble. "When the weather was fine," says M. de La
Gorce in his History of the Second Empire, " the
Parisian was very willing to prolong his outing ; he
prolonged it by the Carrousel, finally purged from
the shameful diversions which had obstructed it so
long ; those who were most courageous went further
still, and found their way through the long avenues

THE SPRING OF 1S56 51

to the Champs-Elysees and even to the Bois de Bou
logne, of which an art which knew how to avail itself
of a graceful disorder had completed the embellish
ment, and which imitated the splendors of Hyde
Park while surrounding them with a still more
beautiful frame.
" As he went he admired the police service, reor
ganized and enlarged, the better organized street
commissions, the macadamized roads substituted for
the old pavements, the improved and developed
water service, the public travel by means of the
omnibuses beginning to traverse every quarter.
Then when evening suggested his return, he won
dered at the interminable lines of gas jets on either
side of the regular streets, and, in the dazzling splen
dor of all those new things which it seems nowadays
as if we had always enjoyed, the wisest, the most
far-sighted, the least enthusiastic was allured into
forgetfulness of present cares and admiration of this
Paris of Napoleon III., so animated and so bright,
and into the hope that, in spite of already visible
signs to the contrary, the Second Empire would gain
a renown for wisdom equal to the seductive prestige
due to its brilliancy."
The Crimea, soon to be evacuated by the allied
troops, sent none but joyous echoes to France. In a
despatch from Sebastopol addressed to the Minister of
War, Marshal Pelissier said : " For my part, Monsieur
le Marshal, I am delighted to affirm that no star ever
shone so brilliantly as that of the Emperor. This

52 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
peace signed above the cradle of a child is a most
fortunate omen. If the Emperor and the Empress
will kindly accept them I beg you to offer the
respectful congratulations of the army and my
own." The Russians and the French had become real
friends, true brethren in arms. One might have
thought they had been fighting on the same side
during the war instead of against each other. April
13, General Luders, the Russian commander-in-chief,
went to meet the commanders-in-chief of the allied
troops on the bridge of Traktir, and led them to the
heights whence they witnessed a review of ten thou
sand men on the Makenzie plateau. After the re
view he offered them a banquet.
As a response to this courtesy Marshal Pelissier and
General Codrington, the new commander-in-chief of
the English army, invited General Luders to a bril
liant review. This took place April 17, 1856, on a
particularly fine day. The French army, with the
redoubt of the Balaclava Pass on its right, its centre
on the height of the monastery of St. George, and its
left towards Karatch, presented a line of battle more
than twelve thousand yards in length. There were
in all one hundred battalions of infantry in massed bat
talions, thirty squadrons of artillery, and one hundred
and ninety-eight cannon, in all fifty-five thousand
French soldiers. "The Emperor," wrote Marshal
Pelissier, " would have been delighted, as I was my
self, at the fine appearance and martial bearing of

THE SPRING OF 1856 53

our soldiers, to whom I had made known that very
day the rewards of whicii His Majesty kindly author
ized the bestowal in his name."
Now listen to an eye-witness, General Fay : " Mar
shal Pelissier," says he in his remarkable and inter
esting Souvenirs of the Crimean War, " did the
honors to General Luders of those magnificent troops
which he had so bravely fought, and who, notwith
standing their worn and patched uniforms, were as
presentable as on a parade day in garrison. A con
siderable group of officers of all arms who were gal
loping in the rear of the commanders-in-chief looked
extremely picturesque. The French flags, blackened
by powder and torn by Russian projectiles, one after
another bowed to the general, once our enemy, to-day
our guest, saluting him with respect and applauding
those who had rescued from the fight nothing but the
flagstaff and some tatters. After the defile, the Eng
lish army, amounting to some thirty thousand men,
admirably disciplined, were in turn presented by
General Codrington to the Russian commander-in-
chief."

CHAPTER VI
THE INUNDATIONS
A S if to furnish a pendant to the luminous spring
tableau of 1856, disastrous news reached Paris
on the last day of May. The Rhone had overflowed
both its banks, and at Lyons the quarters which
divided it from the Saone were under water, as the
Brotteaux, the Guillotidre, and all the surrounding
country were likewise on the opposite shore. It was
learned the next day that several quarters of the city
were in danger of total ruin ; that the valley of Gre"si-
vaudan beyond Grenoble had disappeared from view;
that the plain of Vaueluse was partly submerged;
that at Aix the floods were beating against the fau
bourg of Trinquetaille, while beyond the Camargue
they had swelled into the likeness of an immense
lake. On hearing this, the Emperor left Saint-Cloud
at once to direct in person the assistance given to
the sufferers from the inundations. He was accom
panied by his aide-de-camp, General Niel, General
Fleury his first equerry, M. Rouher, Minister of
Public Works, M. Franqueville, Director of Roads
and Bridges, Captain de Puysegur, orderly officer,
and four troopers belonging to the hundred-guards.
54

THE INUNDATIONS 55
June 1. Napoleon leaves Saint-Cloud and sleeps at
Dijon. June 2. He and his suite, in uniform, reach Lyons
at half-past ten in the morning, and are received at
the railway station by Marshal de Castellane and
Senator Vaisse, in charge of the department. He
breakfasts at the H6tel de l'Europe. He mounts his
horse at half-past eleven. Two gendarmes, followed
by eight dragoons under the orders of a quarter
master, with an aide-de-camp of Marshal de Castel
lane at their head, precede the sovereign. He crosses
the rue Irnpeliale, the Morand bridge, the Charpennes,
the Brotteaux, and the Guillotiere. Surrounded by
some sixty thousand workmen, who, with their wives
and children, had been the victims of this scourge,
himself pale with emotion, the Emperor distributes
uncounted money from two saddlebags in a kindly
manner which touches the hearts of all. Lavishing
words of consolation and encouragement also, he
visits the breaches made in the two dikes of the
Rhone, and fords the roads where they are under
water. Everywhere he is greeted with applause. As
he passes the air resounds with shouts of " Long live
the Emperor ! Long live the Empress ! Long live
the Prince Imperial! Long live the Father of his
people." According to Marshal de Castellane it was
an ovation without a parallel.
At half-past three Napoleon III. repairs to the
camp of Sathonay, with which he seems satisfied.
He dines at the Hotel de l'Europe. Every time he

56 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
goes to the window before dinner he is greeted by
thunders of applause.
June 3. The Emperor leaves Lyons for Valence
and Avignon. He stops on the way at the towns
which have suffered most. Valence is inundated.
He arrives at the mayor's office on the back of a
porter. As the railway between Orange and Avignon
is cut off by the floods, he gets into a wretched boat,
half staved in, and thus crosses a veritable lake
which covers the plain as far as eye can see. He
is on a level with the roofs of farmhouses scattered
along the riverbanks, and the oars occasionally strike
the tops of fruit trees hidden from view by the waters.
Toward three o'clock he is received at the gates of
Avignon by the flotilla of the city authorities coming
to meet him. He enters the city on a boat so small
that there is room for no one else except the mayor
and the boatman.
General Fleury, an eye-witness, shall describe the
scene : " The sights along the road had been painful
enough already, but when we reached Avignon and
saw the quarters where the houses were under water
as high as the first story, and still others where
nothing was visible but a multitude of roofs, they
became still more distressing. Women with children
in their arms were crying. Men, inert and power
less to struggle against flood and ruin, looked like
images of woe. The Emperor, greatly affected,
stood up in his boat and gave money by handfuls
to these unfortunates, who blessed the prince who

THE INUNDATIONS 57
came at the risk of his life to sliare their dangers and
their affliction."
At six in the evening, after visiting Tarascon, the
Emperor leaves for Aries by the railway. On reach
ing the city he goes to the Ardnes tower in order
to get a bird's-eye view of the extent of the disaster.
He sleeps at Aries.
June 4. He leaves Aries to return to Lyons by
way of Avignon, Mortemart, and Valence. Every
where he is received with popular acclamations.
Everywhere he is affected by the sight of towns,
villages, and country places in distress, harvests
destroyed, houses cracked, submerged, thrown down.
And everywhere he distributes abundant largesses,
and stimulates the zeal of officials, the courage of
soldiers, and the devotion of all the citizens by his
example. On reaching Lyons, towards the close
of the day, he reviews the troops under the com
mand of Marshal de Castellane. They greet him
with an enthusiasm shared by the entire population,
who shout, " Long live the benefactor of the peo
ple ! " At eight o'clock he leaves Lyons for Paris.
June 5. Arriving at Paris at seven in the morning
he goes at once to Saint-Cloud. An address from
the city of Lyons is waiting for him there. It is
worded as follows: "Sire, it was in your heart that
you found the happy inspiration to visit the scene of
our sufferings. Not long ago you told the Lyonese
to love you. Now you come to constrain them to do
so. You have gained the coldest hearts ; one cannot

58 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
walk a step in our streets without hearing blessings
on your name, without being moved by the touching
expressions inspired by gratitude in the unfortunate
and by admiration in all. These prayers will be
granted, Sire ; Heaven will continue to inspire you
with great and generous thoughts, and will reward
you in the imperial child whom it has given to
France." That very day, on entering Saint-Cloud, the Em
peror learns that the same scourge which had afflicted
the dwellers by the Rhone had likewise stricken
those beside the Loire ; that the river had overflowed
at Orleans and Amboise, and that at Tours immense
disasters had followed the simultaneous rise of the
Loire and the Cher. Without hesitating for an
instant, he sets off the next day to do for those
regions what he had just done for those of the south
of France.
June 6. The Emperor leaves Saint-Cloud in the
morning to carry assistance and consolation to the
inundated people of the Loire. Accompanied by
M. Rouher, General Niel and General Fleury, he
visits Orleans, Blois, and Tours. The streets of the
latter city were so filled with water that they re
sembled the lagunes of Venice. The sovereign's
presence produced a profound impression and his
unexpected arrival in each city inspired equal grati
tude and surprise.
Evoking the memory of the excursions when he
had the honor of accompanying his master, General

THE INUNDATIONS 59
Fleury speaks in his Memoirs of tho fidelity with
which Napoleon III. carried assistance to his sub
jects. "I always recur with emotion," he says, "to
the circumstances of those bold and generous ex
tremities to which the Emperor would resort when
it was a question of exposing his life and distributing
his benefactions. It was not the search for an idle
popularity which moved him. What prince was
more popular than he at that period ? No ; it was
the love of goodness, it was the impulse of his heart
which guided him."
June 7. In the evening Napoleon III. returned
to the chateau of Saint-Cloud. He embraced most
affectionately the child who was to be baptized at
Notre Dame seven days later.

CHAPTER VII
THE BAPTISM OP THE PRINCE IMPERIAL
Saturday, June 14, 1856. The Parisians began
their holiday at dawn. Their numbers increased by
more than three hundred thousand visitors from the
provinces and foreign parts, they thronged the squares
and streets through which the imperial procession
was to pass. Flagstaffs had been set up on the
parvis of Notre Dame, from which waved banners
with the arms of the Empire. Sanded, and strewn
with foliage and flowers, this open space presented
a magnificent appearance. A grand porch had been
constructed outside of the cathedral.
The baptism of the Prince Imperial was not to be
celebrated until six o'clock in the evening. Some
hours earlier the four thousand invited guests, among
whom I was one, wearing for the first time my
diplomatic uniform, entered the resplendent basilica.
I recall the impression of giddy surprise, the half-
fantastic, half-religious effect which it produced, fully
illuminated in broad daylight, its arches painted then
in tender blue, sprinkled with golden stars, its hang
ings of red velvet, its ceiling covered with innumer
able bees, from the height of which descended all
60

THE BAPTISM OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL 61

along the columns the escutcheons of the great cities.
The men were all in uniform, and the women in
evening dress, with lace veils attached to their head
dresses and falling back on their uncovered shoul
ders. At the back of the choir, illuminated by
thousands of candles, a burning focus of light like
melting gold shimmered over the platform, where
were assembled all the archbishops and bishops of
the Empire with their crosiers, mitres, and pontifical
vestments. Half-past four. The Pope's Legate, Cardinal Pa-
trizzi, leaves the Tuileries in a carriage drawn by
eight horses. As he is the personal representative
of the Sovereign Pontiff, he receives the same honors
as are paid the Holy Father. He is met at the entry
of the church by the Archbishop of Paris, preceded
by his chapter, the musicians the while executing
the motet: Thou art Peter.
Five o'clodc. The Emperor, the Empress, and the
Prince Imperial leave the Tuileries to repair to Notre
Dame. Cavalry are massed on the Place de la Con
corde. The double row formed by the national and
the imperial guards extends the whole length of the
procession, which follows this route : the garden of
the Tuileries, the Place de la Concorde, the rue de
Rivoli, the Place de l'H6tel de Ville, the bridge and
rue of Areola, and the Place de Notre Dame.
Six d 'clock. Amid the noise of cannon and shout
ing the procession reaches the parvis of Notre Dame.
This has been sanded so thickly that the eight horses

62 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
are unable to drag the heavy imperial carriage any
further, and it becomes necessary for the footmen to
put their shoulders to the wheels. Alighting at the
principal portal, the Emperor and the Empress are
received by the Archbishop of Paris, who offers them
holy water. After kissing the cross, they are con
ducted to their kneeling-desks under a canopy sup
ported by canons. The ladies of the palace who have
been appointed to carry the sacramentals of baptism,
approach the table on which they have been laid, and
receive them from an assistant master of ceremonies,
in the following order: the candle is given to the
Countess de Montebello, the chrisom-cloth to the
Baroness de Malaret, the salt-cellar to the Marquise
de Latour-Marbourg ; those pertaining to the func
tions of the godparents, the basin, the ewer, and the
napkin, to the Countess de Labedoyere, the Countess
de Rayneval, and Madame de Saulcy, respectively.
I follow the details of the ceremony with extreme
attention. In the middle of the transept a platform
surrounded by a balustrade had been erected open
ing toward the nave. On this an altar raised three
steps higher than its floor had been placed at the en
trance of the sanctuary, opposite which, and at the
same elevation, was the throne of Their Majesties with
a kneeling-desk ; the baptismal font, two steps lower,
stood between the throne and the altar. It is said
thac the baptismal vase, which is made of damaskeened
copper, in the Persian style of the twelfth century, was "
brought back from the Crusades by Saint Louis to

THE BAPTISM OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL 03

serve as a baptismal font for the children of that pious
king. The throne of the Cardinal-Legate, two steps
higher than the platform, faced both the altar and
the throne. In the middle of the sanctuary, behind
the Legate's throne, were seats for the archbishops and
bishops ; a little to the left of the gospel side, on the
platform, an armchair for the Archbishop of Paris
and stools for the titular members of the metropolitan
chapter. To right .and left of the sovereigns' throne
were ranged the chairs and hassocks intended for the
Prince Imperial, carried by the governess of the chil
dren of France, and for the Dowager Grand Duchess
of Baden, representing the Queen of Sweden, Prince
Oscar (now reigning in Sweden as Oscar II.), and the
princes and princesses of the Emperor's family. On
the epistle side of the altar were chairs for the cardi
nals. Napoleon III. and the Empress reach their throne
overhung by a dais with hangings of purple velvet
lined with ermine, and kneel down at their desk.
The Cardinal-Legate goes to the foot of the altar to
intone the Te Deum, whicli is executed by the orches
tra. Meanwhile the ladies bearing the sacramentals
lay them on the credence-tables near the altar. The
Te Deum ended, the Legate proceeded to the cere
monies of solemn baptism, after which the governess
remitted the Prince Imperial to the hands of the
Emperor. A master of ceremonies advanced to the
middle of the choir and cried three times : Long live
the Prince Imperial ! Standing with his son in his

64 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
arms, Napoleon III., with a gesture very expressive
of joy and tenderness, showed him to the spectators,
the orchestra playing meanwhile the Vivat composed
by Lesueur for the baptism of the King of Rome, and
the shouts of the audience re-echoing beneath the
venerable arches. Then the little prince was taken
back to the Tuileries in a carriage drawn by eight
horses, preceded by a squadron of guides. The Car
dinal-Legate intoned the Te Deum and the Domine
salvum fac Imperatorem, and then gave the Papal
benediction, which concluded the ceremony. The
Archbishop of Paris preceded by the metropolitan
chapter reconducted the Emperor and Empress to
the door of the church. Their Majesties entered the
grand carriage, crossed the Areola bridge, made their
appearance on the Place magnificently decorated by
the architect Ballard, and went to the Hotel de Ville
to be present at a banquet offered them by the
Municipal Council.
Eight o'clock. The banquet took place in the
great dining hall. All the high dignitaries of the
State, as well as the bishops and archbishops, were
included' in the four hundred guests. Their Ma
jesties, surrounded by princes and princesses, sat at a
raised table from which all the other tables could be
seen. While dinner was going on various pieces of
music and cantatas were performed. The salons of
the HQtel de Ville were splendidly illuminated.
The ovations of the day were to be renewed at night.
For the return drive General Fleury had substituted

THE BAPTISM OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL 65
demi-gala travelling carriages, — green, that is to say,
with the underframe gilded, — drawn by six horses
instead of eight. " The return having to be mado at
a trot," he says in his Memoirs, " these were the only
sort possible. Still, nothing could be more richly
elegant than these berlins with plate-glass windows,
lighted from within and displaying the Empress and
princesses resplendent with diamonds, to the admira
tion of the crowd. These berlins, with four lanterns,
driven by gigantic coachmen and with four footmen
behind, and drawn by immense horses, could vie on
equal terms with gilded state carriages, moving at
a measured pace, and advancing magisterially as if
in a theatrical representation." Shouts resounded
all along the passage of the happy father and
mother.

CHAPTER VIII
THE BAPTISMAL FESTIVITIES
O UNDAY, June 15, 1856, was devoted to public
^ rejoicings. At six in the morning salvos of
artillery from the Invalides announced the beginning
of the festivities. Free representations were given
at one o'clock at the Opela, the Theatre Francais,
the Ode"on, and the Ope"ra-Comique. Between two
and four, on the Esplanade of the Invalides, four
open-air theatres played military pieces and panto
mimes ; three hundred balloons ascended, scattering
as they rose the christening sugar-plums. A similar
programme was carried out at the barrier of the
Throne. One hundred and twenty thousand com
memorative medals, bearing on one side the double
effigies of the Emperor and the Empress and on the
other that of the Son of France, were sent to the
pupils of the lyceums, colleges, and orphan asylums,
and to the officers, subalterns, and soldiers of the
army of Paris. Fifty thousand bags of bonbons
were distributed among the children of the com
munal schools, and Napoleon III. signed number
less pardons for civil and military prisoners under
sentence. 66

THE BAPTISMAL FESTIVITIES 67
The night was given up to fireworks and illumina
tions in every quarter. The most notable took place
in front of the Corps Legislatif, the Emperor and
the Empress being present under the colonnade of
the Ministry of Marine. At a quarter past nine the
Empress gave the signal for a magnificent piece of
fireworks representing a Gothic baptistry. When it
ended by the apparition of flaming cascades the air
rang with applause. The crowd was so compact
that the sovereigns were obliged to remain at the
Ministry until eleven o'clock before they could get
back to the Tuileries. The people, however, were in
ecstasies all night over the illuminations. Those of
Saint-Jacques tower, the Hotel de Ville and its neigh
borhood, excited especial admiration. The Avenue
Victoria was transformed into a vast garden, with
sanded walks, fountains, reservoirs, cascades, and
French and foreign flowers. Several large boats,
draped and illuminated and carrying military bands
in full swing, furrowed the Seine between the Pont
Royal and the Pont de la Concorde. The weather
harmonized superbly with this night of enchantments.
On Monday, June 16, Their Majesties were present
with the princes and princesses at a grand ball at the
HStel de Ville. The Cardinal-Legate was present
for a time before dancing began. After presenting
his respects to Their Majesties he withdrew, and the
ball opened with a quadrille of honor in which the
Emperor danced with the Baroness Haussmann and
the Empress with the Prefect.

68 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
On Thursday, June 19, the ceremony of present
ing the Empress with the golden rose took place in
the chapel of the chateau of Saint-Cloud. During
the Mass celebrated by Cardinal Patrizzi, Legate
a latere of the Pope, the golden rose was laid on the
gospel side of the altar. After the Mass, the Legate
seated himself in an armchair in front of the altar,
opposite Their Majesties. One of the prelates of his
suite, Mgr. Monaco Lavalette, read in a loud voice
the pontifical brief conferring on the Cardinal the
necessary powers for remitting the golden rose to the
Empress in place of His Holiness. This concluded,
the Empress was invited by the master of ecclesiasti
cal ceremonies to approach the altar, and the rose was
presented by Cardinal Patrizzi with the usual for
malities. The pontifical gift consisted of a golden
rosebush issuing from a massive golden vase resting
on a socket of lapis-lazuli with two bas-reliefs, one
representing the birth of the Blessed Virgin, and the
other her presentation in the Temple, incrusted with
the arms of Pio Nono and Napoleon III.
After this ceremony, at which the Prince Imperial
was present, the Cardinal-Legate presented the Em
peror in the Pope's name with a fine picture in
mosaic representing John the Baptist in the Desert,
after Guido, and for the Son of France a reliquary
adorned with enamels and engraved precious stones,
containing a relic of the holy crib.
Cardinal Patrizzi returned to Rome much pleased
with the reception he had had in France. M. Sampayo,

THE B.iPTISMAL FESTIVITIES 69

charge" d'affaires at Rome in the absence of Count
de Rayneval, wrote to Count Walewski: "Cardinal
Patrizzi has arrived. I hastened to congratulate His
Eminence on his happy return. He expressed to mo
in most feeling terms his gratitude for the welcome
with which Their Majesties deigned to honor him.
He has requested me to beg Your Excellency kindly
to present to Their Majesties his sentiments of re
spect and attachment. The reception given by the
French clergy to His Eminence, the sentiments of
devotion to the Holy See expressed by all the bish
ops, the attitude and the earnestness of the faithful
in the churches, have deeply impressed the Cardinal.
He speaks to me with admiration of our numerous
charitable institutions and the order and beneficence
with which they are conducted. From what His
Eminence says I cannot doubt that he has given the
Holy Father a most favorable account of the religious
situation in France. But for that matter such an
appreciation could not have been unexpected by His
Holiness, whom some persons do not scruple to
accuse of a too partial leaning towards the Church
of France."
June 28, the members of the committee which had
organized the subscription in honor of the Prince
Imperial's birth had an audience at the chateau of
Saint-Cloud. M. Le Roy de Saint-Arnaud, hiother
of the Marshal, and mayor of the twelfth ward, ap
proached the Emperor and the Empress, who was
holding her son in her arms. " Sire," said he, "this

70 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
humble sum of one hundred thousand francs, the
rapid result of adding centime to centime, is the art
less symbol of these affectionate and loyal popula
tions where the individual is nothing, but where the
unanimity of sentiments conceals treasures of love
and strength. . . . May the Orphanage of the Prince
Imperial, the noble inspiration of the Empress, linked
to the souvenir of a thoroughly popular subscription,
and enriched and perpetuated by the munificence of
the Emperor, pass down the ages with the Empire
and the dynasty which beheld its birth ! "
Never had the Empress been so happy. The radi
ant springtime of 1856 had brought her nothing but
joys and satisfactions. It is of this epoch that M. de
La Gorce, the eminent historian who has not spared
the Second Empire some deserved censure, has said :
" Contemporaries had at last become convinced, some
with pleasure, others with resignation, that the Na
poleonic dynasty had assuredly been called to guide
French society toward new shores and to develop
democracy while restraining it. . . . The power of
the Emperor found its completion in the impotence
of all that was not he." At this moment the Em
press was aware of none but favorable sympathies.
The evidences of interest lavished upon her and her
son by all classes of society both at home and abroad,
charmed and reassured her. The benedictions of the
Holy Father, her son's godfather, gave her confidence
in the future. With what tranquillity, what pleasure,
she reposed under the leafy shadows of Saint-Cloud,

THE BAPTISMAL FESTIVITIES 71
her favorite residence ! How she would have shud
dered had a prophet of misfortune predicted to her
the end of that marvellous palace and of the pretty
little boy whom she led through its alleys and under
its great trees I

CHAPTER IX
COUNT DE MORNT
TTAVING reached the summit of his fortune,
Napoleon III. sought to assure its success by
making the Emperor Alexander II. forget the un
pleasant memories of the Crimean War, and by ter
minating at St. Petersburg the work of pacification
so fortunately begun at the Congress of Paris. He
had absolute need of Russia, whose benevolent neu
trality, if not her armed support, was indispensable
to his schemes concerning Italy, and whose resent
ment against Austria he was anxious to exploit.
General Fleury has written in his Memoirs : " A
perfectly natural occasion presented itself for the
offer of an act of courtesy. This was to send an
ambassador to St. Petersburg at the time of the
Czar's coronation. Count de Morny, the most nota
ble personage of the Empire, seemed foreordained
to represent France and Napoleon III. The noto
riety attaching to his birth, his family resemblance,
his distinguished manners, his experience of men,
the very important part he had played with so
much bluster on December 2, all contributed to put
him in an exceptional position and concentrate atten-
72

COUNT DE MORNY 73
tion on him." It is certain that his lordly bearing,
his luxurious and ostentatious habits, his personal at
tractiveness, fitted the president of the Corps Ldgis-
latif marvellously for the task of winning the good
graces of Alexander II. By a decree of May 8,
1856, he was appointed ambassador extraordinary
to the Emperor of all the Russias.
Count Auguste de Morny was born at Paris,
October 23, 1811. He had not been recognized
either by his mother, Queen Hortense, or his father,
General de Flahaut. One Demorny, an obscure
native of Auvergne, had given him a civil con
dition. He was brought up by a witty and intelli
gent woman, Adele Filleul, who gained some literary
success, and married in the first place Count de
Flahaut, and secondly the Baron de Souza. Her
first husband, a victim of the Terror, perished on
the scaffold in 1793, leaving her a son who was a
general of division and aide-de-camp of the Emperor
under Napoleon I., a peer of France and ambassador
at Vienna under Louis Philippe, and under Napoleon
III. senator and ambassador at London.
The widow of Count de Flahaut married in 1802
the Baron de Souza, a Portuguese diplomat and
literary man, who, after representing the court of
Lisbon in Sweden and subsequently in Denmark,
was at that time minister of Portugal at Paris,
where he died in 1825. The Baroness de Souza
published several successful novels, collected in six
volumes in 1822. Elegantly simple in style, they

74 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
chiefly depict the upper classes of society, — those
in which the Count de Morny was destined to shine.
From his infancy he had been remarkable for the
vivacity of his intelligence ; so much so that Prince
Talleyrand said of him : " This little man will be
a minister some day."
Having made a successful course of studies at the
Bourbon College, young de Morny embraced the
military career. Leaving the Staff School in 1832,
he entered the 1st regiment of lancers as a sub
lieutenant. Finding no social distractions while in
garrison at Fontainebleau, he set himself seriously
to work. The Baroness de Souza said at the time
to Sainte-Beuve : " You have seen the young man in
whose future I take so much interest; what sort of
books do you suppose he selects for his reading?
Do you think he reads novels, fugitive verses, agree
able memoirs, Voltaire's stories? He prefers meta
physics and theology to that sort of thing."
The Count de Morny distinguished himself in
Africa under the Duke of Orleans, who showed
him great kindness. He made the campaign of
Mascara under General Changarnier, and the first
campaign of Constantine, where he was wounded.
Having been mentioned several times in the bulle
tins, he received the cross of the Legion of Honor
for having saved the life of General Trezel.
M. de Morny had gained in Africa the reputation
of a brave and deserving officer. But for him the
army was but the prelude to social and political

COUNT de MORNY

COUNT DE MOUNT

life. He resigned his commission in 1838, and went
to Paris, where the dandy and the man of business
replaced the officer. He had once been in garrison
at Clermont-Ferrand, where he had made friends,
and where he now found the source of his private
fortune and that of his political rise. He bought a
beet-sugar manufactory in the suburbs of the town,
and in 1838 published a pamphlet on the question
of sugars which gained his appointment, at the age
of twenty-seven, as president of the sugar industry
commission. In 1842 he became deputy from Puy-
de-D6me. At this time M. de Morny was an Orleanist, and
did not dream of the resurrection of the Empire.
In the Chamber he occupied one of the right centre
benches, and was a very energetic supporter of M.
Guizot's ministry. He was thoroughly competent to
handle the commercial and industrial questions to
which he devoted himself. Among other reforms
he asked for small bank-notes, and on the subject
of the conversion of annuities offered a proposition
which afterwards became the basis of the system
adopted. He combined labor and pleasure. The
Vicomte de La GuelonniSre thus describes him at
this epoch : " At the time when he made his appear
ance in Parisian salons, young Count de Morny
was a medley of militarism and pure and keen in
telligence, of positivism and careless unconcern, of
good sense and chivalric audacity, of English stiff
ness and French politeness, of serious tastes and

76 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
light ones, of the man of business and the artist.
Brought up in a social circle both elegant and dis
tinguished, feeling his own power, haughty without
pride, confident without presumption, ambitious with
out egotism, shrewd but not crafty, amiable without
levity, learned without pretence, firm without rude
ness, he had every quality needful for success." A
friend of the Orleans princes, he had created a very
brilliant position for himself both at court and in
the city. He showed his political sense at the be
ginning of 1848, predicting but too surely the com
ing storm. In January he published an essay in the
Revue des Deux Mondes in which the imminent dan
gers of the social question were pointed out with
singular perspicacity, and in February he made the
most laudable efforts to bring about a reconciliation
between the Opposition and the Ministry. His ef
forts were fruitless, but, as a convinced partisan of
the July monarchy he had neglected nothing which
might prevent parliamentary agitation from degener
ating into revolution.
When the revolution of February broke out Count
de Morny had never had any sort of communication
with Louis Napoleon. It was only after the death
of Queen Hortense, when examining the letters and
papers she had left at the chateau of Arenenberg,
that the Prince became aware of a filiation which
caused him the most painful surprise. The future
Emperor saw Count de Morny for the first time in
London, in 1848, but the breadth of his political

COUNT DE MORNY 77
views struck him at once. From that day he re
solved to make him at some time ono of his principal
collaborators and a great dignitary of his empire.
Courteous relations were established between the
brothers, but these never assumed the form of cordial
familiarity. Each kept his distance.
Elected as its representative by the department of
Puy-de-D6me in 1849, Count de Morny maintained a
conservative policy in the Assembly. Minister of the
Interior, December 2, 1851, the part he took in the
coup d"Etat is well known. Although he resigned
January 23, 1852, in consequence of the confiscation
of the property of the Orleans family, he speedily
returned to favor. Elected deputy, he was made
president of the Corps Le"gislatif by the Emperor in
1854, and performed his new duties with tact and
skill. Magnificently housed in the palace of the
Presidency, he removed thither his fine gallery of
paintings and led a princely life.
General Fleury paints a portrait of him which is
somewhat less flattering than that of the Vicomte de
La Guelonniere. It runs as follows : " Taller and
more slender than his master, Morny was better en
dowed physically, but had not in so high a degree
the gift to please and charm. He received you agree
ably enough, but he lacked feeling. Under his
laboriously gracious exterior you felt the sceptic and
the blase\ Accustomed to being petted, flattered by
a crowd of business beggars, it pleased him to be
circumspect whenever he found himself once more

78 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
among friends and well-bred people who made no de
mands upon him. He was a superior person, doubt
less, under many aspects, but nobody could possibly
have called him the best-bred man in France. Like
the Emperor he was calm, imperturbable, and thor
oughly energetic, but there was not in his glance that
kindliness, that sweetness, that penetration which ren
dered the Emperor irresistible and fascinated all who
approached him." In spite of these reservations, Gen
eral Fleury does full justice to the eminent qualities
of M. de Morny. His portrait terminates as follows :
"Such as he was, Morny was an incomparable man,
and his death was a great loss and detriment to both
the Emperor and the country."
When we have to speak of a political man we like
to invoke the testimony of those of his contempo
raries who beheld him close at hand. This is why
we cite the following extract from the journal of
M. Pinard : " Whether at the private dinners of M.
Benoit-Champy (president of the civil tribunal of the
Seine) or the grand receptions of the Palais-Bour
bon, M. de Morny, however different his surround
ings, always seemed to me like a superior person
taking the measure of his epoch and forcing the
democrats to accept him. Really I ought to say that
the democrats sought him more than he did them,
and that they endeavored to do him credit and in
crease his renown. Everywhere at his ease, because
he was always conscious of his importance, he was
never in a passion, much less intimidated. More

COUNT DE MORNY 79
affable with his inferiors than with his peers, his
attitude towards his adversaries had in it a suspicion
of disdain rather than of pride. You felt that he
could raise his voice but would not. Stupid people
did not perceive this disdain, but the clear-sighted
understood it, and that sufficed him. Nobody could
preserve his dignity with less effort."
M. de Morny has been greatly blamed for occupy
ing himself too much with business and financial
speculations. On this head M. Pinard makes the
following reflections : " The only point I am willing
to point out in the brilliant and diversified career of
M. de Morny — and this fault was serious — is that
of driving pohtics and business abreast, four-in-hand,
so to say. A substitute in the first chamber of the
civil tribunal of the Seine, I heard his name very
often when the list of trials was called at the open
ing of the session. M. Mathieu, whom I was after
ward to meet in the Corps Le'gislatif and at the bar,
was his lawyer, and I said to him one day as we were
leaving the palace : ' A man in M. de Morny's posi
tion ought neither to gain suits nor to lose them ; he
ought not to have any.' Still, there was an extenu
ating circumstance in M. de Morny's case : he had
been in that line before he became a person of dis
tinction. Having a good deal of use for money, he
turned his attention to sugar, manufactures, and rail
ways. Business is a wheel within a wheel ; the
manufacturer became a speculator. Too proud to
ask anything from the Emperor's generosity, he relied

80 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
on nobody but himself for the fortune which had
become indispensable. The settling up of his estate
— a long and arduous affair — revealed the secret of
his labors and successes. The assets were large ; so
were the liabilities."
To sum up : M. de Morny, the son of a queen and
the son of his own works, a self-made man, having
found means to turn his birth, his mind, his courage,
and his resolute and enterprising character to his
own advantage, was the type of the modern and
aristocratic statesmen who recall both the great
nobles of the old regime and the heroes of Balzac.
Demanding all possible brilliancy and charm from
life, seeking money in order to spend it prodigally
and with splendor, equal to any of the experts as a
connoisseur of painting, and proving it by the pos
session of a gallery of superb pictures, all bought
and selected by himself, fond of horse-racing and
skilful in all manly sports, a lover of literature, jour
nalism, business, and politics, a composer in his leis
ure moments of pretty little pieces, initiated into the
secrets of all coulisses, those of the theatre and those
of the Bourse, a frequenter of salons, a clubman, a
dilettante, a speculator, a manufacturer, a statesman,
as tactful as he was well bred, he had a hand in
everything and succeeded in all. As seductive in
politics as in love, as much at ease in the presiden
tial chair of the Corps Legislatif as in the boudoir of
a fine lady, and turning an address to the deputies as
neatly as a compliment to a pretty woman, he was in

COUNT DE MORNY 81

all things, and up to the day of his death, a successful
and much sought-after man. Destiny granted him
its last grace when it showed him only the fortunate
period of a regime whose disasters he might have
prevented had he lived but a few years longer.
Having glanced at the man, let us now consider
the ambassador.

CHAPTER X
THE EMBASSY TO ST. PETERSBURG
|N his way to St. Petersburg Count de Morny
stopped at Wildbad to pay his respects to the
Dowager Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (formerly
Princess Charlotte of Prussia), sister of Frederic
William IV. and the Prince of Prussia (the future
Emperor William), widow of Czar Nicholas I. and
mother of Czar Alexander II. Plunged in profound
distress the Empress Dowager, who believed that the
vexations of the Crimean War were in part account
able for her husband's death, felt no great pleasure in
seeing the envoy of Napoleon III. His reception
was polite but cold.
Although not ill pleased on the whole with his
welcome at Wildbad, Count de Morny could not
shake off a certain impression of mistrust. A few
haphazard words, caught by chance or repeated by
unknown persons, gave him at first a suspicion that
the existing friendly relations with France were a
mere matter of convention, a prescribed attitude,
in which confidence would easily be misplaced. It
seemed to him that German affinities remained much
as they had been, and that should the French gov-
82

THE EMBASSY TO ST. PETERSBURG 88

ernment afford the least pretext for it, Russia would
at once renew every tie of the old policy inimical to
France. "In passing through Germany," he wrote to
Count Walewski, " I have been able to ascertain that
if we are not loved by a Russian, we are cordially
detested by a Russian grafted on a German." This
first impression of the ambassador disappeared as
soon as he took possession of his post.
Count de Morny arrived in St. Petersburg during
the night of August 5, lSoG, and took up his quar
ters at the Worensoff-Daschkoff mansion, which he
had hired some months earlier. His splendid style of
living, his horses, the gallery of pictures he brought
with him from Paris, at once attracted the atten
tion of both the upper classes and the people. He
was in luck from the moment he made his appear
ance. The Austrian ambassador, Prince Esterhazy,
had arrived in St. Petersburg forty-eight hours be
fore him, and in consequence should have had his
audiences first. But, just as the Prince was on the
point of asking them, he discovered that he had
left his credentials behind him at Vienna, the result
being that the French ambassador was first received
and thus became the dean of the diplomatic corps.
This little mishap of the representative of Francis
Joseph amused Russian society, very badly disposed
at the time toward Austria.
At Wildbad Count de Morny had found an old
court still suffering under the weight of recent afflic
tions. At St. Petersburg he faced a situation en-

84 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
tirely different : new men and a new policy. Prince
Gortchakoff, Minister of Foreign Affairs, gave him a
most cordial reception. The Prince concealed nei
ther his tastes nor his aversions. He declared that he
had always favored kindly relations with France, and
professed great admiration and personal sympathy
for Napoleon III. He added, that he had always
been grateful for the manner in which Queen Hor-
tense had treated him. And he proved, in the most
precise manner, that being very independent both by
position and character, he had consented to take the
portfolio of Foreign Affairs only because the views
of the Emperor Alexander II. agreed entirely with
his own.
Born April 17, 1818, the Czar married a Hessian
princess, April 16, 1840, who assumed in Russia
the name of Marie Alexandrovna. He had succeeded
his father, the Emperor Nicholas, in 1855, and from
the moment of his accession had given evidence of
his conciliatory dispositions. Intractable, inflexible,
the Emperor Nicholas, whose indomitable energy and
extraordinary tenacity were the mainspring of his
dictatorial and imperious nature, would doubtless
never have made the concessions decided on by his
successor, and if death had not snatched him from the
struggle he was carrying on with unbending obsti
nacy, he would have resisted the four powers in
definitely, even though Austria had assisted them.
Alexander II. adopted another policy. Anxious to
cicatrize the wounds of the war, and dreaming

THE EMBASSY TO ST. PETERSBURG 85
already of the humanizing and civilizing reforms
which were the glory of his reign, he was inclined to
peace, and very seriously desired a reconciliation with
France. Count de Moray had his audience August 7, at
the chateau of Peterhof. The Czar came to meet
him, holding out his hand with kindly condescension.
"I am delighted to see you here," said His Majesty.
" Your presence marks the close of a situation hap
pily ended, and one which ought not to be renewed.
I am much obliged to the Emperor Napoleon, and
will never forget the friendly influence he has exer
cised on our behalf over the entire body of nego
tiators. Count Orloff has also told me what reason
he has to be satisfied with Count Walewski, whom
I beg you to thank for it."
The Russian sovereign added: "The Emperor
has a very warm friend in Count Orloff, who has
come back from Paris completely under his spell.
Moreover, I would be at a loss to make you un
derstand how deeply I am affected by the kindness
shown all the officers whom I have sent to Paris
by the Emperor and the Empress. My brother, the
Grand Duke Michael, has just written me from
Wildbad that he is enchanted with a letter accom
panied by a small model of a twelve-pound cannon
which the Emperor has sent him through M. Fav<5.
I cannot sufficiently assure you how pleased I am
with all these marks of renewed friendship, and,
if the war has any good side, it is that of showing

86 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
us what natural esteem and sympathy exist between
the two nations."
The ambassador replied that the Emperor Napo
leon was of the same mind as the Emperor Alex
ander, and that if he had selected military men
who had been in the Crimea as attache's of an ex
traordinary embassy, it was because they had been
able to form their own estimate of the stubborn
courage of the Russians. It had seemed to Napo
leon III., that by making this choice he would
manifest the most sincere courtesy.
Alexander II. replied : " That was the way I un
derstood it, and we have all been delighted to see
these officers here. In the choice of you, M. le Comte,
to represent the Emperor Napoleon at my court, I
discover a new proof of his feelings toward me. I
know that the position you occupy in France does
not seem to point you out as destined for a for
eign mission, and I am all the more affected by
your being sent here. I acted as the Emperor Na
poleon has done, on that matter, in sending him
Count Kisseleff. He was one of my father's oldest
friends ; for a long time he has been mine ; he is
in charge here of one of the most important de
partments of the empire; his age and inclinations,
no less than his position in Russia, seemed to im
ply the impossibility of a foreign mission, and in
order to induce him to accept it I was obliged to
insist on my wish to see myself represented near
the Emperor Napoleon by a man in whom I have
thorough confidence."

THE EMBASSY TO ST. PETERSBURG H7

The Czar afterwards laid stress, in tho most
friendly way, on his intention to remain on good
terms with France and Napoleon III. "That was,
at bottom," said he, " the policy and aim of my
father, and I have sincerely regretted the misunder
standing between him and you. As for me, I give
you my word of honor that you can rely on the loy
alty and sincerity of my intentions, and, M. le Comte,
if ever a doubt arises in your mind, come direct to me
and you will always find me ready to explain myself
and come to an agreement with you."
By the exceptional favor on the occasion of pre
senting his credentials, Count de Morny was invited,
with all the members of his embassy, to spend the 7th
and 8th of August at Peterhof . The 8th was the birth
day of the Empress. The Grand Duke and the Grand
Duchess Constantine, the Grand Duke Michael, the
Duchess Marie of Leuchtenberg, the Dowager Grand
Duchess of Saxe Weimar, the Grand Duchess Cather
ine, and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz,
who were at Peterhof for the fete, willingly made an
exception to the rule of etiquette requiring an ambas
sador to ask to be received by these personages in
their private residences, and paid their respects to
him after Mass in the chateau. In the evening he
was present at a family ball given by Their Imperial
Majesties. That same day he wrote to Count Walew
ski : " To sum up in accordance with the favorable
dispositions I encounter here, I find Russia a real
mine to be exploited by France. It pertains to the

88 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Emperor's government to decide what advantage
shall be derived from it."
In another despatch, dated August 15, the ambas
sador added : " I feel justified in repeating my first
assertion, to wit, that we are on excellent terms with
everybody here. I do not think I am in error in
saying so, for all who surround us are of the same
opinion." Up to this time the court of Russia, which favored
the Carlist cause, had refused to recognize the gov
ernment of Queen Isabella in Spain. In a drawing-
room talk Prince Gortehakoff said something to Count
de Morny about the intention of the cabinet of St.
Petersburg to recognize that government as soon as
Spain should have recovered a little from the crisis
she had just passed through. It seemed to be his
purpose in introducing this subject to pay a certain
homage to the Emperor Napoleon's influence, and he
gave it to be understood that the Emperor Alexander,
who was still anxious for the evacuation of Greece,
would be glad to see it occur coincidently with the
sending of a Russian Minister to Madrid.
This made the ambassador say in his despatch to
Count Walewski : " Little gifts keep up friendship, as
you will appreciate. I did not try to repel the insinua
tion of the Prince, thinking that it might be advan
tageous to France to serve Spain while at the same
time pushing Russia into a path totally opposite, on
this point, as on many others, to that which the Em
peror Nicholas followed so obstinately."

THE EMBASSY TO ST. PETERSBURG Hit

August 15, the feast of the Assumption and of
Napoleon's patron saint, Count do Morny caused to
be celebrated in the Catholic church of St. Catherine
with a splendor which that feast had never before
received in Russia. He was present, with all the
members of his embassy, at a Mass followed by a
Te Deum and a Domine salvum fac Imperalon-m.
The Catholic Bishop of Riga presided. The ambas
sador had confined himself to notifying the diplo
matic corps that places would be reserved for those
who wished to be present. All the heads of delega
tions came in uniform with their secretaries and at
tache's. Just as he was about starting for the church
M. de Morny received an aide-de-camp of the Czar,
General Ougaroff, bearing the congratulations and
good wishes of His Majesty for the Emperor of
the French.
On arriving at the church the ambassador found
M. Tolstoy, the deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs,
who had been specially commissioned by the Em
peror Alexander to represent him at the ceremony.
General Count Kisseleff had joined M. Tolstoy of
his own accord. The church, brilliantly illuminated
and served by a large body of priests, was entirely
filled by a part of the French colony and a great
number of Russians. Count de Morny wrote to
Count Walewski the same day: "The fine appear
ance of the members of my embassy, greatly set off
by the uniforms of the military delegation, and, if I
may be allowed to say so, by my handsome carriages

90 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
and liveries, seemed to me to produce a very marked
impression in St. Petersburg, the effect of which
cannot but react favorably on our claims to consider
ation. In the evening I had the principal facade of
my house illuminated. It faces the Neva quay, a
stone's throw from the imperial palace. These illu
minations drew a great crowd below my windows. . .
I enter into these details because they derive impor
tance from our situation in this country, and because
the splendor with which I have surrounded the Em
peror's fete seems to me to respond worthily to the
position which our sovereign occupies in Europe."
The ambassador having presented the broad ribbon
of the Legion of Honor to the Emperor Alexander
in the name of the Emperor Napoleon, the Czar said:
"Acquaint His Imperial Majesty, until I can do so
myself, how sensible I am of this attention." M.
de Morny afterwards introduced to the Emperor and
the Empress the military delegation and the newly
arrived attache's of the embassy. August 18, he
wrote to Count Walewski : " Our Crimean officers
have had a great success, and all of them, generals,
officers, and attache's, were invited with me for that
very day to dinner with the Emperor, who showed
us much attention in the evening also. An aide-de
camp of the Minister of War was placed at my dis
posal and that of the generals to show us the public
and military establishments of St. Petersburg, and
the Grand Duke Constantine sent me a verbal mes
sage that he would expect us to-morrow at Cronstadt,

THE EMBASSY TO ST. PETERSBURG 9 1

where we should be shown the fortress. In a word,
we find ourselves the recipients of very marked, very
exceptional favor, which causes as much astonish
ment, I almost said jealousy, to the Russians them
selves as to foreigners."
The ambassador set off for Moscow, August 22.
He met the same success there as in St. Petersburg.
The ceremonious entry of the Czar into the holy
city was fixed for August 29, and his coronation for
September 7.

CHAPTER XI
THE CORONATION OF THE CZAR
~\ /TOSCOW had resumed the festive appearance
-L*-L laid aside since the coronation of the Emperor
Nicholas in 1826, when the Emperor Alexander made
his formal entry, August 29, 1856. The houses
disappeared behind garlands, flags, and hangings.
Squares and open spaces were adorned with gigantic
columns. The entrance to the streets through which
the procession was to pass was marked by triumphal
arches. A double line was formed by the Paw-
lowski regiment on the right and the regiment of
grenadiers on the left. The diplomatic corps occu
pied the windows of the Princess Kotchoubey's man
sion. Count de Morny appeared in a carriage with
six windows and gilded panels, lined with white silk
embroidered in red and gold, and drawn by six
magnificent bays. In Paris, the son of Queen Hor-
tense, restrained by the reserve imposed on him by
Napoleon III., did not brag of his origin. In Moscow
one might say that he advertised it on the blazon
which decorated his gala carriage. In the centre of
this appeared a hortensia with this motto underneath :
Tace, sed memento ; Be silent, but remember.
92

THE CORONATION OF THE CZAR 93
All the officers attached to the embassy, — Gen
erals Lebceuf, Frossard, Dumont, Colonel Reille, M.
Piquemol, Prince de Bauffremont, Count d'Espeuillos,
Marquis de Gallifet, — rode in line at tho doors of
Count de Morny's carriage. Concerning this, Gen
eral Fleury writes in his Memoirs : " I have hoard
the somewhat exaggerated military pomp of the
ambassador criticised rather severely. Being neither
a marshal, nor an army commander, Count de Morny
ought not to have displayed such a wealth of officers
around him. . . . The fault was not Morny's, how
ever, but that of the Wai- Minister, who did not know
how to observe moderation."
The ambassador's carriage was followed by three
others containing the civil members of the embassy,
Count Murat, deputy to the Corps Le"gislatif, Vis
count de l'Espine, second secretary, Viscount Simeon,
Count de Lavalette, the Duke de Gramont-Cader-
ousse, attache's. The magnificence of the equipages,
the brilliant uniforms of the French officers, the
elegant white, red, and gold liveries of the outriders,
coachmen, and footmen, excited the admiration of
the crowd.
At half-past two a cannon announced that the
procession was starting from the imperial residence,
Petrowski, outside of Moscow. The bells of 480
churches and monasteries began to ring and did not
stop until sunset. The clergy of the churches in the
line of the procession awaited the Emperor with
banners and holy pictures. At four o'clock the

94 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Cossacks of the guard made their appearance in the
Tverskaia, a long street which crosses the city between
the gate of St. Petersburg and the Kremlin, with
their red uniforms, their long spears, their fur caps ;
the representatives of the nobility on horses, and the
deputies of Asiatic hordes subject to Russia in glit
tering costumes. Then came a long file of gilded
carriages drawn by six or eight horses. Then the
cavalry guards, the cuirassiers, the dragoons, the
hussars. And now the Emperor on horseback, preceded by
several of his staff. At the door of every church he
halted before the clergy, who incensed him, and,
taking off his hat, he kissed the cross. In passing in
front of the Kotchoubey mansion he bowed graciously
to the diplomatic corps. Behind the Czar rode his
son the hereditary Grand Duke, his brothers, the
Grand Dukes Constantine, Michael, and Nicholas,
Prince Frederic of Prussia, betrothed to the Princess
Royal of England, the Princes Frederic of Wiirtem-
burg, Frederic of the Low Countries, Nicholas of
Nassau, and Frederic of Hesse. A long file of foot
men in the green and gold imperial livery preceded
the two Empresses. The Empress-mother was in a
carriage dating from the eighteenth century, the
panels decorated with pictures by Boucher, drawn by
eight bays, caparisoned with gold and garnet velvet ;
the reigning Empress in a carriage with eight grays
harnessed with silver and blue velvet. Behind her,
in three more gilded and painted carriages, were the

THE CORONATIOW OF THE CZAR 95

princesses of the imperial family, escorted by equer
ries at the portieres and pages behind. On arriving
at the Kremlin, Their Majesties and Their Imperial
Highnesses alighted from horse and carriage, to enter
the churches of the Assumption, the Annunciation,
and the Archangel Michael, where thoy kissed the
holy pictures offered them by the holy synod, and
afterwards prayed above the tomb of the former
emperors. In the evening the Princess Kotchoubey gave a
dinner of two hundred and twenty covers to the
diplomatic corps and several distinguished foreigners.
As dean of the ambassadors extraordinary, Count de
Morny proposed the health of the Czar.
September 1, Alexander II. reviewed the entire
body of troops assembled for his coronation. Count
de Morny and the English ambassador, Lord Gran
ville, were on horseback. During the review, the
Grand Duke Constantine devoted himself especially
to the officers of the French embassy, to whom he
had already given a cordial reception at Cronstadt.
September 5, in the morning, took place the pro
cession of heralds-at-arms proclaiming throughout the
city the accession of the Czar. Wearing red and
gold musketry caps with black, orange, and yellow
plumes, doublets of cloth-of-gold, and carrying their
maces in their right hands, they were preceded by a
squadron of mounted guards and four masters of
ceremonies. Their white horses were led by lackeys
in rich livery. On the Kremlin Square the trumpets

96 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
sounded ; the spectators took off their hats ; the her-
alds-at-arms raised their maces ; then, after the read
ing of the proclamation, they scattered copies of it
amongst the crowd, who seized them with a sort of
fanaticism and preserved them among the sacred
pictures in their houses.
September 7 was the great day : that of the coro
nation. The beginning of the ceremonies was an
nounced in the morning by the church bells and
salvos of artillery. At the signal given by the
Kremlin cannon, all those who were to occupy seats
either in the tribunes erected around the inner court
of the palace or within the church, betook themselves
to their places through a crowd, part of which had
been waiting in the streets since midnight. The dip
lomatic corps assembled at the palace of the French
embassy ; a company of mounted gendarmes guarded
the approaches, and it was from there that it started
for the Kremlin. At the head of this procession
moved the state carriage of Count de Morny.
Never was there a grander or more imposing cere
mony. Moscow is the holy city, the holy mother of
which no Russian speaks without filial respect.
Moscow is the heart of Russia. The Kremlin is the
heart of Moscow. The church of the Assumption is
the heart of the Kremlin. The sanctuary is not vast ;
but how resplendent it was with its walls gilded and
decorated with Byzantine paintings, its extraordi
narily magnificent iconostasis, its priests in chasu
bles of cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver, overloaded

THE CORONATION OF THE CZAR 97

with fine pearls and precious stones ! It was in this
church, the object of universal veneration, that Alex
ander II. was to be crowned.
The Empress-mother was the first to make her
appearance. A superb dais was awaiting her at the
foot of the red staircase. Under the parvis the
Metropolitan received her and presented the cross
and holy water. Entering the sanctuary she took
her place on one of the three thrones on a platform
in the middle.
Then came the Czar and the Czarina, advancing
processionally beneath a canopy of crimson velvet
embroidered with gold and surmounted with white
plumes, which was upheld by thirty-two superior
officers. After bowing reverently before the holy
pictures, Their Majesties seated themselves on two
thrones of equal height overlooking the entire assem
bly. Then the coronation ceremony began. The
Czar vested himself in the imperial mantle with the
diamond chain of the order of St. Andrew. The
Metropolitan made the sign of the cross, imposed his
hands while reciting a prayer and presented on a
cushion the diamond crown surmounted by the finest
rubies that exist. The monarch took the crown and
set it on his own head. Then, with his right hand
he seized the sceptre, and with his left the globe with
its glittering cross. Afterwards, seating himself on
his throne and laying down the sceptre and the globe,
he called the Czarina, who kneeled before him. Lift
ing the crown from his head, he touched the fore-

98 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
head of the Empress with it and replaced it on his
head. Finally he put a smaller crown upon her
forehead and vested her with the mantle and chain
of St. Andrew. At this moment all the bells rang
throughout the city, and one hundred and one guns
were fired.
The Empress-mother, supported by the Grand
Dukes Michael and Nicholas, left her throne, ad
vanced towards her son, who made several steps to
meet her, and fell into his arms. The emotion was
indescribable. The other members of the imperial
family then approached; they embraced the Em
peror on the shoulder and kissed the hand of the
Empress. They were kissed in return upon the
forehead. Wearing the crown and the imperial mantle and
holding in his hands the sceptre and the globe, the
Czar descended from his throne and — all others
remaining on their feet — fell on his knees and
prayed aloud for his people. Then he rose and all
the spectators kneeled. The choir intoned the Te
Deum. When this was ended the Metropolitan took
the cup of Constantine containing the holy chrism,
and dipping into it a gilded branch, anointed the
Emperor on the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears,
breast, and hands. One hundred and one discharges
of cannon and all the church bells of the city an
nounced the holy unction. Then the Emperor went
inside the iconostasis, a part of the altar which only
the priest has the right to enter, and after prostrating

THE CORONATION OF THE CZAR 99
himself three times, received Communion under both
species according to the rite observeil in tho case of
priests, while the Empress received at the door of
the iconostasis in the same manner as the faithful
generally. Before returning to the palace, the C/.ar and the
Czarina, in coronation costume and under the dais,
went to visit the other two churches which likewise
form part of the Kremlin, that of the Archangel St.
Michael, which contains the tombs of the former
emperors, and that of the Annunciation. They left
the dais after this visit and ascended the steps of the
red staircase. On reaching the top, the Czar, having
the Czarina on his left side, turned and thrice saluted
the enthusiastic crowd.
The ambassadors breakfasted in one of the apart
ments of the ancient Kremlin, and again assembled,
to be present, according to usage, at the Emperor's
dinner. A pillar, erected in the middle of the hall
where this repast was to take place, was ornamented
with old cups and pieces of gold and silver ware elat
ing from very remote periods. A table with three
covers had been prepared on an estrade covered with
red .velvet, for the Emperor and the two Empresses.
Not far from the imperial table, another, which ran
all round the hall, had been made ready for tho
Metropolitans of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kicff, Nov
gorod, and the members of their clergy who had
been present at the coronation ceremonies. Some
moments after his arrival the Emperor lilted a glass

100 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
to his lips ; this was a signal for the ambassadors to
depart, and they withdrew.
In the evening the city was like a scene of en
chantment. The rue Tverskaia, the Place of the
Grand Theatre, and the palace of the ambassador of
France, glowed with lights. The illuminated Krem
lin seemed like a magic palace. Multicolored fires
wound around the high crenellated walls and reached
the summits of innumerable towers. The giant of
the steeples, that of Ivan Veliky, dominating radiant
cupolas, threw out sheaves of fireworks in all direc
tions. The crowds massed on the quays of the Mos-
kowa were in transports of joy. In the evening the
Emperor drove out in an open carriage, greeted on
every side by acclamations that were almost frantic.
Oh how magnificently and joyously opened a reign
which was to close in so tragic a fashion !

CHAPTER XII
THE FETES OF MOSCOW
^pHE grand traditional banquet offered to the
people by the Czar, in a plain just outside of
Moscow, was to take place September 20. During the
preceding days, one saw police officers in the streets
inviting all the moujiks whom they met to dine with
the Emperor, and the latter charging them in turn to
convey their thanks to the sovereign. On the day
appointed, in the plain of Petrowski, an infinite num
ber of tables, with mountains of meat, bread, and
cakes, covered a space of more than one square verst.
Fountains springing from the heads of lions, shed
each into its own basin floods of wine, kvass, and tea.
A Moorish pavilion had been erected for the Czar,
who was to preside at the people's banquet after the
fashion of his ancestors. Behind this pavilion were
eight covered galleries, intended for great digni
taries of state and the members of the diplomatic
corps. The Emperor arrived on horseback, sur
rounded by grand dukes and followed by a numer
ous staff. He alighted, and after talking for a few
minutes with the princesses and the ambassadors, re
mounted and rode over the plain. Then he returned
101

102 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
to the imperial pavilion and presided at the gigantic
banquet, which was succeeded by many diversions :
circuses, swings, Russian mountains, and gratuitous
theatrical representations of scenes of national his
tory. The next day, September 21, the distribution of
food and drink and the games began anew in the
plain of Petrowski. Rain poured in torrents, but
nevertheless, the Emperor returned and was received
with lively enthusiasm. Just as he arrived a balloon
filled with bonbons was sent up. On leaving, the
sovereign invited the ambassadors to meet him at
breakfast in the castle of Petrowski. Until night
the crowds, though wet to the skin, made the air
ring with their shouts of pleasure as they amicably
disputed the way to the provisions and the fountains.
September 22, the Emperor offered an entertain
ment in the Kremlin to the citizens, the merchants
of the three guilds, and the different working classes
of Moscow. It was what was called a "bal masque","
although there were neither masks nor dominos.
According to an old custom, suppressed by the Em
peror Nicholas, the Czars and the members of their
families wore, in similar circumstances, a small silk
mantle over their usual dress. This disguise no
longer existed, but the name of masked ball had
been retained. There were no dances properly so
called at this ball, but there were polonaises, a sort
of ceremonious marches executed to the accompa
niment of the orchestra by the Emperor, the Em-

THE FETES OF MOSCOW 103

press, and the personages of their court. Fifteen
thousand invited guests assembled at tho fete of
September 22. The Czar wore his uniform as com
mander of the national militia. The two Empresses,
the Grand Duchesses, and the court ladies were
all in national costume, the Russian kakochnik or
headdress, overloaded with diamonds, pearls, emer
alds, rubies, and streaming veils of tulle or lace.
Robes of gold and silver brocade were trimmed with
furs. Corsages glittered with jewels. Immense em
broidered trains swept the parquetted floor. During
the polonaise the Emperor escorted the Empress first
and afterwards the Grand Duchesses, and shook
hands with the ambassadresses and several noble
ladies. He subsequently visited all the halls of the
palace. A marble staircase, which divides the build
ing in two, leads to the hall of St. George, in which
the names of all knights of this order who have been
rewarded for brilliant deeds on the battlefield are
inscribed on white marble tablets inserted in the walls
in letters of gold. The hall of St. Catherine forms a
pendant to this one. The order from which it bor
rows its name is one instituted for ladies. The Em
press presides at the meeting of its chapter. In the
long gallery, whose decorations recall the emblems
of the order of St. Andrew and include the black
eagles of Russia bearing the imperial escutcheon, the
throne was set under an enormous cloth of gold
lined with ermine. On the left had been placed a
console on which lay the imperial insignia under the

104 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
charge of a guard of honor. The throne had been
separated from the spectators by a gilded balustrade
like that before the bed of Louis XIV. in the chateau
of Versailles, which the ambassadors had been author
ized to cross. Around the sides of the throne-room
tables had been placed which were hidden from view
under salt-cellars and dishes in precious metals, of
fered with bread and salt by the numberless delega
tions. The fete terminated by a supper of two
thousand covers, for which the court of the Kremlin
served as a hall.
Three grand balls were given by the English,
Austrian, and French ambassadors in that order. At
the mansion of Lord Granville, a white and red tent
adorned with flowers recalled a naval f6te on the
deck of a vessel. At that of Prince Esterhazy, a
white and gold salon, refreshed by a large fountain,
was like a salon from the palace of Vienna trans
ported to Moscow. Every one was wondering what
Count de Morny's ball would be. It was a marvel.
The ball took place September 29. The front of
the embassy was illuminated by colored lamps : red,
blue, and white. On every step of the staircase,
adorned with green foliage and flowers, stood pow
dered footmen in white, red, and gold liveries. The
great ballroom was magnificent with its azure decor
ation, its gilded trellis tapestried with natural ivy,
and, springing from a parterre of flowers, its medal
lions representing Loves holding bunches of roses, its
immense mirrors apparently increasing the extent of

THE FETES OF MOSCOW

the hall and reflecting its lights, its six chandeliers,
its great cupola diffusing a brightness still further
increased by lamps placed at intervals in vases of
flowers, its estrade garnished with blue silk curtains
and armchairs of gold brocade and white for the
Emperor and the imperial family, and ite orchestra on
a sort of terrace with a gilded balustrade. A door in
the ballroom led to other salons. One of them had
been transformed into a picture gallery for the fine
pictures brought from Paris by the ambassador.
Another, a charming boudoir in white muslin lined
with blue silk, was intended for the Empress. In a
third was an immense buffet with stewards ranged
behind it in violet and gold liveries, white breeches,
and silk stockings.
At ten o'clock the arrival of the sovereigns was
announced. The ambassador and all his delegation
went to receive them at the foot of the stairs. Pre
ceded by footmen carrying candelabras and followed
by the ambassador, Their Majesties entered the grand
ballroom. The orchestra played the Russian national
hymn. Then came a polonaise, led by Count de
Morny, with the Empress on his arm, followed by
the Emperor, giving his hand to the Baroness See-
bach, daughter of Chancellor Nesselrode, and wife of
the minister of Saxony at Paris. Count de Morny,
being a bachelor, had begged this lady to do the
honors of the fele with him.
The ambassador himself shall finish the description
of his ball. He does so in a despatch addressed to

106 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Count Walewski on September 30 : " The Emperor
and the imperial family were present last week at
balls given them by the ambassadors of England and
Austria. I had yesterday the honor to receive in my
turn the Emperor, who came to the embassy accom
panied by the Empress, the Grand Duke and Grand
Duchess Constantine, the Grand Dukes Nicholas and
Michael, and all the foreign princes now in Moscow.
The Emperor wore the white uniform of the mounted
guards and the broad ribbon and star of the Legion
of Honor. He said to me on entering : ' M. l'Ambas-
sadeur, to-day I have for the first time the honor of
wearing the broad ribbon sent me by the Emperor
Napoleon through you, and I am charmed that it
should be in your house.' Throughout the evening
the Emperor and the Empress testified the utmost
kindness and cordiality. They did me the honor to
remain from ten in the evening until two in the
morning, and did not retire without partaking of
supper. I had assembled around Their Majesties the
diplomatic corps and the elite of St. Petersburg and
Moscow society, as well as the principal military and
civil functionaries of the Empire. It does not become
me to praise my own ball, but it is permissible to say
in accordance with what I have heard of the general
impression, that although the last of the fe"tes of the
coronation it was not the least brilliant."
Indisputably, Count de Morny had been the most
prodigal of the ambassadors.

CHAPTER XIII
FRANCE AND RUSSIA
rpHE hour had come when a durable and definitive
alliance might be concluded between France
and Russia. By a concurrence of providential cir
cumstances the enemies of yesterday had become
friends of to-morrow. The Russians bore a grudge
against the English and the Austrians, but none
against the French. They said that the war be
tween the Emperor Nicholas and Napoleon III.
had been simply a fatal misunderstanding, and that
France in the Crimea had played England's game
instead of serving her own interests. People were
grateful to the Emperor of the French for his atti
tude during the Congress of Paris, and fully resolved
to reward him for it. Count de Morny's great politi
cal good sense assured him that the psychological
moment had arrived for an accord which might be
equally useful to both nations. A shrewd observer,
he perceived at Moscow, perhaps still more than at
St. Petersburg, that not merely the official circles but
all classes of Russian society were actuated by good
dispositions towards France.
Every one said that England would have liked to
107

108 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
continue the war until all the Russian fleet had been
destroyed, and that Napoleon III. had been the sole
obstacle in the way of her doing so. September 3,
1856, M. de Morny wrote from Moscow to Count
Walewski : " They say to us : ' You have been fierce
enemies, but generous and humane ones. You have
never warred on us like savages, and we are aware
that we owe it to the moderation of the Emperor
Napoleon that peace has been concluded; which is
more than we can say of your allies.' So say officers,
merchants, and the people." In the same despatch
he adds : " The more closely I study Europe, the
more I become convinced that the reputation for
great moderation and perfect loyalty is at present
what can give the greatest moral force to a govern
ment. Moreover, I can assure you that people here
have a very real respect for the Emperor of the
French, as well as a great admiration and absolute
reliance on his word. Prince Gortehakoff is inex
haustible on this subject ; he speaks of it openly ; he
says that his policy of thirty years is triumphant,
that he has always considered an alliance with
France as the most natural and the most advanta
geous for Russia : ' France,' says he, ' not a revolu
tionary comet, but a planet directed in its course by
a firm and able sovereign.' This language, under
every variety of expression, is that of everybody, and
is addressed to all of us in every rank. We are cor
dially welcomed everywhere, and not merely at the
official receptions; our officers are treated with a

FRANCE AND RUSSIA 109
friendly distinction ; our ears are constantly filled
with words of admiration and sympathy for France.
Is it only a watchword? So be it, but watchwords
so well given and so generally accepted and repeated
end by becoming a public spirit. I repeat what I
have said to you, that with prudence, we may do
many things here without wounding any one."
There was no cloud on the relations of the two
governments. It might have been thought that the
title of Duke of Malakoff given by Napoleon III. to
Marshal Pelissier would excite some ill feeling in
Russia. But it did not. Count Walewski had ad
dressed the following telegram to M. de Morny,
August 14, 1856 : " The Emperor has named Mar
shal Pelissier Duke of Malakoff. We hope no one at
St. Petersburg will be offended." The ambassador
replied two days later : "lam continually forgetting
to tell you that when I received your telegram an
nouncing the creation of the duchy of Malakoff, I
wondered by what clever arguments I might best gild
this pill for the Russian government. I was even get
ting ready to call attention to the choice as a delicate
attention, because the name of Sebastopol would have
been more logical, greater, and more glorious, but also
more displeasing to Russia, whereas Malakoff is no
longer in existence, is merely a point, recalls nothing
but a brilliant action, etc. Once armed with these
arguments, I concluded not to say a word on the
subject to anybody, nobody has mentioned it to me,
and it is thus that I have conducted this thorny

110 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
negotiation. I am rather disposed to employ this
method often, and I believe that in many cases it
would be almost infallibly successful. To forestall
an objection is often to beget one."
Count de Morny saw clearly that the painful
memories between France and Russia might be for
ever effaced. " I cannot avoid," he adds, " recurring
to our situation in 1815. Let us remember that
several of the Powers then set their foot on our
throats. Others, more generous, extended their
hands. The first have left behind a feeling of bitter
ness ; for the others, in spite of their hostility and
our humiliation, we are conscious of no rancor. The
situation is nearly the same for the Russians. . . .
To show ourselves equitable and benevolent on un
important points is to obtain their gratitude very
cheaply. . . . Hence my opinion is that, without do
ing anything calculated to alarm England, we ought
to take serious note of the friendly dispositions, the
preferences shown for us by Russia, to neglect none
of the petty details which become matters of recon
ciliation, — commercial treaties, exchange of cour
tesies and of politeness, in a word, all those little
means of being mutually agreeable which govern
ments possess and which it is so easy to make use of.
When the time arrives, without dignity being com
promised on either side, I am convinced that I shall
receive here open and public testimonials of a still
closer union. I have taken care not to allow my
desire for it to become visible ; I have not breathed

FRANCE AND RUSSIA 111
a word, but I should be very much amazed at not
succeeding were I charged to arrange a result of that
sort." M. de Morny's despatches do great honor to
his memory. They speak the language of a skilled
diplomatist, a clear-sighted patriot, and a real states
man. M. de Morny had a singular comprehension of the
present and read the future like a prophet. He was
thoroughly aware that France excited great jealousy;
that she could not preserve her preponderating situa
tion except by the aid of some powerful alliance like
that of Russia, and that in order that this alliance
might be fruitful it must take an active character
without recoiling from initiatives. " The European
continent," said he, in his despatch of September 5,
"seems to me a composite of chemical elements of
different species. By agitating it in a certain way,
by adding certain substances, one may produce new
combinations there; but if these are left to repose
quietly and with indifference, the ancient affinities
will be seen to regain their attractive forces, and
some fine day we may be surprised to find all the
former ties renewed and old Europe against us. We
must not delude ourselves ; the triumph of our arms,
the success of our policy, create more envy than
admiration." The conclusion of the ambassador was
that, to neutralize the effects of this jealousy of the
powers it was necessary for France to unite itself to
Russia by solid and indestructible ties.
M. de Morny was right in believing that no gov

112 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
ernment but the Russian could render ineffectual the
suspicions and bitter feelings of the Germans con
cerning France, and that Napoleon III. would obtain
tangible results only through the friendliness of the
Czar. He was affirming undeniable truths when he
added in the same despatch : " In spite of its recent
disasters, Russia still retains a great prestige in Ger
many. On the day when the latter believes that a
serious accord exists between the two Emperors of
France and Russia, she will go through the eye of a
needle. If ever the map of Europe needs to be
peacefully changed, it is very plain that no modifica
tion in favor of France could be made with the con
sent of Germany, nor would be possible without the
concurrence of Russia."
In the forty-two years that I have been in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, many despatches have
passed through my hands. I have read none better
than those of M. de Morny. No trained diplomatist
has surpassed this improvised one. I have just been
looking over the mass of his correspondence, and I
tell myself that if his counsels had been followed our
misfortunes would have been averted. What was
lacking to the diplomacy of the Second Empire was
a quality which M. de Morny, both before and after
his elevation to the title of Duke, possessed in the
highest degree : steadiness of mind. To the end of
his life, too short, alas ! he remained the convinced
partisan of the Russian alliance, the friend and ad
mirer of the Emperor Alexander II. He made in

FRANCE AND RUSSIA 113

vain, but with the most laudable frankness and en
ergy, the greatest efforts to prevent Lis sovereign
from embroiling himself with the cabinet of St.
Petersburg by an imprudent and fruitless interven
tion in the affairs of Poland. But for this unlucky
intervention, which was a snare laid for France by
Austria and still more by England, and which had
no results but to people Siberia with exiles and
break the Franco-Russian agreement, the two Em
pires would have remained indissolubly united, and
Germany, obliged to watch her oriental frontier
instead of being able to disgarnish it completely
would not have dared to venture on the war which
was so fatal to France. It may be affirmed that if
the relations of Napoleon III. and Alexander II. had
been still in 1870 what they were in 1856, we should
have been spared all our disasters. But in 1870 the
Duke de Morny was no longer there to tell Napoleon
III. the truth.

CHAPTER XIV
THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA
rpHE close of the year 1856 was made noticeable at
-*- the Tuileries by a princely visit to which Napo
leon III. attached great importance, that of Prince
Frederic William of Prussia, the future Emperor of
Germany. The Prince was in his sixtieth year and
had retained great vigor both of body and mind.
Born March 22, 1797, he was the son of Frederic
William III., and the brother and heir of Frederic
William IV., who had no children and whose health
was precarious. The Prince of Prussia already took
an active interest in politics, and Napoleon III. fan
cied that he might some day find in him a distin
guished collaborator in his designs on Italy. The
Prince was destined to play a part, alas ! still greater
than that which the Emperor believed to be in store
for him. As a youth he had invaded France, as an
old man he was to invade it again. He remembered
that when scarcely seventeen he had gone to Malmai-
son with his father, Frederic William III., his brother,
the future Frederic William IV., and the Grand Duke
Nicholas of Russia, the future Emperor Nicholas I.
All three had been under the charm of the Empress
114

THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA 115
Josephine and Queen Hortense. The Queen had
sung some songs of her own composition, glancing
sympathetically meanwhile at the handsome Grand
Duke Nicholas. So the Emperor William told ono of
his aides-de-camp some time before his death, and the
conversation was reported to me. In 1856 he could
remind Napoleon III. of the souvenirs of Malmaison.
But he took good care not to evoke those of his own
mother, Queen Louise, whom the victor of Jena and
the conqueror of Berlin had wounded deeply, and
whom the Prussians longed to avenge.
It is curious to note that of all the princes who
came to France during the Second Empire, he who
had the greatest success at the Court of the Tuileries
was probably the future victor of Sedan. No one
was more attentive to the Emperor, more gallant tow
ards the Empress, whose respectful and enthusiastic
admirer he claimed to be. His princely and military
bearing, his kindly aspect, his simple and familiar
conversation, assured him a speciaUy courteous and
cordial welcome.
December 11, 1856, Frederic William, Prince of
Prussia, coming from Osborne in the Isle of Wight,
arrived in Paris accompanied by Baron von Schreck-
enstein, commander in chief of the 7th Prussian
army corps, and by an officer destined unfortunately
to become very celebrated, General Moltke. Colonel
Marquis de Toulongeon, orderly officer of the Em
peror, and Count de Riencourt, equerry, went to
Calais to meet the Prince. Prince Napoleon received

116 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
him at the Gare du Nord, where a battalion of the
guard and another of the line were drawn up. Four
court carriages, escorted by a platoon of guides,
awaited the Prussian Prince and conducted him and
his suite to the Tuileries, where he was received at
the foot of the grand staircase by the grand cham
berlain and the grand master of ceremonies ; at the
head of the staircase by the Emperor, surrounded by
his officers on duty. The sovereign afterwards pre
sented him to the Empress, who was awaiting him
in the white salon with the officers and ladies of her
household, and afterwards conducted him to the
apartments prepared for him in the pavilion of Mar
san. In the evening the Prince and all the members
of his suite and those of the Prussian legation dined
at the table of Their Majesties.
December 31, at one o'clock, the Emperor reviewed
in the court of the chateau nine regiments of the line
and three battalions of infantry, all of whom had
made the Crimean campaign. The troops were com
manded by Marshal Magnan. Napoleon III., escorted
by Marshals Vaillant, Baraguey d'Hilliers, Pelissier,
Canrobert, and Bosquet, had the Prince of Prussia at
his side. The Empress, surrounded by the officers
and ladies of her household, was on the balcony of
the hall of Marshals. After passing in front of the
troops, the Emperor, stationing himself in front of
the pavilion of the Horloge, caused the flags of all
the companies to be united ; then in the presence of
these glorious ensigns, torn by shot and shell, he dis-

THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA 117

tributed the crosses and military medals with his own
hand. During the review the Prince Imperial, com
ing from the palace of the Tuileries, passed through
the line of soldiers, who cheered him heartily. Could
one then have dreamed that he in whose honor this
fine review was given would be so fatal to both the
father and the son ?
December 15, the Emperor and the Prince of
Prussia set off in the morning for Fontainebleau,
where they were to spend two days at the chateau.
In the evening the city was illuminated. The next
day the Emperor with the Prince reviewed the lan
cers of the guard. The Empress arrived at eleven
o'clock in the morning. There was a hunt with
hounds in the forest. At six in the evening Their
Majesties started for Paris with the Prince of
Prussia. December 17. Review of the entire imperial guard
in the court of the Tuileries and on the Carrousel.
The Emperor wore the broad ribbon of the Black
Eagle, and the Prince of Prussia rode at his side.
He was accompanied by Marshals Magnan, de Cas
tellane, Baraguey d'Hilliers, Pelissier, Canrobert, and
Bosquet, and the Prussian generals of the Prince's
suite, the Marquis de Villamarina, Sardinian minister,
and a numerous staff. He passed in front of the
lines, with the Prince of Prussia next to the troops,
and frequently conversed with him. Then he sta
tioned himself before the pavilion of the Horloge.
At this moment he summoned the colonel of the 3d

118 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
grenadiers of the guard and gave him the eagle of
this newly formed regiment. The colonel uttered
some enthusiastic words and carried the flag to his
grenadiers. The march-by then began in perfect
order. In spite of the cold, the Empress was on the
balcony of the hall of Marshals. Among the ladies
surrounding her were Lady Cowle3r, ambassadress of
England, and the Countess Hatzfeldt, daughter of
Marshal Castellane and wife of the minister of Prus
sia at Paris.
In the evening, the Count and Countess Hatzfeldt
gave a grand dinner at the house of the legation, rue
de Lille, in honor of the Prince. Marshals Vaillant,
Magnan, de Castellane, Baraguey d'Hilliers, Pelissier,
Canrobert, and Bosquet, all the ministers, all the
great officers of the crown, and General Renaud de
Saint-Jean d'Angely, were present at this repast.
One of the guests, Marshal Castellane, wrote in his
journal : " The Prince of Prussia talks well and
freely ; he discussed military matters in a way that
showed he knew and had studied his trade ; he is a
tall, fair, handsome fellow, very polite, and with dis
tinguished manners ; everybody speaks well of him."
December 18. Ball of five hundred persons at the
Tuileries. Their Majesties made their appearance at
ten o'clock with the Prince of Prussia, and remained
until three in the morning. The ball took place in
the hall of the Marshals. The men were in dress
coats with knee breeches and silk stockings. The
Emperor and the Empress danced the cotillion,

THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA 119

which lasted more than an hour, with much anima
tion. The supper was served on small tables iu tho
playhouse. December 19. The Prince of Prussia visited the
school of Saiut-Cyr. Received at the chief entrance
by General de Monet and all the staff of the school,
he requested that no change should be made in the
order of exercises. Two platoons of cavalry, com
posed of pupils of the second year, executed all the
platoon movements. Shortly before leaving Saint-
Cyr, the Prince passed in front of the pupils as
sembled with arms and baggage, who afterwards
executed the manual and other exercises. His Royal
Highness expressed his satisfaction to the general
commanding, and went in the evening to the Opela,
where the ballet of the Corsair was given. Rosati
was greatly applauded.
December 20. The Prince dined at the imperial
table and afterwards went with Their Majesties to
the Come'die-Francaise. Hardly had the Countess
Hatzfeldt entered the box that had been offered
her than the Emperor and Empress sent for her to
come to theirs. The Prince was charmed with the
courteous reception given by Napoleon III. and his
court, not merely to himself but to the members
of his suite and the Prussian legation. At this
period no government maintained better relations
with the Emperor than did the Prussian.
December 21. The Prince was to quit Paris at
eleven in the evening with the Marquis de Toulon-

120 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
geon, orderly officer of the Emperor, and Count
Riencourt, equerry, both of whom were to accom
pany His Royal Highness as far as Strasbourg. Be
fore departing he dined at the imperial table. The
Count and Countess Hatzfeldt had also been invited.
The Countess wrote to her father : " We have again
been invited to dine at the Tuileries ; they kept us
to the moment of the Prince's departure for the
train. He has left Paris, and I think he was pleased
with what he saw there ; moreover, everybody here
is well pleased with him. The men and my hus
band had gone, and then the Emperor, after a long
consultation with the Empress, came to say that a
table was to be arranged for a lottery. There were
magnificent prizes, and, which was not quite a matter
of chance, I won a charming gold bracelet with the
word Souvenir written on it in diamonds. This was
a very amiable way of making me a present. No
one could be more charming than both of them were
to us on this occasion, for, while being most polite,
it would have been easy to show us less attention."
Very well inclined toward the Prince, whom he
thought he could induce to enter into his projects
for the changing of the map of Europe, Napoleon III.
highly appreciated the Countess Hatzfeldt, whose
chief aim it always was to bring about a sincere
reconciliation between her two countries. Who
knows? — if the worthy daughter of Marshal Cas
tellane had been ambassadress to Prussia in 1870, the
Franco-Prussian War might never have taken place.

CHAPTER XV
THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1857
r I "^HE year 1857 opened amidst an internal and ex
ternal peace which it seemed that nothing need
disturb. There was a reception of ladies at the Tuil
eries in the evening of January 2. Everybody wore a
court mantle and a train. Preceded by the great offi
cers of the crown, Their Majesties went to the throne-
room, where they seated themselves with the princes
on their right and the princesses on their left. All
others stood. The grand chamberlain having received
the orders of the Emperor, the reception began.
Each lady was led to the Emperor by the grand
chamberlain, and to the Empress by the grand mis
tress of her household.
It had been announced that the Emperor would
go to the Gaiete" on the evening of January 3, to see
a melodrama called La Fausse Ad ult ere, very much
in vogue at the time. He was prevented by a ter
rible and unexpected calamity, the assassination of
Monseigneur Sibour, Archbishop of Paris. The
prelate had gone that day to the church of Saint
Etienne-du-Mont, where a novena in honor of Sainte
Genevieve was in progress. He had just made the
121

122 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
round of the sanctuary, blessing the kneeling throng,
when a man issuing from the crowd sprang upon
and struck him with a knife. The assassin did not
try to escape. Brandishing his knife he shouted:
" Down with the goddesses ! " People thought he
was mad; they did not know that he was opposed
to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and was
alluding in this way to the Blessed Virgin and her
mother. His name was Verger and his age thirty.
He was a suspended priest who thought he had
grounds of complaint against the clergy and had
determined to avenge himself. Although the Bishop
of Meaux had recently written him : " We think you
need to be treated in a private hospital," the doctors
declared him responsible after an examination, and
he was executed on the place de la Roquette, in
presence of an immense crowd, during the night of
January 29.
To superstitious people the murder of the Arch
bishop may have seemed a fatal omen for the new
year and the stability of the dynasty. It was Mgr.
Sibour who had intoned the Te Deum at the time of
the reestablishment of the Empire. It was he who
had received the Emperor and the Empress at the
door of Notre Dame on the day of their marriage
and the day of their son's baptism. The ball which
was to have been given at the Tuileries January 8
was countermanded, and on the 10th the obsequies
of the Archbishop were celebrated with great pomp
in the metropolitan church. Great and painful

THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1S57 V.

emotion was manifested, but the sad impression was
soon dispelled. Four dins later both the court and
the city had resumed all their usual animation.
January 14, Prince Napoleon assembled in the
Palais-Royal all general officers then in Paris who
had taken part in the Crimean War. Among the
fifty-two guests were Marshals Pelissier the Duke of
Malakoff, Canrobert, and Bosquet, Admiral Hamelin,
Generals Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angely, de Salles,
Niel, and MacMahon. Prince Napoleon had begged
his father, King Jerome, to preside at this military
banquet, where nine veterans of the First Empire
were present. The brother of Napoleon I. proposed
this toast: "To the Emperor, the Empress, and the
Prince Imperial, to whom I wish, for the good of our
dear country which he is called to govern, the wis
dom and skill of his august father."
Prince Napoleon afterwards raised his glass in
honor of the commanders in chief of the army of the
Crimea. He spoke as follows : " To Marshal Saint-
Arnaud, the audacious chief who died after the Alma,
having the tricolored banner of regenerated France
as his shroud !
" To Marshal Canrobert, who was able to maintain
the army amid circumstances so difficult, and to re
mit to his successor, as he said himself, troops inured
to war and ready to undertake anything.
"To Marshal Pelissier, Duke of Malakoff, who
immortalized himself by the taking of Sebastopol, and
whose rare and persevering energy enabled him to ¦

124 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
overcome the obstacles by which he was surrounded
on all sides."
The Prince afterwards paid a touching tribute to
the brethren in arms who had met death as worthy
sons of France, and thus concluded his speech :
" The immense advantage of this war, I affirm it with
pride, is that you have proved that France always has
her grand army."
The Marshal Duke of Malakoff replied: "Mon
seigneur, it falls to me to thank Your Imperial High
ness for assembling us around the brother of the
Emperor Napoleon I., the most illustrious of the re
maining representatives of his immortal epopee. . . .
The eulogies you have given the army I had the
honor to command are all the more precious because
they happily remind us that Your Imperial Highness
has shared its labors and valiantly contributed to its
success." The former King of Westphalia then spoke : •" I
thank Marshal Pelissier," said he, " for having asso
ciated my name to that of the grand army. I am
glad to be able to respond by proposing a toast to our
brave armies by land and sea, and in particular to
our glorious army of the Crimea, which, with the
swiftness of the eagle, has seized the first occasion
to place itself worthily beside the old phalanxes of
Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena."
The winter of 1857 was very brilliant. The invi
tations to the grand balls at the Tuileries were very
numerous. These were official festivities intended

THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1S57 125
especially for military men and functionaries ; uni
form or a court dress was indispensable. On every
step of the grand staircase stood one of the hundred-
guards, majestic and motionless as a statue. At the
moment when Their Majesties, followed by officers
and ladies of their households, left the salon of the
First Consul and entered the hall of Marshals, an
usher announced : " The Emperor ! " and the orchestra
began the air of Queen Hortense : Partant pour la
Syrie. The sovereign wore the uniform of a general
of division, white knee breeches and silk stockings.
The Empress, in dazzling toilet, wore on head, arms,
and neck the finest diamonds of the crown. Their
Majesties always opened the ball by a quadrille of
honor, in which age did not prevent great personages
from figuring, and which was danced in the hall of
the Marshals. Before -withdrawing, the Emperor
and Empress passed through this hall and the gallery
of Peace, where dancing was likewise going on, stop
ping here and there before those to whom they wished
to speak. Splendidly lighted, the chateau presented
a magnificent appearance, but it was not well adapted
to this kind of festivities; the apartments of the
Empress not being open to the guests, there was no
egress by way of the salon of the First Consul, the
salon of Apollo, the throne-room, and the salon of
Louis XIV., and it was not easy to make one's way
to the gallery of Diana, where supper was taken
standing. I remember what pains were taken by tho
chamberlains to avoid a crush at the entrance of this

126 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
gallery. But these grand balls at the Tuileries were
State ceremonies, more pompous than elegant. Two,
much more select, were given on the 15th and the
22d of January.
The Emperor opened the session in the hall of
Marshals, February 16. The speech from the throne
was essentially pacific. The sovereign declared that
as the best intelligence prevailed among all the great
powers, it became a duty to labor in earnest for the
development of the forces and riches of the nation.
He said : " Although the moral amelioration and the
material welfare of the greater number is the aim
towards which civilization tends, yet we must not
forget that it marches like an army. Its victories
are never obtained without victims and sacrifices.
These rapid means which facilitate communication,
displace interests and throw into the background
countries which do not yet possess them ; these use
ful machines which multiply the labor of man set him
aside in the first instance and for the moment leave
many hands idle ; these mines which circulate through
out the world a quantity of specie hitherto unknown,
this increase of public wealth which increases con
sumption tenfold, tend to vary and to raise the value
of all things ; this inexhaustible source of riches
which is called credit, begets wonders, and yet ex
aggerated speculation entails many individual ruins.
Thence arises the necessity of coming to the aid of
those who cannot keep up with the accelerated march
of progress, and yet to do so without retarding prog-

THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1S57 127
ress. Some must be stimulated, others moderated;
we must nourish the activity of this breathless, un
quiet, unreasonable society which in France expects
everything from government, and which, neverthe
less, must be confronted with the limits of the pos
sible and the calculations of reason."
This session was the last of the legislature. In his
speech from the throne Napoleon III. thanked the
deputies for the active assistance they had given him
since 1852. He ended with words expressive of
joy and confidence : " Strong in the concurrence of
the great bodies of State and the devotion of the
army, strong above all in the support of the people,
who know that all 1x13: time is devoted to their in
terests, I anticipate a hopeful future for our country.
France, without interfering with the rights of any
one, has resumed her fitting rank in the world, and
may now securely abandon herself to all that the
genius of peace produces. May God not weary of
protecting her, and then that may soon be said of
her which was written of the Consulate by a states
man who was also an illustrious and national his
torian : ' Satisfaction was general and all who were
free from the evil passions of parties rejoiced at the
public power.' "
This homage rendered to M. Thiers was regarded
as a signal of conciliation in matters of internal
policy, and many even imagined that the minister
of Louis Philippe would become that of Napoleon
III. Parties continued to disarm, and the Emperor,

128 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
at the summit of his desires, enjoyed a situation
possibly unique in the world. What would it have
cost him to maintain it ? Simply to resist the im
pulse to adventures and always to preserve peace.

CHAPTER XVI
A BALL AT THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS
"VTAPOLEON III. passed from grave to gay.
-'-^ Monday, February 16, 1857, he had inaugu
rated the legislative session in the majestic apparel
of sovereignty. The next day, Tuesday, February
17, hidden beneath the folds of a long domino, he
was present at a fancy ball at the Ministry of For
eign Affairs.
France never amuses herself well except when vic
torious. For her, glory must walk hand in hand
with pleasure. One may say that since her disas
ters she has not had one whole day of real gaiety.
If all classes of Parisian society were full of anima
tion and vivacity in 1857, it is because the country
had nothing but successes at that time. Our mis
fortunes have made us serious. Masks and disguises
would no longer be suitable in official society. For
such diversions a young sovereign and a triumphant
France would be required.
Nowadays the slightest acts and doings of fash
ionable people are recorded with the most minute
details in the most important Parisian journals. The
mania for publicity has assumed strange proportions.
K 120

130 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
It was otherwise at the beginning of the Second
Empire. The rubric now designated under the new
name of mondanitSs did not exist in the journals
of Paris, and it was in the correspondence of Brus
sels newspapers, the Independance Beige and the
Nord that one looked for the echoes of magnificent
fetes which, if they occurred to-day, would fill the
columns of all the Parisian journals with descrip
tions. After forty years, from 1857 to 1897, I remem
ber the ball I am going to describe as if it had been
given yesterday, so powerfully did the radiant images
of the women who shone there impress my imagina
tion. I seem to perceive at the entrance of the salon,
since occupied by a large picture representing the
plenipotentiaries of the Congress of Paris, now re
placed by a Gobelins tapestry after Rubens, the
Count Walewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the
costume of a statesman of the old regime — the coat
black velvet, ornamented with jet and a blue ribbon.
Opposite the minister, and like him receiving the
guests, appears the Countess Walewska, delightful as
a Diana, the huntress of a Louis XV. ballet, a dia
mond crescent on her forehead, bow in hand, a tiger
skin on her shoulders and a quiver filled with golden
arrows. The salons glitter with a thousand lights. All the
greenhouses of Paris have been stripped to adorn
them with flowers. The coup d'ceil is fairylike. What

A BALL AT THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS 131

a bevy of pretty women ! Here is the Princess Ma
thilde, superb in blue damask ; the Princess Joachim
Murat as a marquise of the old court, in a robe of
white damask ornamented with diamonds and roses.
Princess Czartoryska, daughter of Queen Christina
of Spain and the Duke de Rianzares, as a citizeness
of the times of Louis XVI., with a Necker bonnet;
the quite young and charming Spanish ambassadress
Mare"ehale Serrano (since Duchess de la Torre), in
a Middle Age costume, high robe and a large cross
on the breast; Madame Fleury, wife of tbe general, a
grave and severe beauty, as a court lady of Marie
Antoinette, in a flowered gown with immense paniers,
hair dressed very high and powdered and surmounted
with large plumes ; Madame Taigny as a bat, in
pearl gray ; Mademoiselle Louise Magnan, daughter
of the Marshal of France, master of the hounds, in a
hunting habit of the time of Louis XV. ; Lady Cow
ley, English ambassadress, in Queen Anne costume,
Princess Callimaki in that of Maria de' Medicis ;
Baroness Seebach, daughter of Chancellor Nessel-
rode, wife of the minister of Saxony at Paris, as a
Russian boyard of the time of Peter the Great, with
a cloth-of-gold robe heavily furred and a profusion of
jewels. The majority of the ministers, generals, diplomats,
and high functionaries are in black coats and knee
breeches, with the Venetian mantle. A certain num
ber of men are in domino. Some whose figure and
appearance bear some resemblance to those of the

132 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Emperor, flatter themselves as likely to be mistaken
for him. Among the young men in costume I dis
tinguish Count Olympe Aguado as a Wallachian;
M. de Chassiron as a minion of the court of Henry
III. ; M. Albert de Vatimesnil in a Charles IX. dress,
violet and gold doublet and a plumed toque ; Count
Armand (since minister of France at Lisbon) is very
elegant in the uniform of a musketeer of the Louis
XV. period ; Vicomte de Bresson (since minister of
France at Belgrade) has taken a Spanish costume in
memory of his uncle, ambassador of Louis Philippe
at Madrid.
One of the women most admired is the daughter
of the Marquis du Hallay-Coetquen, the young and
superb Countess de Brigode (now the widow of her
second husband Baron de Poilly). Her costume is
most original and picturesque, that of an Indian
equestrienne: corsage red morocco, covered with
pearls and glass beads of different colors, skirts of
gauze embroidered with foliage and flowers, mingled
with gold and silver threads and fringed with feathers.
This bizarre costume is completed by a panther's head
and skin. Above the forehead of the amazon appears
this head with green eyes the color of her own. On
every side escape the long black tresses of the Coun
tess, whose superb figure is deformed by the skin of
the ferocious beast.
A woman has just entered the ballroom, and all
eyes are presently concentrated on her. It is the
Countess de Castiglione, the most fashionable of the

A BALL AT THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS 183

reigning beauties. For a year society has been talk
ing of her. Henry de Pene wrote in the Nord, in
February, 1856 : " Decidedly, the queen of the season
has been appointed. It is that incomparable beauty
sent us by Italy, Madame the Countess do Castiglione.
The Italian woman in J\tris, such is the title of a
symphony chanted by admiration from morning to
night and from night to morning. Every one seeks
to outvie his neighbor in praising her profile, her hair,
her eyes ; and, supreme consecration of her royalty,
she already has enemies."
Virginia Oldoi'ni, Countess Yelasis de Castiglione,
was born in Florence in 1840. She belongs to one of
the best families in the city of the Medici. She lost
her mother early, and her father, the Marquis Oldo'ini,
a mere embassy attache" when he became a widower,
afterwards attained the highest grades of the diplo
matic career. He was for a long time minister of
Italy at Lisbon. Through her mother, Virginia
Oldoi'ni is the granddaughter of the great Tuscan
jurisconsult, Antonio Lamporecchi. It was in his
palace on the banks of the A mo at Florence that her
earliest years were spent. While yet a child her
charms made her famous in Florentine society. By
the time she was thirteen she had a box of her own
at the Pergola and her private carriage at the Cas-
cine. When barely fifteen she married a Piedmont-
ese, Count Velasis de Castiglione, who became
equerry to King Victor Emmanuel. She has ex
cited general enthusiasm in Turin, London, and

134 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Paris. Count Henri d'ldeville has said of her in his
Journal d'un Diplomate: "It is agreed that she is
marvellously beautiful ; but I would boldly affirm in
addition that she surpasses many women by a supe
riority of intelligence and character which in no wise
yields to that superiority of grace, elegance, and
beauty, which each of them concedes to her." In
the preface of this book an academician, M. Edouard
Herve^ describes her as follows : " A woman whose
beauty Greece would have divinized, and who would
have been reserved as a model for a Phidias or a
Praxiteles ; an antique marble which has wandered
into our profane century."
The Countess is not lavish of herself. She seldom
appears in society. Whenever she does so it is an
event. Behold her entering the salons of the Min
istry of Foreign Affairs in the middle of the fe"te.
She is dressed as the queen of hearts, a symbolic
costume, for it is an allusion to the innumerable
hearts which the Countess "draws after her," as
Racine would have said. On her head glitters a
crown formed of hearts. Her marvellous hair rip
ples around her forehead and falls in cascades on her
neck. Her skirts and corsage are laced with chains
composed of hearts. Her train is caught up on the
hip. 'Tis a bewitching costume.
Who is this rag-picker whose extreme elegance
causes a sensation? Oh the charming costume!
Knee breeches of white satin; flesh-colored silk
stockings ; a vest also of white satin spangled with

A BALL AT THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS 135

gold suns and hearts; a black velvet mask on tho
face ; on the head a policeman's cap adorned with
a string of diamonds; a basket of gilded osier on
the back containing bouquets of gardenias and
white camellias which the gallant rag-picker dis
tributes to the ladies as he passes ; in the right
hand a silver hook, in the left a lighted lantern
whose glass door bears in colors the blazon : " Hearts
and suns." This is the lantern of Diogenes. The
rag-picker sees a blue domino who is walking slowly.
He recognizes the Emperor by his figure, and going
up to him he says : " I am looking for a man ; I have
found him," and he extinguishes his lantern. This
amiable rag-picker is a young diplomate, Count Ame-
lot de Chaillou, whose career has since been brilliant,
and who has been minister of France, first at Buenos
Ayres, where he adopted the niece of a cacique who
had been made a prisoner of war and whose tribe had
been nearly destroyed, and afterwards at Brazil, where
the Emperor Dom Pedro treated him as a friend.
The two persons of whom every one is chiefly
thinking at the ball are those one does not see but
whom each tries to discover under their sheltering
dominos. Count Amelot de Chaillou has recognized
the Emperor. But where is the Empress?
Two women in dominos are seated on a bench in
the middle of the salon beside the ballroom which
ends in the supper room. I approach these women.
The sound of their voices is familiar to me and re
veals their identity. One is the sovereign, the other

136 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
her lady of the palace, the beautiful Countess Gus-
tave de Montebello, wife of the Emperor's aide-de
camp. I am dressed as a page of Marie Antoinette,
and they are the functions of a page with which the
Empress has the kindness to invest me. She charges
me to seek out the persons with whom she wishes to
speak, among others General Canrobert in domino,
and an envoy of the Bey of Tunis wearing a very
correct costume as an Arab chief. This was General
Khere"dine, who afterwards entered the service of the
Sultan and became his Grand Vizier. Towards the
close of the evening the two dominos disappeared
without my having the indiscretion to follow them.
A little later, when the majority of the guests had
gone into the supper room, I saw two mysterious
women drawing near the table where people supped
standing. One of them had discarded her domino
and wore a delightful Bohemian costume. The mask
which hid the lower part of her face did not alto
gether conceal her glowing beauty. Impossible to
dream of a more graceful gait, a finer figure, eyes
more sparkling. The Empress — for it was she —
seeing that I recognized her, asked if I belonged to
the Inquisition. I replied that the inquisitors made
their neighbors tremble, while for my part I was
trembling before her. Her Majesty deigned to reas
sure me by some kindly words, and asked by what
means I came to recognize her. I said that it was by
her fan, "a talisman," I added, " who knows ; perhaps
a sceptre ; in any case, that of beauty."

CHAPTER XVII
THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE AND THE KING
OF BAVARIA
TN the spring of 1857 Napoleon III. received a
visit to which great importance was rightfully
attached, for it was the prelude and the pledge of a
definitive reconciliation between the French and the
Russians. His guest was the Grand Duke Constan
tine, brother of Czar Alexander II. Born Septem
ber 9, 1827, Constantine Nicolaievitch, grand admiral
of Russia, a prince of lofty intelligence, was an ardent
patriot. Having enthusiastically approved the ortho
dox zeal and the warlike policy of his father, the
Emperor Nicholas, he was bent on carrying the war in
the Crimea to extremities so long as hostilities were
in progress. His arrival in Paris was the beginning
of a new era.
The Grand Duke arrived at Toulon April 20, on the
steam frigate Olaff, accompanied by the screw-steamer
Wiborg and two frigates. The French squadron of
evolution, commanded by Vice-Admiral Treliouart,
was ranged in two lines in the roadstead traversed by
the Russian squadron. Sailors standing in the yards
137

138 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
saluted the passage of the Grand Duke, who was also
greeted by a volley of artillery from all the French
vessels. As soon as the Olaff was moored to the new
chain at the entry of the arsenal, Vice-Admirals
Tre"houart and Dubourdieu went aboard the Russian
frigate to pay their respects to the Grand Duke, who
afterwards landed at the arsenal, where he reviewed
the naval troops. The next day he visited all the
vessels of the French squadron. April 23, he was
present, with the officers of the French squadron,
at a ball given in his honor by the maritime prefect.
April 25, he visited the arsenal and went aboard the
Suffren, a school ship of naval cannoneers, where all
the school exercises and some firing with solid shot
were performed in his presence. April 26, he heard
Mass on board the Wiborg. On that day the officers
of the French marine gave the officers of the Russian
marine a dinner on board the Bretagne, the admiral's
ship. The 27th, the Grand Duke went by post to
Marseilles. Returning to Toulon the following
day he embarked on the French despatch boat,
the Eclaireur, placed at his disposal to witness the
launching of a packet belonging to the Imperial
Messageries. The Grand Duke reached Paris at five o'clock on
the last day of April. Prince Napoleon was await
ing him at the Gare de Lyon, which was draped with
French and Russian colors. One of the halls had
been arranged as a reception room, and its benches
were occupied by a large number of ladies, the

CONSTANTINE AND THE KING OF BAVARIA 189

majority of whom belonged to high Russian society.
The Grand Duke was welcomed by Marshal Magnan,
the prefect of the Seine, the prefect of police, Oen-
eral Luders, Count Kisseleff the Russian ambassador,
the minister of Wurtemberg, and all the personnel
of their legations. The double row was formed by a
battalion of grenadiers of the guard and another of
the line. The Grand Duke, accompanied by Prince
Napoleon, entered a carriage drawn by four horses.
The cortege, escorted by two squadrons of the regi
ment of guides, crossed the boulevards, the rue de
la Paix, the rue de Rivoli, passed beneath the arch of
the Carrousel, and arrived at the Tuileries between a
double line formed by a battalion of gendarmerie of
the guard. Awaiting the Grand Duke at the head
of the staircase of honor, the Emperor received him
most graciously and led him into the salon where the
Empress was. In the evening the Prince dined at
the table of Their Majesties with all the members of
his suite. Count Kisseleff, Prince Tolstoy, secretary
of the Russian embassy, and Colonel Albedinski,
were also present at the dinner.
The Grand Duke visited the Louvre, May 2. In
the museum of sovereigns he examined carefully the
objects which had belonged to Charlemagne, Saint
Louis, Anne of Brittany, Francis I., Henry II.,
Henry III., Henry IV. He seemed especially cap
tivated by the camp bed of Napoleon, his little hat,
and his gray overcoat. In the naval museum, which
he visited last, he found occasion to display the

140 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
extent of his naval acquirements. In the evening
he was present at a ball at the Ministry of Marine,
where he made the round of the salons with the
Princess Mathilde on his arm.
The Grand Duke remained in Paris until the 14th
of May. On the 6th he was entertained at the Hotel
de Ville by the municipal council, who offered him
what was called a restricted f He, the Emperor having
decided that the city should reserve all great fStes
for crowned heads, with the exception of those
motived by some national ceremony. On the 11th
he accompanied the imperial family to Fontainebleau,
where they remained until the evening of the Grand
Duke's departure from Paris.
The visit of the Grand Duke Constantine was
immediately succeeded by that of Maximilian IL,
King of Bavaria. At that time the minister of
France at Munich was the Baron de Me"neval, son of
the secretary of Napoleon I. The Baron, who soon
afterwards renounced the diplomatic career in order
to become a priest, had written to Count Walewski,
January 28, 1857 : " I am well aware, although Baron
Von der Pfordten has not yet officially apprised me
of it, that it is King Maximilian's greatest desire to
spend some weeks in Paris during the coming month
of May. A person whose position and close connec
tion with the court of Bavaria are such as to make
him cognizant of the King's sentiments has confided
this desire to me, adding that His Majesty would

CONSTANTINE AND THE KING OF BAVARIA 141
probably not return to Munich without gratifying
an old inclination to go and offer the Emperor the
homage of his respectful sympathy."
May 12, Baron de Melieval said in another de
spatch : "Public attention and interest are directed
toward the stay the King intends to make in Paris.
Pride and sensitiveness, the two dominant passions
of the German character, are, I must say, somewhat
preoccupied with the reception awaiting the King at
the Imperial court, as well as with the impression he
may produce there. The public, and above all the
Bavarian court, view with some apprehension the
approach of King Maximilian to that dazzling scene
where he will be confronted with the splendor and
grandeur surrounding the throne and the person of
our Emperor. For my own part, I am convinced
that the result of this visit will be satisfactory, and
that it will leave the best and most satisfactory
impressions on the mind of the King. France, in
fact, can but win increasing confidence and admira
tion in Europe, by offering to foreign sovereigns the
noble and cordial hospitality for which they are so
eager and so grateful."
Born September 28, 1802, Maximilian II. was the
eldest son of King Louis II. He was the pupil of
Schelling. In consequence of his father's abdication
he ascended the throne March 21, 1848. Well versed
himself in philosophical studies, he protected letters
and the sciences. In 1842 he had married a Prussian
Princess, Marie, daughter of William, uncle of Fred-

142 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
eric William IV., King of Prussia. He was the
brother of Otho, King of Greece.
Maximilian II. arrived at Lyons, at the Gare de
Perrache, at half-past six in the evening of May 15.
Twenty-one discharges of cannon were fired as he
left the station. Troops of all arms formed a double
line from the station to the Hotel de l'Europe where
the King was to alight. Marshal Castellane, com
mander-in-chief of the army of Lyons, rode at the
right side of his carriage. Generals Count Partou-
neaux and Luzy-Bouat succeeded each other at the
left accordingly as the King passed in front of their
respective divisions.
Marshal Castellane wrote in his journal : " The
King of Bavaria is about five feet four inches in
height. He is learned and obliging; he says ami
able things. He is fond of the arts. He is the
grandson of King Maximilian I., who, under the
name of Prince Max, commanded the foreign regi
ment of the Deux-Ponts in the service of France
under Louis XVI."
To receive the Bavarian sovereign Napoleon III.
had sent to Lyons his aide-de-camp, General Baron
de BeVille, his equerry Count de Riencourt, and
Count Charles Tascher de La Pagerie, first chamber
lain of the Empress. Concerning the latter Marshal
Castellane adds : " Count Charles de La Pagerie,
son of the grand master of the Empress's household,
is a man of forty-five ; he was educated in Bavaria,
where he has been a page. He is an excellent man."

CONSTANTINE AND THE KING OF BAVARIA 143
On the 17th the King left Lyons for Paris. Just
as he was about entering the train, the Marshal pre
sented to him the generals, who, after he had passed
in front of their brigades, had all gone lo the station.
The King was amiable to each of them, and said he
should never forget the attentions paid him at Lyons.
We have said that the Grand Duke Constantine
left Fontainebleau the 14th of May. The Emperor
and Empress had remained there to await the King
of Bavaria, who was expected on the 17th. There was
a hunting party in the forest on the 16th, but Napo
leon III. was not present. Having learned that the
health of Senator Vieillard, one of his oldest friends,
was causing great anxiety, he took the first train,
accompanied only by General de Montebello, and
went in a cab from the Lyons station to the house
of the man whom he had loved from childhood.
He profited also by this circumstance to bid another
farewell to the Grand Duke Constantine, who was
to go away that evening.
The King of Bavaria arrived at Fontainebleau at
six o'clock in the evenin /-- He was received at the
station by Marshal Magn.„.i, General Fleury, the
prefect of Seine-and-Marne, and the general com
manding the department. Several court carriages
awaited the sovereign and his suite. A squadron
of chasseurs of the guard formed the escort. In the
court of the Cheval-Blanc, also called the court of
the Adieux, a battalion of grenadiers of the guard
formed a double line. A detachment of hundred-

144 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
guards was drawn up on the steps of the horseshoe
staircase. Followed b}>- the officers of his household,
the Emperor went to the foot of the stairs to receive
the King. The Empress with all her ladies stood
at the top. The presentations were made in the
gallery of Francis I., and the dinner served in the
gallery of Henry III., decorated with the frescoes of
Primaticcio. May 18. Napoleon III. and the King of Bavaria
got into a small carriage which the Emperor himself
drove, and visited the environs. On the same day
some invited guests from Paris came to spend a
week at the ch&teau. In the evening the actors of
the Come'die-Frangaise played the Bataille de Dames,
by Scribe and Legouve\ Many invitations for this
representation had been sent out to the principal
functionaries and notabilities of the city, as well as
to the officers of the garrison. The next morning
the Emperor presided at a ministerial council. In
the afternoon he went out for a drive with the King
of Bavaria in a wagonette. The Dowager Grand
Duchess of Baden, the Princess Marie, Duchess of
Hamilton, and all the other guests, took a long stroll
in the forest. In the evening, the Emperor offered
to his royal guest a night fSte, which was enchanting.
At ten o'clock, thousands of Bengal lights illumi
nated the English garden and lighted up the entire
architecture of the palace. The lake was furrowed
by boats draped with flags and ornamented with
colored lamps. Choruses from the Opela, placed in

CONSTANTINE AND THE KING OF BAVARIA 145

the little pavilion in the middle of the lake, alter
nated with the band of the grenadiers of the guard.
A display of fireworks composed by Ruggieri, the
pieces of which were wafted just above the level of
the water before the final bouquet, brought to a close
an entertainment which had been favored by splen
did weather.
May 24. The Emperor, the Empress, and the
King of Bavaria heard Mass in the chapel of the
chateau. Afterwards they started for Paris, where
they were received at the Gare de Lyon by Prince
Napoleon, who had returned the day before from
Germany. The King dined in the apartments he
occupied in the pavilion of Marsan.
May 27. The King received the diplomatic corps
in his apartments at the Tuileries. In the evening
the Emperor gave a grand dinner, after which the
Bavarian sovereign went to the Opela, where they
were playing the Trouvere. On the 29th he visited
the tomb of Napoleon, the church of Sainte Clotilde
and the Sainte-Chapelle. In the evening he was
present at a representation at the Gymnase.
May 31. Baron de Medieval wrote from Munich
to Count Walewski : " The welcome which the King
of Bavaria is now receiving in France, the atten
tions of which he is the recipient at the hands of the
Emperor, touch both the heart and the vanity of his
subjects very sensibly. I am perfectly convinced
that his sojourn in Paris will greatly heighten the
personal esteem and consideration in which he is

146 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
held by the Bavarians. The splendor which sur
rounds the Emperor, the admiration felt for him by
his friends as well as by his enemies in Germany, the
high idea generally entertained of his character and
his judgment, do in fact give infinite value to the
kindliness with which he receives, and seem to
heighten the merit of the Prince who is now his
guest. I meet no one who is not effusive to me
concerning the magnificent and cordial welcome
which the King is receiving in Paris. I know that
he is himself profoundly affected by it, and that his
letters to the Queen are filled with gratitude towards
the Emperor. The effect produced upon him by this
journey will, I think, be lasting, and I congratulate
myself on having contributed to inspire him with the
idea." June 2, in honor of his guest, the Emperor re
viewed eight regiments of cavalry and six mounted
batteries on the grounds of the hippodrome at Long-
champs. The Empress and the Dowager Grand
Duchess of Baden appeared in an open calash in
front of the troops. The following day, the King
visited Versailles, dined at Paris with the Bavarian
minister, Baron Wendland, and went to the Porte
Saint-Martin. June 4, the Emperor held another review at the
hippodrome of Longchamps in presence of the King.
The troops were infantry, engineers, and a regiment
of the foot artillery of the guard. After the evolu
tions, the two sovereigns went over in front of the

CONSTANTINE AND THE KING OF BAVARIA 147

tribunes, where the Empress had just made her ap
pearance. The King dined with Their Majesties at
the chateau of Saint-Cloud, and chatted in the most
gracious manner with all the courtiers. He charged
the Marquise de Contadcs to remember him kindly
to her father, Marshal Castellane, and told her and
her sister, the Countess Hatzfeldt, wife of the Prus
sian minister, that he had been much pleased at
Lyons, where he had bought some beautiful stuffs
for the Queen. On the 8th of the month he left
Paris to return to his dominions. On the 17th,
Baron de Melieval addressed the following despatch
to Count Walewski : " The King retains the pro-
foundest and most grateful memory of his stay at
Fontainebleau and at Paris. Although it is a cus
tom at the Bavarian court that foreign ministers
never obtain audience of the King except to present
their credentials or cabinet communications, His
Majesty has nevertheless chosen to depart from this
etiquette, very rigorously observed in other cases, in
order to express to me in person the gratitude and
admiration inspired in him by the welcome of Their
Imperial Majesties. The King sent for me to come
to his cabinet this morning, and very kindly described
to me, in the greatest detail, the different episodes of
his sojourn in France. He spoke with genuine en
thusiasm of the grandeur and splendor which envi
ron the throne of the Emperor, of the nobility of his
character, the dignity of his person, and the affa
bility of his manners. His Majesty's praises of the

148 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
kindliness and beauty of the Empress were inex
haustible. " ' Your Emperor,' he said to me, ' is not merely
the greatest sovereign of Europe, he is also the best
of men. I have had long and interesting conversa
tions with him, and consequently I have had occa
sion to appreciate the kindness of his heart and the
sureness of his judgment. I love him as much as I
admire him, and I have the utmost confidence in the
loftiness of his character and the nobility of his sen
timents.' " To receive me, the King had put on the insignia
of the order of the Legion of Honor, a thing he has
done for no one else, which he told me had been con
ferred by the Emperor in person."
At this period, the relations of France with all the
Germanic states, without exception, were intimate.
Napoleon by no means suspected that Germany,
whose language he spoke so well, whose literature
he admired so much, for which he had such a genu
ine sympathy, so real a predilection, and whose sov
ereigns showed him so great a deference, would one
day, through a grievous and terrible misunderstand
ing, become so fatal to him and to France.

CHAPTER XVIII
PRINCE NAPOLEON IN GERMANY
TN 1857, Napoleon III. was endeavoring to concili-
ate Russia, Prussia, and the secondary states of
Germany, which he wished to detach from Austria
in anticipation of the day when he would have to
fight against that power and make war in Italy. He
sent Prince Napoleon as an official envoy to Berlin
and Dresden at the very time when the Grand Duke
Constantine and the King of Bavaria were receiving
a brilliant and cordial welcome at the Court of the
Tuileries. From the time when he left France, Prince Napo
leon maintained an irreproachable attitude. No
more paradoxical tirades, no more audacious theories,
no further trace of the demagogue or the tribune.
The former member of the extreme left disappeared.
Nothing remained but the great noble, the imperial
highness, the son and grandson of kings. In every
foreign court where he appeared during the reign of
his cousin his success was complete.
Leaving Paris May 7, 1857, the Prince arrived the
same day at Cologne. At Magdeburg he abandoned
the strict incognito until then preserved. The recep-
149

150 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
tion given him in the latter city was splendid. Gen
eral de Brandt and Major de Treskow, attached to
his person during his stay in Prussia, were awaiting
him there; the first had served with distinction in
Spain in the armies of Napoleon I., and the second
had made several campaigns in Algeria with the
French troops.
The Prince arrived in Berlin May 8. He was re
ceived at the station by Prince George of Prussia,
Princes August and William of Wiirtemberg, Prince
William of Baden, Marquis de Moustier, minister of
France, and the personnel of the legation. On his
way to the king's palace he was received with re
spectful sympathy by the crowds encumbering the
public thoroughfare. According to the programme,
King Frederic William IV. was to come at seven
o'clock in the evening from Charlottenberg to Berlin
to await there the visit of his guest. But by a very
flattering change in this arrangement, the sovereign,
forestalling the cousin of Napoleon III., took him by
surprise and remained with him for a quarter of an
hour. This call was immediately returned, and the
French Prince was presented by the King to the
Queen and the princesses of the royal family.
At half-past eight in the evening Frederic Wil
liam IV. appeared in his box at the opera with Prince
Napoleon on his right, and presented him, in a way,
to the select audience crowding the theatre. The next
day, in honor of his guest, the sovereign reviewed
the guard in Unter den Linden. He gave the Prince

PRINCE NAPOLEON IN GERMANY 151
the left, that is to say, the side next the troops.
The weather was fine. A prodigious crowd kept up
a constant series of acclamations.
At four o'clock the King offered the Prince a mili
tary banquet to which all the generals and superior offi
cers were invited. The service of honor was magnificent.
The great officers of the crown fulfilled the duties of
their charge, and the pupils of the military school,
dressed in the traditional page's costume, waited on
the princes and princesses. At dessert Frederic Wil
liam IV. drank to the health of the French Prince,
adding : " I desire that the illustrious family to
which he belongs ma)' long be the prosperity of
France, and that this great nation may always remain
the friend of Prussia." In the evening all the Court
were present at a representation of Ferdinand Cortez
at the opera.
On Sunday, May 10, Prince Napoleon attended
Mass at the Catholic church, where the grand master
of ceremonies awaited him. He afterwards received
the diplomatic corps at the palace, and also Baron
von Humboldt, to whom he showed the greatest def
erence. There was a gala dinner that night at the
royal palace in Charlottenberg ; the Prince wore the
broad ribbon of the Black Eagle, which the King
had sent him during the day. He would have liked
to spend the evening in his own apartments ; but it
was hinted that this would be a disappointment to
Berlin society, who had come in a body to the opera
house, hoping to see him. He complied with a good

152 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
grace and occupied the little royal box in company
with the Prince of Prussia, the future Emperor Wil
liam. The ballet of Saltanella was given.
May 11, Prince Napoleon went to visit Potsdam.
The garrison, under command of Prince Frederic
Charles, was drawn up in the grand court. The
French Prince paid a respectful visit to the tomb
of Frederic the Great. The man in charge of it
had known the Prussian hero ; it was he who had
opened the vault for Napoleon I. in 1806, and now in
1857 he led thither the nephew of the victor of Jena,
the vanquished of Waterloo. The Prince went sub
sequently to meditate at Sans-Souci, in the room where
Frederic the Great breathed his last, and which has
been religiously preserved in the condition it was in
at that moment. At the New Castle, the Princess had
him shown the study of the great man, his military
maps, his books, all of them French, his autographs,
and his verses annotated by Voltaire. On his return
to Berlin, the whole population seemed to have turned
out into the streets ; the approaches to the railway
station and the palace were thronged. The Prince,
in full uniform, seated in an open carriage, passed
through the crowd and was greeted with continuous
acclamations. Old men who had witnessed the entry
of Napoleon I. into Berlin were amazed at the resem
blance existing between the uncle and the nephew.
In the evening there was a ball at the mansion of the
French legation, at which the King and all the royal
family were present.

PRINCE NAPOLEON IN GERMANY 158

The future Emperor William showed the utmost
attention to the cousin of Napoleon III. One might
say he did him the honors of the Prussian army dur
ing the manoeuvres, which lasted at least four hours,
and seemed greatly flattered when, on May 13, the
Prince sent him, in the name of the Emperor of the
French, the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
Marquis de Moustier wrote to Count Walewski :
" The Prince of Prussia has received the grand cor
don of the Legion of Honor with unmistakable marks
of sincere satisfaction. Both he and the King wore
the insignia at the dinner which he gave to His Im
perial Highness, and when I was taking my leave he
deigned to make some very enthusiastic remarks on
the pleasure it had given him to be present at my ball
and to receive me in his own house, and congratulat
ing himself on the fortunate circumstances which
had permitted him to deviate in that particular from
the too rigid etiquette of the court."
Prince Napoleon left Berlin May 14, after having
sent to Baron Humboldt the cross of a grand officer
of the Legion of Honor. The Prince and the King
parted with expressions of the utmost cordiality. In
a despatch of May 15, addressed to Count Walewski,
the Marquis de Moustier expressed himself as fol
lows : " Prince Napoleon has left the most favorable
impression here, and in all that he has done has given
evidence of a tact, a moderation, and an acquaintance
with the court of Prussia which might have disarmed
the most persistent ill-will, could any such have been

154 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
evinced in presence of the royal family. The Ga
zette de la Croix has not found a word to say, and, in
an article which has made a sensation, it has paid
tardy but surprising justice to the wisdom and skill
of the Emperor's policy and to the high position he
has achieved in Turkey. However, it insisted on
proving that the visit of the Prince was wholly one
of courtesy and had no political importance."
From Berlin Prince Napoleon went to Dresden,
where the court of Saxony gave him as brilliant a
reception as the court of Prussia. The Saxon sov
ereign at the time was King John, a very learned
and enlightened monarch, the author of a fine trans
lation into German of Dante's Divine Comedy, and
the husband of the Princess Amelia of Bavaria.
Prince Napoleon enjoyed himself greatly in Dres
den. May 15, he visited the battlefield near the
city with the Prince-royal, grand-nephew of the
faithful ally of Napoleon I. He spent the evening
with the Queen Dowager, the reigning Queen, and
the Archduchess Sophia, mother of the Emperor
of Austria. May 16, he went to Pilnitz to wish
the King many happy returns of his birthday, and
then went with him to Moritzburg, a hunting-seat
three leagues from Dresden, built on a most pictu
resque site in the midst of the woods by the Elector
Augustus, King of Poland. After a dinner served to
the accompaniment of hunting-horns they went to
a clearing in the forest to behold a curious spectacle :
herds of stags, bucks, and wild boars coming freely

PRINCE NAPOLEON IN GERMANY 155
from their haunts in the woods to take the food
distributed to them daity at a given hour.
May 17, the Prince heard Mass in the Catholic
church. The reigning famil)- of Saxony is Catholic.
The music in the king's chapel is admirable. Dur
ing the day the Prince received the diplomatic corps
and the Saxon Chevaliers of the Legion of Honor,
all of whom had served in the armies of Napoleon I.
In the evening he dined with Baron Forth Rouen,
minister of France. May 18, he visited the battle
field of Lutzen, and supped in the evening at the
French legation in company with Heir von Beust,
who, after having been president of the ministerial
council of Saxony, passed, some years later, into the
service of Austria, where he became chancellor of
the empire. May 19, the Prince quitted Dresden.
On the 24th he was in Paris.
The reception given bj- the Germans to the nephew
of Napoleon I. proved that an agreement might exist
between them and the French. Germany experienced
a feeling of mingled love and hatred toward the great
Emperor. So colossal, so poetic, so marvellous a fig
ure as that of the conqueror had profoundly impressed
the German imagination. It is a German, Heinrich
Heine, who is the author of the Two Grenadiers,
probably the most beautiful of all the poems inspired
by the Napoleonic epic. It was of Napoleon that
Germany could say: —
Tu domines notre age; ange ou. demon, qu'importe?
Ton aigle dans son vol haletant nous emporte.

156 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
L'oeil meme qui te fuit te retrouve partout.
Toujours dans uos tableaux tu jettes ta grande ombre.
Toujours Napoleon, ^blouissant et sombre,
Sur le seuil du siecle est debout. 1
It was he who had been the protector of the Con
federation of the Rhine; he who had set the royal
crown on the heads of the electors of Bavaria, Wiir
temberg, and Saxony ; he who had struck the most
redoubtable blows at Germanic feudalism; he who,
possibly without being aware of it, had been one of
the chief promoters of German unity. Before fight
ing against Napoleon the Germans had served glori
ously under his banners, and taken part in nearly
all his victories. Hence they recalled the Napole
onic epopee with pride, and all who had formed part
of his armies had eagerly claimed the medal of Saint
Helena which Napoleon III. had instituted.
More than one family tie existed between the
second Emperor and the German sovereigns. Prince
Eugene de Beauharnais, brother of Queen Hortense,
had married a daughter of the first King of Bavaria.
The Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden was a Beau
harnais, the adopted daughter of Napoleon I. Jerome
Bonaparte, former King of Westphalia, was the wid
ower of a daughter of the first King of Wurtemberg.
Was a definitive reconciliation, a sincere union,
1 Thou swayest our age ; angel or demon, what matters it ? —
Thine eagle in its "breathless flight "bears us along. — The eye that
shuns thee finds thee everywhere. — Ever thou dost cast thy great
shadow in our pictures. — Ever Napoleon, splendid and gloomy, —
Stands on the threshold of our century.

PRINCE NAPOLEON IN GERMANY 157
impossible between imperial France and Germany?
We do not think so. What would have been re
quired to bring about a result so desirable for the
general interests of civilization? It would have
been necessary that, loyal to the principle of nation
alities, Napoleon III. should declare in a formal and
categoric manner that he was irrevocably resolved
not to dispute with Germany the possession of the
Rhine provinces, countries especially German. He
ought also to have given pledges to the secondary
states. He was too much preoccupied with Prussia,
where he was always deceived, and too little with
Bavaria, Saxony, and the Grand Duchy of Hesse,
whose statesmen would gratefully have accepted the
encouragement and moral support of France in their
resistance to the ambitious and encroaching policy
of Prussia. Napoleon III. committed the great fault
of neglecting these lesser states, which one day were
to be so fatal to him, and which he might so easily
have conciliated if he had convinced them of his
desire to respect their territories, and, at need, to
defend their rights. Unfortunately, instead of pur
suing this policy, in which he would have gained the
sympathies of Russia, he left his intentions under a
cloud of suspicions and misunderstandings which his
enemies turned to their own advantage, and which
ended in making possible an improbable alliance
between Prussia and those lesser states whicii she
coveted. In 1857, nobody dreamed of such a contingency.

158 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
After his return to France, Prince Napoleon talked
at length to the Emperor concerning his journey to
Berlin and Dresden. Both were equally well satis
fied with it. Each was well acquainted with and
fond of Germany, whose language they spoke as
fluently as French, and where they had acquired part
of their education. Both believed that the Rhine
could flow peacefully between peoples whose mutual
prosperity would be a pledge of concord and pros
perity for the entire world.
This justice must be rendered Prince Napoleon,
that he always remained opposed to the idea of a
rupture between France and Germany. Perhaps, if
he had been in Paris in 1870, the war would not have
been declared. As to Napoleon III., if in 1857 he
was dreaming of making war on Austria in order to
render Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic, it
may be affirmed that a war against Prussia and the
secondary German states never entered his thoughts.
It was fatality which dragged him into it thirteen
years later.

CHAPTER XIX
THE INTERNAL SITUATION
"TTHE internal situation of France was almost the
same in 1857 as at the beginning of the Second
Empire. Although deprived of power, the old
parties had retained their convictions and few new
adhesions were effected, but the very great majority
of the country remained faithful to Napoleon III.
The alliance between the government and the clergy
continued to be close. The Emperor took good care
not to allow his Italian schemes to be suspected.
Interests were secured, and, with the exception of
certain more than usually perspicacious minds, no
one anticipated the adventures and complications of
the future.
All honest republicans disavowed the criminal
plans of Mazzini and his adepts. Drawing back,
and taking care not to foment troubles, they awaited
events. The legitimist party remained passive in the
majesty of its principles. Count de Chambord had
been guilty of the error of forbidding all legitimists
to take the oath to the Empire, thus excluding them
from political life, where they might have gained
159

160 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
experience and qualified themselves for important
parts. It is not easy to understand how a prince
who had permitted his adherents to take the oath
to Louis Philippe had forbidden them to take it to
Napoleon III., closing thus all access to public func
tions or legislative duties, and converting them, as
one might say, into stay-at-home emigrants. This
unfortunate decision had annihilated the legitimist
party, if not from the social, at least from the political,
point of view.
Moreover, up to the time of the Italian War, Count
de Chambord did not criticise the ideas of the
Emperor, which would have been his own had he
reigned. The Constitution of 1852 pleased him ; he
would willingly have appropriated it to the shadow
of the white flag. He said that he had decided to
maintain universal suffrage, and he did not think it
unwise for France to subject itself to a press law
more rigorous than that which had been, if not the
cause, at least the pretext, of the Revolution of 1830.
Let us add that the abandonment of the projects
of fusion between the elder and the younger branch
of the Bourbons had divided the royalist party
against itself and thrown it into confusion. The
Duchess of Orleans had not thought herself author
ized to pledge the future of her young son. Legiti
mists and Orleanists retained their political convictions
and their distinctive tendencies.
It was chiefly among the former adherents of Louis
Philippe that respect for parliamentarism had been

THE INTERNAL SITUATION 161

preserved. As Duke Victor de Broglie expressed it,
they regretted "those generous institutions which
were the accomplishment and the pride of their
happiest years."
The French Academy had become the rendezvous
of a polished and literary opposition which had
maintained, one may say, a purely academic charac
ter, and with which it would have been a mistake on
the part of the government to concern itself. April
5, 1856, occurred the reception of the Duke de
Broglie, replacing one of the best diplomatists of the
July monarchy, Count de Sainte-Aulaire. The Duke
had seized the occasion to make an eloquent eulogy
of Louis Philippe. He said : " Honored during many
years, I would not venture to say by his friendship,
but by his kindness, summoned several times to his
councils, preserving for his memory a useless, and at
my age, an unmeritorious fidelity, I await with con
fidence the judgment which history will pass upon it;
history wiU say whether the eighteen years of peace
which he gave us were attained at the expense of the
honor and interest of the country ; whether his wis
dom does not count for somethir 0 in the prosperity
whose fruits are replenishing our hands ; whether
the army formed by him has shown itself worthy of
France ; whether its sons have shown themselves
worthy of that army."
March 26, 1857, took place the reception of Count
de Falloux, replacing Count Mole", who justly praised
that great minister of Louis Philippe. Napoleon III.

162 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
had the good taste not to take offence at the homage
paid to his predecessor. When the Duke de Broglie,
in his quality as a newly elected academician, went
to pay his official visit at the Tuileries, the sovereign
received him with his usual urbanity, and said : " I
hope, Monsieur le Due, that your grandson may speak
of the second of December as you have spoken of
the eighteenth Brumaire."
Unfortunately, the imperialist journals had less tact
than the Emperor. M. de La Gorce has good reason
to say : " Napoleon III. expressed himself better than
his agents, better than his ministers ; and especially
better than his flatterers." The official and semi
official sheets lauded all acts of authority without
reserve and without distinction, and uselessly at
tacked the old parties in their past and in their pre
sumed tendencies.
The press, which had been called the fourth power
of the State at the time when three powers were
officially recognized in the State, had played only a
secondary part since the regime of 1852. Ceasing to
be faithful organs of parties, the journals could at
most timidly collect and reproduce in covert words
the enfeebled echoes of the opinion of which they
essayed to be the representatives. Still, there were
among them some which retained a real prestige, and
the courteous and measured tone of their articles was
no detriment to the talent of their editors.
Such was the general situation when, after five
years, the government sprung from the coup d'Etat

THE INTERNAL SITUATION 168
and the plebiscite made a new appeal to popular
suffrage' The year 1857 brought the renewal of
the Corps Legislatif. The Moniteur of June 12
congratulated the outgoing Chamber on having
neither transformed the tribune into a pedestal for
interest or ambition, nor deliberated amidst politi
cal passions, nor improvised those amendments which
formerl)' disturbed all the economy of the laws.
The balloting was to begin June 21-22. The gov
ernment had an easy triumph almost everywhere.
The Hemic des Dcur Mondes wrote in its yearly sum
mary for 1857 : " Tired of its long struggles, satis
fied with the repose it has been enjoying for five
years, proud of the situation created for it abroad
by the Eastern War terminated by an honorable
peace, the nation easily allows itself to be carried
along by the current of the Empire." The prefects
exercised a decisive action over the docile masses,
and the governmental candidates had almost no com
petitors. The legitimists did not put in an appear
ance, Count de Chambord having forbidden them to
swear allegiance to the Emperor. The Orleanists
felt that their hour had not come, and there was no
chance for the republicans outside of the great cities.
In the provinces but four candidates opposed by the
government were entered on the lists: MM. Cure",
He*non, Plichon, and Brame, and of these the two lat
ter were independents and not hostile. At Paris five
republicans were nominated, MM. Carnot and Goud-
chaux at the first turn, and at the second General

164 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Cavaignac, M. Emile Ollivier, and M. Alfred Dari-
mon. Such was the germ of an opposition destined
to grow incessantly and in a few years to become
formidable. July 16, just as the elections by ballot were com
pleted at Paris, it was learned that Belanger was
dead. The Empress, who had just sent to inquire
about him, refrained from appearing at a theatrical
representation that evening at which she had been
announced to be present. The Emperor decided that
the cost of the obsequies of the national poet should
be defrayed by his civil list. They were celebrated
at the church of Saint Elizabeth amidst a great array
of troops and policemen. The organ played the air
of the Souvenirs du Peuple : —
" They will talk of his glory
Long underneath the thatch.
The humble roof iu fifty years
Will know no other story."
The electoral agitation had no consequences.
" To-day," said the Moniteur, " when the contest is
ended, and a majority of more than five millions of
votes has plainly expressed the sentiments of the
country, an end should be put to discussions which
henceforth can have no other aim than to disturb
the public mind in vain." The press held its
peace and everything fell back into accustomed
channels. Algeria was pacified like France. After an ex-

THE INTERNAL SITUATION 165

pedition skilfully conducted by Marshal Randon,
Kabylia had surrendered and the Arabs obeyed Na
poleon with the same docility as the French. Tho
imperialists were never tired of saying that the
Empire was immovable.

CHAPTER XX
THE QUESTION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES
TN matters of external policy, the ideas of concord
and universal pacification which seemed in the
ascendency in the Congress of Paris, no longer took
the upper hand in the relations between the powers.
The diplomatic chess-board had been completely
upset. An absolutely unexpected system of alliances
produced itself. The new grouping of the powers
was the antipodes of what it had been during the
Crimean War. Europe, to the great surprise of the
professional diplomatists, was suddenly divided into
two camps: on one side, England, Austria, and
Turkey; on the other, France, Russia, Prussia, and
Sardinia. It was the question of the Danubian
Principalities. M. Louis Thouvenel, in a work equally curious
and substantial, for which the unpublished papers of
his illustrious father have supplied the elements, has
retraced all the details and phases of the discussion
with rare precision. This work is entitled: Three
Tears of the Oriental Question, 1856-1859. The
author has very well understood the importance of
this affair of the Principalities by which Napoleon III.
166

THE QUESTION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES 167
allowed the entire programme of his foreign policy
to be inferred, and which may be called the prologue
of the Italian War. M. Louis Thouvenel has said
with much justice: "No one has ever made suffi
ciently plain to what degree the question of the
Danubian Principalities tended to engender and to
nourish bitterness between the cabinets of Paris and
Vienna. For us the war of 1859 began as early as
1857. In politics as in love, there are no worse
enemies than the betrayed friends of yesterday."
During the Congress of Paris, the French pleni
potentiaries had proposed the reunion of the two
principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia into one
under the authority of a foreign prince and under
the suzerainty of the Porte. This combination hav
ing raised the most lively objections on the part of
Turkey and Austria, there had been an unwillingness
to endanger the impatiently expected work of general
peace ; hence the solution of a question which gave
rise to such serious disputes had been adjourned, and
the only decision arrived at had been that a European
commission should go to the Principalities to gather
the wishes of the populations, wishes expressed by
the local assemblies, known as Divans ad hoc on ac
count of the special purposes for which they were to
be convened.
In such a combination Napoleon saw his two
favorite ideas brought into vigorous prominence, the
principle of nationalities, and the right of peoples to
dispose of their destiny. One might say he showed

168 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
his hand in supporting this thesis, and introduced in
the Balkans the programme which was to be that of
his policy in Italy. Austria saw this plainly and op
posed the union of the Principalities with a bitterness
even greater than that of Turkey, although that
power recognized in the system extolled by Napoleon
III. a serious attack on the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire and the signal for the enfranchisement of
her Christian subjects.
At the Congress of Paris, Lord Clarendon had
seemed to favor the idea of a union under a foreign
prince. But, since then, England, under the in
fluence of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, her ambassa
dor at Constantinople, had completely modified her
view, and now antagonized violently, in union with
Austria and Turkey, the combination to which she
had at first given her approval.
The Grand- Vizier, Ali Pasha, said to M. Thou
venel, in July, 1856 : " The former capitulations
assure to the Wallachians and Moldavians princes
selected from among their own nobles. We pledged
ourselves ab antiquo to this condition only. The
Wallachians and Moldavians cannot modify it with
out our consent. They become factions if they talk of
a foreign prince. As to Europe, it has no more right
to constrain us than it would have to oblige Austria,
while leaving her the suzerainty of Hungary, to re
ceive at Pesth a viceroy of her selection." The
thesis of the Grand-Vizier, it must be owned, was in
conformity with international stipulations and the

THE QUESTION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES 169

English doctrine, which then defended, as a dogma,
the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Advanta
geously to combat the theory of Turkey, Austria, and
England, it was necessary to invoke boldly the right
of peoples to decide their destinies for themselves.
In diplomacy this was a real revolution.
When Napoleon III. proclaimed this novel princi
ple, he was secretly blamed by nearly all French
diplomatists, even by his ambassador at Constanti
nople, M. Thouvenel. The latter addressed at this
time to his friend, M. Benedetti, director of political
affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, private
letters full of sharp criticisms on the external policy
of the government. He wrote, November 10, 1856 :
"Are you very sure that those fallacious journals did
not deceive us in announcing that on September 8,
1855, Sebastopol would fall under the combined ef
forts of France and England ? . . . Oh ! the great
nobles of Moscow are wrong to jest over the tears of
the too sensitive Morny. They ought rather to
gather them up like pearls ! However, to go from one
thing to another, here I am in alliance with M. de
Boutenieff (minister of Russia at Constantinople),
and, moreover, I am beaten on equal terms with him,
which is full of delightful promises for the future.
At bottom, I have no desire to laugh. All that is as
grave in reality as it is pitiful in appearance."
M. Thouvenel saw things under a gloomy aspect
and augured no good from the campaign he was con
ducting, in spite of himself, at Constantinople against

170 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
the former allies of France. He wrote again to
M. Benedetti : " I have a scent which has never yet
deceived me, and I wrote from Athens, officially, in
1850, that the question of the Holy Places would
lead to war. That of the Principalities will end like
the Egyptian affair in 1840, which is, God be thanked,
quite enough."
He who, two years later, was to be the ardent
partisan of the national Italian cause, did not in 1850
show himself favorable to the national Roumanian
cause, and seemed not to share in any degree the
humanitarian and advanced ideas of his sovereign.
" Success for us is most doubtful," he wrote, " and to
my thinking, we are doing ourselves a great deal of
harm in order to hang the recognition of the Rou
manians as a pendant to that of the Hellenes in the
museum of our political illusions. I am profoundly
distressed by the manner in which our foreign affairs
are conducted, and in our history a severe chapter
will follow that describing the last war." (Letter to
the Duke de Gramont, May 26, 1857.)
In the end, M. Thouvenel learned to recognize
that, in the mind of the Emperor, the Roumanian
question was the prelude to the Italian question,
and he then comprehended what had at the time
seemed to him inexplicable. " I am somewhat more
interested in ourselves than in the Roumanians," he
wrote to M. Benedetti, " and it seems to me that we
should get ourselves out of an intricate and danger
ous scrape by notifying these gentlemen in advance

THE QUESTION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES 171
as to what they may expect from us. I am reason
ing, you understand, on the hypothesis that our
policy is without reserves, and that we are not anxious
to regulate on the Po the questions raised on the
Danube. If there is an under side to the cards, I
say nothing further."
There was, in fact, an under side to the cards, and
M. Benedetti did not leave the ambassador in igno
rance that the policy adopted by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs was the personal policy of the
Emperor. M. Thouvenel replied : " I thank you for
letting me into the secret of your tenacity on the
subject of the union of the principalities. Of course,
nothing remains but to let things go on."
However, things were singularly complicated at
Constantinople, and the strife between the Porte,
Austria, and England on one side, and France,
Russia, and Prussia on the other, had assumed an
acute form. It was especially bitter against the
two ambassadors of the nations said to be united by
the entente cordiale. June 18, 1857, Lord Stratford,
wishing to celebrate an anniversary painful to French
hearts, gave a grand dinner at Pera to which he
invited the Prussian chargi d'affaires. It was the
morrow of Waterloo over again.
The more strongly the national aspirations of
the Roumanians affirmed themselves, the more obsti
nately was the English ambassador, in agreement
with Turkey and Austria, bent on annihilating them
per fas et nefas. The European commission, in

172 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
which France was represented by Baron Talleyrand-
Peligord, expressed the real wishes of the two prin
cipalities in vain. As the latter wrote, it was evident
that in both Moldavia and Wallachia the union was
the deepest wish of all honest hearts. On his en
trance at Yassy, the French commissioner was re
ceived with enthusiasm. The shouts of " Long live
France ! " " Long live the Emperor ! " " Long live
the union ! " were unanimous. But English, Aus
trian, and Ottoman diplomacy considered the prin
ciple of nationalities as null.
Prince Vogorides, whom the Sultan had appointed
kaimakam, or lieutenant-governor, at Yassy, drew
up the electoral lists for the Moldavian Divan with
so evident a partiality and employed such fraudulent
manoeuvres that the majority of the electors refused
to take part in the voting. " Vogorides has thrown
off the mask," wrote M. Thouvenel. " He proceeds
by blows, fraud, and violence, in a way to make even
experts in such matters envious. I am rather in the
way of the odious humbug he is making ready for
us." The commissioners of France, Russia, Prussia,
and Sardinia, in the Principalities formally pro
tested against such elections. Austria, the Porte,
and England wished to have them accepted as valid,
because their validity would have been the triumph
of the anti-unionists.
The resulting scandal made Napoleon III. indig
nant. In Majr, 1857, he said to Mehemet Djemil Bey,
the Turkish ambassador at Paris : " We cannot take

THE QUESTION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES 173

it ill that others should not be of our opinion ; but
we have the right to demand that they should treat
us loyally, and that has not been done in the Prin
cipalities. I should be sorry if we had to quarrel
over this question."
The Emperor, who was affirming his favorite prin
ciple of nationalities for the first time, was absolutely
determined that his initial attempt should be a master
stroke. He took the unalterable resolution to obtain
the annulment of the Moldavian elections at any
cost, and no longer confiding in his diplomatists, he
suddenly decided to go to Osborne and plead in
person the cause of Roumanian nationality with the
Queen. August 5, before embarking for Osborne,
he telegraphed to his ambassador at the court of the
Sultan to demand the absolute quashing of the Mol
davian elections, and, if this satisfaction were not
immediately obtained, formally to rupture the diplo
matic relations between France and Turkey. That is
what occurred.
August 6, at noon, the Ajaccio anchored before the
palace of the French embassy. M. Thouvenel was
on the terrace with all the members of his legation.
At the twenty-first of those discharges of cannon
"which," said he, "ought to excite remorse in the
soul of Lord Stratford," he saluted for the last time
the national colors, "with the patriotic emotion, but
with the tranquillity of conscience which consoles the
commander of a vessel forced to haul down his flag."
Several friends of France were there, Madame Con-

174 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
douriotis, wife of the minister of Greece, Prince
Lobanoff, Prince Stourdza, the Marquis de Souza,
minister of Spain, and M. Testa, minister of Sweden.
At the solemn moment when the tricolored flag was
lowered, the crew of the Ajaccio, standing on the
bridge and on the yards of the vessel, shouted, "Long
live the Emperor ! "
Some minutes after the salvo the ambassador went
aboard the Ajaccio, and in three quarters of an hour
arrived at Dolma-Baghtche, the residence of Abd-ul-
Medjid. "Sire," said he, "for the last hour there
has been no ambassador of France at Constantinople;
but, as a private individual honored by the kindness
of Your Majesty, I wished to take leave of you."
Abd-ul-Medjid : " How grieved I am that such an
event, the rupture with a power which has done so
much for my empire and for me, should happen under
my reign ! "
M. Thouvenel : " I do not wish to prolong a scene
which troubles Your Majesty's heart as well as my
own. Hence I withdraw ; but, in this painful mo
ment, I am supported by the consciousness of having
fulfilled to the very utmost my duties towards the
Emperor and towards Your Majesty."
The ambassador saluted. The Sultan followed him
to the head of the staircase, and, so long as he was
in sight, remained in the attitude of "a statue of
despair." M. Thouvenel wrote to Napoleon III. : " I ask the
Emperor's permission to express to him the sorrow I

THE QUESTION OF THE PRI.XCirALlTlEs 175
experienced at having to lower his flag before the
ingratitude and disloyalty of our adversaries, within
two paces of the cemetery where repose thirty thou
sand of our brave soldiers." Such was the situation
when Napoleon III. arrived at Osborne.

CHAPTER XXI
THE OSBORNE INTERVIEW
Wednesday, August 5, 1857. The Emperor and
the Empress leave Saint-Cloud to go to Osborne, in
the Isle of Wight, to pay a visit to the Queen of Eng
land. They arrive at Rouen at three o'clock, to the
sound of cannon. The national guard and the troops
are under arms. At five o'clock Their Majesties
make their entry at Havre, where a gigantic tri
umphal arch has been erected. The houses are hung
with flags and garlands of foliage and flowers. Young
girls dressed in white offer a bouquet to the Empress ;
all the communes of the district are present with
their mayors and their clergy at their head. Their
Majesties drive through the city in an open carriage,
preceded by the young men of Havre on horseback and
escorted by a detachment of hundred-guards. On
the arrival of the imperial cortege on the Place de la
Bourse, where the American vessels are moored, tbe
sailors on the yards make the air ring with hurrahs.
The Emperor and the Empress then go aboard the im
perial yacht, La Reine Hortense, where they dine. At
nine o'clock the yacht, escorted by the despatch-boats
176

THE OSBORNE INTERVIEW 177
Ariane, Pelican, and Corse, quits the port to salvos of
artillery and huzzas. The city is entirely illuminated
and fireworks are set off.
Thursday, August 6. Their Majesties arrive at
Osborne at nine o'clock in the morning of a superb
day. Prince Albert and Prince Alfred have come to
meet them on one of Queen Victoria's boats.
The Queen is delighted to do the honors of the
Isle of Wight, " the island gem of England," to her
guests. There the Queen is surrounded by universal
veneration. Eveiy time she comes, the principal
tower of each castle, the little tower, the gable, and
even the dove-cot of each cottage, are crowned with
the national flag. Osborne House is the seaside resi
dence which she prefers. The park and gardens are
singularly beautiful. Avenues planted with large
trees slope gently towards the shore. Portsmouth
and Spithead are visible in the distance. The castle,
built in modern style, with its two towers of unequal
height, that of the signals, 107 feet, and that of the
clock, 190 ; with its two magnificent terraces adorned
with fountains falling into basins of bronze and mar
ble ; with its clumps of rare flowers grouped at the
balusters, — presents a most agreeable aspect. Itis
peopled with statues, some after the antique, others
the work of contemporary artists. The Italian sculp
tor Marochetti has executed several marbles for
Osborne, among others, busts of Queen Victoria,
Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, the Princess
Royal, and King Victor Emmanuel. The reception-

178 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
rooms are on the ground floor and open upon the
terraces. After breakfast, the Emperor took a walk with
Prince Albert, during which they talked at length on
politics. Friday, August 7. The Emperor and the Em
press, with the Queen, Prince Albert, and the princes
and the princesses, went aboard the royal yacht
Victoria and Albert, for a sail which lasted two hours.
In the evening there was a grand dinner at the
castle. Saturday, August 8. The Duke of Cambridge,
Lord Palmerston, and Lord Clarendon arrived at
Osborne, whither the Emperor had summoned his
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Walewski, and
his ambassador, Count de Persigny.
Sunday, August 9. The Queen is enchanted with
the Emperor and the Empress. She writes to King
Leopold that " nothing could be more amiable, kind,
pleasant, or unginant than both Majesties were.
Albert," she says, "who is seldom much pleased
with ladies or princesses, is very fond of her, and
her great ally." The Queen adds that M. de Per-
signy's devotion to the Emperor, and his courage and
uprightness in all affairs, are pleasant to see.
On both sides very amicable sentiments were ex
pressed. The Emperor did not insist upon the im
mediate adoption of his favorite project, the union of
the Danubian Principalities under the government of
a foreign prince. General Fleury, who was present

THE OSBORNE INTERVIEW 179

at the Osborne interview, has justly remarked : " It
was to perform an act of conciliation w ithout pledg
ing the future too far; since this combination was
to be carried into effect some years later under tho
authority of Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, now
King of Roumania." Hence the fundamental ques
tion, that of the union of the two principalities, was
adjourned as falling under the exclusive jurisdiction
of the European Conference. But, since the will of
the inhabitants was one of the elements of the ques
tion, Napoleon III. considered it just that this will
should be enabled to express itself freely and not be
falsified by a pretended election. He obtained a
pledge that the English government would support
at the Ottoman court the demand made by France,
Russia, Prussia, and Sardinia for the annulling of the
Moldavian elections. For the moment this was the
essential point. The action of Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe being disavowed, Napoleon III. declared
himself satisfied.
Monday, August 10. The Emperor and the Em
press embarked at Osborne for Havre. The fare
wells of the royal and imperial families were marked
by the greatest cordiality. Two days later, the
Queen wrote to King Leopold : " The visit we have
just received has been satisfactory and agreeable in
every way. Politically, it has been a blessing from
Heaven, as Lord Clarendon says, for the unfortunate
difficulties of the Principalities have been smoothed
over and arranged in a satisfactory manner. The

180 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
interview was tranquil and agreeable. Good Osborne
in no way changed its unpretending privacy and sim
plicity. The Emperor talked frankly with Albert,
and Albert did the same with him, which is a great
advantage, and Palmerston said to me, the last day:
' The Prince can say many things which we cannot.'
That is very natural.
"The Emperor, to whom I conveyed your mes
sage, has begged me to say a thousand kind things
to you, and he added : ' The King is not merely very
amiable. He has a great deal of good sense.' "
Lord Clarendon wrote to the Queen: "The im
portance of this visit cannot be overestimated, be
cause the Emperor is France, and better still, France
under its best aspect, because he permits himself to
yield to generous impulses and to appreciate the
truth. His alliance with England has therefore been
renewed and strengthened at Osborne."
This is the letter which the Emperor addressed from
the Tuileries to Queen Victoria, August 15, 1857: —
" Madame and Dearest Sister : — We left Os
borne so touched by the kindly welcome of Your
Majesty and Prince Albert, so penetrated by admira
tion for the spectacle of all the virtues which the
royal family of England affords, that it is difficult
for me to find expressions which will adequately
express the loyal and affectionate sentiments we
experience towards Your Majesty.
"It is so sweet to think that aside from political

THE OSBORNE INTERVIEW 181

interests Your Majesty and your family feel some
affection for us, that in the first rank of my preoccu
pations I place the desire always to be worthy of this
august friendship. I think that when one has spent
some days with you in the intimacy of private life,
he goes away a better man ; so too, when one has
learned to appreciate the varied knowledge and the
lofty judgment of the Prince, one comes away wiser
and more capable of doing good.
"Deign, I pray you, Madame, to say to him who
so nobly shares your destiny, that I have the highest
esteem and the sincerest friendship for him ; and that
is to say how greatly I count upon his own.
" As to Your Majesty's children, they are all gifted
with such good and charming qualities that one loves
them at sight, and that it becomes very natural to
wish them all the happiness they merit.
" Adieu, Madame. God grant that two years may
not elapse before we have the happiness of seeing you
again, for the hope of doing so is the sole consolation
for a painful separation.
" I beg Your Majesty to receive kindly the expres
sion of the sentiments of high esteem and entire de
votion with which I am of Your Majesty the good
brother and friend,
"Napoleon."
The Queen, greatly touched by this affectionate
letter, was particularly pleased by the Emperor's
praise of Prince Albert. She said in her reply: —
" I cannot dispute the favorable opinion which

182 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Your Majesty has formed of my beloved husband,
because I know that he deserves it, since he has no
ambition but to do good and to make himself useful
when he can. In a position so isolated as ours, we
can find no greater consolation and no more sure
support than the sympathy and counsel of him or her
who is called to share our lot in life, and the dear
Empress, with her generous instincts, is your angel
guardian, as the Prince is my true friend."
In French political circles the compromises that had
been effected on the subject of the Danubian Prin
cipalities produced a good result. M. Benedetti,
director of political affairs in the foreign office,
wrote, August 14, to M. Thouvenel, ambassador of
France at Constantinople: "You know what has
been done at Osborne. To my notion, it is a com
plete success. We have been dignified and firm;
we have not withdrawn a syllable of our claims,
which we were the first to formulate, and England
has undertaken to make them prevail at Constanti
nople, dragging along with her those good Austrians,
who will come out of the struggle wonderfully les
sened in public estimation. Look at Lord Stratford,
obliged to make the Porte accept what he had obliged
him to refuse. This is an unprecedented incident in
the life of your colleague ; better still, it is the most
formal disavowal of his entire conduct. I envy you
the spectacle which your two colleagues of England
and Austria must resign themselves to giving you in
presence of that public of Constantinople which will
hardly believe its eyes."

THE OSBORNE INTERVIEW 183
The annulling of the Moldavian elections was de
clared by the Sultan, and the representatives of tho
four powers, France, Russia, Prussia, and Sardinia,
who had broken off diplomatic relations with the
Porte, resumed them. M. Thouvenel wrote : " There
has been a first-class tragi-comedy. However, we
are victors ; we have all that we could ask."
There was no longer aiy cloud on the relations
between France and England. The brightest days
of the entente cordiale seemed to have returned.
Shortly after the Emperor's return to France, Queen
Victoria, with her husband and six of her children,
made an excursion to the Channel Islands. On her
way back from Jersey she landed at Cherbourg,
August 19, without having given any notice to the
city authorities. This unexpected appearance of the
English sovereign on French soil was a new proof of
the union existing between the two countries. The
Queen was received at Cherbourg with the most re
spectful cordiality. She met there General Her-
billon, the victor of Traktir, who thanked her for
having conferred on him the order of the Bath. " I
wear it with great pride," said he. The Queen was
delighted to see the Crimean medal, on which her
image is engraved, on the breasts of French soldiers
and sailors. The next day she visited in detail the
arsenals, the harbor, the gigantic works in progress,
and drove through the environs of tho city before
returning to her vessel, highly satisfied with all that
she had seen. August 21, she wrote to the Emperor:

184 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
" We have made an interesting and agreeable visit
at Cherbourg. The works are magnificent and of
colossal grandeur ; the roadstead is admirable. The
authorities were most attentive to us, and wherever
we were recognized (for we wished things to be as
private as possible), the people showed us the great
est affection. We made a little improvised excursion
into the interior in a wagonette, with post-horses,
which amused us very much. The country is superb.
It is agreeable, in these days of a civilization which
tends to bring all things to a common level, to find
a simple, primitive population, still truly rustic, and
regions still unspoiled by contact with railroads.
Normandy is very beautiful. For us it was full of
interesting souvenirs, for it was the cradle of Eng
land." This peaceful invasion of Normandy, as the Queen
herself called it, was a sign of the times. It proved
how greatly the ancient jealousies had lost their
force. The personal relations between Napoleon III.
and Queen Victoria were excellent. Nevertheless
the Emperor, in spite of the cordial welcome he had
received at Osborne, was obliged to recognize that
his schemes concerning Italy and his desire to
change the map of Europe would not obtain the
assent of the British government, and Prince Albert
had very frankly told him what importance England
attached to the maintenance of the treaties of 1815.
It was towards Russia that Napoleon III. was to
turn his eyes, in the hope of profiting by the bitter-

THE OSBORNE INTERVIEW 185

ness felt by that power against Austria. But he
took good care not to unveil his projects prema
turely, and used every means to make it belioved
that a close union existed between himself and the
English. One would have thought that he aimed at
nothing but the perpetual maintenance of the peace
of Europe.

CHAPTER XXII
THE OPENING OF THE NEW LOUVRE
A UGUST 14, 1857, took place one of the most
memorable ceremonies of the reign of Napoleon
III., the opening of the new Louvre. Nothing is
more beautiful than those peaceful victories which
cost neither blood nor tears, and which have as much
splendor and often more durability than the others.
To complete the Louvre in such a way that, united
to the Tuileries, it would form a single edifice with
that palace, had been, since the days of Francis I.
and Catherine de' Medici, the dream of all French
sovereigns, and notably that of Henry IV., Louis
XIV., and the first Napoleon. But all had recoiled
before the magnitude of the task to be accomplished,
and their resolution had been arrested in the forma
tive period. The Provisional Government of 1848
had been but four days in existence when it decreed,
as the victor of Austerlitz had done, that the Louvre
should be finished. The Legislative Assembly made a
law of this decree, which Napoleon III. had the honor
of putting into execution.
Monuments are always symbols of the regimes
under which they were raised. For a colossal work
186

THE OPENING OF THE NEW LOUVRE 181

like the completion of the Louvre a strong and firm
government, prepared for large expenditures without
having to be subject to control or criticism, was re
quired. Napoleon III., "that sluggish man who is
always in a hurry," as some one said of him, wished
the work to go on quickl}-, and he was obeyed. He
had expressed the desire that the reunion of the
Louvre to the Tuileries should be accomplished
within five years, and the desire was fulfilled exactly.
The first stone of the works was laid July 25, 1852.
August 14, 1857, the Louvre and the Tuileries formed
but one palace.
In his work entitled, France artistique et monument-
ale, M. Havrard has thus summed up this gigantic
performance : " A building on the rue de Rivoli join
ing that of Percier and Fontaine ; two wings more
than one hundred and sixty metres in length, united
by two shorter wings, one to this building on the
north, the other to the gallery beside the water, and
forming interior courts; eight grand pavilions, two
on the rue de Rivoli, six on the Place du Carrousel ;
everywhere on the pavilions, porticos, terraces, up to
the roofs, the sculptor's work completing that of the
architects; that part of the old Louvre which over
looked the Tuileries altered, and in the central pa
vilion an abundance of ornaments replacing the
severity of Le Mercier : for this enormous task five
years had been sufficient." The works, directed in
the first place by the architect Visconti, and after
his death in 1853 by the architect Lefuel, were

188 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
pushed ahead with prodigious activity. The decora
tion contained more than fifteen hundred details of
sculpture ; one hundred and fifty statuaries labored
incessantly. The most distinguished sculptors,
Duret, Barye, Bosio, Cavelier, Dumont, Lequesne,
Guillaume, Simart, etc., lent their most zealous
rivalry to the work. During the year 1857, the
Louvre had employed not less than three hundred
and thirteen thousand two hundred and seventy-two
days' work of artisans laboring on the spot, not to
mention the lockmakers, carpenters, joiners, who
worked at home, the quarrymen who dug out the
materials, and the drivers who carted them over the
roads. Only French iron and marble had been em
ployed. The architect Duban had harmonized the
work of the statuaries and the ornamenters. The
completion of the work had opened two new ways of
transit, one for pedestrians under the Sully pavilion,
the other for carriages under the Richelieu pavilion.
The entire work had cost thirty-six million francs.
The inauguration of the new edifice was surrounded
with exceptional pomp. August 14, 1857, at two
o'clock in the afternoon, the Emperor and the Em
press, accompanied by the princes and princesses of
the imperial family, as well as by the ladies and offi
cers on duty, set out from the chateau of the Tuile
ries, crossed the Place du Carrousel after passing
under the arch of triumph, and entered the Louvre
by the Denon pavilion. Received on alighting from
the carriage by M. Achille Fould, Minister of State,

THE OPENING OF THE NEW LOUVRE 189
and by the great officers of the crown, they crossed
a gallery intended for the museum of sculpture,
ascended the staircase of the Mollien pavilion, and
entered processionally into the hall whore the cere
mony was to take place. Here a throne had been
erected, and opposite to it, to right and left of the
passage by which it was approached, benches had
been placed for the artists, employees, and workmen
who had labored in the construction of the edifice.
The Minister of State came forward in front of the
imperial platform and made a speech which ended as
follows: "Neither the war nor so many other diffi
culties which we have had to encounter have inter
rupted this work, the dream of so many kings, and
which would be sufficient for the glory of an epoch
of peace and prosperity. Your Majesty, whose pres
ence has often excited the ardor of our workers, has
desired to see them assembled before you after the
completion of their task. All throng gladly around
Your Majesty. All are conscious of having done
their duty, and are proud of having had a share in
this truly national work." After this discourse the
crosses and medals were distributed. M. Lefuel,
chief of the Louvre works, received the officer's
cross of the Legion of Honor, and the statuary Bosio
that of a chevalier. Each of the artists, contractors,
and workmen whose names were called mounted the
platform and received his recompense from the Em
peror's hand. When the distribution was over, the
sovereign indicated that he intended to speak. The

190 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
spectators rose to their feet, and, amidst profound
silence, Napoleon III. delivered the following
address : —
" Gentlemen, I rejoice with you over the comple
tion of the Louvre. I congratulate myself especially
on the causes which have rendered it possible. These
are, in fact, the order, the restored tranquillity, and
the prosperity which have permitted me to finish this
national work. I call it so because all succeeding
governments have clung to the honor of completing
the dwelling begun by Francis I. and embellished
by Henry IV. In the Middle Ages, the king inhab
ited a fortress bristling with means of defence. The
progress of civilization presently replaced the cre
nelles and the weapons of war by the results of sci
ence, letters, and the arts. Hence the history of
monuments has its philosophy like the history of
deeds. Just as it is remarkable that under the first
Revolution the Committee of Public Safety should
unwittingly have continued the work of Louis XL,
Richelieu, and Louis XIV. by striking the final blow
at the feudal system and pursuing that of unity and
centralization, so there is a great lesson in beholding
the idea of Henry IV., of Louis XIIL, Louis XIV.,
Louis XV., and of Napoleon concerning the Louvre
adopted by the ephemeral power of 1848. . . . The
completion of the Louvre, to which I thank you for
having contributed with so much zeal and ability, is
not the caprice of a moment, but the realization of a
plan conceived for the glory and sustained by the in-

ZOUVRE 191

terest of the country during more than tliree hundred
years." Their Majesties withdrew amidst the acclamations
of the crowded assembly, and returned to the
Tuileries through the square court of the Louvre,
the wicket of the Colonnade, the rue de Rivoli, the
Richelieu pavilion, and the triumphal arch of the
Carrousel. At seven o'clock in the evening the Minister of
State presided at a banquet given in the hall of the
inauguration to four hundred and seventy guests,
among whom workmen were in the majority. One
of the guests was a woman, the widow of a stone
cutter, who, deprived of all resources by the death
of her husband, had taken his place in the stone-
yards. On the Minister's right sat M. Maret, a
contractor, and on his left M. Riffaut, a working
stonecutter and dresser. At dessert he proposed
this toast: "To the Emperor! To the prosperity,
the glory, the duration of his reign, so fruitful of
great things ! To him was reserved the completion
of this long-suspended work. With so many other
monuments, it will transmit his name to the recogni
tion and the admiration of posterity. To the health
of the Emperor ! "
The yards had been closed all day, but the work
men had been paid as if they had worked. Napo
leon III. was happy. He had just wished himself
many happy returns of his fete.

CHAPTER XXIII
BIARRITZ
A UGUST 17, the Emperor departed with the
Empress and the Prince Imperial for Biarritz,
where he was to remain but a short time, and where
he proposed to leave his wife while he went to the
camp of Chalons, and afterwards to Stuttgart. Like
the Empress, Napoleon III. had taken a violent
fancy to this picturesque beach. After seeing the
King of Wiirtemberg, who had gone there incognito,
he left it with regret to inaugurate on the 23d his
new estate in the Landes. Desiring to favor agri
culture and to give an effectual proof of his affec
tion for the rural populations, the Emperor had
chosen two of the most desolate regions of France
in order to become a cultivator there himself. These
were Sologne and the Landes. The enthusiastic
shouts which greeted his coming showed him that
his idea had been comprehended. The domain he
had just acquired in the Landes contained some
fifteen thousand acres of marsh and heather. His
Majesty had selected the points where the greatest
efforts and the most experiments must be made.
In that part of it which was situated in the canton
192

111.11IBI14

198

of Sabres, there was already a small wooden farm
house, not unlike a Swiss chalet, and comprising,
besides the master's lodging, a stable, a cattle-shed,
and a granary for fodder. At the station of Bou-
heyre, the Emperor accepted a breakfast offered him
by the prefect of the Landes, M. Cornuau. Among
the crowd of peasants in blue bonnets were notice
able the Sehassiers, those nomads of the Landes who
run through the heather or spring across the marshes
on stilts, and whose gigantic strides enable them to
keep pace with the most rapid riders.
At Sabres the Emperor stopped before a mass of
iron which represented the barren land and the
impress of the imperial foot, with this inscription:
" Napoleon III. is the first sovereign who has placed
his foot on this arid land with the noble intention of
fertilizing and regenerating it." At the village of
Bouheyre the Emperor passed under triumphal arches
formed of fir-branches and rose-heather. Preceded
by a mounted guard of honor organized by the young
men of the region, he stopped before a column bear
ing this inscription : " To Napoleon III., regenerator
of the Landes, the grateful ironworkers."
To fertilize uncultivated lands had been one of the
dreams of the prisoner of Ham which it delighted
the Emperor to realize. Pleased with what he had
seen in the Landes, he reached Paris on August 24,
and left it again the next day for the camp of Cha
lons, that one of his creations which he valued most.
The Empress remained at Biarritz for several

194 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
weeks. For this place she did what the Duchess of
Berry had done for Dieppe. It was she who made it
the fashion. One might almost say that she invented
it. Biarritz, which is now a city of eight thousand
souls, and one of the most famous seaside resorts for
fashionable people in all the world, was nothing,
fifty years ago, but a fishing-village, an obscure ham
let whose name no one ever mentioned. The Em
press Eugenie was allured by the picturesque aspect
of this beautiful beach covered with fine sand, and by
the strangely shaped rocks which emerge at varying
intervals : the Coustelette, the Fregate, the Boche-
Ronde, the Roche-Plate, the Bocher de la Vierge; by
those poetic and mysterious grottoes, the grotto des
Ecrits, the Chambre oV Amour. The latter has its
legend : the shepherd Ousa and his betrothed, Edera,
were walking at nightfall on the shore, exchanging
words of love, and deaf to the murmur of the rising
tide. Surprised by the water they took refuge in an
excavation perfidiously offered them by the steep
cliff, where they were found next day enveloped in
seaweed and each other's arms.
The azure sea, the dark-foliaged pines, the yellow
rocks, form a mass of color well calculated to charm
an artist. The main beach, about a kilometre in
length as far as Cape Saint Martin, where there is a
lighthouse, and which is cut in two by a little prom
ontory; the second, that of the Basques, where
the waves, meeting no obstacle, attain extraordinary

msinrmt,

195

violence ; the mountains on the horizon, the Rhune, the
Haya, the Jalzquivel, — combine to form a panorama
as original as grandiose. A dweller there has said,
"Between the superb ocean and the verdant land
scape, Biarritz shines like a diamond inserted in a
sheet of emerald."
For the Empress the great charm of Biarritz was
possibly its nearness to Spain. Faithful to her first
country, she loved to find herself among persons
whom she had known from childhood. No language
seemed to her finer or more sonorous than her mother-
tongue. Many Spaniards came to greet her at Biar
ritz, where she enjoyed all that is pleasant in the life
of a private individual while retaining all the prestige
of sovereignty. September 17, 1857, she made an
excursion on Spanish soil to Saint-Sebastian, which
was especially enjoyable.
Situated on an islet of the gulf of Gascony which
is connected with the continent by a wooden bridge,
Saint-Sebastian, a fortified town, is the seat of the
general captaincy of Guipuzcoa.
To account for the pleasure the Empress experi
enced in being formally received in a Spanish town,
one must remember the sentiments she always cher
ished for Spain and for Queen Isabella, of whom her
mother, the Countess de Montijo, had been the cama-
rera mayor. The ambassador of Spain at Paris, the
Duke de Mandas, has recently communicated to me
two curious letters which bring out plainly those
sentiments of the Empress. Her marriage to Napo-

196 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
leon III. had been agreed on when she wrote as
follows to her sovereign: "Madame, Your Majesty
will allow me to allude to what my mother has the
honor to lay more fully at your feet, and to restrict
myself to rendering to Your Majesty, on this occasion
which overwhelms me with so much honor, the loyal
tribute of my emotions. Aggrandized by the designs
of Divine Providence which I accept without know
ing them, all my inclinations accord with my duties
in urging me to renew here the sincere profession of
the sentiments of respect, loyalty, and love towards
your august person in which, for my happiness, I
was brought up.
" I am confident, Madame, that Your Majesty, well
persuaded of what I have just expressed, will deign
to consider the event which leads me to the throne
as a fortunate one. I am above all confident that
Your Majesty, satisfied with my personal sentiments,
will be convinced, as I earnestly pray, that in the
high and dangerous position I am to occupy, I shall
have no thought but that of contributing to the
utmost of my power to draw still closer the ties which
unite two great nations and two great monarchs to
whose service I shall be perpetually devoted by love
and duty.
" May Your Majesty deign to receive with kindli
ness this declaration so cordially made !
"May God preserve the precious life of Your
Majesty for as many years as may be necessary for
the Spanish monarchy!

BIARRITZ 197

" At the feet of Your Royal Majesty,
"Eugenie de Guzman, Countess de Teba.
" Paris, Jan. 20, 1853."
The following is a translation of Queen Isabella's
reply : —
" Countess de Teba, — It is with the utmost satis
faction that I received your letter of the 20th. The
singular destiny devolved upon you by Divine Provi
dence, and the sentiments of love and devotion for
me personally which you manifest at such supreme
moments, fill me with satisfaction and gratitude for
your noble loyalty.
" You may rely on my entire consent to a union so
glorious for you, and be assured of the wishes I make
for your happiness and that of the Emperor in desir
ing that, both guided by the hand of the Almighty,
you will conduct that great nation to the highest
degree of prosperity and well-being.
" In the difficult and dangerous path which you
must hereafter follow, always take confidence in
the Supreme Being for your guide, and the duty
of sacrificing everything for the Emperor and for
France. "Such are the sentiments of the Queen and the
counsels of your affectionate " Isabella."
Since her accession to the throne, the Empress
Eugenie had neglected no means of maintaining the
most cordial relations between Paris and Madrid,

198 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
and she certainly never suspected that a day would
come when the affairs of Spain would be the indirect
cause which would bring about the fall of the
Napoleonic dynasty. Remote from such presenti
ments, she looked once more upon her native soil
with transports of delight.
September 17, 1857, Her Majesty, accompanied by
her two ladies of the palace, the Countess de Monte
bello and the Viscountess de la Poeze, as well as by
the Marchioness de Contades, embarked at Biarritz
with her sister, the Duchess of Alba, on the steam
boat Coligny. ¦ She arrived at Saint-Sebastian as
night was falling. The city was illuminated. The
air rang with shouts. The band of the Almanza regi
ment played the national airs. Her Majesty's first
visit was paid to the church of Santa Maria, where
the Royal March was played on the organ. Next
she went to the town hall, which occupies one entire
side of the Plaza Nueva, a fine square surrounded by
porticos and houses with iron balconies constructed
on a uniform plan. All the authorities paid her their
respects; she was served with ices, and when she
made her appearance on the balcony of the hall, all
the people hailed her with enthusiastic applause. She
returned to the port preceded by a band and a torch
light procession. The Coligny was illuminated by
Bengal lights, which cast reflections on the immense
crowds on the jetty. The bridge of the vessel was
converted into an elegant dining-room. The sail back
to Biarritz was charming. After dinner a piano was

BIARRITZ 199
brought to the bridge and dancing went on under the
moon and stars. The sea was as clear and tranquil
as a lake.
On the same day — September 17, 1857 — the
Emperor, in the camp of Chalons, was receiving the
visit of the Duke of Cambridge, cousin of Queen
Victoria.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE CAMP OF CHALONS
"ISTAPOLEON III. left Paris August 29, 1857, for
the camp of Chalons. Accompanied by Gen
erals Espinasse, de Failly, de Montebello, Fleury, his
aides-de-camp, and Prince Joachim Murat, he arrived
there towards seven o'clock in the evening. The
entire imperial guard was assembled, comprising an
effective force of twenty-two thousand men and five
thousand horses. The Emperor assumed command
immediately on his arrival, General Regnaud de
Saint-Jean d' Angely, commander-in-chief of the guard,
fulfilling merely those of major-general.
The camp of Chalons was a recent creation of
Napoleon III. It dated from 1856, the time when
General Fleury and Colonel de Castelnau had been
sent to reconnoitre the ground, stake out the barracks,
and designate the site of the imperial and general
quarters. This manoeuvring ground, an immense
quadrilateral where one hundred thousand men can
manoeuvre at ease, is the largest in the entire world.
A pavilion had been erected for Their Majesties;
to left and right of it were two small barracks in
tended for the ladies of the palace ; to the right of
200

THE CAMP OF CHALONS 201
these there was a vast salon, and to the left a dining-
room which could seat a hundred guests. The tents
of the officers of the Emperor's household were to
right and left in an alley behind the imperial pavilion
and leading to the stables ; the latter were situated
in the middle of a pine-grove, and were easily capable
of housing a hundred saddle-horses. Opposite these
stables was the quarter of the squadron of hundred-
guards, with barracks and mess for officers and
soldiers. All this ensemble of wooden buildings
were painted alike. In no European camp were
there better organized imperial or royal quarters.
Napoleon III. was never happier than when in the
midst of his troops, and especially of his guard.
There he felt himself truly Emperor, imperator.
He had always had a passion for military matters and
believed in his own talents as a tactician and his
aptitudes as a commander-in-chief. Having suffered
greatly on account of his absence from the Crimean
battlefields, he counted on taking his revenge. While
conducting the manoeuvres of his troops at Chalons
he promised himself to lead them soon to victory.
He loved the soldiers and was loved by them. He
knew how to talk to them in a suitable way. They
found him gentle, kindly, and benevolent. General
Fleury says : " Greatly inclined to encourage inven
tions, he was constantly planning possible improve
ments in the hygiene and nourishment of the soldiers.
Not satisfied with questioning the colonels as to the
results obtained, whether with regard to a new style

202 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
of shoes or a change of habiliments, the Emperor
collected the opinions of the soldiers of the guard,
whom he questioned one by one. His solicitude was
constant and fatherly, and his generosity unbounded.
How many officers of every rank owe to him the
comfort of their families ! How many unfortunates
were succored in those audiences which were always
granted ! "
Napoleon III. felt at ease in a camp. As his body
was long and his legs short, he looked particularly
well on horseback and was an excellent rider. The
uniform became him and he made a grand appearance
in face of the troops.
On his arrival the Emperor addressed the follow
ing order of the day to the troops : " Soldiers ! I
have assembled you here under my command because
it is useful that the army should imbibe the same
spirit, the same discipline, the same instruction in the
common life of camps. Now the guard, as a select
corps, should be the first to maintain by constant
efforts the rank given it by its former traditions
and its recent services on the field of battle. The
Romans, says Montesquieu, considered peace as an
exercise and war as an application ; and, in fact, the
successes obtained by young armies, are, in general,
only the application of serious studies made during
peace." The order of the day terminated by these counsels,
given to the chiefs and to the soldiers : " I recom
mend to the one a paternal severity, to the others a

THE CAMP OF CHALONS 203

necessary obedience; to all good will and to all a
rigorous observance of dress ; because dress is respect
for the uniform, and the uniform is the emblem of
that noble art of abnegation and devotion of which
you ought always to be proud. Never forget that
every characteristic sign of the army, beginning with
the flag, represents a moral idea, and that your duty
is to honor it. This camp, therefore, will not be an
idle spectacle afforded to public curiosity, but a
serious school which we shall be able to render profit
able by sustained labors, and of which the results will
be evident if the country ever has need of you."
The camp of Chalons wore a holiday aspect. The
presence of a sovereign then in full prestige was an
honor and encouragement to troops that were gay, in
good health, and proud of themselves. The richness
and variety of the uniforms ; the recollection of the
recent exploits of the guard in the Crimea ; the en
thusiasm excited by military things in all classes of
French society; the fine appearance of the troops,
their perfect discipline, their excellent bands ; the
dinners in the imperial quarters, where all the gen
erals, superior officers, and the eldest in each grade
were invited in turn to the sovereign's table; the af
fability of the Emperor, who, after the morning and
night repast of from sixty to eighty covers, chatted
familiarly with his guests, the immense proportions of
an unrivalled manoeuvring ground, — all contributed
to give to the inauguration of the camp of Chalons
an exceptional attraction and charm.

204 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Napoleon III. displayed great activity. He mounted
a horse daily, was present at all the partial exercises,
visited the environs so rich in historic souvenirs, and
in every village through which he passed left behind
him proofs of his munificence. A crowd of peasants,
coming from ten to fifteen leagues distance, remained
whole days in front of the imperial quarters and went
away content after they had seen the Emperor. All
the exercises were performed with perfect regularity.
The camp presented an admirable ensemble. The
guard manifested that precision, that coolness in the
manoeuvres, which it was its duty to present as an
example to the entire army.
Religious ceremonies blended with those that were
military. September 5, the Cardinal-Archbishop of
Rheims came to visit the sovereign and remained all
day at the camp. On the 13th, Mass was celebrated
on an altar in the open air, in the midst of the troops,
by Mgr. Honore", coadjutor of the Bishop of Chalons.
At the elevation the clarions sounded, the drums
beat a salute. Nothing could be more grandiose
than this homage to the God of armies.
September 17, the Emperor received at the camp
two illustrious guests, Englishmen who had taken a
glorious part in the Crimean War, the Duke of Cam
bridge, cousin of Queen Victoria, and Lord Cardigan,
the hero of the famous charge of Balaclava. The
Duke of Cambridge was accompanied by three aides-
de-camp, — Lord Burghersh, Colonel Clifton, and
Colonel Maude. To do honor to the cousin of Her

THE CAMP OF CHALONS 205
Britannic Majesty, the Emperor sent General Fleury
and two platoons of the hundred-guards to meet them
at the Mourmelon station and act as their escort to
the imperial quarters. A double line of cavalry ex
tended all along the way. During the day, Napoleon
III. and the Duke of Cambridge went together through
the camp. The prince, whose valor was known, was
the object of very enthusiastic demonstrations on the
part of the troops. They remembered the Alma and
Inkermann and Balaclava. They saw again with
pleasure the red uniforms of their former companions
in arms. The following da}-, the Duke of Cambridge
and Lord Cardigan were present at manoeuvres which,
like those of the previous day, were commanded by
the Emperor in person.
On Sunday, the 20th, Mass was celebrated in a
more than usually solemn manner. It was said by
the Emperor's first almoner, Mgr. Menjaud. The
troops, in full uniform ranged around the altar, the
cavalry on horseback, the artillery with its batteries
harnessed, presented a magnificent appearance. After
Mass, all the imperial guard filed past the sovereign
and the English prince amidst a considerable con
course of visitors from the neighboring towns, and
even from Paris. On the 21st the Emperor and the
Duke of Cambridge bivouacked with the guard at
Suippe. The next day the Duke took leave of the sov
ereign, who went with him to the Mourmelon station.
During five days the cousin of Queen Victoria had
been loaded with attentions and courtesies. He had

206 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
witnessed grand manoeuvres, experiments in shoot
ing, superb dinners, performances on an improvised
stage. He had been feted, petted, greeted with
applause. The Emperor would not have received
a sovereign better.
Napoleon III. had a very special reason for giving
the English prince so brilliant a welcome. On
leaving the camp of Chalons he was going to Stutt
gart to meet the Emperor of Russia, an interview
which could not fail to disquiet England. In lavish
ing attentions on the Queen's cousin he was striving
to prove that a Russian alliance would not destroy
the English one.
The Emperor left for Stuttgart September 23,
after having remained a month at the Camp of
Chalons. He was to stop on the road at Luneville,
Strasburg, and Baden.

CHAPTER XXV
STRASBURG AND BADEN
PT1HE capital of Wurtemberg was a fortunately
selected spot for an interview between the Em
peror of the French and the Czar. Alexander II.
took a keen interest in the sovereigns of the second
ary states of Germany, whom he considered as friends
and clients. The Emperor Nicholas, his father, was
the son of a princess of Wurtemberg, and this family
tie had established and maintained amicable rela
tions between Stuttgart and St. Petersburg. On the
other hand, it was to Napoleon I. that Duke Fred
eric of Wurtemberg owed the royal crown and an
increase of his dominions after the battle of Auster
Utz. Jerome Bonaparte, former King of Westphalia,
who had married the daughter of King Frederic,
was the brother-in-law of the son and successor of
that monarch, King William.
One might say that the Stuttgart interview had
been arranged for at least a year. In going to this
city Napoleon III. returned the visit paid him by
the King of Wurtemberg in 1856. King William
had left the Tuileries enchanted with his reception,
and he congratulated himself on being able to do
207

208 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
the honors of his own capital to the Emperor in
return. Let us add that the Princess Mathilde had
gone to Stuttgart in 1856, on the occasion of her
uncle's feast-day. Her beauty, grace, and wit had
produced the best impression there, and her visit,
which was meant to be short, was prolonged by
express invitation of the sovereign. Nor let us
forget that one of the best friends of Napoleon III.,
the Queen of Holland, was the daughter of the
King of Wurtemberg, who felt a great affection for
her, and saw her often. All these influences and
souvenirs combined to assure the Emperor the most
sympathetic and cordial reception from Wurtemberg
and its sovereign. All Germany, with the possible
exception of the German states of Austria, looked
favorably on a journey which from Strasburg to
Stuttgart was simply a series of ovations.
In the morning of September 24, 1857, Napoleon
reviewed a cavalry division at Lune'ville. At three
o'clock he arrived at Strasburg, accompanied by two
of his aides-de-camp, General Fleury and General
de Failly, as well as by one of his orderlies, Prince
Joachim Murat. He was received at the station by
the authorities, the deputies of the department, and
Vicomte de Serre, Minister of France at Carlsruhe.
The railway station had been brilliantly illuminated.
A vast platform was occupied by the ladies of the
city, who rained flowers upon the sovereign as he
passed. A triumphal arch surmounted by the im
perial eagle, and covered with emblems, had been

STRASBURG AND BADEN 209
erected at the entry of the street leading from tho
station. Private homes and public buildings were
hung with flags, and adorned with garlands sur
rounding the Emperor's escutcheon. After passing
through the reception-room, Napoleon III. found
the mayors of all the communes assembled in the
court of the departure platform, and was received
by them with acclamations. No province of the
empire was more devoted to him than Alsace. He
spoke to several of the city magistrates, and charged
them to tell the constituencies they represented
how deeply he felt the marks of confidence and
sympathy which they had given him under all cir
cumstances. On leaving the station the Emperor mounted a
horse and went with his escort to the house of the
prefecture, where apartments had been made ready
for him. Halting on the Place Kleber, he reviewed
the troops of the division, who saluted him with en
thusiastic cheers. He received the authorities at
the prefecture, where the Grand Duke of Baden
arrived at five o'clock.
The Grand Duke of the period was Frederic Wil
liam Louis, born in 1826, and married in 1856 to a
daughter of the Prince of Prussia, the future Em
peror William. The latter had not failed to tell his
son-in-law how pleased he had been with his recep
tion at the Tuileries at the end of 1856. In 1855
the Grand Duke had likewise been the guest of Napo
leon III., and had felicitated himself greatly on the

210 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
attentions paid him. And finally, the Dowager Grand
Duchess of Baden, Stephanie de Beauharnais, who had
remained in the Grand Duchy after the death of her
husband, the Grand Duke Charles Louis Frederic,
in 1818, was doing her utmost to establish lasting
relations of good neighborhood and friendship be
tween France and Germany.
The Vicomte de Serre, minister of France at Carls-
ruhe, wrote September 15, 1857: "In case the Em
peror should pass through Badenese territory, the
Grand Duke would prize inestimably the opportunity
of testifying to His Majesty the sentiments of re
spectful friendship and profound gratitude with
which he was imbued two years ago by the kind
and friendly reception accorded to himself at the
imperial court. On this hypothesis, the Grand Duke
would especially hope that, if the Emperor should
rest at Manheim or at Baden, he would not refuse
to alight either at the palace of Manheim or the cas
tle of Baden, and the wishes of His Royal Highness
would meet entire fulfilment if, in passing through
Carlsruhe, the Emperor would deign to stop and ac
cept there the hospitality which he would be so
happy to offer him."
Arriving at Strasburg, the Grand Duke compli
mented the Emperor and received his promise to
breakfast with him the next day at Baden. In the
evening, Napoleon III. dined at the prefecture with
the prefects of the upper and lower Rhine, the
bishops of Strasburg and Mulhouse, the generals,

STRASBURG AND BADEN 211

mayors, and deputies. He afterwards went to the
theatre. In the hall, as well as in the approaehes to
it, he was greeted with acclamations. Private houses,
the steeple of the cathedral, and the public buildings
were illuminated.
At this period the inhabitants of Strasburg and
those of the Grand Duchy of Baden were on excel
lent terms. The two shores of the Rhine did not
look askance at each other across the stream. The
fashionable society of Paris had adopted Baden as
one of its favorite meeting-grounds. This vogue of
Baden, already existing under the reign of Louis
Philippe, had increased under that of Napoleon III.
Nothing more brilliant in the sporting world or that
of fashion existed than the races and the season at
Baden. Parisians of distinction, members of the
Jockey Club, society women, artists, literary men,
thronged thither. Alsatians and Baden people were
incessantly crossing the bridge of Kehl, and bore
each other no grudge. These, from the top of the
terrace of the cathedral of Strasburg, beheld without
jealousy the verdant fields of the grand duchy.
Those saw without anxiety the French pontoniers
performing their evolutions on the Rhine, that flood
which has so often streamed with blood. Old quar
rels and old rancors seemed to be appeased. Napo
leon III., who in his childhood and youth had in
habited the chateau of Arenenberg, in Switzerland,
on the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Baden, had
often come to Constance and had many friends in

212 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Baden. His accession to the throne had given pleas
ure in this country where he was beloved.
The Emperor quitted Strasburg at eight o'clock
in the morning of September 25, for Stuttgart. On
the German bank of the Rhine a considerable crowd
had collected to meet him. The city of Kehl was
draped with Badenese and French flags. Arriving
at Baden at ten o'clock, Napoleon III. was received
at the station by the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess
Stephanie, and the Prince of Prussia. Accompanied
by them, he went in an open carriage to the castle,
where he dined with the grand ducal family and the
future Emperor William. As he was leaving the
palace, the Grand Duke called his attention to a com
pany of guards which had preserved the flag it had
under the First Empire, when the Badenese were
companions in arms of the French.
The Emperor left Baden at half-past one. All
along the road to Stuttgart he received evidences of
the cordial sympathy of the Germanic peoples. At
Rastadt, a federal fortress, built not long before in
defiance of France, the inhabitants came to meet him
with acclamations. The soldiers had adorned their
caps and shakos with green branches as if for a holi
day. The regimental bands played La Beine Hor
tense. Salutes were fired by the artillery on the
ramparts. At Rastadt Napoleon III. was compli
mented by Their Grand-ducal Highnesses William
and Maximilian, by the governor of the fortress, and
by the War Minister of the Grand Duchy of Baden.

STRASBURG AND BADEN 213

The Grand Duke and the Prince of Prussia went
with him as far as Carlsruhe, where ho met with the
same enthusiasm on the part of the people, and tho
Grand Duchess Stdphanie insisted on accompanying
him to Bruchsal, the railway junction of the grand
duchy and Wurtemberg.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE STUTTGART INTERVIEW
TTTILLIAM I., King of Wurtemberg, was enter-
v ' ing his seventy-seventh year at the time when
Napoleon III. became his guest. He had reigned
since October 20, 1816, and, not merely in his own
dominion but throughout all Germany, he enjoyed a
special consideration due not less to his great age
and his quality as dean of European sovereigns than
to his character and lofty wisdom. The liberal policy
he had adopted throughout his reign rendered him
justly popular.
Many family ties existed between the court of
Russia and that of Stuttgart. The Emperor Paul,
father of the Emperors Alexander I. and Nicholas,
married a princess of Wurtemberg, that charming
woman who, when she came to France with her hus
band, then hereditary Grand Duke, under the title of
Countess du Nord, had so great a success at the
court of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
The first wife of William of Wurtemberg was a
widow of the Emperor Paul; the Prince Royal of
Wiirtemberg married a daughter of the Emperor
Nicholas; the Grand Duchess Hel£ne, daughter of
214

THE STUTTGART INTERVIEW 215
Paul of Wurtemberg, the King's brother, was tho
widow of the Grand Duke Michael, son of the Em
peror Paul. Hence Alexander found himself at
home in Stuttgart, where he exercised a legitimate
influence, and where he was respected, loved, and
honored. Stuttgart, with its one hundred and forty thousand
inhabitants, its palaces and modern buildings, its
picturesque situation, its verdant ring of wooded
hills and vine-clad slopes, is one of the prettiest cities
in Germany. It was a well-selected environment for
the interview of the two Emperors.
Thursday, September 24, 1857. The Czar arrives
at Stuttgart without the Empress, and installs him
self at the villa of his brother-in-law, the Prince Royal,
a charming residence some two miles from the city.
Friday, September 25. At the station of Bruchsal,
Napoleon III. finds the Marquis de Ferriere, minister
of France, with all the personnel of the legation, and
General Baur, who had been sent to meet him by the
King. At half-past four he arrives at Stuttgart. The
King and the princes of the royal family receive him
at the station and conduct him to the palace, where
the Emperor Alexander II. comes to pay him a call.
Napoleon III. dines with the King and Queen, and
then goes to the villa of the Prince Royal in company
with Their Majesties and the princes and princesses,
to spend the remainder of the evening. The great
avenue conducting thither is brilliantly illuminated.
All those holding positions at court, all the minis-

216 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
ters, and the diplomatic corps are assembled. The
presentations are made for France by the Marquis
and Marquise de Ferriere; for Russia by its minister
at Stuttgart, Count de Beckendorf. The Czar has
brought with him his Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Prince Gortehakoff; the minister of his household,
Count Adlerberg I. ; his aide-de-camp, General Count
Adlerberg II. ; his ambassador at Paris, General Count
Kisseleff; his equerry, Count Tolstoi. With Napo
leon III. are his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count
Walewski; his new ambassador at St. Petersburg,
Count de Rayneval; two of his aides-de-camp, Gen
eral Count de Failly and General Fleury; and one
of his orderly officers, Prince Joachim Murat. The
most cordial and animated conversation goes on
during the evening. At eleven o'clock the Emperor
of the French returns to the palace of Stuttgart with
Their Majesties of Wurtemberg, while the Emperor
of Russia remains at the villa of his brother-in-law,
the Prince Royal.
Saturday, September 26. During the morning
Napoleon III. goes to return the Czar's call at the
villa of the Prince Royal. At eleven o'clock he is
joined there by the King of Wurtemberg, who takes
him to see the place where he keeps his breeding stud
of three hundred blooded horses. The two dine
together afterwards in a fine residence which the
Wurtemberg monarch had erected near this estab
lishment, justly celebrated in Germany; and, after
an excursion in the picturesque valley of the Necker,

ALEXANDER 11
Emperor of Russia

THE STUTTGART INTERVIEW 217

they return to the palace of Stuttgart. The Kniporor
of the French occupies himself with his Minister of
Foreign Affairs, and then calls upon the Queen of
Wurtemberg, the Queen of Holland, and the Grand
Duchess Helene. At half-past four, without other
escort than General Baur, the king's aide-de-camp,
he walks in the city like a private individual, but is
the object of respectful curiosity. At six he dines
with the royal family in the castle of Walhelma, a
beautiful construction in the Moorish style, on the
model of the Alhambra, situated in the valley of the
Necker, beside Stuttgart, in the midst of delightful
gardens. Here Napoleon III. hears some good news ;
the Empress of Russia has just arrived at Stuttgart.
As the Empress Eugenie had not come there, Alex
ander II. had at first decided that the Czarina would
not come either, and she had remained in the neigh
borhood. But the Czar has been so well satisfied
with his first relations with Napoleon III. that he has
changed his mind and sent word to the Empress to
come immediately to Stuttgart. She arrives there in
the evening of the 26th with Queen Amelie of Greece,
daughter of the Grand Duke Paul Frederic Auguste
of Oldenburg, and wife of King Otho. The Em
press of Russia, Marie Alexandrovna, born in 1824,
was the daughter of Louis II., Grand Duke of Hesse.
She had married tbe Grand Duke Alexander, after
wards emperor under the title of Alexander IL, in
1841. On learning that the Czarina had arrived at Stutt-

218 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
gart, the Emperor of the French immediately left the
castle of Walhelma and hastened to the villa of the
Prince Royal to pay his respects. He afterwards re
turned to Walhelma, where he finished the evening
with Their Majesties of Wiirtemberg.
Two emperors, an empress, a king and three queens
— not counting imperial or royal highnesses — were
then assembled at Stuttgart. Napoleon III. was at
his ease amidst this brilliant pleiad. A witness of
the interview, General Fleury, describes him as being
as calm as usual, making gallant headway against the
seductions deployed against him, not insensible to the
attentions by which he is overwhelmed, but neverthe
less not intoxicated by them. "It was the peculiarity
of the Emperor," adds the general, " never to seem
surprised by his amazing fortune. He seemed like
a sovereign returned from exile and continuing the
reign he had begun."
Sunday, September 27. This was the anniversary
of the King's birth. After assisting at Mass in the
Catholic church, amidst a crowd which saluted him
with acclamations, Napoleon III. went to offer his
congratulations and good wishes to King William.
The King afterwards conducted the two Emperors,
the Empress of Russia, the Queens of Wurtemberg,
Holland, and Greece, the princes and princesses, to
Cannstadt to witness the people's feast, an agri
cultural ceremony instituted by himself at the be
ginning of his reign, and yearly celebrated on his
birthday. The ladies were in full dress, the men in

THE STUTTGART INTERVIEW 21'.)

uniform. Surrounded by his family, his court, and
the diplomatic body, the venerable sovereign, the
Nestor of Europe, the crowned patriaivh, distributed,
in presence of his guests, tho agricultural prizes to
the peasants gathered there from all the provinces of
the kingdom.
At five o'clock there was a grand dinner in the
palace of Stuttgart, and afterwards a gala representa
tion at the royal theatre. When the King, with the
emperors, queens, princes, and princesses, made his
entry into the grand box in front of the stage,
the theatre rang with applause. The hall glittered
with lights and jewels. It was a magnificent
sight. Monday, September 28. The Czar breakfasts with
the Emperor Napoleon at the villa of the Prince
Royal. The Prince, to give them an opportunity of
speaking freely, has invited them alone, excluding
even his father. The day is an anniversary. It is
forty years to a day since Napoleon I. and Alexan
der I. met each other at Erfurt.
After breakfast, the Prince Royal leaves his two
august guests alone with each other in his study.
According to the confidences imparted by the Prince
Royal to M. Gustave Rothan, secretary of the lega
tion of France at Stuttgart at the time of the inter
view, this is what passed between the two sovereigns
on September 28, 1857.
The interview lasted more than an hour. The ice
was broken at the last minute. " After cool begin-

220 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
nings," writes M. Rothan in the Bevue des Deux
Mondes of December 31, 1888, " they separated with
brows unruffled, almost radiant, reasons of state hav
ing prevailed over prejudices. The Emperors had
ratified the protocol agreed on by their ministers.
They had promised not to undertake anything with
out mutual consultation, and to support each other
loyally by the action of their diplomacy whether in
the East, if complications should arise there, or in
Italy, if a quarrel were to break out between France
and Austria. In the latter eventuality, Russia as
sured us, in the first place, her sympathetic neu
trality, and, if fighting occurred, she promised,
without actually pledging herself, the concentration
of one hundred and fifty thousand men on the fron
tiers of Galicia ; they had gone so far as to foresee an
eventual alliance."
Alexander II. left Stuttgart that day. Napoleon
III. did not go until the next one. In parting, the
two Emperors seemed well satisfied with each other,
and it was said among their followers that the inter
view had been a success.
Tuesday, September 29. Napoleon III. quitted
Stuttgart at half-past eight in the morning, after
warmly thanking the King. Between two lines
formed respectively by the cavalry of the royal
guard and a troop of the line, he went to the rail
way station, hung as before by the French and Wiir
temberg flags. As he was about to enter the train,
he was saluted by the princes and principal dignita-

THE STUTTGART INTERVIEW 221

ries of the court. The Prince Royal wore the broad
ribbon of the Legion of Honor which the Emperor
had sent him. One might have thought himself back
at the Tilsit interview and the days of the Confed
eration of the Rhine.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE RESULTS OF THE INTERVIEW
r I ^HE Stuttgart interview had caused the Austrian
government the keenest and most justifiable
anxiety. The Emperor Francis Joseph sought to
reassure himself by likewise obtaining an interview
with the Emperor Alexander II. The Czar had left
Stuttgart September 28, 1857. October 1 he had an
interview with the Austrian monarch at Weimar.
He was accompanied by his Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Prince Gortehakoff, but Francis Joseph had
taken care not to bring his own Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Count de Buol, whose attitude during the
Crimean War and at the Congress of Paris had
deeply offended the Russian government.
Francis Joseph arrived at Weimar October 1.
Alexander II. , wearing the uniform of the Austrian
hussars, awaited him at the head of the staircase of
the grand-ducal castle. The two sovereigns em
braced. They had a long conversation without
witnesses, and in the evening were present at a
representation of Wagner's Tannhauser, directed by
Liszt. The next morning at seven o'clock the Em-
222

THE RESULTS OF THE INTERVIEW 223

peror of Austria left Weimar for Dresden. The
Czar departed an hour later.
That same day the Vieomte des Meloizes, minister
of France at Weimar, wrote to Count Walewski:
" Austria desired the interview, Russia accepted it;
and the Grand Duke facilitated it by placing his pal
ace at the disposal of the two Emperors. As to the
meeting itself, although a certain intimacy prevailed,
I am assured, between the sovereigns in their two or
three conversations, they do not seem, if one may
judge from their looks, to have produced a very real
reconciliation. During all the time that I was able to
observe them at the palace, there was no communica
tion whatever between them, and the way in which
they quitted Weimar, at an hour's interval, although
they were taking the same road, seems to indicate
that their interview did not create a desire to remain
longer together. The grand marshal tells me that
when the two sovereigns met for the first time, the
Emperor Alexander wore an expression of sorrowful
gravity which was remarked by every one. ... It
was noticed that at dinner and at the theatre the
countenance of the Emperor of Austria, marked by a
certain air of embarrassment, which is perhaps ha
bitual, never lost its gravity. The Emperor Alexan
der, on the contrary, appeared very gay. The two
sovereigns embraced each other twice in taking leave.
These adieux, I am told, were very effusive. This
time, as throughout the whole day, the advances
came from the Austrian Emperor."

224 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
In fine, the interview of Weimar, far from attenu
ating the impression produced by that of Stuttgart,
had no result but that of bringing its importance
into full relief. Curious details on this subject are
found in a despatch which the Vicomte de Serre,
minister of France at Carlsruhe, addressed to Count
Walewski October 4, 1857. The Grand Duchess
Heldne of Russia, who had just arrived at Baden,
had a long conversation with the French minister.
" Madame the Grand Duchess," wrote the Vicomte
de Serre, "has assured me that she considers the
interview of Stuttgart a most fortunate event for
both empires, and especially for Russia. It pleased
her to behold in it the point of departure of a close
alliance whose consolidation and progress she desires
all the more ardently since she has always regarded
it, even under the reign of the late Emperor Nicholas,
as imperiously demanded by the interests of both
nations. If she may be believed, the time is past for
suspecting France, wrongly considered as the focus of
revolutions merely because she is and ought to be the
centre of civilization. The prejudices which formerly
alienated from France the instinctive sympathies of
Russia became extinct with the late Emperor, or, at
most, exist only in the thin-sown ranks of sundry
faultfinders of the old aristocracy, always ready to
take sides against the governmental policy, be it
what it may. Setting aside this imperceptible and
powerless minority, Russia would be unanimous in
desiring the closest union with France as the sole

THE RESULTS OF THE INTERVIEW 225
means of opening to her the paths of civilization and
progress. She would comprehend at present that in
applying her forces to defend the narrow principles
of legitimacy and public order, she had, in fact,
merely served the interests of Germany and Austria.
The last war, and still more the very different atti
tude of the several powers since the restoration of
peace, had shown her at the same time on which side
lay real strength united to loyalty, where she ought
to place her friendship and where seek her alliances.
Tired of being exploited for the benefit of central
Europe and worn-out theories of government, she
would hereafter base her alliances, not on the affini
ties of abstract principles, but, like England, on the
practical agreement of positive interests."
Was not the Grand Duchess Heldne here predict
ing the alliance which the Emperor Nicholas II. and
M. Fe'lix Faure recently proclaimed on board the
Pothuau ?
The Grand Duchess assured the Vicomte de Serre
that the Emperor, her nephew, had received impres
sions at the Stuttgart interview which linked him
more closely than ever to the Emperor of the French
and to France. Her Imperial Highness regretted
only that the reunion of the two sovereigns had
been of such short duration, for, she added, the more
the Emperors saw of each other, the better they
seemed to understand and mutually appreciate each
other's lofty qualities. Even the Empress of Russia,
who did not at first favor the interview at Stuttgart,

226 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
as the Grand Duchess was not careful to conceal,
had been obliged by the express invitation of the
Czar to go there ; but, once in presence of Napoleon
III., she had been unable to resist the attraction felt
by all under an irresistible influence.
The Vicomte de Serre concluded his despatch as
follows : " As to the interview at Weimar, Her
Imperial Highness merely alluded to it in a rather
scornful way as an event without the slightest polit
ical importance. Not very favorable to Austria in
general, she seemed to me almost to regret that the
Emperor Alexander should have lent himself to a
superficial reconciliation with the Emperor Francis
Joseph. For that matter, in this particular Madame
the Grand Duchess simply reproduced the expres
sions used by all Russians without exception. Those
most conversant with the policy of their government
are never weary of saying that the interview of
Weimar, several times solicited by the Emperor of
Austria, had only been conceded by the Czar because
he was tired of refusing. ... M. de Fonta, minister
of Russia at Frankfort, tells me that Prince Gorteha
koff has authorized and even asked him to declare
that though Russia desires to live in peace with her
neighbors, and consequently with Austria, she has
yet no intention of re-establishing with that power
the intimate relations which have been destroyed
forever." And now let us see how the Stuttgart interview
was regarded at St. Petersburg. In the absence of

THE RESULTS OF THE INTERVIEW 227
Count de Morny, M. Baudin, chargS d'affaires of
France, wrote to Count Walewski, October 16,
1857 : —
"Prince Gortehakoff said to me: 'Nothing could
be more satisfactory than the impression whicii my
sovereign and myself brought back from Stuttgart
and from our conversations with the Emperor Napo
leon and Count Walewski. It is a great thing, this
reconciliation between our two emperors, this per
fect conformity of views which has been established
between them and their governments on all the
questions they attempted to examine, this resolu
tion which they have taken mutually to agree on all
that may hereafter arise, small and great. It is
chiefly in the future that the interview of Stuttgart
will produce its fruits.' "
Prince Gortehakoff repeated to the ehargS d'affaires
of France that the Emperor Alexander was wholly
satisfied with the personal relations into which he had
just entered with the Emperor Napoleon ; said that
the Empress of Russia had not appreciated less her
acquaintance with His Imperial Majesty, and added
that she had expressed great regret at not having
been able to meet at Stuttgart the Empress of the
French. As to Prince Gortehakoff himself, he
showed that he was personally flattered and grateful
for the welcome he had received from Napoleon III.,
and he praised exceedingly — these are his own
words — "that elevation of character, that great
political sense, those views at once wide and prac-

228 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
tical, that perfect candor and clearness," which he
had been privileged to know-
M. Baudin terminated his despatch as follows:
" Such is the impression which the Russian Minister
of Foreign Affairs seems to have brought back with
him from Stuttgart. That of the Russian public,
which is beginning to return to St. Petersburg, nat
urally cannot be so well founded. It is generally
good. At the same time, society in this country,
which seldom goes very deeply into things, feels its
self-love somewhat wounded by the relatively second
ary part which the Emperor of Russia played at Stutt
gart, and by the deference he showed towards the
Emperor of the French, 'that sovereign of yesterday,'
as certain people say here, in calling on him first, and
by the indifference with which his journey was re
ceived by the German press and people, the latter
thronging about Napoleon III. as he passed, and the
former making a thousand commentaries with which
they did not honor the Emperor Alexander. They
are at the same time pleased to see that Russia has
such a friend and displeased at the great place he
has taken and which the interview of Stuttgart has
rendered so manifest. They know what to think of
the military power of imperial France, and the Rus
sian travellers who visit Paris in such great numbers
daily make known its splendor and its internal pros
perity. They are thoroughly aware of its preponder
ance in external politics, but they do not quite like
to own up to it. The Stuttgart interview has

THE RESULTS OF THE INTERVIEW 229

brought it into undeniable prominence, and that
explains the mixed character of the sentiment, awa
kened here in certain minds by the circumstances of
this interview, and which they try at least to conceal
from me under an appearance of admiration and
deference for the Emperor of the French."
On the whole, Napoleon III. had just obtained a
great success. Lie had not signed a treaty of alli
ance offensive and defensive at Stuttgart, but he
brought back a protocol of general agreement and
the assurance of a sympathetic neutrality in case of
war against Austria. That sufficed him. As M.
Rothan has remarked, he did not like to bind him
self ; he preferred to keep an open door and leave
things to the fatal arrangement of circumstances.
M. Benedetti wrote to M. Thouvenel, October 15,
1857: "The interview of Stuttgart has fulfilled all
its promises. After having talked of everything, the
two Emperors and their ministers separated with
promises of mutual esteem and confidence in the full
and complete acceptation of those terms. It was a
question of the Principalities, you understand. At
bottom, Russia does not desire the reunion, and we
are going to move very gently in the direction of the
administrative reunion solely ; one fact certain is the
personal success of our Emperor in Germany. You
know that the Empress of Russia was not at all
inclined to go to Stuttgart, and that she feigned
indisposition. But the Emperor Alexander was so
charmed with his first conversation with the Emperor

230 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Napoleon that he cut short these hesitations by sum
moning the Empress immediately to Stuttgart, and
they say that Her Majesty now shares her husband's
sentiments towards our sovereign. Nor has he met
with less success among the people. His journey
was like an ovation. Coming after the Osborne
interview, all this creates an incomparable situation
for us."
Had Napoleon III. remained faithful to the pact of
Stuttgart he would always have retained this situa
tion. So long as he was the friend of Alexander IL,
he had nothing to fear from the English or the Ger
mans. It was by Russia's favor, and in spite of Eng
land, that he could give back to France her natural
frontiers on the southeast, and protect the Christians
of Syria. With the support of the cabinet of St.
Petersburg everything succeeded with him ; without
it, the earth failed under his feet. What would it
have cost him to avert all his misfortunes ? Simply,
non-intervention in the affairs of Poland, and readi
ness to maintain against all assaults the true alliance,
the only one which could have secured glory and
safety to imperial France.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BEGINNING OF 1858
TOURING the first years of the Second Empire,
^~^ the opera of Le Prophete, that work whose
striking situations, imagined by Scribe, had inspired
Meyerbeer with appropriate music, was often played.
In the fourth act, John of Leyden appears under a
canopy in the Cathedral of Munster, amidst shouts,
the blare of trumpets, and clouds of incense, and at
that very moment three Anabaptists, dressed in black,
menace him with their poniards. This scene made
the Emperor thoughtful. Like the Prophet, amidst
his triumphs he had incessant conspiracies to dread.
His Anabaptists were the Italian bravos who had
sworn his death.
The victor of December 2d had disarmed French
hatreds. Those of his subjects who blamed his pol
icy the most had abandoned the idea of killing him.
In spite of the irritating souvenirs of the coup d'Etat,
the unjust deportations, the draconian and illegal
severities of the mixed commissions, the workmen
had forgiven Napoleon III., knowing that he con
cerned himself with their welfare, and when they
231

232 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
saw him going unescorted into the most populous
quarters of Paris, they praised his courage. But the
foreign assassins, the adepts of Mazzini, remained
implacable. These, like the Old Man of the Moun
tain, had a band of murderers in their pay whose
fixed idea it was to assassinate the Emperor. London
was the headquarters where they organized plots in
tended to break out in France, The police of Paris
were in perpetual alarm. In 1857, three emissaries
from London had been arrested for plotting against
the Emperor's life, and tried in August by the Seine
Court of Assizes. They were Italians, Tibaldi, Bar-
toloni, and Grilli, the first of whom was sentenced
to transportation, and the others to ten years' im
prisonment. The trial proved that these three indi
viduals had been hired by the Mazzinian sect, which
had erected murder into a system. At the beginning
of 1858 those immediately surrounding the sovereign
knew that this sect was more active than ever, and
that a catastrophe was probably impending. But
Napoleon III., being a fatalist, and inaccessible to
fear, refused to make any change in his usual habits,
and would not take any kind of precautions against
the murderers, of whose actions he was notified.
When he went out of the Tuileries he did not com
municate to the secret police detailed to protect his
life the route he intended to follow. He said one
day, as Marshal Magnan was expostulating with him
on his temerity: "I object to remonstrances. I do
not intend to put myself in leading-strings, but to

THE BEGINNING OF 1858 233
remain free to act as I please. Do not forget what I
say, Marshal."
The public was not aware of the ceaseless anxieties
which disturbed the Emperor's friends. The year
1858 had opened very well. The season at Paris
promised to be very brilliant. At home, the Empire
encountered no serious opposition. Abroad, it main
tained the most harmonious relations with all the
powers. The interview of Stuttgart had been a tri
umph for Napoleon III., acclaimed in Germany no
less than in France. The imperial institutions seemed
more solid than ever. The edifice, soon to be men
aced by a thunderbolt, seemed immovable and inde
structible. I was at Brussels early in 1858. Count Walewski
had sent me there with the ratification of a postal
treaty concluded between France and Belgium. I
was staying at the house of my cousin, General Plo-
tinckz, commanding superior of the civic guard, and
was expecting to remain some days longer with him,
when the minister of France, M. Adolphe Barrot, a
diplomat of great merit, and brother of the famous
orator, sent me word to come immediately to the
legation. On my arrival he told me that he would
entrust me with a very important despatch, and that
I was to start that evening for Paris by the seven
o'clock train. He added that when I arrived, during
the night, I must go directly to the Ministry of For
eign Affairs and have the chief of the cabinet awa
kened. This was M. Frederic de Billing, in whose

234 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
own hands I must place the despatch confided to me,
and of which I did not know the contents. I punctu
ally executed my orders. M. de Billing was sleeping
at the Ministry, in the room which, forty years later,
now serves me as an office. I excused myself for
awaking him by alleging the instructions I had re
ceived in Belgium. He thanked me, turned his head
on his pillow, and went to sleep again.
I have since learned the contents of the despatch,
which was not opened until the next morning. It
announced the existence of a plot against the Em
peror's life. An Italian named Pieri had arrived
from England at Brussels, January 7, where he
bought the shell of a fulminating bomb. A clock-
maker who got wind of the sale went to the office of
the French legation, where he urgently requested an
interview with the minister himself. On being re
ceived by M. Adolphe Barrot, he said to him : " I am
not one of the Emperor's partisans ; all my sympa
thies are with the Orleans princes, but I wish to pre
vent a crime." He then described the suspected
man and gave most precise details concerning his
movements in Brussels. M. Adolphe Barrot hastily
wrote a despatch — the one I conveyed to Paris —
containing the declarations of the clockmaker. We
shall see later on that, but for M. Barrot's vigilance,
both the Emperor and Empress would probably have
succumbed. The man thus denounced to the Paris police was
an Italian named Pieri, a native of Lucca, and fifty

THE BEGINNING OF 1858 235
years of age. Condemned for theft in Tuscany, ho
had presented himself in France as apolitical refugee
in 1833. Ten years later he enlisted in the foreign
legion. Afterwards he served in Tuscany, where he
became a major, but was dismissed in 1849. On re
turning to France he was recognized as a dangerous
man and expelled in 1852, in spite of his protestations
of humble respect for the person of Napoleon III.
There was a peace officer named M. Hubert in Paris
in 1858 who remembered Pieri very well. The po
lice made very energetic efforts to lay hands on the
latter, but up to January 14 had completely failed.
They were aware of his plan, but they did not know
that he merely took a secondary part in the con
spiracy of which Orsini was the organizer and leader.
A native of the Roman States and aged thirty-
nine years, Felix Orsini had associated himself from
early youth with the enterprises of the most heated
demagogues. In 1845 the supreme tribunal of Rome
had condemned him to the galleys for life for con
spiring against the pontifical government. The fol
lowing year, thanks to the amnesty accorded by
Pius IX., he recovered his liberty, but without evin
cing any signs of repentance. Two years afterwards
he became a member of the Roman Convention, and
then extraordinary commissioner to Ancona and
Ascoli. There he was guilty of many abuses of
power and of great exactions, yet without enriching
himself personally. When the temporal power of
the Pope was re-established he wandered into Eng-

236 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
land, Switzerland, Piedmont, and Lombardy, travel
ling with false passports, now calling himself Celsi
and again Herwag. Under the latter name he was
accused in 1855 of having arranged a plot against the
life of the Emperor of Austria. Incarcerated in the
citadel of Mantua, through the complicity of a woman
he succeeded in making his escape and took refuge in
London, where he gave public readings which gained
him a livelihood.
After having made one of Mazzini's adepts and
instruments, Orsini resolved to form a band of his
own and become a chief conspirator. He met Pieri
in Birmingham in 1857, and planned with him an
attempt on the life of the Emperor. The two put
themselves in communication with a French political
refugee named Simon Bernard, a regular customer of
the Swiss cafe" in Bow Street, London, which was the
usual rendezvous of the most dangerous of the emi
grants. Together with Pieri and Bernard, Orsini
employed himself in the fabrication of bombs, and in
order to the perpetration of the crime added to his
circle two obscure acolytes, a Neapolitan named
Gomez, aged twenty-nine, — who had served in the
foreign legion in 1853 and 1855 and had been con
demned for abuse of confidence at Marseilles, whom
Orsini attached to himself as a domestic, — and a young
man of twenty-five, born in Belluno, who was called
Charles de Rudio. He belonged to a noble Venetian
family which owed its decline to dissoluteness rather
than to poverty. His father and mother had been

THE BEGINNING OF 1858 237
compromised in political troubles, and, after loading
a wandering life he himself had at last settled in
Nottingham, England, as a teacher of languages.
Provided with a false passport under the name of
Thomas Allsop, Orsini left England November 28,
1857, stopped for some days in Brussels, and went
from there to Paris December 12, taking good care
to include the bombs in his luggage. At Brussels he
commissioned a man named Zeghers to bring a horse
which he had just bought to him at Paris, and en
trusted to his care ten half-cylinders in iron which
he said were to be used as gas-fixtures. Zeghers
presented these at the custom-house of Valenciennes,
where they were regarded as of so little importance
that no duty was collected on them. He did not
suspect that these half-cylinders were to be used in
the making of fulminating bombs, and on reaching
the Parisian hotel where Orsini had put up, he left
them in plain sight along with the brushes he had
used in grooming the horse. On Orsini's arrival he
made haste to conceal objects which might have
attracted attention.
Installed since December 15 in a furnished apart
ment on the ground floor of No. 10 rue Mont/Thabor,
the leader of the conspiracy had given himself out
for an Englishman and provided himself with visit
ing cards engraved with the name of Thomas Allsop.
January 8 he was rejoined by two of his accomplices,
Pieri and Gomez. Simon Bernard was to remain in
England. In Paris Orsini was now awaiting the

238 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
arrival of Charles de Rudio, whom he had not met,
and whom Bernard was to send him. The latter
gave a sum of money and a passport under the name
of Silva to Rudio, who left London January 9, with
instructions to go at once on reaching Paris to rue
Mont-Thabor, No. 10, to the house of Mr. Allsop, and
give him a pair of gold spectacles, the sign agreed
on for his recognition. Things happened in this man
ner, and the four conspirators were together. The
police were looking for Pieri only, and had not dis
covered him. As to the three others, their names were
not known nor their presence in Paris suspected.
At this moment the public was chiefly occupied
with the funeral of Mademoiselle Rachel, who died
at Cannes, January 3, and was buried at Paris,
January 11. An immense crowd assisted at the
obsequies of the woman whose talent was a national
glory. In the evening there was no performance at
the Theatre-Francais where she had had so many
triumphs. But there was soon no further thought
for the actress ; other poniards than those of Mel
pomene occupied attention, and the public was look
ing at a tragedy in the street, in front of a theatre,
which was more terrible than those of Racine and
Corneille. Orsini, a dilettante of crime, made ready for the
attempt with the calmness and the bearing of a
gentleman. He used to ride in the Bois de Boulogne,
seeking opportunities to see the Emperor, following
him everywhere, and saying of him : " He has no

THE BEGINNING OF 1858 239
fear." As was remarked by the imperial prosecutor
in his charge, this was neither the expression of
regret nor remorse, but of hope. Orsini said to him
self : " He suspects nothing, I shall have him, I am
sure of reaching him."

CHAPTER XXIX
THE ATTEMPT OF JANUARY 14
npHERE is never any performance at the Opela on
Thursday. By exception one was given on
Thursday, January 14, 1858, as a benefit for the retir
ing baritone, Massol. And it was known that the
Emperor and the Empress were to be present at a
representation announced to be very brilliant. The
weather was superb and the night starry. The streets
and the approaches to rue Le Peletier were thronged.
At eight o'clock Orsini, Pieri, de Rudio, and Gomez
left their lodging, No. 10 rue Mont-Thabor. The
parts had been assigned between the four accom
plices. The two largest bombs were given to Gomez
and de Rudio, Orsini kept two smaller ones, Pieri
had taken a fifth similar in size to those of Orsini.
It had been agreed that Gomez should throw the first
one, Rudio the second, then Orsini, and Pieri the
last. It was also agreed that on reaching rue Le
Peletier they would take positions on the pavement
in front of the principal entrance of the peristyle,
between the houses and the crowd of spectators, on
a line with No. 21.
Orsini shall go on with the story : " I noticed on
240

THE ATTEMPT OF JANUARY U 241
the way that Pieri was lagging behind, and I even
said to de Rudio that he made me t'cel as if he wanted
to desert. On arriving at rue Le Peletier he had
passed in front of us. We rested two minutes at the
corner of the street and the boulevard. We had
scarcely entered rue Le Peletier than I met Pieri
coming towards us in company with a gentleman
whom I did not know. He winked at me in passing,
but I did not understand that he wanted to tell me
he had been arrested."
Pieri had in fact just been arrested in rue Le Pele
tier, near rue Rossini, by officer Hubert, who had his
description. He was taken to the guard-house, where
he was found to be carrying a fulminating bomb and
a five-barrelled revolver loaded and primed.
The Emperor and the Empress had not yet arrived.
The reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who was
to witness the play from the imperial box, was await
ing Their Majesties at the foot of the stairs, chatting
meanwhile with General Fleury. During the day
the Duke had gone out in a carriage with Napoleon
III. In crossing the Pont-Neuf, in front of the statue
of Henry IV., the Emperor, thinking of the plots
which menaced his life, said to the German Prince,
" The only thing I dread is a poniard such as Ravail-
lac's. In any other case the criminal always hopes
to save himself by flight, and that thought paralyzes
his strength." At the foot of the Opera staircase
General Fleury was bragging to the Duke about the
new organization of the surveillance service, and add-

242 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
ing that there was nothing more to be feared but
plots similar to that of the Hippodrome, where the
Opera-Comique would not be repeated.
It is half-past eight. The imperial procession
comes into rue Le Peletier, headed by a carriage con
taining the officers of the household ; then comes the
escort formed by a platoon of lancers of the guard;
and finally the two-horse carriage containing the Em
peror and Empress, and on the front seat an aide-de
camp, General Roguet. Arriving opposite the prin
cipal entrance of the theatre, the imperial carriage is
driven more slowly so as to enter the reserved pas
sage at the extremity of the peristyle ; at this moment
three explosions are heard at an interval of a few
seconds, the first in front of the imperial carriage and
in the last rank of the lancers, the second nearer and
a little to the left of the carriage, the third beneath
it. Gomez had just thrown the first bomb. Then
Orsini had said to de Rudio : " Throw yours ! "
Rudio had in fact thrown it and at once hidden him
self in a cabaret, where he heard the third explosion,
produced by one of Orsini's bombs. The first one
had extinguished all the gas-jets illumining the front
of the theatre merely by the commotion it produced.
The glass in the peristyle and in the windows of
adjoining houses all flew into splinters. The im
mense awning which protects the entrance in sum
mer was perforated in spite of its extreme solidity.
Struck by seventy-six projectiles, the imperial car
riage is literally riddled. One of the horses dies at

THE ATTEMPT OF JANUARY 14 243

once, the other is badly hurt. The three footmen
and the driver are wounded. Several discharges
have entered the carriage. General Roguet has re
ceived a violent contusion over the ear which results
in his losing a great deal of blood. The Emperor's
hat is pierced by a projectile. The robe of the Em
press is bloodied, and one hundred and titty-six per
sons have been hurt. Among the victims are twenty-
one women, eleven children, thirteen lancers, eleven
guards of Paris, thirty-one agents or officers of the
police prefecture. There is a general commotion, an
indescribable tumult, a scene of alarm and horror.
The Emperor and Empress do not leave the carriage
until after the last explosion. Preserving their cool
ness, they seem to have no anxiety except to care for
those who are wounded. Just as some one is singing
the fragment of WiUiam Tell which opened the even
ing's performance, they enter the hall. An immense
acclamation greets them. They bow their thanks to
the public, and as soon as they have taken seats in
their box the representation proceeds.
After the morceaux from William Tell came the
first act of Mary Stuart. I have lately had the honor
(October, 1897) of chatting with Madame Ristori,
now the widow of Marquis Capranica del Grillo, and
surrounded by all respect. In describing the repre
sentation of January 14, 1858, she said: "When I
reached the passage where Maiy Stuart, addressing
Mortimer, exclaims: ' The arm of the assassin ! That
is my sole, my real terror,' the Emperor, seated be-

244 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
side the Empress, calm and impassible, gave me a
glance that I shall never forget." The all-powerful
sovereign, master of France, adulated by Europe, felt
that he also had but one fear, the assassins. He
too, looking the tragedienne in the face, had a touch
of tragedy.
The representation, which was to finish by the Bal
masque" de Gustave — Gustavus III. of Sweden assas
sinated in a theatre, — went on without any change
in the programme. Their Majesties remained until
it was over. At midnight, when they left the Opela,
a great many houses on the boulevard had been spon
taneously illuminated, and as they drove by a con
siderable crowd greeted them with cheers. Among
the persons who had come to the Tuileries to con
gratulate them on having escaped death as by a mir
acle, Their Majesties found the English ambassador,
the president of the Senate, members of the diplo
matic corps, senators, and deputies. The Emperor
maintained his imperturbable tranquillity, but his
face bore the traces of profound sadness.
And now let us see what had become of the mur
derers. The police had begun the most active inves
tigations immediately after the outrage. Pieri, as
we have said already, had been arrested before the
explosion of the bombs. How did they contrive to
seize Gomez, Rudio, and Orsini?
All the houses on rue Le Peletier, opposite the
Opela, were searched. One of them was the Broggi
restaurant. There the police agents noticed a young

THE ATTEMPT OF JANUARY U 245
man, apparently a foreigner, who was weeping and
seemed in great trouble. He was asked for his
name and address, and replied that he was called
Swiney, and that for the last month ho had been in
the service of a Mr. Allsop, an Englishman, who
resided No. 10 rue Mont-Thabor. Shortly after this,
a five-barrelled revolver, loaded and primed, was
found under a dresser in the restaurant Broggi,
where it had been deposited by the so-called Swiney,
who was no other than Gomez, and who ended by
owning up to the fact. If he had not lost his head
he would not have indicated the residence of Orsini,
and the police would have been at a loss to seize the
arch-conspirator. After launching his first bomb, Orsini had been
one of those wounded by it, and this not only pre
vented him from throwing the second, but made those
around him suppose that he was a victim and not a
murderer. He went into the Vautherin pharmacy,
No. 34 rue Laffitte, between rue Rossini and rue de
Provence, to have his wounds attended to, and on
leaving it, a compassionate person named Decailly
led him by the arm to a carriage-stand on the corner
of rue Laffitte and rue de Provence. A cab took
him to his apartment in rue Mont-Thabor. There he
believed himself in safety and had just gone to bed
when the police entered. He said at first that his
name was Allsop, and that he was an Englishman
and a brewer. But as soon as he comprehended that
the information given by Gomez had ruined him, he

246 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
avowed that he was Felix Orsini, aged thirty-nine,
and a native of Moldola in the Roman States.
As to Rudio, after launching his bomb he had
taken refuge in a cabaret. The confusion enabled
him to escape, and he quietly returned to the Hotel
de France, No. 132 Monfmartre, where he lodged, and
where he thought he was safe. Unluckily for him,
his address was given by Pieri, as that of Orsini had
been by Gomez. The two murderers, both equally
agitated, had supplied the information which the
police would have been unable to extort. As soon
as he was arrested, Pieri had said that he lodged
with another person at the HStel de France et de
Champagne. The agents went with all haste to this
hotel, where, in a double-bedded chamber, they found
a young man who at first called himself Da Silva, but
ended by avowing that he was Charles de Rudio,
aged twenty-five, and born at Belluno, in Venetia.
Thus it was that within a few hours, thanks to an
extraordinary chance and to information furnished
by the guilty men themselves, the police were en
abled to lay hands on the four authors of the crime.
M. Chaix d'Est-Ange will say in his speech as
public prosecutor : " The buckler which shields the
Emperor and Empress is visible to everybody. If
Orsini had not been wounded, the fourth bomb
would have been thrown, and if Pieri, who was
nearest to the cortege, had not been arrested a few
minutes before it approached, who could depict the
misfortune we should have had to deplore ? Yes, it

THE ATTEMPT OF JANUARY 1J, 247

was necessary that by a miracle Pieri should bo
recognized by possibly the only man who remem
bered him, and that, by a second miracle, Orsini,
after launching his first bomb, should be wounded,
not dangerously, but sufficiently so to be marked on
the forehead and blinded by a veil of blood which
Providence cast over his eyes in order to prevent the
greatest of crimes."
At present, may it not be asked whether, from the
point of view of the interests of his dynasty, it would
not have been better for Napoleon III. to die at a
moment when his reign had as yet been characterized
only by success ? Alas .' although so short, human
life is yet often too long, even for men whose ex
istence seems the most necessaiy to their country.
If Louis XVI. had died in 1783, after signing the
glorious treaty of Versailles which consecrated the
independence of the United States; Napoleon in
1811, when the birth of a son crowned the summit of
his desires; Charles X. in 1830, on the morrow of the
taking of Algiers; Louis Philippe in 1846, after the
great success of the Spanish marriages; Napoleon III.
in 1858, assassinated like Caesar at the zenith of his
fortunes, — Providence, in giving these sovereigns a
timely death, would have spared them the catas
trophes which wrecked both them and their dynas
ties. But on the morrow of the Orsini attempt,
nobody made such reflections as these, and on every
side thanks were returned to God who had preserved
the life of the Emperor.

CHAPTER XXX
AFTER THE OUTRAGE
f 1 1HE morning after the crime the Emperor and
-^ Empress went out in an open carriage and drove
without an escort through the boulevards, where they
were greeted very warmly. Subsequently they vis
ited, at the Gros-Caillou hospital, those of the wounded
who had formed part of their escort on the previous
evening. January 16, they received at the Tuileries the
members of the diplomatic corps, of the Senate, the
Legislature, the Council of State, and the Municipal
Council. The president of the Senate, M. Troplong,
spoke as follows : " The revolutionary spirit, driven
from France, has chosen its domicile abroad and
made itself cosmopolitan. It is from these exterior
citadels, raised against Europe in the midst of
Europe itself, that fanatical assassins are sent with
orders to cast fire and sword upon the prince who
bears the buckler of European order on his powerful
arm; odious conspirators whose policy consists in
assassination, and who attack even feeble women,
not knowing that among them there are those whose
courage rises even to heroism. But, since these
248

AFTER THE OUTRAGE i2i9

implacable revolutionists have communized their
furies of destruction, why do not governments aud
peoples lend each other a joint support for their
legitimate defence? The law of nations authorizes
it; equity and mutual interests make it a duty."
The famous jurisconsult, president of the Senate,
ended his speech in an almost lyric tone : " Yes, Sire,
God, who says by the mouth of the prophet, ' With
draw from me, ye men of blood ! ' will not permit
that crime should interrupt too soon the mission of
restoration and progress which He has imposed upon
you. Long live the Emperor ! "
Count de Morny, president of the Corps Le"gislatif,
spoke next. The following passage was the most
noticeable in his address : " We cannot disguise from
you, Sire, that the populations we have recently
visited are disturbed concerning the effects of your
clemency, which is too much in accordance with the
goodness of your heart : and when they see such
abominable attempts prepared abroad, they wonder
why neighboring and friendly powers are unable to
destroy these laboratories of assassination, and how
the sacred laws of hospitality can be applied to
ferocious beasts."
In making his brief acknowledgments to the great
bodies of State, the Emperor declared that, although
he was determined to take such measures as should
be deemed necessary, he would not depart from those
paths of prudence and moderation which he had
previously followed.

250 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
The sympathies of Europe came prominently into
view. Count de Persigny, ambassador of France in
England, wrote from London to Count Walewski,
January 16 : "I was at Badminton, at the house of
the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, when tidings
of the frightful outrage reached me. Going to
London, I found the whole city profoundly affected.
As in Paris, public opinion everywhere manifests
energetic indignation against that infamous sect of
assassins who up to now seem to have found an in
violable asylum in English laws. ... At the first
news of the attempted crime, Lord Palmerston and
Lord Clarendon wrote to me, the latter in the name
of the Queen, and there arrive momentarily at the
embassy new testimonies of sympathy for the Em
peror. As to that band of scoundrels who direct
these frightful crimes from here, I think that after
such an event it will not be difficult for me to obtain
some measures respecting them from the English
government." January 18, Napoleon III. opened the session of
1858 at the Tuileries, in the hall of the Marshals.
His discourse, one of the most eloquent he ever de
livered, produced a very deep impression. He said:
" Let us not forget that the progress of every new
power is for a long time a struggle. Whatever one
may say, the danger does not lie in the excessive
prerogatives of power, but rather in the absence of
repressive laws. ... I eagerly welcome, without
pausing at their antecedents, all those who recognize

AFTER THE OUTRAGE 251
the national will. As to provocators of disturbances
and organizers of conspiracies, let them know that
their time is over."
The close of the imperial speech was received with
genuine enthusiasm. " I thank Heaven," said Na
poleon III., " for the visible protection with which it
has sheltered us, the Empress and myself, and I
deplore that so many victims should have been made
in order to attack the life of a single man. However,
these plots carry with them more than one useful
lesson: the first is that the parties which have re
course to assassination prove by desperate efforts
their weakness and their impotence ; the second is
that an assassination, even though successful, has
never aided the cause of those who armed the assas
sins. Neither the party that struck down Ceesar,
nor that which aimed at Henry IV., reaped profit
from their murder. God sometimes permits the
death of the just, but He never permits the triumph
of the cause of crime. Hence these attempts can
disturb neither my security in the present nor my
faith in the future. If I live, the Empire lives with
me ; and if I fall, the Empire would be still further
consolidated by my death, for the indignation of the
people and the army would be an additional support
for the throne of my son. Let us look forward to
the future then with confidence ; let our daily labors
for the welfare and the greatness of the country be
undisturbed by anxious preoccupations. God pro
tect France ! "

252 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
The Assembly rose as one man and cheered him
with the utmost enthusiasm.
Count de Persigny continued to hope that the
English government would take the necessary meas
ures. He wrote to Count Walewski, January 18:
" Yesterday, during the day, Lord Palmerston called
on me twice without finding me at home. I went
to his house, and, in his absence, Lady Palmerston
was eager to tell me that she hoped the trial would
disclose the complicity of other refugees in England,
and that I need not doubt the sentiments of Lord
Palmerston as to all that ought to be done.
"I am unwilling to close this despatch without
telling you how greatly people have been struck
by the courage and coolness of the Emperor and
Empress under these terrible circumstances. Still,
they knew what might be expected from the char
acter of the Emperor ; but the Empress has appeared
under a wholly new light and has gained universal
admiration." January 20, the Moniteur published the following
paragraph : " Amidst the general reprobation excited
by the outrage of January 14, it has made us indig
nant to see a Belgian journal, the Drapeau, in its
issue of January 17, highly approve the assassination
of the Emperor. We await the decision of the Bel
gian government."
Meantime, the dispositions of the English gov
ernment continued favorable. In a despatch of Jan
uary 21, M. de Persigny says : " I must not forget

AFTER THE OUTRAGE 253
to tell you of the prodigious effect produced by the
Emperor's speech. Mr. Disraeli told me yesterday
that the last part of it seemed to him the most mag
nificent piece of written eloquence in any known
language. But, apart from this merit, the speech
has so admirably replied to the attacks made here
against our government, that it will floor the mis
chievous English press for a long time to come."
January 25 the marriage of the Princess Royal
with Prince Frederic of Prussia (the future Em
peror Frederic III.) was celebrated in London.
In Paris, the EngUsh ambassador and Lady Cowley
gave a grand ball at the embassy in honor of the
event. At this ball, as everywhere else, Napoleon
III. never lost his imperturbable calm and his impas
sible attitude. He exhibited neither preoccupation
nor anxiety. But, at bottom, he was conscious of
being greatly menaced, and he cherished no illusions
as to the bitterness of the assassins. What con
fronted one in the attempt of January 14 was neither
an isolated fact nor the crime of a madman or a fool ;
what had occurred was merely an episode of an in
cessantly renewed conspiracy. The court retained
all its brilliancy, all its animation ; but a vague terror
reigned there. Every time her husband left the
Tuileries, the Empress wondered whether he would
return alive. Most precise details, coming not merely
from England but from Belgium, Switzerland, and
Piedmont, described the sect of assassins as irrevo
cably bent upon continuing its system of murders.

254 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
We cite, among other warnings, this telegraphic
despatch addressed to Count Walewski by Prince de
La Tour d'Auvergne, Minister of France at Turin:
" Count Cavour is informed by a report of the Sar
dinian police that in one of the outings which the
Emperor will take, whether in a carriage or on
horseback, several individuals dressed as workmen,
among whom there will be some children, are to
approach the Emperor as if to present petitions.
When His Majesty stops, they will fling at him five
egg-shaped objects which, being enveloped in a very
delicate covering, are capable of exploding at the
slightest shock. These projectiles will be filled with
an adhesive material which will stick to garments
like glue and produce fumes and an odor which may
produce sudden death by asphyxia. This informa
tion has been sent from London to Count Cavour."
January 27, the Emperor issues a decree dividing
the troops of the line stationed in the interior of
France into five great military commands confided
to the marshals of France. This decree is generally
considered a proof of the mysterious perils which
menace the sovereign. He looks at the situation
himself as if he were about to be assassinated, and
speaks of the regency and the Emperor minor.
February 1, M. Achille Fould, Minister of State,
bears an imperial message to the Senate. These
words occur in it : " Messieurs the senators, the
senatus-consult of July 17, 1856, leaves an uncer
tainty which I think it useful to terminate from

AFTER THE OUTRAGE 256
to-day. In effect, it does not confer the regency
on the Empress, or, in her absence, on tho French
princes, except the Emperor has not otherwise dis
posed by public or secret act. I believe I shall
satisfy the wishes of the pubhc as well as obey a
sentiment of lofty confidence in the Empress by
designating her as regent. Moved by the same
sentiments, I designate in her absence, as her suc
cessors in the regency, the French princes according
to the hereditary order of the crown. I have ap
pointed a privy council which, with the addition of
the two French princes (Prince Jerome and his son
Prince Napoleon), will become the council of the
regency by the mere fact of the accession of the
Emperor minor, unless, at that moment, I have
appointed some one else by a public act. This
privy council, composed of men possessing my con
fidence, will be consulted on great affairs of State,
and prepare itself, by studying the duties and neces
sities of the government, for the important part which
the future may hold in reserve for it."
After reading the message, M. Fould acquaints
the senators with the existence of letters patent ex
pressed in the following terms : " Wishing to ter
minate from to-day the uncertainties resulting from
the senatus-consult of July 17, 1856, and to give our
beloved spouse the Empress Eugenie a mark of the
high confidence we have in her, we have resolved to
confer and do by these presents confer upon her the
title of regent, to bear that title and exercise its func-

256 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
tions from the day of the accession of the Emperor
minor, all in conformity with the arrangements of
the senatus-consult concerning the regency."
The letters patent of February 1 are followed by
a decree of the same day which appoints a privy
council obliged to assemble under the presidency of
the Emperor. Cardinal Morlot, the Marshal Duke
of Malakoff, M. Achille Fould, M. Troplong, Count
de Morny, M. Baroche, and Count de Persigny are
appointed members of this council. February 7,
General Espinasse is appointed Minister of the In
terior and of Public Safety. Before describing his
ministry, we are about to relate the mission of
General della Rocca and the trial of Orsini and his
three accomplices.

CHAPTER XXXI
GENERAL DELLA ROCCA
f~A REAT anxiety prevailed in Turin, especially in
^ official circles. What did Napoleon III. think
of the situation? Would he hold all Italians re
sponsible for the crime of some of them ? Would he
open his eyes to the revolutionary centre existing in
Piedmont, to the proceedings of political refugees
who were always getting up disturbances there, to
articles like those in Mazzini's journal, Italia e Po
polo, which extolled assassination? Italian national
aspirations had declared enemies in the Emperor's
circle and even among his counsellors. Would they
not try to exploit Orsini's attempt against the policy
of Count Cavour? The entire plan of this minister
rested upon the armed concurrence of France. Apart
from such a combination he saw not the slightest
chance of wresting Milan and Venice from Austria.
If Napoleon III. were to change his tactics, if, con
formably with the views of several of his ministers,
he adopted the Austrian alliance, all the scaffolding
so laboriously erected by M. de Cavour would tumble
down. The moment was critical.
At this time Victor Emmanuel conceived the idea
s 257

258 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
of sending his chief aide-de-camp, General della Rocca,
to Paris to congratulate the Emperor on his escape
from assassination, and to induce him to persevere in
his Italian sympathies.
At first sight, the task did not seem an easy one.
The adversaries of Piedmont criticised his conduct
severely. The Pope's nuncio in France, Mgr. Sac-
coni, exclaimed : " Behold the fruit of the agitations
stirred up by M. Cavour." Baron Hiibner, ambas
sador of Austria, said that the time had come to
form a close alliance between the court of the Tui
leries and that of Vienna. It was claimed that Pied
mont was an arsenal, a laboratory of conspiracies.
Attention was called to the fact that five days before
the outrage, Mazzini had published at Genoa a mani
festo full of hatred, wrath, and sinister predictions.
It was added that on the morrow of the crime a
Piedmontese journal, the Bagione, had excused mur
der. These incidents were envenomed, and a rumor
that the days of Count Cavour were counted got
into circulation.
The envoy of King Victor Emmanuel had to con
tend against great prejudices, and, though a soldier of
distinction, to apply himself to diplomacy. General
della Rocca, who died in 1897 at the age of ninety,
the latest survivor of the generals of the Italian
army, was born June 20, 1807. He possessed his
sovereign's entire confidence and was not a new ac
quaintance to Napoleon III. Twice already he had
been extremely well received at the Tuileries. He

GENERAL DELLA ROCCA 259
was there at the close of 1855, with Victor Emman
uel, then so petted by the Emperor.
In his work, Ricordi storici e anedottiei del gene rale
Della Rocca, the general has given some curious
details concerning this sojourn of the King at Paris.
Victor Emmanuel had been a widower for two
years. Napoleon III. wanted him to marry a Hohen
zollern princess, a daughter of Prince Antony of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who had just sold his
insignificant principality of Sigmaringen to the head
of his family, the King of Prussia. This princess
was a relative of the Emperor, since her mother was
a daughter of the Grand Duchess Stephanie of
Baden, who was a Beauharnais. In a remarkable
essay on the work of General della Rocca, Count
Joseph Grabinski has noted that at this time Napo
leon III. was far from suspecting that a son of Prince
Antony of Hohenzollern would afterwards provoke
the Franco-Prussian War and be the cause of the fall
of the Second Empire.
General della Rocca went again to Paris in 1856,
and was present at the baptism of the Prince Impe
rial. When he once more appeared at the Tuileries,
January 24, 1858, bearing an autograph letter from
the King to the Emperor, he was excited and dis
turbed. He had just learned that Napoleon III.
had said : " Piedmont is an asylum of revolutionists
and assassins. Orsini stayed there several times,
and Mazzini constantly goes there without the police
paying the slightest attention to him." Accompanied

260 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
by Marquis de Villamarina, minister of Sardinia at
Paris, and by Count Charles de Robilant, artillery
captain and orderly officer of His Sardinian Majesty
(the same who was Minister of Foreign Affairs from
1885 to 1887), he presented himself at the Tuileries
and remitted Victor Emmanuel's letter without com
ment. January 26, a ball was given at the court of Turin.
The next day Prince de La Tour d'Auvergne,
minister of France, wrote to Count Walewski in a
private letter : " I was able to see M. Cavour again
last evening at the court ball, and to tell him once
more how useful I thought it would be if he should
adopt some serious measure concerning the press, or,
at any rate, the Italia e Popolo. I reminded him of
the constant good-will of the Emperor with regard
to Piedmont, and the obligations imposed by it, under
existing circumstances, on the government of Victor
Emmanuel. I called his attention to the fact that
while in Switzerland, Belgium, and even in England
a disposition to do something was manifest, it would
be truly unaccountable if our friendly advances
should receive a less favorable reception at Turin,
or if, under any pretext of legality, there should be
any hesitation about suppressing the official organ of
assassination, the Italia e Popolo, or prosecuting the
Unione and the Diritto, which had glorified in a way
the outrage of the 14th. Count Cavour, as in our
former conversation, intrenched himself behind the
necessity of a law and the difficulty of his personal
position."

GENERAL DELLA ROCCA 261

In the same letter, Prince do La Tour d'Auvergne
added these really curious remarks : " 1 should think
it indispensable, in case there is question of insisting
with Count Cavour in order to obtain a more obvious
proof of his good-will, that Your Excellency should
explain yourself clearly to Marquis de Villamarina.
The plan of the defenders of the existing state of
things and its continuance is, in fact, at this moment,
to insinuate that I am an agent who goes beyond the
desires and intentions of his government. They have
recourse to a thousand petty manoeuvres of this sort
which plainly prove, it seems to me, that they are at
bay, and to which, for my part, I attach no manner of
importance." It soon became evident that Napoleon III. did not
dream of renouncing his Italian sympathies. Feb
ruary 3, on occasion of the foreign princes who had
come to congratulate him, he reviewed several corps
of his guard and of the army of Paris in the court of
the Tuileries and Place du Carrousel. Beside him
were three princes of Prussia, Frederic Charles, Adal
bert and Albert, Prince Francis of Lichtenstein, the
Prince of Hesse, and the Prince of Paskiewitch. He
was accompanied by five marshals of France, Vaillant,
Magnan, Pelissier, Canrobert, Bosquet, and by Gen
eral della Rocca. Behind him came a brilliant staff
in which a large number of foreign officers were
noticeable. Prince Napoleon, on horseback beside
the Emperor, wore the broad ribbon of the Black
Eagle of Prussia. The Empress and the Prince

262 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
Imperial were present at this review, the first since
the outrage. " The Emperor," says General della
Rocca, " rode at the head of his staff. At a certain
moment, turning to the side where the group of ex
traordinary ambassadors was, he saw me and by a gest
ure invited me to approach him. He kept me beside
him nearly all the time, calling my attention to one
regiment and another in such a way that the spectators
might have believed that the review was given in
honor of the representative of King Victor Em
manuel." So then, at a time when the relations between
Paris and Turin seemed very tenuous, and when more
than one diplomatist fancied that Napoleon III.,
irritated against the revolutionary agitations of Pied
mont, would turn towards Austria, the taciturn and
mysterious sovereign was clinging more fondly than
ever to his dream of uniting with Victor Emmanuel
against that power. At a period when the policy of
the Sardinian government was exciting lively appre
hensions in official circles, the Emperor, while seem
ing to judge the cabinet of Turin severely, showed
himself most courteous and attentive to the first
aide-de-camp of the King and secretly approved the
tendencies of Count Cavour.
General della Rocca says again : " Early in Febru
ary, an invitation to dinner was sent to me and Count
Robilant from the Tuileries, and, at the same time, a
letter from the minister of the Emperor's household,
saying that I would be received in private audience

GENERAL DELLA ROCCA 263

by the Emperor the same evening. An hour after
the official dinner, during which tho Emperor wore
the broad ribbon of the Annonciade. and at which the
Marquis de Villamarina and I occupied the places of
honor, the Emperor invited me into his cabinet."
Face to face with the general, the Emperor began
by saying that the King's letter seemed to him affec
tionate, and that in reply he meant to write to him
at length. He then talked about the Tiigione news
paper which, having been tried as guilty of apologiz
ing for assassination, had just been acquitted, and
added that the Piedmontese code was insufficient to
prevent the excesses of the press. Then he said
that Piedmont had not much to expect from England,
while all its interests counselled a close union with
France. He affirmed, moreover, that he was very
sure of his army, and that it was ready to march with
the greatest zeal into any country which was pointed
out to it as a refuge of assassins.
" During this first private audience with the Em
peror," adds General della Rocca, " the Emperor was
as courteous to me personally as he was severe with
respect to my government. In dismissing me, he
invited me to come and see him at the Tuileries
whenever I desired between nine and ten o'clock in
the morning."
On learning by means of a letter from General
della Rocca the details of the private interview of
February 5, Victor Emmanuel was at first disquieted,
but he soon became reassured. Several men devoted

264 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
to the Italian cause were among the Emperor's close
confidants, notably M. Mocquart and Doctor Con
neau, who were much more conversant than his min
isters with his projects. An. ardent Milanese patriot,
Count Arese, was probably his best friend. Never
theless, the emotion produced by fear of the Em
peror's displeasure was such that Count Arese himself
did not venture to come to Paris, dreading to find him
irritated against Piedmont. Doctor Conneau wrote
to him, January 29 : "I told the Empress that you
asked me to present your respects. At first she
thought that you had arrived in Paris, and was
greatly delighted. When I told her what prevented
your coming, she exclaimed : ' But there are Italians
and Italians. Happily the bad ones are few. I love
the good Arese greatly. Tell him I hope he will
come here to spend some days next spring. I cannot
show him a houseful of children, but I will show him
a sample which will not displease him.' I give you
the words as she spoke them so as not to weaken their
importance." Honest and patriotic Italians were doing their
utmost to repudiate all connection with a handful of
assassins who excited almost universal reprobation.
The wife of the Sardinian minister at Paris remitted
to the Empress a bouquet made at Genoa, and sent
to the sovereign by Piedmont, together with some
verses by the poet Proti. When he had another
audience, General della Rocca found the Emperor
quite friendly to the Piedmontese government. " A

GENERAL DELLA ROC' A 265

letter which the King had written me," says the
general, "was to be read by me to the Emperor of my
own motion, so to say, giving myself meanwhile the
appearance of hesitating and almost refusing to ac
quaint him with its contents. I was to pretend to
be acting on my own responsibility and to be going
beyond my instructions." This little comedy suc
ceeded. At the end of his letter, Victor Emmanuel thus
expressed himself : "According to what I have just
said to you, my dear La Rocca, the Emperor ought
to be well persuaded of my good intentions, and to
see that things had been done even before he de
manded them. If he wishes me to resort to violent
measures here, let him know that I would lose all
my influence. ... If the words you have sent me
are literally those of the Emperor, tell him, in the
best words you can find, that a faithful ally is not
treated in this way, that I have never permitted vio
lence from any one, that I always pursue the path of
stainless honor, and that, for this honor, I answer
only to God and my people ; that we have held our
heads high for eight hundred and fifty years and that
nobody will make me lower mine, and, with all that,
I yet desire nothing but to be his friend."
After listening to the last phrase, Napoleon III.
exclaimed : " That is what is called having courage.
Your king is a brave man, I like his answer. He
shows himself under these circumstances to be just
what I supposed him in 1855. It pleases me to see

266 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
once more that Victor Emmanuel is somebody. . . .
I am sure we shall understand each other. Write
to him at once ; tranquillize him concerning my
intentions; express my regret for having pained
him. ... I love Italy, and I will never be Austria's
ally against her. My antecedents ought to reassure
you. And if I had occupied in 1849 the place I
occupy at present, I should certainly have gone to
the assistance of Charles Albert."
Prince de La Tour d'Auvergne wrote to Count
Walewski : " Turin, February 16, 1858. I had the
honor to see the King yesterday morning. His
Majesty told me he had just received a perfectly sat
isfactory letter from General della Rocca, and that
the assurances of friendship and good-will which the
Emperor had charged the general to convey to him
had completely effaced the impression which General
della Rocca's first report had caused.
"Turin, February 19. The Chamber of Deputies
resumed its public sessions yesterday. The govern
ment availed itself of the occasion to propose the
project of a law modifying the composition of juries,
and establishing in a more precise manner in what
the apology for assassination consists. They say the
law will pass by a sufficiently strong majority. The
extreme right and the extreme left will be the only
parties to make a lively opposition. As to the left
centre, it seems most eager to seize this occasion to
manifest its sympathies with France. "
On the whole, General della Rocca had completely

VICTOR EMMANUEL
King of Sardinia

GENERAL DELLA ROCCA 267

succeeded in his mission. He deserved the eulogies
of his sovereign, who said to him in a cordial letter :
" I embrace and thank you with all my heart. You
have rendered me a great service, and got out of the
scrape wonderfully well, better than a diplomatist."
February 20, the general was received for the last
time in private audience by the Emperor, who let him
clearly understand, and even authorized him to say
to the King, in a confidential but positive way, that
in case of war by Piedmont against Austria, he would
come with his faithful army to fight beside his faith
ful ally, Victor Emmanuel. "Say also to M. Cavour,"
added Napoleon III., " that he ought to put himself
in direct correspondence with me, and that we should
certainly understand each other."
The general terminates as follows the account of
his final audience : " So then I had been a skilled
diplomatist without knowing it, and I still rejoice
at it, more on account of the results obtained than
on my own. Respect for truth obliges me to say
that the good star which has guided me in the serious
circumstances of my life so arranged that at the very
time of my sojourn in Paris, and when Napoleon III.
was showing himself more friendly towards us, he
received through M. Pidtri, prefect of police, a letter
which Orsini had written him from his prison, in
which the conspirator repeated to the Emperor what
I had been obliged to tell him, namely, that the
Italians had taken the firm resolution not to endure
Austrian domination any longer. This letter must

268 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
have affected the Emperor deeply, and reminded him
of his early years, when he and his brother had like
wise conspired for the deliverance of Italy. Ripe
reflection made him see that an alliance with Pied
mont might be advantageous to France and to his
dynasty, and he unhesitatingly resolved to act in our
favor." The war with Italy was decided on.

CHAPTER XXXII
THE ORSINI TRIAL
TpEBRUARY 25, the assizes court of the Seine
assembled under the jurisdiction of first presi
dent Delangle to try Orsini and his three accom
plices. The act of accusation, drawn up and read
by Attorney General Chaix d'Est-Ange, produced
very little impression ; it merely stated facts already
known. Then followed the interrogatories. Gomez,
whose only concern was to save his own head, stam
mered out some humble explanations, and declared
his repentance. "I was M. Orsini's servant," said
he, " and I obeyed his orders."
Rudio alleged as his excuses the fear with which
his accomplices inspired him and his extreme pov
erty. " At London," said he, " in 1856, I had been
offended because I was suspected of being an informer
of the French government, so I was obliged to go
to extremes ; I sacrificed myself to vanity so as not
to be called a traitor." As he owned up to the
money he had received from Orsini, President De
langle said to him : " So you belong to an honorable
family which has held a considerable rank. You
voluntarily quitted the cadet school at Milan, you
269

270 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
shirked labor, you threw yourself into revolutionary
movements, and gradually you have become an
assassin, a mercenary assassin for three hundred and
thirty francs which have been given you, and twelve
shillings a week which have been promised to your
wife." Pieri got off a series of unlikely lies and the
atrical declamations, which produced no effect what
ever. The only striking interrogatory was that of Orsini.
" It was in the course of last year," said he, " that
Pieri and I began talking of the plan put into exe
cution on January 14. We were convinced that the
surest way to make a revolution in Italy was to pro
duce one in France, and that the surest way to do
that was to kill the Emperor." He then went into
the most precise details concerning the preparations
for and the execution of the attempt. " I loaded
the bombs myself in my room on rue Mont-Thabor.
I had to dry the powder myself, watch and thermom
eter in hand, before the fire ; if a spark had fallen on
it, I should have been blown up, with all in the house."
After the accused had coolly described all the scenes
of the crime, this dialogue took place between Presi
dent Delangle and him : —
The President. — What co-operation did you count
upon in Paris in case your abominable attempt had
succeeded? Orsini. — I said to myself: When something hap
pens at Paris, that will probably destroy the system

THE ORSINI TRIAL 271
pursued in France in reference to Italy, and doubt
less bring about an insurrection in my country.
The President. — And was it in hope of an insur
rection in Italy, and to restore to her the liberty of
1849, that you became an assassin in France?
Orsini. — I wished to give Italy independence;
for no liberty is possible without independence. I
have written in this sense to M. Cavour. He has
not answered me.
The President. — -You wished, I repeat, to give Italy
the liberty she had in 1849, the liberty of the trium
virs with murder and robbery. And you did not
recoil before the frightful disasters your crime would
have entailed. Sit down.
The witnesses were then heard, but they disclosed
no new facts.
The second and last hearing took place Feb
ruary 26. The Attorney General, M. Chaix d'Est-
Ange, made a long charge which ended as follows:
" France and the world have been miraculously
saved. Providence has protected the Emperor, the
Emperor whose courage and confidence had not dis
armed the arms of the murderers ! On the very scene
of the outrage, amidst the carnage, when the victims
were stretched upon the pavement, a universal cry
proceeded from the crowd. Presently that grand
acclamation came nearer; it is sounding still, and
the bell of the Te Deums is yet ringing in our ears.
There was no one who did not comprehend that the
world was saved.

272 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
" I mistake, and I ask pardon for my words. No,
the efforts of the assassins would have been power
less. Providence protects the Emperor, and had
they cast him under their feet, they would not
have slain with him the order and the institutions
he has founded. Institutions remain.
"Mourning France would have risen as one man
in the name of the heir of the throne. The Emperor
may perish; his name and his race will survive ! "
After a recess of twenty minutes, M. Jules Favre,
Orsini's advocate, began his plea as follows : " Gen
tlemen of the jury. Would that I might for an
instant banish from my mind the painful emotions
which besiege it, in order to render a public and sin
cere token of admiration to the eminent orator you
have just listened to. He has long given lustre to
our order, where his place remains empty, where the
memory of his person will remain loved and glorious.
He must necessarily add brilliancy to the functions
he has accepted, and which must borrow new author
ity from the prestige of his words."
After this eulogy of his former confrere, now
Attorney General of the Empire, the republican
advocate sought to represent the outrage as a purely
political crime : " The true day of justice," said he,
"is that on which the accused appears before you;
it is there that he brings his last word, his last ex
planations, his justification and his defence. Listen,
then, to the accused, and say whether his words are
those of boasting or of weakness."

THE ORSINI TRIAL 273

Great was the surprise of the audience when
Jules Favre added: "Hold, he has left his last
testament, his prayer, in a writing addressed to the
Emperor from his prison, a writing which I am about
to read to you, after obtaining permission to do so
from him to whom it was addressed. It is thus ex
pressed: —
" ' To Napoleon III., Emperor of the French : —
"'The evidence I have given against myself is suf
ficient to send me to death, and I shall submit to it
without asking pardon, as much because I will never
humble myself before him who has killed the nas
cent liberty of my unhappy country, as because, in
my situation, death is a benefit.
" ' Near the close of my career, I nevertheless wish
to make another effort in aid of Italy, whose inde
pendence has made me, up to this day, brave all
dangers and anticipate all sacrifices. It is the object
of all my affections, and it is this final thought which
I wish to embody in the words I address to Your
Majesty. " ' To maintain the existing equilibrium of Europe,
either Italy must be made independent, or the chains
in which Austria holds her must be tightened. Do
I ask that the blood of Frenchmen shall be shed for
Italians to accomplish this deliverance? No, I do
not go so far as that. Italy demands that France
shall not intervene against her; she demands that
France shall not permit Germany to support Austria

274 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
in the struggles soon to break out. Now, this is
precisely what Your Majesty can do if so disposed.
On your will depends the welfare or the misfortunes
of my country, the life or death of a nation to which
Europe owes in great part her civilization.
" ' Such is the prayer which I dare address to
Your Majesty from my dungeon, not despairing lest
my feeble voice should not be heard. I adjure
Your Majesty to restore to my country the indepen
dence which her children lost in 1849 by the fault of
Frenchmen themselves.
" ' Let Your Majesty remember that Italians, among
them my father, gladly shed their blood for Napo
leon the Great, wherever he chose to lead them ;
remember that they were faithful to him up to his
fall; and that so long as Italy is not independent,
the tranquillity of Europe as well as that of Your
Majesty is only a chimera. Let not Your Majesty
repel the last cry of a patriot on the steps of the
scaffold; deliver my country, and the benedictions
of twenty-five millions of citizens will follow you in
posterity. " ' From the prison of Mazas.
"'Signed: Felix Orsini.
'"February 11, 1858.'"
As an orator, Jules Favre was a bit of a tragedian.
There was something strange and lugubrious in his
eloquence. In listening to his sombre, grave, pa
thetic voice, one felt a presentiment that his name

THE ORSINI TRIAL

would be blended with tho agonizing hours of our
history. When it expressed sinister ideas, as in the
Orsini trial, this powerful voice, broken by a sort of
hiccough whicli resembled a sob or a death rattle,
made one shudder. One seemed to see the scaffold
already rising for the accused, of whom the orator
was trying to make a martyr. After reading what
he called his client's last will, "Orsini," said he,
"has bowed before God, comprehending that His
decrees condemned his enterprise. To-day he is
about to die. From the border of his grave he ad
dresses him against whom he feels no hatred, him
who may be the saviour of his country, and says to
him : ' Prince, you glory in having sprung from the
entrails of the people, from universal suffrage ; well,
then, resume the ideas of your glorious predecessor ;
Prince, heed not the flatterers, be great and mag
nanimous, and you will be invulnerable.' "
The defence terminated in these words, which
transformed it into a sort of funeral oration : " You
have no need, gentlemen of the jury, of the adjura
tions of the Attorney General; you will do your
duty without feebleness or passion. But God who
is above us, God before whom the accused and their
judges will appear, God who will judge us all, God
who will measure the extent of our faults, God
will pronounce on this man also, and will perhaps
grant him a pardon which earthly judges would have
believed impossible."
Three advocates, Nogent Saint-Laurens, Nicolet,

276 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
and Mathieu, afterwards pleaded, the first for Pieri,
the second for Gomez, the third for Rudio. Sen
tence was then pronounced. Orsini, Pieri, and
Rudio were condemned to the penalty of parricides,
Gomez to compulsory labor for life.
It has been said that Napoleon III. would have
much preferred to spare the lives of all the prisoners,
but was prevented by his ministers. For Rudio
alone the death penalty was changed to compulsory
labor for life. It has also been claimed that the
Emperor saw Orsini mysteriously in his prison ; but
we have found it impossible to verify the exactness of
this assertion, which is also improbable. What seems
certain is that the prefect of police, M. Pielri, had an
interview with the condemned, in which he revealed
to him the intentions of Napoleon III. with regard
to Italy, and the folly there would have been in
causing the disappearance of the only man who had
the power and the will to liberate her.
March 9, four days before ascending the scaffold,
Orsini, then in the Roquette prison, vestibule of the
guillotine, addressed the Emperor in a second letter
still more solemn than the first. He said in it:
" The sentiments of Your Majesty towards Italy are
no slight consolation for me at the moment of death.
Soon I shall be no more. Before rendering my last
vital breath I declare that assassination, no matter
under what pretext it may veil itself, does not enter
into my principles, even though, by a fatal aberration
of mind, I organized the attempt of January 14. But

THE ORSINI TRIAL 277
assassination was never my system, and I have con
tended against it, at the peril of my life, by my
writings and by my political life. Let my compa
triots, instead of relying upon assassination as a
means, learn from the mouth of a patriot about to
die that their abnegation, their devotion, their
union, their virtue alone, can assure the deliverance
of Italy, render her free, independent, and worthy
of the glory of their sires. I am going to die calmly,
and I desire that no stain shall sully my memory.
As to the victims of January 14, I offer them my
blood in sacrifice, and I beg that Italians, once be
come independent, may some day indemnify those
who have suffered. Your Majesty will permit me,
in closing, to beg the grace of life, not for myself,
but for those of my accomplices who have been con
demned to death."
The execution of Orsini and of Pieri took place
March 13, at seven o'clock in the morning. An
hour and a half earlier, the condemned had been
notified that their appeal for mercy had been re
jected by the Court of Cassation. They were assisted
in their last moments by two chaplains, Abbe" Hugon
and Abbe" Rottelet. M. Maxime du Camp, who
witnessed the proceedings, described them as follows
to Marquis de Laborde: Orsini retained his air of
haughty elegance. Pieri appeared rather as a man
of the people. Both had to undergo the penalty of
parricides, and as such they were led to the place
of punishment in their shirts, with bare feet, and

278 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
heads covered with black veils. When Pieri's shoes
were taken off, " If I had known," said he, " I would
have washed my feet." The scaffold was erected on
Roquette Place. The two Italians climbed its steps
with firmness. The crowd, so often jeering and
ignoble at such spectacles, was this time thought
ful and silent; it seemed to be wondering whether
great events would not soon be the consequence of
this execution. Before laying his head under the
knife of the guillotine, Orsini cried in a strong and
vibrating voice: " Long live Italy ! " They were his
last words.

CHAPTER XXXIII
GENERAL ESPINASSE
r I iHE appointment of a military man as Minister of
the Interior and the presentation of a draconian
law such as that of general safety, prove the trouble
and consternation caused by the Orsini outrage in
official circles. Since the explosion of the infernal
machine under the Consulate and that of Fieschi
under the reign of Louis Philippe, no such panic had
been seen. One would have said the ground was
trembling under the Emperor's tread, and that a black
veil, covered with blood, had suddenly overspread
the prosperity of his reign. His court, so joyous and
brilliant, felt paralyzed, and sought by a rigorous
policy to ward against the dangers which seemed to
threaten it.
February 7, 1858, General Espinasse was appointed
Minister of the Interior as successor to M. Billault,
and to this title was added that of "Minister of
General Safety." This appellation was sufficient to
indicate the part assigned him.
General Espinasse was forty-two years old. Born
April 2, 1815, at Saissac in the department of the
Aude, he entered the military school of Saint-Cyr in
270

280 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
1833. After gaining his first promotions in Algeria,
he commanded in 1849 the 42d of the line at the
time of the siege of Rome. General de Saint-Ar
naud, under whom he made in 1851 the campaign of
Kabylia, summoned him to Paris to take part in the
coup d'Etat, and it was he who occupied the Palais
Bourbon in the night of December 1-2. General of
brigade in 1852, aide-de-camp of the Emperor, com
mander in 1854 of a brigade of the army of the
Orient, he merited by his bravery and his military
talents in the Crimea the rank of general of division.
He notably distinguished himself at the battle of
Traktir and the assault of the Malakoff. He was one
of the youngest and most brilliant of French generals.
The court desired the new Minister of the Interior
to have a hand of iron, but was not careful about the
velvet glove. The Emperor wrote him in a private
letter : " The body social is gnawed by a sort of ver
min of which it is necessary to get rid at any cost.
There are also prefects who must be displaced in spite
of their protectors. For this I rely upon your zeal.
Do not seek by an inordinate moderation to reassure
those who have been alarmed by your accession to the
ministry. They must fear you, otherwise your ap
pointment would have no excuse for being."
On his side, the Minister General formulated his
programme as follows in a letter addressed to his
sovereign : " If between 1848 and 1851 all social in
stitutions had not incurred unequalled peril, you
would be simply an ambitious vulgarian who had ex-

GENERAL ESPINASSE 281

ploited to his own advantage certain evanescent trou
bles. If the country has seen and proclaimed in you
its saviour, it is because that peril was immense and
of such a character that six years are altogether too
short a time in which to dispel it. France knows it,
and France desires what she desired in 1851. ... A
universal cry has gone up towards you, a cry which
it is only just to translate by these words : ' Guaran
tee to us once more the order of which you have
made yourself the exponent and arbiter; since the
same danger threatens us, be what you already have
been to avert it from our heads.' "
In his circular to the prefects, General Espinasse
declared that France, tranquil and glorious, had re
lied too far on the soothing of anarchical passions,
that the Emperor's generosity had nourished this
hope by multiplying pardons and amnesties ; but that
in the end an execrable outrage had opened all eyes
and revealed the savage resentments, the culpable at
tempts still cherished by the revolutionary party.
The conclusion arrived at by the general was that it
was necessary to give France by an attentive surveil
lance the guarantees which she required, and the cir
cular terminated by the old formula of the coup
oVEtat : " It is time that the good should be reassured
and the wicked made to tremble."
It was not merely in the interior that the situation
was growing gloomy. The relations between France
and England had begun to be disturbed. At the
end of January the Moniteur had inserted several ad-

282 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
dresses signed by colonels on behalf of their regiments,
to protest against the Orsini outrage. Most of these
addresses were irreproachable. The signers confined
themselves to assuring Napoleon III. of their loyalty,
and to declaring that if he had fallen under the blows
of assassins the entire army would have risen as one
man to defend the throne of Napoleon IV. But, in
addition to this correct language, there were in some
of them insults and violent threats against England
which the Moniteur published without reflecting on
their consequences. That of the 39th of the line,
Colonel Hardy, contained this phrase: "In our
manly hearts, indignation against the perverse, suc
ceeding to our gratitude towards God, inclines us to
demand an account from the land of impunity where
lies the den of the monsters who shelter themselves
beneath its laws. Give the order, Sire, and we will
pursue them into their safe hiding places."
The 5th regiment of mounted chasseurs, Colonel
Cassaignoles : " For the second time, the life of Your
Majesty, so dear to the army, so precious, so indis
pensable to the peace and welfare of all Europe, has
been imperilled by foreign hands. Odious assassins,
miserable instruments directed by the enemies of
society ! . . . Those enemies are beyond our reach ;
but, if our arms are paralyzed, Your Majesty's will
and that of France could destroy these lairs of
abominable conspirators."
The 22d of the line, Colonel Mattat: "We would
not express our entire mind if we omitted to say we

GENERAL ESPINASSE 283

think it monstrous that demagogues of the worst kind
can find anywhere in the world a refuge where they
are permitted peacefully to regulate the assassination
of sovereigns and the overthrow of peoples. In France
as elsewhere, the law cannot remain powerless. To
conceal nothing, in short, it seems impossible to con
sider as friends governments capable of giving asylum
to bandits to whom the proclamation of regicide is
permitted with impunity, and who end by hurling
defiance at honesty and civilization by massacres like
that of the rue Le Peletier."
These addresses exasperated British pride and sus
ceptibility to such a point that for an instant a rupt
ure seemed imminent between France and England.
At the same time, the law of general security
produced a very lively sensation. It had been pre
sented to the Corps Le"gislatif on February 1. Its
eight articles resulted in a provision conferring on
government a vague and formidable right to proscribe
its enemies without a trial, either by expelling them
from its territory, or by interning them in France or
Algeria. Here is the list of those for whom adminis
trative good pleasure was to take the place of all
judicial guarantees : all men who in May and June,
1848, in June, 1849, or in December, 1851, had been
either condemned, interned, expelled, or transported
as a measure of security ; all who should have been
condemned for outrages against the Emperor or tho
imperial family, for conspiracy tending to disturb tho
State by civil war, for the illegal employment of

284 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
armed force, for devastation and public pillage, for
fabrication of false passports ; all who had been
guilty of less well defined offences; rebellion, even
unarmed, providing it were by bands, provocation to
disobedience to military men, the making or even the
simple keeping of arms and munitions of war, any
sort of participation in insurrectionary movements.
Moreover, the law created several new offences, nota
bly that of manoeuvres at home or abroad with intent
to trouble public peace, and that of holding up the
Emperor's government to hatred or contempt.
In the liberal party there was a movement of
unanimous reprobation against such a project. It
was characterized as a law of suspects. M. Alfred
Darimon, in a note requested from him by Prince
Napoleon with intent to place it before the eyes of
the Emperor, wrote as follows towards the end of
March : " On the morrow of the outrage, astonished
Europe is told that the Empire is undermined at its
foundations, that it is surrounded by conspiracies,
that it is menaced by secret societies, that if recourse
is not had to measures which permit the government
to do what it pleases with a certain category of citi
zens, all is up with it. In other words, it has just
been proclaimed that seven years of a glorious policy
have been useless, that all must be begun over again,
even the coup d'Etat. Parties were dead, they are
resuscitated; they came to the Empire, they are
repelled." To strike Frenchmen in order to punish a crime

GENERAL ESPINASSE 285

committed exclusively by Italians for an Italian ob
ject, seemed neither just nor logical. The Corps
Legislatif, in spite of its habitual docility, showed a
significant aversion against the project. The gov
ernment sought to allay scruples by publishing in
the Moniteur of February 13 a note stating that the
new measures were a part of an aggregate plan long
ago resolved upon, that the appointment of General
Espinasse to the Ministry of the Interior in no way
modified the imperial policy, and that the law of gen
eral security would, moreover, be applied with mod
eration. The committee elected by the Corps Legislatif
to examine the projected law, selected Count de
Morny to draw up its report. The latter, always
skilful in evading difficulties, declared in his report
that those who did not conspire had nothing to fear
from a law aimed neither at legitimists, Orleanists,
nor even at moderate republicans. The government
would respect all their memories, all their hopes, and
would hold none responsible but demagogues and the
instigators of conspiracies. M. de Morny added that
the new state of things would be transitory, and that
the intervention of high functionaries would prevent
all contempt or intemperate severity.
The debates opened, February 18, before an audi
ence much larger than usual. M. Emile Ollivier de
livered a superb speech against the proposed law.
" I wish," said he, " to show myself, not a man of
party, but an honest man ; I have but one object, that.

286 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
of paying homage to justice." The eloquent orator
thus closed a discourse which produced a great im
pression : " The law ought to be rejected, not through
a spirit of paltry opposition, but through wisdom,
even through devotion to the sovereign, and to point
out the true path which should inaugurate the policy
of the future."
After two days' discussion the project was adopted.
There were but twenty-four deputies who voted
against it. In the Senate the law encountered but
one opposing voice. " But that voice," M. Darimon
has said in his remarkable work entitled, Histoire de
douse ans, " that voice was worth a thousand : it was
that of General de MacMahon. The sessions of the
Senate, not being public, the general's discourse was
known only to a very small number of persons.
Foreign journals tried to introduce it into France,
but they were intercepted at the frontier. If this
speech had become widely known, it would have pro
duced considerable effect on public opinion."
In virtue of the new law, four hundred persons were
arrested and three hundred of them transported to
Algeria. " This execution accomplished," says M. de
La Gorce in his Histoire du Second Empire, " the gov
ernment, whether through a recovery of sang-froid,
through moderation or repentance, refused to push
any further so unexpected and inopportune a repeti
tion of the coup d'Etat." March 25, the Moniteur
announced that the end proposed had been attained,
and that even those who found themselves under the

GENERAL ESPINASSE 287

stroke of governmental severity had nothing to fear
if they did not render themselves guilty of now
deeds. The law of general security remained like a
sword of Damocles, but it almost never fell.
Napoleon III. was hesitating between two paths:
that which led to reaction, and that whose end was
the coronation of the imperial edifice by liberty.
The rigorous policy and the policy of pacification
each had partisans among the advisers of the sover
eign. General Espinasse represented the former,
whicii was opposed lry Prince Napoleon. Wishing to
justify his programme, the general minister addressed
a note to the Emperor which, after the 4th of Sep
tember, was found among the papers of the Tuileries.
" Of two things one,"' said he in this note ; " either
Your Majesty wishes to modify 3Tour system, give
the he to your antecedents, cease, as I think, to
respond to the wishes and most imperative needs of
tne country, and then, I admit, I neither am nor can
be the man for such a mission ; or else Your Majesty
wishes, with good reason, to persevere in the princi
ples of vigilant authority which are and should
remain the bases of your government, while relaxing,
in due measure, that which an exceptional position
has necessarily stretched too tightly; and in that
case the reins can be properly loosened only by a
man who is capable of shortening them vigorously in
case of necessity. To remove that man is to furnish
new food to public anxiety, to justify it by an ap
pearance of versatility and weakness, without in the

288 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
least contenting those who, at bottom, aim at over
throwing imperial institutions."
Here the general posed as a necessary man, and
offered his resignation in case his ideas were not
accepted by the Emperor. This resignation was
accepted, and General Espinasse, made a senator,
was replaced June 15 as Minister of the Interior by
M. Delangle, who did not add to this title that of
Minister of General Safety. At the same time a new
ministry, that of Algeria and the Colonies, was
created in favor of Prince Napoleon, who was thus
called to a place in |the council. The exceptional
policy brought into play by the crime of January 14
was suspended, and an initial orientation towards the
liberal Empire of 1870 might already be divined.

CHAPTER XXXIV
COUNT DE PERSIGNY
/~^vNE of the consequences of the attempt of Janu-
^^ ary 14 was to stir up complications between
France and England, which for several weeks as
sumed a very serious character and subjected the
alliance of the two nations to a very rude trial.
The ambassador of Napoleon III. near Queen
Victoria, since Maj- 7, 1855, was Count de Persigny.
Born at Saint-Germain-Lespinasse, in the department
ofthe Loire, January 11, 1808, he had just completed
his fiftieth year. His career, like that of his sover
eign, had been filled with troubles and vicissitudes.
The son of an officer of the First Empire who per
ished at the battle of Salamanca, he had come out
first from the military school of Saumur in 1826, but
left the military service in 1833. Under the reign
of Louis Philippe he wrote in the legitimist journals
before embracing Bonapartism, of which he was one
of the most ardent apostles and principal precursors.
He contributed greatly to the organization of the
Strasburg conspiracy. The indictment represented
him as "a man of brains and resolution, active, in
telligent, possessing more fully than any one else the
0 289

290 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
secret of the springs on which the plot rested." Ar
rested with Prince Napoleon, he succeeded in escap
ing and took refuge in England. Having also taken
part in the Boulogne expedition, he was condemned
to twenty years of detention. Imprisoned at first at
Doullens, he obtained permission to be transferred to
the military hospital of Versailles. Towards the end
of Louis Philippe's reign, he was simply interned
within the enclosure of that city, where he enjoyed
entire freedom of action. A deputy to the Legisla
tive Assembly in 1849, he was one of those who
aided the Prince-President most in gaining supreme
power. He had been in the struggle; he was at the
triumph. Napoleon III., one of whose good qualities
was the sentiment of gratitude, overwhelmed him
with honors. He appointed him Minister of the In
terior and senator in 1852, ambassador at London in
1855, grand cross of the Legion of Honor in 1856,
member of the Privy Council in 1858. He married
him, May 27, 1852, to a charming young girl of nine
teen, the offspring of the marriage of the General
Prince de Moskowa, eldest son of the illustrious
marshal, with the only daughter of the famous
banker, Jacques Laffite.
Possessing a wonderful acquaintance with the lan
guage, manners, and institutions of England, Count
de Persigny had none but friends in the upper classes
of English society. A convinced partisan of the alli
ance, in equal favor with Whigs and Tories, much
appreciated by the Queen and her ministers, he greatly

COUNT DE PERSIGNY 291

enjoyed himself in London, where his reputation as
the friend and confidant of the Emperor assured him
exceptional force and authority as a diplomatist.
We have said before that, on the morrow of the
crime of January 14, the ambassador of Fiance
could but congratulate himself on the attitude of
the English ministry. But things soon changed.
The beginning of complications was a despatch ad
dressed by Count Walewski to Count de Persigny,
January 20, 1858, and deposited February 8 by Lord
Palmerston on the table of the House of Commons.
In this despatch the Emperor's Minister of Foreign
Affairs commenced by recalling the fact that the
new attempt, like its predecessors, had been con
ceived in England; it was there that the authors
of the conspiracy had leisurely prepared their means
of action, studied and fabricated the instruments of
destruction of which they had just made use, and
from there that they had started to put their plan
into execution. No nation respected more highly
than France the right of asylum. But, is hospitality
due to assassins ? " Can English legislation," added
Count Walewski, " continue to shelter men who
put themselves outside of the common law and
under the ban of humanity ? " He concluded as
follows : " The government of Her Britannic Maj
esty can aid us to avert the danger by giving us a
guarantee of security which no State could possibly
refuse to a neighboring State, and which we are
authorized to expect from an ally. Fully confid-

292 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
ing, moreover, in the good judgment of the Eng
lish cabinet, we abstain from any suggestion as to
the measures it may be suitable to take, and rest
contentedly in the firm persuasion that we have not
appealed in vain to its conscience and its loyalty."
Count Walewski's communication was not badly
received in London at first. The chief of the
Foreign Office, Lord Clarendon, wrote, January 23,
to the English ambassador at Paris, Lord Cowley,
that Parliament would never consent to pass a bill
for the expulsion of foreigners ; it would be as well
worth while, said he, to propose to the House of
Lords or the House of Commons the annexation
of England to France; but, this reservation made,
the counsellors of the Queen manifested no reluc
tance to examine the legislation in force and to
cover its deficiencies if such existed. Count de
Persigny felt quite reassured as to the dispositions
of the English ministry. He wrote to Count Wa
lewski, January 29 : " In this country people do not
run the risks of a terrible war through love of judi
cial subtleties and solely in the interest of a band
of scoundrels."
Parliament, which was in vacation, was to reas
semble February 8. The Prime Minister, Lord
Palmerston, prepared what was called the Conspir
acy Bill, which punished as high treason all plots
formed in England for the assassination of a for
eign prince, intending to submit it to Parliament
by motion.

COUNT DE PERSIGNY 29:1

Things were at this point when, at the end of
January, the unlucky idea of publishing in the
Moniteur those of the colonels' addresses which
contained real insults to England, occurred to some
body in Paris. As M. de Persigny wrote to Count
Walewski, this was to wemht the English govern-
nient with a great difficulty. Nevertheless it was
the general opinion that the Conspiracy Bill proposed
by the Whigs would not be opposed by the Tories.
" To-day, " wrote the ambassador in a despatch of
February 5, " I have been warmly congratulated by
several of my colleagues who, considering the result
already obtained, ascribe to me the merit of it. The
truth is, that if I have done my duty, I have been
singularly assisted by the political sympathies which
the Emperor excites in the country and the respect
ful friendships he has been able to inspire. All
the same, there must be no misapprehension. The
discussion will be sharp and serious."
In presence of the disastrous effect produced by
several of these addresses, Count Walewski addressed
a despatch to Count de Persigny, February 6, in
which he said : " If it has been possible to admit
into the official journal among the enthusiastic
manifestations of the devotion of the army to the
Emperor words which seem in England to breathe
another sentiment, they are too contrary to the
language incessantly employed by the Emperor's
government in this affair to that of Her Britannic
Majesty for it to be possible to attribute them to

294 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
anything but an inadvertence caused by the multi
tude of these addresses in the first moments. The
Emperor charges you to say to Lord Clarendon
how much he regrets it." Thanks to this retrac
tion, Lord Palmerston obtained at the first reading
of the Conspiracy Bill in the House of Commons
a majority of two hundred votes. The Tories had
voted with him, conformably to the promise they
had made to Count de Persigny, and its final suc
cess seemed doubtful to nobody.
The second reading of the bill took place Febru
ary 19. Several members of the House of Commons,
not doubting the vote, were not present. The
most unexpected incident occurred. Just when
Lord Palmerston thought himself absolutely sure of
victory, Mr. Milner Gibson proposed the following
amendment : " The House expresses its horror of
the attempt against the Emperor's life; it will
lend its concurrence in order that remedies may be
found for the faults which may exist in legislation.
Nevertheless it can but regret that the Government,
before asking the House to modify the law, did not
think itself obliged to reply to the French despatch
of January 20." This motion having been adopted
by two hundred and thirty-four votes against two
hundred and fifteen, Lord Palmerston and the other
ministers resigned. The Tories went back to power,
and Lord Derby formed a cabinet with Mr. Disraeli
and Lord Malmesbury. By a strange result of
parliamentary caprices and anomalies, it was the

COUNT DE PERSIGNY 295

man of the civis romanns, the favorite minister of
British patriotism, who fell under suspicion of not
having sufficiently defended the national honor; it
was the statesman so frequently accused of unchain
ing revolutionary tempests over Europe who was
overthrown for having proposed an essentially con
servative measure.
Count de Persigny said in a despatch of February
23 : " Lord Palmerston, with his customary liberty of
spirit, has spoken to me about the situation as if it
were a question of the resignation of a Chinese man
darin. Not a word of irritation against either men or
things has found place in the conversation. . . . He
remarked that this was the second time he had been
turned out of the ministry on account of France and
the Emperor; the first was under the ministry of
Lord John Russell for having approved the coup
d'Etat; and he made me observe that he would have
the right to make this answer to those who have un
justly accused him of not being a sincere friend of
France and the Emperor."
M. de Persigny had great hopes that the new
cabinet would not withdraw the Conspiracy Bill.
Lord Clarendon had been replaced as head of the
Foreign Office by a personal friend of Napoleon III.,
Lord Malmesbury, who had visited him in the fortress
of Ham. The ambassador neglected no means of con
vincing the English statesman and his colleagues.
He spoke to them in the firmest and most eloquent
language. But he could not persuade his own con-

296 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
science that several of the criticisms which they
made on certain faults of the imperial government
were ill-founded. Lord Malmesbury said to him:
" On every side, in all cities and municipalities,
assemblies were convoked to prepare and vote ad
dresses to the Emperor. All England, in a word,
was afoot to testify its sympathy, when the Moniteur
came to chill our hearts. The direct and official
initiative of the French government has excited a
sentiment which is all the more painful because it
deprived England of the merit of the unofficial one."
Such was, in fact, the ambassador's own feeling.
He considered that " the Moniteur s faculty of repre
senting the Emperor was a danger with absolutely no
compensation." He deplored that formal despatch
of January 20 which had caused Lord Palmerston's
downfall. Without fearing to wound Count Walew
ski, and possibly his sovereign as well, he had the
candor and courage to write to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, February 28 : "I have not to express myself
concerning your despatch of January 20. All I can
say is that had I been consulted about a proceeding
of that character, as the usage of all Europe would
probably demand and certainly ordinary human pru
dence, it would have been impossible for me, con
sidering the way in which the question had already
been posed and pressed forward by the English
government, to do anything but advise that this
communication should not be made, or, at least,
should not be given the form of an official com-

COUNT DE PERSIGNY 297
munication. . . . Here we are, through a series of
incidents, faults, imprudences, or negligences, what
ever one likes to call them, arrived at so deplorable
a situation that a horrible event which should have
roused the sympathies of all Europe, and of England
in particular, in favor of the Emperor, has become the
cause of a serious conflict between the two coun
tries ; that popular passions here, overexcited against
France, seem to dominate the reason of the intelligent
classes, and that at present a weak and undecided
minister finds imposed upon him the passage of a bill
which is nothing in itself, but which has inflamed
against him all the passions of the country because
it is supposed to have been imposed upon him by a
foreign sovereign."
Count de Persigny had got as far as this in his
despatch when he received a note from Lord Malmes
bury inviting him to caU at his house. To the great
astonishment of the ambassador, the chief of the
Foreign Office told him that the ministry declined to
present the bill.
Matters thus assumed a very grave character, and
there was room to fear that diplomatic relations
between England and France might be broken off,
when the Emperor suddenly caused the question to
be settled directly between Count Walewski and Lord
Cowley, without consulting and even without noti
fying Count de Persigny. The latter was deeply
offended. " Last Tuesday," wrote he to M. Walew
ski, "March 16, Lord Derby called on me in the

298 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
evening to congratulate me, as he said, on the great
and fortunate news ; and as, in my amazement at
knowing nothing, I asked him what fortunate news
he referred to, he told me with visible surprise at
my ignorance what had passed between Your Ex
cellency and Lord Cowley. Lord Derby's joy was
very natural. The Tory party, after having broken
its word to us three times, could hardly have expected
that when presenting itself for the first time before
the Emperor's Minister of Foreign Affairs it would
receive nothing but felicitations and compliments.
In the interest of the Emperor's dignity I ought to
have been apprised before any one else whomsoever of
the attitude taken by Your Excellency, for the igno
rance in which you left me cannot but have disagree
able consequences. This, Monsieur le Comte, in the
interest of our mutual responsibility, is what I have
to say to you, and I am bound to say it."
Count Walewski having acted under the Emperor's
order, the latter justified him and accepted the resig
nation of the ambassador, March 20, 1858.
And now to the communications which had been
exchanged between the Minister of Foreign Affairs
and Lord Cowley. In a despatch of March 4, ad
dressed to the latter, Lord Malmesbury declared that
all the offences enumerated by Count Walewski, if
proved before a jury, would entail a condemnation,
and that in view of the last outrage proceedings had
been entered for complicity and for a publication
which upheld assassination as a doctrine. Hence

COUNT DE PERSIGNY 299
there was no further question of the Conspiracy Bill.
But Lord Malmesbury, in the name of the Queen's
government, expressed " the desire to maintain an
alliance which, since the restoration of the Empire,
had existed to the great advantage of both nations."
Count Walewski replied to Count de Persigny by
a despatch bearing date March 11, inspired if not
dictated by the Emperor; one finds in it the eleva
tion of thought and style habitual with Napoleon III.
It said that the government congratulated itself on
the amicable assurances of the new English cabinet,
and that His Majesty believed himself to have seized
every occasion during the last six years of drawing
closer the ties between the two peoples. . . . What
had happened? Count Walewski had called the
attention of the government of Her Britannic Maj
esty to the existence of a sect which in its publi
cations and meetings erected assassination into a
doctrine, and which, within the space of six years,
had sent no less than eight assassins into France to
murder the Emperor. " The character of our pro
ceedings," added the Minister, "was outlined to you
in the clearest manner by His Majesty, who wrote
you towards the end of January : I am under no
illusion as to the small efficacy of the measures
that one could take, but that will always be a good
proceeding which will successfully tranquillize irri
tations. It is not at present a question of saving my
life, but of saving the alliance. ... I need not tell
you, moreover, that I have never thought of consider-

300 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
ing English legislation as knowingly protecting the
guilty. My despatch of January had no other object
than that of pointing out a deplorable state of things ;
but I carefully abstained from expressing any opinion
as to the measures calculated to put an end to it. . . .
In giving these assurances to Lord Malmesbury,
kindly add that the Emperor's intentions having
been misunderstood, His Majesty's government will
refrain from continuing a discussion which, if pro
longed, might injure the dignity and the good under
standing of the two countries, and which it leaves
purely and simply to the loyalty of the English
people." This despatch, whose only inconvenience was that
of having arrived too late, was assuredly very fine
both in substance and in form; but, one must con
fess, it was abnormal that the English ministers
should have been made acquainted with its contents
before the ambassador of France at London, to whom
it was addressed.

CHAPTER XXXV
MARSHAL PELISSIER AS AMBASSADOR
"D Y a decree of March 23, 1858, Marshal Pelissier,
Due de Malakoff, was named ambassador of
France at London, replacing Count de Persigny.
The latter manifested on this occasion his patriotism
and the loftiness of his sentiments. He wrote to
Count Walewski, March 24 : " The appointment of
the Due de Malakoff is made with intent to replace
the policy of the Emperor's government on the level
it occupied before the recent circumstances. In se
lecting as my successor an eminent man whose name
is the symbol of a firm and dignified policy, while at
the same time it reminds the two countries of the
most glorious souvenir of their alliance, the Emper
or's government gives, in a way, a striking adhesion
to the observations I laid before it in offering my
resignation. The double object to which my efforts
and my counsels have incessantly tended, the preser
vation of the alliance and the maintenance of our
dignity, are, in fact, admirably indicated by the
choice of my successor, and thus I can applaud my
self for not having appealed in vain to the just pride
of my government. For the rest, I have never
301

302 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
doubted for an instant the real views of the Em
peror, and that is why I was not afraid, even at the
risk of displeasing him, to tear away with violence
the veil which concealed the truth. I have lost by
this act of devotion a great and lofty situation which
suited my tastes, but I have the conviction of having
done my duty and served my country."
The meaning of the new appointment was at once
comprehended in England, by official circles as well
as by the public. Count de Persigny added : " Yes
terday Lord Malmesbury, who came to spend the
evening with me, told me that the Queen, who had
received the Marshal's name with marked satisfac
tion, considered the choice as a testimony of high
consideration towards England and at the same time
of high dignity for France. That name pronounced
last evening has produced in the first place what it
is destined to produce everywhere — a certain salu
tary emotion, because reflection soon defines its real
meaning." In a despatch of April 17, 1858, the Marshal thus
describes how he took possession of his embassy:
" On my arrival in London, April 15, I was received
with visible eagerness by the inhabitants of that city
and the civil and military authorities. The troops
formed in a double line along my path, and the mu
nicipality presented me with an address conceived in
a good spirit, to which I replied by some cordial ex
pressions which seemed to please those who under
stood them. I notified Lord Malmesbury at once of

MARSHAL PELISSIER AS AMBASSADOR 803

my arrival, and he appointed a meoting for the 16th
at noon. I went there exactly on time, and wo
separated with mutual satisfaction at having met,
and promising to meet again at three o'clock at tho
Queen's palace. I have had the honor of remitting
my credentials to Her Majesty, who gave me a most
gracious reception, but above all asked me several
questions indicating an affectionate interest in the
Emperor and the Empress. I dine this evening with
Her Majesty, and I think that the principal generals
of the Crimean army, who are in London, are also
invited." Prince Albert wrote apropos of this dinner
to Baron Stockmar: "The Due de Malakoff has
dined with us. He talks with the greatest frankness
of the state of affairs in France, and blames several
measures taken by his master. He is sorry to be
obliged to go into society, which he detests, but it
flatters him to be ambassador and to find himself so
well received in England. As a diplomat he is igno
rant of the details of affairs, but his influence as a man
may be useful."
At the very time when the Marshal was congratu
lating himself on the brilliant and cordial reception
given him, an incident occurred which came very
near entailing new complications. One of Orsini's
accomplices, Simon Bernard, being brought before a
British jury, was acquitted April 17. Nevertheless
his guilt was beyond doubt. He had taken part in
ordering the bombs; he had them taken to Brus
sels and from there to Paris. He had given Rudio

304 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
money, a false passport, a sign of recognition, and
had sent him to Orsini. The English government
was convinced that Bernard would be condemned,
and was making ready to use that condemnation as
a reply to those who accused it of either inertia or
weakness. The ministers of the Queen possibly re
gretted the acquittal even more than those of the
Emperor. The Marshal-ambassador, preserving all his sang
froid, sought to reassure his government. "When
I had the honor of dining with the Queen yester
day," he wrote to Count Walewski, April 18, " I had
occasion to gather the impressions of Her Majesty
and those of Lord Malmesbury concerning the result
of the Bernard trial. The Queen and the principal
Secretary of State expressed to me their fear lest this
event should seem to justify the regrettable suspi
cions of which the English people and their govern
ment have recently been the object on the other side
of the Channel, and also lest our own people should
not sufficiently comprehend how faint an echo the
applause with which certain refugees greeted the
verdict of the jury met from the sounder portion of
the people and genuine public opinion in England."
In the Marshal's opinion, the thing to do was to
remain calm, practise patience, and procrastinate.
"Resignation has its triviality at times," he said
again in a despatch of April 23, " but this is a case
of letting the water slip under the bridge, and a time
to pass over many things which stricter prudence

MARSHAL PELISSIER AS AMBASSADOR 305
might have averted and which the English ministry
is ready to avoid; for, no matter how sincere and
honest its intentions may be with regard to the alli
ance, it suffers the penalty of having succeeded in
seizing power on a question of foreign politics."
In Paris matters were less calmly considered.
Count Walewski wrote to the Marshal, April 21:
" Bernard's acquittal caused painful and general sur
prise in France, as might have been expected ; public
opinion was profoundly affected by it, and His Maj
esty's government learns that this impression is
visible throughout the Empire. Under these circum
stances, and without modifying in any wise your
relations with the government of Her Britannic
Majesty, whose sentiments you have been enabled to
appreciate, the Emperor desires that your general
attitude should evince a certain restraint, and par
ticularly that you should refrain from appearing at
public dinners where custom would place you under
the obligation of responding to the toasts proposed."
The Marshal replied, April 23: "Monsieur le
Comte, I can readily imagine the surprise created in
France by the acquittal of Bernard; but the Queen,
the English ministers, and the well-bred and reflect
ing portion of the population are not less painfully
affected by it, and juries and their verdicts are spoken
of disdainfully enough. But, in fine, there is force
in res judicata, and any reprisal on that state of
things seems to me difficult. I do not see what
change I could make with respect to a government

306 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
as grieved over the situation as we are, if not more
so, and hesitating, solely with intent to avoid a use
less scandal, to proceed with trials which would
necessarily lead to a new acquittal.
" As to dinners and meetings where speeches are
made, I will avoid them as far as possible for the
future; but it would have been difficult, somewhat
discourteous, somewhat imprudent, to break an en
gagement to dine at the United Service Club, pre
sided by H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, where
unseasonable toasts are not to be dreaded, and where,
should any occur, it would be easy, it seems, to put
both men and things in their place. But nothing of
the sort is to be feared, and, on the other hand, the
remarks exchanged, the impressions communicated,
were of a nature to inspire a conviction that in the
army, the navy, in all classes of self-respecting
society, keen sympathy with the Emperor and his
government exists beyond all doubt, and sincere
cordiality is manifested towards our army, our navy,
and their commanders. If you had been present at
this reunion, assuredly you would have borrowed no
anxiety concerning these ranters, corrupted by the
dregs of our refugees, who alone can have manifested
a detestable adhesion to the acts of a familiar of
Orsini." The Due de Malakoff reached the follow
ing conclusion : " It is wise, prudent, and rational to
leave to time the care of quieting an agitation which
exists only in the lowest depths."
The London journals represented the banquet of

MARSHAL PELISSIER AS AMBASSADOR 307
the United Service Club as a manifestation in favor
of the Anglo-French alliance. The Post, in calling
attention to the fact that the toast to the Emperor
and Empress had been received with prolonged
applause, added : " Notwithstanding that the two
States may have different views in politics, yet there
is not in England, excepting in those dregs of the
population which are always ready for an upheaval at
the slightest sign of a storm, a single man who does
not see in the sovereign of France a sincere friend of
our country, and who does not desire that Providence
may long preserve him for the maintenance of peace
and an affectionate alliance between two powerful
nations." After the United Service Club, the Army
and Navy Club likewise offered a dinner to the
illustrious soldier. Then the great English families
successively gave entertainments in his honor. The
Marshal was the lion of the season, then in full swing.
Surrounded by demonstrations in favor of the alli
ance, the Tory ministry thought the Conspiracy Bill
presented by Lord Palmerston might be allowed to
sink into oblivion. Without officially withdrawing
it, the same result was arrived at by not asking for
its second reading before the expiration of the par
liamentary session. The clouds were dispelled. One
might have supposed himself back in the happy days
of the " cordial understanding."
Napoleon III. had been well inspired when he con
fided the French embassy in England, under circum
stances so difficult, to the hero of Malakoff. He was,

308 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
in fact, a man of intelligence, who concealed an un
erring judgment and extreme shrewdness under an
affectation of frankness and sometimes of military
rudeness. The Marshal had already practised diplo
macy in the Crimea. Without getting into disgrace
with the Emperor, he had set aside the sovereign's
plan, which was to invest Sebastopol, and executed
his own, which was the siege and nothing but the
siege. The letters he wrote at the time to Napoleon
III. prove his tact and ability. In London, he was
discerning enough to comprehend that the acquittal
of Bernard was the response to the unlucky ad
dresses of the colonels, and no professional diplo
matist could have taken a more circumspect and
conciliatory attitude : the alliance which had been
endangered owed its re-establishment to him.
Those of my colleagues who had the honor of
serving under his orders during his embassy to
London, which lasted from March 23, 1858, to May
9, 1859, have told me that they always found him a
kindly chief, good and just. The Marshal chatted
familiarly with them, and never displayed arrogance
or pride. He was interested in literary matters, and,
in his leisure moments, wrote poetry himself. He
said one day to a distinguished young diplomat,
Vicomte de Beaumont, afterwards consul general
of France in Hungary and minister plenipoten
tiary: "See here, look at this piece of verse which
I have just received ; I think it execrable." M. de
Beaumont made haste to read the lines ; then he said

MARSHAL PELISSIER AS AMBASSADOR 309

prudently : " Monsieur le Mare'chal, I beg pardon for
differing with you. But these verses seem to me
delightful." "You have a keen scent," replied tho
Marshal ; " they are mine."
The Due de Malakoff displayed a noble indepen
dence of character in his embassy. His meeting with
the Due d'Aumale was famous. M. Ernest Daudet
has described it in an affecting way in the excellent
work he has devoted to the memory of the illustrious
prince academician. It was in Hyde Park. The
carriage of the son of Louis Philippe was just pass
ing another, the servants on which, like those of the
Prince, wore the French cockade. The Due d'Au
male recognized Marshal Pelissier, whom he had not
seen since the time when he was his superior as gov
ernor-general of Algeria. On seeing the Prince, the
Marshal rose and saluted. Leaving their carriages,
they fell into each other's arms in presence of an
astonished crowd. " Monseigneur," said the Due de
Malakoff, " I am serving France under Napoleon III.
as I served her under your father; but I have for
gotten nothing. Your portrait remains in my study.
I always wear the cross of Saint Louis which the Bour
bons gave me, and I take good care to put it in evidence
when I am going to see my padishah. And he is not
ignorant of the attachment I bear you. Now, I hope
that we shall meet again."
Marshal Pelissier had a hand of iron and a heart
of gold.

CHAPTER XXXVI
COUNT CAVOUR
"TUNE 29, 1858, leaving the Empress and the
" Prince Imperial at Saint-Cloud, the Emperor
set off for Plombieres, in company with General de
Beville, one of his aides-de-camp, Captain de La
Tour d'Auvergne, one of his orderly officers, and
M. Mocquard, chief of his cabinet. In the little
city of the Vosges he had an interview with
M. Cavour to which the public paid no attention.
It passed almost unperceived, and yet it was to
change many things in Europe. Before describing
it, let us give a rapid glance at the antecedents of
the Piedmontese statesman.
Camillo Benso, . Count of Cavour, was born at
Turin, August 10, 1810. By his father he was a
Piedmontese, by his mother of French extraction,
by his paternal grandfather he was connected with
Switzerland and Savoy. His family gloried in a tie
of kinship with Saint Francois de Sales. Entering
the military school of Turin, young Cavour did well
there in scientific studies, and was chosen among the
cadets to form part of the corps of pages. Attached
in this capacity to the household of the Prince of
310

COUNT CAVOUR 311

Carignan, the future King Charles Albert, he showed
from childhood a pride and independence unbefitting
a page, and he was obliged to leave the service of the
Prince, whom he displeased. An officer of engineers
at sixteen, he was in garrison at Genoa when the
French revolution of 1830 broke out. He avowed
himself ardently in favor of this revolution, which
in the court of Turin was exciting general condem
nation. Charles Albert ascended the throne in 1831.
He already distrusted the young officer of whom he
afterwards said: "He is one of tbe most dangerous
men in my kingdom." He sent him to the fortress
of Bard to take part in the defensive works. M. de
Cavour believed this to be a disgrace ; six months
later he gave in his resignation and entered private
life. Not to be inactive, he undertook the direction
of one of his father's estates, that of Leri, near
Vercelli, and there devoted himself to business and
agriculture, raising stock, cultivating beet root,
studying all sorts of novelties, gas, the making of
chemical manures, discounting banks, speculating
in rice, wheat, maize, an innovator on economic
ground as he was destined to be afterwards on one
more vast. He made a great fortune in this way,
and it permitted him to found a journal in 1847,
II Bisorgimento.
During the long period of his abstention from
politics, M. de Cavour had travelled much in Switz
erland, England, and France. His relations with
Baron de Barante, minister of King Louis Philippe

312 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
at Turin, and with Count d'Haussonville, secretary
of the legation, opened to him the doors of the prin
cipal salons of Paris, notably those of the Due de
Broglie, Madame de Circourt, and Madame de Cas
tellane. As he spoke French better than Italian, he
had great success. At that time he called himself
a partisan of the juste milieu, the golden mean, and
associated himself with the ideas of the Due de
Broglie, Count Mole", and M. Guizot. He professed
a cult for England ; but a secret instinct warned him
that she would never seriously favor the Italian
cause. "I am a great admirer of the English," he
said at the time ; " I feel a real sympathy with that
nation, for I consider it the vanguard of civilization.
But its policy does not inspire me with the slightest
confidence. When I see it holding out one hand to
Metternich, and with the other stirring up the ultra
radicals in Portugal, Spain, and Greece, I confess
that I do not feel disposed to believe in its pojiti—
cal honesty." He had a^resentimen^rthat his
country could rely only on France^
The Italian revolutions of 1848 at first discon
certed M. de Cavour. He condemned the provoca
tions against Austria as untimely and dangerous,
and did not believe in the programme of Italia fard
da se. Elected deputy in June, 1848, by three de
partments, he took his seat in the Chamber among
the moderates. In October 1850, he entered the
cabinet presided by M. d'Azeglio as Minister of
Agriculture, Commerce, and the Navy. At first,

COUNT CAVOUR 313

King Victor Emmanuel hesitated to appoint him.
" Understand," said he to his ministers, "that fellow
will take all your portfolios." His consuming activ
ity, his incessant successes in tho tribune, his sur
prising capacity for work, his character, a curious
blending of suppleness and energy, of prudence and
audacity, soon gained for him a preponderating in
fluence. In April, 1851, he added to his three port
folios that of Finances, and assured the material
prosperity of the country before launching into
adventures. M. de Cavour may be considered the creator of
the Italian question. Tak'ng commercial liberty and
political liberty as a double lever, he organized —
thanks to the journals and the refugees established
in Turin — a system of incessant propaganda. But
he did not ignore the fact that the revolutionaries,
unaided, could do nothing, and that without the
armed assistance of some great power, it would
always be absolutely impossible for Piedmont to free
Milan and Venice. There was but one man who
would and could aid him to accomplish that task.
That man was Napoleon III.
There were great analogies between the Emperor
and the minister. Both convinced apostles of free
trade and the principle of nationalities, they pursued
their object with inflexible obstinacy. Both had
greater faith in the power of the press than in that
of the tribune. Stage managers of the first rank,
they excelled in directing and influencing public

314 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
opinion ; they availed themselves of secret agents,
and simultaneously maintained an official and an
occult policy. With the genius of conspiracy they
combined the temperament of gamesters. Napo
leon III. and Count Cavour could have done
nothing against Austria without each other.
It was solely on account of Napoleon III. that the
Piedmontese minister persuaded Victor Emmanuel
to send troops to the Crimea. At first sight this
seemed a more than singular proceeding. What
grievance, one wondered, had little Piedmont against
great Russia, which did not threaten it in any way ?
The policy of Count Cavour had but one excuse :
the desire to posit the Italian question before a Con
gress after the war.
Had the Piedmontese politician at this epoch the
idea of creating the political unity of the peninsula ?
One of the best informed in Italian matters of our
diplomatists, Count Benedetti, does not think so. In
his masterly study, Le Comte de Cavour et le Prince
de Bismarck, he says : " To men whose genius has
overcome the caprices of fortune, one easily ascribes
calculations and a foresight which are hardly the
attributes of human nature. Thoughtful study of
Cavour's acts and sentiments at the time at which we
have arrived (1856), inclines one to believe that his
sole object then was the enfranchisement of Northern
Italy ; the state of Europe and even that of Italy did
not admit of any other. . . . Never since his entry
into public life had he formed another wish. He so

COUNT CAVOUR

little foresaw a fusion of all the Italian countries that
up till then he had conceived and disclosed no com
binations that were not exclusive of unity. During
his stay in Paris, at the time of the Congress, he sug
gested several, notabty in a note remitted to the
plenipotentiaries of France and England, all of which
comported with the territorial condition of the penin
sula as it was at that period ; they even guaranteed
its maintenance." As to Napoleon III., we are con
vinced that in 1856 Italian unity was far from his
mind. All he thought of then was wresting Lom
bardy and Venetia from the hand of Austria, and ac
quiring Savoy as the price of his armed assistance.
From the time of his arrival in Paris, Count
Cavour ascertained that he could count absolutely
upon the Emperor. February 21, he dined at the
Tuileries in a sort of intimacy to which the Austrian
plenipotentiaries were not admitted. The day before
he had written to Chevalier Cibrario, apropos of a
great lady celebrated for her beauty : " I notify you
that I am enrolling the beautiful countess in the
diplomatic lines, by inviting her to coquet with and
if necessary to beguile the Emperor." February 22,
he was visited by a close confidant of Napoleon III.,
Doctor Conneau, who said he was authorized to
serve as intermediary for all secret information
which the Sardinians thought it well to send to the
Tuileries. A few days afterwards he learned that
M. Mocquard, the Emperor's secretary, had recom
mended the Parisian correspondents of several Eng-

316 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
lish journals to support the cause of Piedmont. The
only result Cavour obtained was that of stating, with
out solving, the Italian question before the Congress.
He had planted a stake; that sufficed him for the
moment, and he took back with him to Turin the
memory that Napoleon III. had said to him at
the time of his final audience : " I cannot enter into
a conflict with Austria just now ; but be tranquil, I
have a notion that the existing peace will not last
long." M. de Cavour was, in fact, tranquillized,
and from that day he made ready for war, with
the profound conviction that it would not be long
delayed, and that the Emperor would be the ally of
Victor Emmanuel. Piedmont had covered itself
with macadamized roads. A magnificent military
port had been created at Spezzia, Mont Cenis had
been tunnelled as if to open a constantly accessible
passage to the French troops who were one day to
cross the Alps to the assistance of the Italians.
Meanwhile, the sympathies of Napoleon III. for
the Italian cause remained as yet platonic. He
found out at the Stuttgart interview that Czar
Alexander I. was unfavorable to Austria, but would
energetically support the King of Naples. A revo
lutionary policy in Italy could not be approved by
Russia. Hence Count Cavour was obliged to
moderate his claims and dissemble the greater
part of his programme.
We have seen already that the crime of Janu
ary 14, which for an instant seemed to endanger

COUNT CAVOUR 317

the alliance between France and Piedmont, resulted
in strengthening it and in precipitating events.
When the official Gazette of the kingdom published
at Turin the two letters written, one from the Mazas
and the other from the Roquette prison, in which
Orsini made a final appeal to the Emperor in favor
of the Italian cause, everybody believed that such a
publication, an evident menace against Austria, could
not have been made by the Piedmontese government
without the consent of Napoleon III. Nevertheless
Count Cavour's hopes still remained vague. They
assumed precision only through the agreement which
occurred between him and the Emperor in the inter
view at Plombi&res.

CHAPTER XXXVII
PLOMBIERES
T IKE Louis XV., Napoleon III. always had,
-^ beside his official diplomacy, an occult one
which was often contrary to the first. Like Louis
XV. he employed unknown agents, mysterious inter
mediaries. There was the Emperor's secret, as for
merly there had been the secret of the King. " The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs was often only a grand
facade, behind which passed important things of
which the ministers themselves were ignorant. At
the time of the Crimean War and of the Vienna con
ferences, Napoleon III., at the moment when he
seemed to agree with M. Drouyn de Lhuys, disagreed
with him completely, the sovereign wishing the war
to go on and the minister desiring it to come to an
end. One may also say that the Emperor prepared
the Italian war without Count Walewski's know
ledge, and even in spite of him. The official journals
frequently represented the ideas, not of the Emperor,
but of his ministers, and it was sometimes the papers
considered by the public as opposition journals, the
Siecle, for example, in which it was necessary to look
for the secret mind of the sovereign. As under the
318

PLOMBIERES 319

reign of Louis XV., the ministers had no confidence
in their master, and were expecting to be disavowed
at the very moment when they seemed to be enjoying
his entire confidence and to possess his full approba
tion. Count Walewski was the declared adversary
of Count Cavour's ideas, aud it was during the
ministry of Walewski that Cavour received the Em
peror's encouragement and made ready, in concert
with him, the war of 1859.
At the end of May, 1858, Doctor Conneau went
to Turin on an absolutely secret mission. The situa
tion of the doctor was apparently modest, but, at
bottom, he was not merely the physician but the con
fidential friend of the Emperor, whom he had never
quitted since the death of Queen Hortense, and he
was more conversant than the ministers with the
under side of the imperial diplomacy and the mental
reservations of the sovereign. He saw Victor Em
manuel and Count Cavour, and after dwelling upon
the sympathies of Napoleon III. for the court of
Turin, he said that the Emperor proposed spending
July at Plombieres, where he would be pleased to
meet the Piedmontese minister. M. de Cavour eagerly
replied that he intended taking a vacation in Switzer
land, and that from there he would go to pay his
respects to the Emperor if he were authorized by
His Majesty.
June 19, Count Cavour wrote to the Marquis Vil
lamarina: "I am impatient to know whether the
Emperor will give effect to Conneau's insinuations

320 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
by inviting me to see him at Plombieres." He
added, as if to fortify himself : " Walewski and the
majority of the political agents of France represent
nothing but petty passions, and in nowise the great
thoughts which the Emperor cherishes in his own
mind." When, on July 14, the Piedmontese statesman set
out for Switzerland, he had as yet received no confir
mation of Doctor Conneau's hints. But at Geneva he
received the anxiously expected news in a letter from
General de BeVille, announcing that the Emperor
would be charmed to see him at Plombieres. " The
drama approaches its solution," wrote Cavour at the
time to his friend, confidant, and colleague, General
de La Marmora ; " pray heaven to inspire me that I
make no blunder in this supreme moment. In spite
of my usual confidence, I am not without great
anxiety." July 20, in the evening, Count Cavour arrived at
Plombieres. At eleven o'clock the next morning he
was brought into the presence of Napoleon III.
Is it not curious to note, nowadays, how rapidly
contemporaneous history discovers the most secret
things ? The mysteries of the Plombieres interview
were very soon revealed. The preliminaries have
been made known by the letters of the Piedmontese
statesman : Letters published and unpublished of Ca-
millo Cavour. As to the interview itself, the least
details of it were supplied by the publication of the
report addressed by him to Victor Emmanuel, July

PLOMBIERES 321

24, 1858, the contents of which wo are about to
analyze. Napoleon III. opened the conversation by saying
that he would be inclined to support Piedmont in a
war with Austria, on the double condition that the
struggle should not assume a revolutionary character,
and that it might clothe itself with a pretext which
diplomacy should find plausible. The minister hav
ing adduced Austria's failure to execute commercial
treaties, and the abusive extension of her power in
the duchies and the Romagna, the Emperor found
the first pretext insufficient. As to the second, he
said: "So long as my troops are at Rome, I cannot
insist on Austria's withdrawing hers from Ancona
and Bologna. I must be circumspect with Rome on
account of the Catholics, and with Naples on account
of the Czar, who makes it a sort of point of honor to
protect King Ferdinand." "Well, then," replied
Cavour, "let us abandon Rome to the Pope and
Naples to its princes. It is sufficient to permit the
Romagnols to make insurrections, and not to inter
fere with the subjects of King Ferdinand on the day
when they feel like throwing off his yoke."
Then the two interlocutors examined the situation
of the duchy of Modena, whose sovereign was the
most ultra of all the princes, and where the Pied
montese propaganda, already very active, might at
any moment kindle the spark desired. After con
sidering the contingency of a war, they revolved the
distribution of territories after peace. There was as

322 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
yet no question of Italian unity. The peninsula
might be divided into four States : 1, Piedmont, in
creased by Lombardy and Venetia, the duchy of
Parma and Legations ; 2, Tuscany, which with Um-
bria would form a kingdom of Central Italy, given
perhaps to the house of Parma; 3, the Pontifical
State, where the Pope would retain Rome, lose the
Legations, and assume the title of President of the
Italian Confederation; 4, the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, whose present sovereign would be main
tained for a time in order to avoid offending Russia.
How was France to be rewarded for her armed
concurrence? The Emperor demanded the cession
of Savoy in exchange for the stipulated aggrandize
ment of Piedmont. M. Cavour, though suggesting
that Savoy was the cradle of his master's family,
made no absolute objection. But when the Emperor
added that he would also be obliged to reclaim the
seigniory of Nice, his interlocutor exclaimed : " Nice
is Italian territory ; if that is ceded, what becomes of
the principle of nationalities ? " Napoleon III. con
tented himself with replying : " Those are secondary
questions, and there will be time enough to consider
them hereafter," and the conversation closed ; it had
lasted from eleven o'clock in the morning until three
in the afternoon.
An hour later, the Emperor drove out in a phaeton
with M. de Cavour across the woods and valleys of
the Vosges. It was during this drive that he ex
pressed his desire that his cousin, Prince Napoleon,

PLOMBIERES 823

should marry the Princess Clotilde, daughter of King
Victor Emmanuel. Cavour, whom the King had
recommended to make no promise unless the mar
riage should be a sine qua non of the arrangements,
alleged the youth of the Princess and made other
objections, to which the Emperor replied by saying of
his cousin : " He has often embarrassed and often
irritated me ; he is fond of contradiction and a fault
finder ; but he has a great deal of intelligence, more
judgment than people think, and a very good heart."
Day was beginning to decline ; the outing was nearly
over. The Emperor insisted several times on the pro
jected alliance: "I comprehend," said he, "that the
youth of the Princess necessitates delays ; but I want
a positive answer, and I expect it." His last word as
they parted was : " Have confidence in me as I have
in you."
The Piedmontese minister left Plombieres July 22.
The 24th, at Baden, on an inn table, he wrote his re
port to his sovereign and despatched it at once, in all
haste, by an attache" of the Sardinian legation in
Switzerland. It is said that, after reading it, Victor
Emmanuel exclaimed : " In a year I shall be King of
Italy or simply M. de Savoy."
The Prince de La Tour d'Auvergne, minister of
France in Sardinia, wrote to Count Walewski, August
15 : " The comments, for the most part very improba
ble, occasioned by M. de Cavour's journey to Plom
bieres, have given place to impressions more sensible
and doubtless more correct. At present people are

324 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
pretty generally persuaded — and in private conver
sation M. de Cavour confirms this opinion — that the
Emperor strongly recommended prudence and mod
eration to King Victor Emmanuel's prime minister,
and, I will add, it is hoped that this advice, coming
from august lips, will bear fruit. M. de Cavour, none
the less, shows himself fully satisfied and grateful for
the reception he met with at Plombieres. With me
he has entered into minute details concerning it,
which prove the deep and favorable impression made
upon him by the cordiality with which he was
treated. I think I may say that King Victor Em
manuel is not less willing to display the joy caused
him by the letter of the Emperor."
This despatch seems to prove that even the minis
ter of France at Turin was ignorant of what had
passed at Plombieres.
A characteristic detail is that the Moniteur, usually
filled with accounts of the least acts and gestures of
the Emperor, did not speak of the sovereign during
the month he spent at Plombieres. The official
sheet never mentioned the visit of Count Cavour.
During this visit, the bearing of Napoleon III. was
rather that of a conspirator than a monarch. At a
distance from his wife, he had arranged his bellicose
plot in obscurity. He took care to concentrate pub
lic attention on the interview he was about to have
with Queen Victoria at Cherbourg, and not upon
that of Plombieres. Well aware that the Queen
and Prince were anything rather than favorable to

PLOMBIERES 325

his warlike schemes and the repartition of Italy, ho
forced himself to conceal them. On the other, ho
was especially careful, at a moment when he was pre
paring to receive the enthusiastic homage of pious
Brittany, not to give an inkling in such a province
of his recent interview with Cavour, the author of
the law on convents, the adversary of the Pope's
temporal power, the statesman most suspected by the
Catholic party. In Brittany, Napoleon III. wanted to
appear under an essentially religious and conserva
tive aspect.

CHAPTER XXXVm
THE CHERBOURG INTERVIEW
TULY 10, Count Walewski, Minister of Foreign
Affairs, notified the Due de Malakoff, ambassador
of France at London, that Their Imperial Majesties
would be at Cherbourg on August 5 to receive the
visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
The Marshal replied July 11: "No doubt the
Queen will be perfectly happy to meet the Emperor
and Empress again, and to receive confirmation of
the news that Their Majesties eagerly renounce all
other cares in order to devote the entire 5th of
August to their illustrious guests. In fact, I learned
at Aldershot on July 5 what I have been somewhat
tardily apprised of by your despatch of the 10th.
The Queen did me the honor to say to me that I
had won a good and peaceful victory there, on which
I bowed respectfully and added : ' An easy victory,
since the lofty benevolence of Your Majesty had
smoothed away the asperities.'
" In an electric message from Plombieres, July 7,
9h. 45m. the Emperor asked me : 'Is it the 5th of
August that the Queen will be at Cherbourg ? An
swer at once.' — To which I replied without delay:
'The Queen has told me positively that she will
326

THE CHERBOURG INTERVIEW 827
arrive on the 4th and spend the 5th with Your
Majesty.' — Aud the little electric current estab
lished by His Majesty with me ended, July 7, at six
in the evening, with these expressions : ' I shall be
happy to see the Queen again. We will be at Cher
bourg between 4 and 5.'
" You doubtless recognize that with this series of
informations before me, I need not excuse myself
for finding your despatch a trifle tardy. I am not
offended by it ; be careful not to think so. But if I
were, that sentiment, so foreign to me, would yield
to the modest satisfaction I feel at having succeeded
in putting the cap cordially on Cherbourg."
On August 5, in fact, at eight in the evening, the
French and British Majesties met on board the royal
yacht, the Victoria and Albert, which had sailed from
Osborne at noon. The Emperor and Empress were
received by Prince Albert at the foot of the ladder,
and by Queen Victoria at the top. The Emperor
ascended first ; then the Empress in a white and lilac
silk gown and a hat trimmed with white and black
lace. The Queen embraced them both, and then she
and Prince Albert led them into a salon where the
conversation began. The Queen says of it in her
Journal : " The Emperor seemed greatly embarrassed ;
the Empress less so, and very affable. The Em
peror anxiously inquired whether the feeling against
France was as keen as ever in England, and if peo
ple still expect an invasion. We smiled, and said
that the irritation had greatly subsided, but that the

328 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
unlucky addresses of the colonels had done incal
culable harm. The Emperor replied that this was
also his opinion, but that these addresses had been
made without his knowledge, and that he had
greatly regretted their publication." At nine o'clock
Napoleon III. and the Empress left the royal yacht
and returned to the maritime prefecture of Cher
bourg. Their visit was returned there the next day
at noon by the Queen and Prince Albert, accom
panied by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of
Cambridge. Breakfast was served. According to
the Queen, the Emperor was close ; he seemed indis
posed to talk. After the repast, the Empress laid
stress on the harm done by newspapers, and de
scribed in detail the Orsini outrage. There was a
drawing-room afterwards, where Marshal Vaillant,
Count Walewski, M. Rouher, Marshal Pelissier, and
Generals Niel and MacMahon, whom the Queen
thought " very amiable," were among those present.
Among the ladies was a young Spanish girl, Ma
demoiselle Sophie Valera de La Paniega, by whose
beauty the Queen was much impressed. She was a
cousin of the Empress, who had brought her to Cher
bourg to show her to the Due de Malakoff. The old
soldier found her charming. He wrote verses to
her; according to General Fleury, he had "the
gentle mania of composing quatrains." He asked
the hand of the beautiful Spaniard, and within a
few weeks Mademoiselle de La Paniega was the
Marshal-Duchess of Malakoff.

THE CHERBOURG INTERVIEW 329
In the evening the Emperor gave his guests a
dinner on board the flagship Bretagne. When
what the Queen calls the "terrible moment" of the
toasts arrived, she found that proposed by the Em
peror superb. " I drink," said he, " to the health of
Her Majesty the Queen of England, and that of the
Prince who shares her throne, and that of the royal
family. In proposing this toast in their presence on
board the flagship in the harbor of Cherbourg, I
am happy to display our sentiments towards them.
In fact, the facts speak for themselves, and prove
that hostile passions, aided by certain unfortunate
incidents, can change neither the friendship existing
between the two crowns, nor the desire of the two
peoples to remain at peace. Hence I firmly hope
that if any one should seek to revive the rancors and
passions of another epoch, they will be wrecked
against public good sense, like waves against the
dike which at this moment shelters the squadrons of
the two empires from the violence of the sea."
Prince Albert was to respond, and before he be
gan, the Queen experienced what she describes as
"a moment of torture which I would not willingly
pass through again." But she adds: "Albert got
through his speech very well, though once he hesi
tated. In the cabin the Emperor shook hands with
him, and we spoke of the emotion we had just ex
perienced. The Emperor himself had changed color,
and the Empress also was very nervous. As to me, I
was trembling so that I could not swallow my coffee."

330 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE

On the whole, the Cherbourg interview, which ended
on Friday, August 6, was affectionate, but that of
Osborne had been still more so. Prince Albert felt
suspicious of Napoleon III. What might have been
arranged at Plombieres between the Emperor and
Cavour awakened vague apprehensions in the Prince,
who had remained German to the core. Two days
after leaving Cherbourg he wrote to the Duchess of
Kent: "The Emperor was preoccupied and sad.
The Empress seemed to be suffering. The prepara
tions of the French marine are immense. Ours are
pitiable. Our ministers make fine speeches; but
they do not act : my blood boils when I think of it."
The bright days of the entente cordiale were over.
Queen Victoria was still magnetized by Napoleon
III. But the policy of " the extraordinary man," as
she called the Emperor, disturbed Prince Albert and
the ministers of Her Britannic Majesty.

CHAPTER XXXIX
THE TOUR IN BRITTANY
AFTER the festivities of Cherbourg, Their Impe-
¦^-*- rial Majesties made a triumphant tour in Brit
tany. This province, which they had not yet visited,
and whose inhabitants are essentially Catholics, had
long been reputed the asylum of the white flag and of
legitimacy. The ovations that a Napoleon went there
to receive under the tricolor naturally had a special
importance for the Emperor. The prefects set their
wits to work to incite enthusiastic manifestations, and
in the clergy they found auxiliaries as zealous and
eager as themselves. For that matter, it must be
admitted that no sovereigns had shown greater def
erence towards the Church. The Empress rejoiced
in an excursion which, by its religious character, was
transformed into a vast and long pilgrimage.
The Bretagne, with Their Majesties on board,
quitted Cherbourg August 8, at two o'clock in the
afternoon. It reached Brest the next day at one in
the afternoon. The first visit of Their Majesties was
to the church of St. Louis. Mgr. Sergent, Bishop of
Quimper, addressed them in the following words : —
" Sire : Christians, and laborers, the Bretons are
331

332 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
grateful for your love for religion and the encourage
ments you give to agriculture; they applauded when
a powerful arm replaced the pyramid on its base. . . .
The children of Armorica, fitted for labors and dan
gers, do not content themselves with giving brave
soldiers to your army, and to your fleets sailors whom
all the world admire; at the same time they supply
the Church with worthy priests and excellent mis
sionaries. Your Majesty would be unable to take a
step in their country without encountering heroic
souvenirs, and every time you place confidence in
them you will recognize the verity of what was said
by one of their chevaliers when Mary Stuart went to
Morlaix : No Breton ever committed treason.
"Madame, your gracious presence reminds this
people of its dear duchess, whose royal spouse was
also the Father of the people. A voice as eloquent
as it is respected had apprised France that you were
Catholic and pious. Your good works repeat this
daily." Leaving Brest, August 11, they went from there
to Quimper, and thence, on the 13th, to Lorient.
Their journey was a long ovation, a procession under
triumphal arches. At Lorient there was a review.
The Empress went to visit the orphan asylum and
insisted on seeing the children at work. During the
day Their Majesties set off for Port Louis in their
yacht. Here they visited the fortifications, and
Napoleon III. contemplated with emotion the citadel
and led the Empress thither. It was a place which

THE TOUR IN BRITTANY 333
evoked souvenirs strangely in contrast with the present
ovations. Condemned to deportation after tho un
successful attempt of Strasburg, he had arrived at
the citadel of Port Louis in the night of November
13-14, 1836, and until the 21st contrary winds had
prevented the frigate Andromeda, which was to con
vey him to the United States, from leaving the port.
During his stay at the citadel, the wife of a guard
of engineers, Madame Perreaux, had lavished on him
the most respectful attentions. He did not forget
her. August 14, 1858, he met this dame again,
happy, as she told him, to see him again before she
died. The Emperor spoke kindly to her and assured
the future of her family.
August 15, the Emperor and Empress quitted
Lorient at eight in the morning and arrived at eleven
at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray.
Sainte-Anne-d'Auray is classic Brittany, legendary
Brittany. For centuries all old Armorica has come
regularly to invoke there the good saint, the good
mother of the Bretons. The pardons arrive there
in procession and in long lines. All the populations,
from Saint-Brieuc to Angers, from the Channel to
the Loire, hasten eagerly to the venerated sanctuary.
For the last two centuries the sailors of the neigh
borhood have come to make the rounds of the church
in procession, bearing the model of a warship, and
chanting an old hymn of thanksgiving in gratitude
to St. Anne for having, in 1673, protected their fore
fathers in a fight against Ruyter's fleet. The walls

334 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
of the sanctuary and of the cloister are hung with
ex votos.
Almost opposite the church, in the middle of the
field of Thorns, a barren space, with scanty grass,
which a few scrawny trees shelter poorly from the
sun, rises in open air the Scala Sancta, a double stair
case by which one goes up to and comes down from
a chapel. At the foot of it is an inscription in
French and in Breton: "This staircase is ascended
only on the knees." And the delegations of pil
grims are drawn up in echelons all along its steps,
on each of which one should say a Pater and an Ave.
The altar of this chapel is called the pilgrims' altar.
Divine service is celebrated there but once a year,
July 26, the' feast of Saint Anne. But, by excep
tion, it was going to be celebrated this year on the
15th of August, the Emperor's name day, but also
the Feast of the Assumption.
On entering the city, Their Majesties passed under
an arch of triumph, placed on the Blavet Bridge by
the workmen of the port, and bearing the inscrip
tion: "The workmen of Auray to the Emperor and
the Empress." A little further on, the imperial
cortege met the Brothers of the Christian Schools
taking their pupils to Mass. The little ones ranged
themselves on either side of the road and chanted the
Domine salvum fac Imperatorem, and the Emperor
responded by a few kindly words. As they neared
Saint Anne's the procession passed under a second tri
umphal arch, with the inscriptions : " Auo-ust 15 1858.

THE TOUR IN BRITTANY 335

Rome and Crimea. Fiat manus tua super virum dex-
teroz tuce." On the threshold of the sanctuary Their
Majesties were received by the bishop, the clergy, and
the students of the Little Seminary. To the address
of the bishop, invoking blessings on the imperial
family, His Majesty replied: "Monseigneur, I am
much affected by the words you have just spoken.
There are days when sovereigns should set an exam
ple. There are others on which they should follow
that of others. That is wh}-, obeying the custom
of the country, I have wished to come here on my
feast day to ask of God that which is the object of
all my efforts, all my hopes: the happiness of the
people which has called me to govern it. I am
happy to be received by a prelate so venerated, and
I rely on your prayers to draw down upon me the
Divine blessing."
At Rennes, where he arrived August 19, the
Emperor's first visit was likewise to the cathedral.
On its threshold, Mgr. Brossais-Saint-Marc, bishop
of the city, said to him : " It is especially befitting
for the clergy to offer a tribute of gratitude to you,
Sire, the heir of the restorer of our holy religion;
to you the supporter of the Papacy in the nineteenth
century; to you, of all French monarchs since Saint
Louis the most devoted to the Church and its work
of civilization and progress."
Then turning towards the Empress, the Bishop of
Rennes added: "And you, gentle, gracious Princess,
who have wished to know the Bretons and make a

336 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE
pious pilgrimage to their glorious patroness, you in
whose veins flows the blood of the Dominies and the
Teresas, on whose forehead glows a nameless some
thing which wins all hearts, and whose life is spent
in making others happy, can you be forgotten in
this concert of homage and prayer? No! no! Come;
a throne is raised for you near that of your spouse,
in that place where Anne of Brittany used to pray,
she whom our peasants still call the good duchess,
who was the wife of the Father of the people, the idol
of her subjects, with whom Your Majesty has so
many points of resemblance in grace and beauty."
So pleased was the Emperor by this language that
on the instant he decided that the bishopric of
Rennes should become an archbishopric. It was
concerning this tour, which ended at SaintCloud
August 21, that Louis Veuillot wrote in the Univers :
" The journey is a religious event ; it will have a
considerable influence in the world. The Emperor
has performed an act and spoken words which are
worth more than a battle. We are reproached with
our imperialist zeal; that zeal is in the first place for
religion, next for civil peace, and finally for French
glory— three things which will preserve liberty." It
was at the moment when it was to be overclouded
that the alliance between the Empire and the Church
shed its most brilliant beams.
September of this year was spent by the imperial
family at Biarritz. The early days of October were
devoted to the camp of Chalons, and by the 12th the

THE TOUR IN BRITTANY 337

sovereigns had returned to Saint-Cloud, where, on
that evening, the nuptial benediction was given by
the Bishop of Nancy to the Due de Malakoff and tho
charming Mademoiselle de La Paniega, cousin of the
Empress. Here they remained until November,
when they went to spend five weeks at Compiegne,
inviting a different set of guests for each week.
Among them were Lord and Lady Palmerston, Lord
Clarendon, Lord Cowley, the English ambassador at
Paris, and Lady Cowley. It was during these weeks
of pleasure that certain disquietudes, very vague as
yet, began to outline themselves, though no one dared
to hint at their existence. Sagacious minds already
divined that the Emperor was meditating some
adventurous schemes. To Lord Palmerston, and
especially to Lord Clarendon, he confided things that
troubled them. He was careful to say nothing defi
nite, so as not to affect them too seriously. He con
fined himself to generalities, but these generalities
had a suspicious character. He talked of the prin
ciple of nationalities; but, even while admitting that
the good relations between France and Russia pre
vented anything being done for Poland, he declared
that he hoped to see Italy freed from Austrian domi
nation. He flattered himself that England would
befriend such a scheme and Russia likewise. Napo
leon III. was encouraged by neither Lord Palmerston
nor Lord Clarendon. The latter exclaimed, insisted
on the dangers of the enterprise, on the scanty profit
which France could derive from it, on the uncertain-

338 THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE

ties of a struggle in which, as he said, Austria,
attacked in her honor, would spend her last man and
her last dollar.
The English ambassador, Lord Cowley, made
haste to inform Queen Victoria of the confidences
made by the Emperor to his guests. The Queen was
so much alarmed that she wrote to an old friend of
Napoleon III., Lord Malmesbury, to acquaint him
with her apprehensions. " All that can be done to
dissuade the Emperor from a war in Italy," she said
in this letter, "must be done without delay. He
does not reflect ; he sees only what he wishes. If he
makes war in Italy, he will be dragged, according to
all probability, into a war with Germany; that war
would include Belgium, and if, in consequence of
our guarantees, we are mixed up in the quarrel,
France might have all Europe against her, as in
1814-1815." The tone taken by certain Parisian journals was not
calculated to reassure the alarmists. An intimate
of Prince Napoleon, M. Gueloult, wrote in the press :
" We do not like war, and we hope it will disappear,
some day, from the surface of Europe ; but we should
like to see one war, and to have it directed against
Austria." As Napoleon III. and his cousin were not
always of one mind, not much importance was at first
attached to this article, but when an official sheet,
the Patrie, talked in the same strain a few days later,
the public became more anxious. This was so evi
dent that, before leaving Compiegne, the Emperor,

THE TOUR IN BRITTANY 339

as yet unwilling to unmask his schemes, had tho
following note inserted in the Moniteur: "A discus
sion kept up with regrettable persistence by different
Parisian journals seems to have caused an uneasiness
which our relations with the foreign powers do not
justify in the slightest degree. The government of
the Emperor feels bound to caution the public against
the effects of a discussion calculated to change our
relations with a power .allied to France."
The next day, December 5, the court quitted the
chateau of Compiegne, and Their Majesties installed
themselves with their son in the palace of the Tuile
ries. The close of the year was not marked by any
incident. Apprehensions continued, but they still
remained vague. They did not define themselves
until January 1, 1859, when Napoleon III., receiving
the diplomatic body, addressed to the Austrian am
bassador, Baron Hiibner, a phrase which was the
signal for the war of Italy.

INDEX

Abd-ul-Medjid, Sultan, his inter
view with Thouvenel, after the
breaking off of diplomatic rela
tions with Turkey, 174.
Albert, Prince, objects to Prussia
being represented at the Paris
Congress, 33; writes Baron
Stockmar his impressions of the
Due de Malakoff, 303.
Alexander II., of Russia, his rela
tions with Morny, 85 et seq.;
why he sent Kisseleff to Franee
as ambassador, 86; his corona
tion, U2 et seq. ; calls first on
Napoleon HI. at Stuttgart, 215;
sends the Empress word to
come immediately to Stuttgart,
217 ; his final interview with
Napoleou III. at Stuttgart de
scribed iu the Revue des Deux
Mondes of Dec. 31, 18s*, 220;
his attitude toward Francis
Joseph of Austria at the Weimar
interview, 220 et seq.
Ali Pasha, Grand-Vizier, his letter
to M. Thouvenel, 47 ; quoted
concerning the question of the
Principalities, 1G8.
Austria, objects to the union of
the Danubian Principalities, 107,
168.
Barrot, Adolphe, French minister
at Brussels, sends Saint-Amand
to Paris ministry of Foreign Af
fairs with a despatch announcing
a plot against the life of Napo
leon III., 223.
Baudin, charge" d'affaires of France
at St. Petersburg, his despatch
concerning the Stuttgart inter
view, 227, 228.

Benedetti, director of political
affairs iu tho French foreign
office, his letters to Thouvenel
concerning the results of the
Osborne interview, 1S2; to the
same concerning the Stuttgart
interview, 22lJ, 230; his opinion
of Cavour, 314, 315.
Beranger, his death and funeral,
164.
Bernard, Simon, co-conspirator
with Orsini, 236; tried and
acquitted in England, 303;
painful impression produced by
his acquittal, 304, 305.
Bismarck, Prince, his policy a sur
vival from the Middle Ages, 8.
Bocher, Captain Charles, letter
quoted, 44.
Bonaparte, Jerome, presides at
banquet to officers of the Cri
mean War, 123.
Borgo, Duchess Pozzo di, gives a
legitimist fete in honor of the
Paris Congress, 46.
Brigode, Countess de, her costume
at the ball at the Foreign Affairs,
132.
Broglie, Due de, pays formal visit
to the Tuileries on being elected
academician ; what Napoleon III.
said to him, 162.
Cambridge, I lake of, visits Napo
leon III. at the camp of Chalons,
204, 205.
Cardigan, Lord, visits Napoleon
III. at the camp of Ghulotis,
204, 205.
Castellane, Marshal de, describes
Prince Frederic William, of
Prussia, 118; describes Maxi-

341

342

INDEX

milian II. , of Bavaria, 142 ; de
scribes Count Charles Tascher
de La Pagerie, 142.
Castiglione, Countess de, account
of, 133, 134.
Cavour, Camillo Benso, Count of,
brings up the Italian question at
the Paris Congress, 12 ; empha
sizes Italian grievances, 41;
sketch of his career, 310 et seq.;
the creator of the Italian ques
tion, 313 ; why he induced Victor
Emmanuel to send troops to the
Crimea, 314.
Chaillou, Count Amelot de, Minis
ter of France at Buenos Ayres
and at Brazil, his costume at
the Foreign Affairs ball, 134,
135.
Codrington, English commander-
in-chief in the Crimea, 52.
Conches, Feuillet de, procures au
eagle's quill for the signatures
to the treaty of Paris, 36.
Conneau, Doctor, the confidant of
Napoleon III. at Ham, and his
secret messenger to Turin in
1858, 11, 315, 319.
Constantine, Russian Grand Duke,
visits Napoleon III., 137 et seq.
Cornu, Madame, describes the
Emperor as child and man, 4, 5;
says he had dreamed from child
hood of driving the Austrians
out of Italy, 10, 11 ; that his
temperament was, in many re
spects, feminine, 20.
Corps Le'gislatif, new election to,
163, 164.
Damremout, Countess de, describes
Paris at the time of the Congress,
34, 35.
Danubian Principalities, 166 et
seq.
Darimon, Alfred, his opinion of
the "law of general security,"
284 ; his Histoire de douze ans
quoted, 286. '

Disraeli, Benjamin, what he
thought of the peroration of
the Emperor's speech after the
Orsini outrage, 253.
Dufour, Geueral, military precep
tor of Napoleon III., 9.

England, averse to the union of the
Danubian Principalities, 168,
171, 172; relations with France
disturbed by the addresses of the
French colonels, 281 et seq.
Espinasse, General, 279-288.
Euge'nie, delighted that her child
was the son of the Church and
not merely the son of France,
13; more entertained by things
of the mind than by those of
art, 20; her beauty described,
21 ; presented with the Golden
Rose, 68; her letter to Isabella
of Spain before her marriage,
176 ; visits Saint Sebastian, Span
ish soil, from Biarritz, 195.
Favre, Jules, Orsini's advocate,
272; his oratory described, 274,
275.
Fay, General, his Souvenirs quoted,
44,53.
Figaro, The, its sale forbidden,
22; its ingenious letter to the
Prince Imperial, 22, 23.
Filleul, Adele, protectress of young
de Morny, 73, 74.
Fleury, General, describes floods
at Avignon, 56; his Memoires
quoted, 59, 65, 72, 93, 201,
218; describes de Morny, 77,
78.
Francis Joseph, of Austria, seeks
interview with Alexander II., of
Russia, at Weimar, 222, 223.
Frederic William, Prince of Prus
sia, more cordially received than
any other prince who visited
Paris during the Second Empire,
115 ; described, 118.

INDEX

343

Gibson, Milner, his motion in the
House of Commons ou the second
reading of the Conspiracy Bill,
and its result, 294.
Gomez, co-conspirator with Orsini,
236; his arrest, 245; sentenced
to compulsory labor for life,
276.
Gorce, de La, statistics of the
Crimean War, 42, 43 ; his His
toire du Second Empire quoted,
52, 70; praises the Emperor's
choice of words, 162; quoted on
the transportations to Algeria,
286.
Gortehakoff, Russian Minister of
Foreign Affairs, his sentiments
towards France, 84; quoted by
M. Baudin with regard to the
Stuttgart interview, 227.
Gue'ronniere, Vicomte de La, de
scribes Comte de Morny in his
youth, 75.

Hatzfeldt, Prussian plenipoten
tiary at Paris Congress, 33;
fetes the members of the Con
gress at the Prussian embassy,
46.
Haussmann, Baron, prefect of
Paris, admits that the transfor
mation of that city was the per
sonal work of Napoleon III., 6, 7.
Haussonville, Comte d\ describes
the manner in which legitimist
society received young Walew
ski, 27.
Havrard, his Frovm artistique et
monumental?, quoted, 187.
Hebert, police officer, remembers
Pieri, 225; recognizes and ar
rests him, 241.
Heine, Heinrich, loo.
Helene, Grand-duchess of Russia,
her interview with Vicomte de
Serre, 225.
Herve\ Edouard, academician, de
scribes a reigning beauty, 134.

Ideville, Comte Henri d', a tribute
to the Comtosso de Castiglione
quoted from his Journal d'un
llipkimate, 134.
Isabella, Queen of Spain, her letter
to Mademoiselle de Monlljo he-
fore her marriage, lift.
Kher&line, General, envoy of tho
Bey of Tunis, afterwards Grand
Vizier of tho Sultan, 136.
La Tour d'Auvergne, Prince de,
notilies Walewski of a projected
attempt on the life of Napo-
leou III., 254; private letter to
Walewski, 260, 261; despatch
from, 266 ; letter on the inter
view at Plombieres, 323, 324.
Lbuys, Drouyn de, resigns the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
29.
Louvre, opening of the new, 186-
191.
MacMahon, General, the only
senator who opposed the law
of general security, 286.
Manteuffel, Baron, Prussian pleni
potentiary at Paris Congress,
33.
Maximilian IL, of Bavaria, visits
Napoleon III., 142 et seq.
Mehemet, Djemil Bey, Turkish
ambassador to Paris Congress,
47; hint given him by Napo
leon III. concerning the electoral
frauds in Moldavia, 172-173.
Meloizes, Vicomte des, French min
ister at Weimar, despatch from,
223.
Meneval, Baron de, despatches to
Walewski concerning the viBit of
the Bavarian king, 145 H seq.
Mesnard, Vice-President of Senate,
twitted by the Empress with his
opposition to her marriage, 20,
21.
Moldavia, union of, with Wallachia

344

INDEX

proposed at the Congress of Paris
by the French plenipotentiary,
167.
Moltke, General, visits Paris in
1856, 115.
Morny, Comte de, his origin and
early career, 72 et seq.; ambas
sador extraordinary to Alexan
der II. , 73; his first meeting
with Napoleon III., 76; charac
terized, 80, 81 ; received coldly
by the Empress Dowager of
Russia, 82; his relations with
Alexander II. and with Gort
ehakoff, 85 et seq. ; did not brag
of his origin in Paris but ad
vertised it in Moscow, 92; de
spatch on Russian sentiment
towards France, 108 et seq.;
his foresight and steadiness of
mind, 111 et seq. ; his despatches
of unsurpassed excellence, 112;
his speech in the Corps Legis
latif after the Orsini outrage,
249.
Napoleon IH., not a dreamer, but
a man of action, 5; a cosmo
politan sovereign, 7; begins to
conspire for the war of Italy
in 1856, 8, 9; thought it his
providential mission to cancel
the treaties of 1815, 10; for a
sovereign a very good husband,
19, 20; never hinted his ul
terior Bchemes to his wife, 23;
opens the parliamentary session,
126; demands the quashing of
the Moldavian elections, 173;
breaks off diplomatic relations
with Turkey, 173, 174; visits
Queen Victoria at Osborne and
succeeds in inducing England to
disavow the action of Lord Strat
ford de Redcliffe, 173 et seq. ;
his letter to Queen Victoria,
180, 181 ; hi3 speech at the open
ing of the New Louvre, 190;
initiates agricultural experi

ments in the Landes, 192, 193;
his speech at the camp of Cha
lons, 202, 203; a fatalist and
fearless, 232; appoints the Em
press regent in case of his
death, 255; in spite of the Or
sini outrage retains his Ital
ian sympathies, 261; goes to
Cherbourg to meet Victoria
and Prince Albert, 327 et seq. ;
meets Cavour by secret appoint
ment at Plombieres, 317-325;
begins to show his hand, 337
et seq.
Napoleon, Prince, envoy to Ber
lin and Dresden, 149 et seq.;
sends Humboldt the grand cross
of the Legion of Honor, 153;
his marriage with the Princess
Clotilde urged by Napoleon IH.
at the Plombieres interview,
323.
Ollivier, £mile, opposes the law of
general security, 285.
Orloff, Count, Russian plenipo
tentiary at the Paris Congress,
35; his remark to Cavour con
cerning the Austrian plenipoten
tiary, 38.
Orsini, Felix, plans attempt on
the life of Napoleon III., 235
et seq.; his arrest, 245; his let
ters to Napoleon m., 273, 274,
276, 277; sentenced, 276; exe
cuted, 277, 278.

Palmerston, Lord, prepares the
Conspiracy Bill, 292; goes out
of office after its second reading,
£f)4; remarks to de Persigny
that this was the second time he
had been turned out of the min
istry on account of France and
the Emperor, 295 ; disturbed by
the confidences made him by
Napoleon HI. at Saint-Cloud,
336.

INDEX

Ml

Patrizzi, Cardinal, Papal Legate,
61.
Pelissier, Marshal Due de Mala
koff, telegram from Sebastopol
to Minister of War, 2; de
spatch from Sebastopol, 57;
made ambassador to England,
302; his meeting with the Due
d'Aumale in Hyde Park, 309;
his marriage, 337.
Persigny, Count de, 289 et seq.
Pieri, Italian conspirator, accom
plice of Orsini, 234, 235; sen
tenced, 276; executed, 277, 278.
Pinard, Ernest, describes the Em
peror's manner, 4, 6, 7; describes
Walewski, 30 ; describes Morny,
78, 79.
Prince Imperial, Pio Nono's god
son, 13; his baptism at Notre
Dame, 60 et seq.
Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de, Eng
lish ambassador at Constanti
nople, his attitude concerning
the Principalities, 168 ; offends
France by publicly celebrating
the anniversary of Waterloo at
Pera, 171 ; obliged to nullify
his action at Constantinople,
182.
Ristori, Madame, describes the
appearance of Napoleon III. just
after the Orsini attempt, 243,
244.
Rothan, Gustave, describes the
final interview at Stuttgart be
tween Napoleon III. and the
Czar, 220.
Rudio, Charles de, conspires with
Orsini, 236; arrested, 246; sen
tenced, 276.

Serre, Vicomte de, minister of
France at Carlsruhe, despatches
from, 210, 224, 225, 226.
Sibour, Archbishop of Paris, as
sassinated, 120, 121.

Talleyraml-lVrigord, Baron, rep
resents France in the European
commission, 172.
Thiers, buys the Messager news
paper from Walewski, 28;
quoted, 32; homage paid him
by Napoleon III., 127.
Thouvenel, French minister at
Constantinople, 34; criticises
the foreign policy of France,
169, 170; begins to understand
the personal policy of Napoleon
HI., 170, 171; complains of
the electoral methods of Vogo
rides, 172; his interview with
Abd-ul-Medjid, 174; quoted on
the resumption of diplomatic
relations, 183.
Thouvenel, Louis, his Three
Years of the Oriental Question
quoted, 167 et seq.
Treaty of Paris, stipulations of
the, 37 et seq.
Troplong, President of Senate,
248, 249.

Verger, assassin of Mgr. Sibour,
122.
Victor Emmanuel, sends Delia
Rocca to Paris, 258; Napoleon
III. wished him to marry a Ho
henzollern princess, 259; his
little game with Della Rocca,
265; averse to marrying the
Princess Clotilde to Prince Na
poleon, 323.
Victoria, Queen, praises Eugenie
and M. de Persigny, 178; de
scribes the visit of Napoleon III.
to Osborne as "politically a
blessing from Heaven," 17!) ;
delighted by his praise of Prince
Albert, 182; visits Cherbourg
unannounced, 183; meets Na
poleon III. at Cherbourg by ap
pointment, 326 et seq. ; writes
to Malmesbury that she fears the
Emperor may unite all Europe

346

INDEX

against him in another war,
338.
Vogorides, Prince, lieutenant-gov
ernor at Yassy, employs force and
fraud in the Moldavian elections,
172.
Walewski, Count, leader of French
diplomacy in 1856, 25 ; reputed
son of Napoleon I., 26; his
career in France from 1829 to

1854, 27 et seq.; Saint-Amand
owes his entry to diplomacy to
him, 30; formulates tbe Ro
man Question at the Paris Con
gress, 40; a despatch from
him to Persigny the beginning
of complications with England,
291.
Zamoyski, Polish envoy to Eng
land, 27.

THE SECOND EMPIRE.
By IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS.

THE COURT OF THE SECOND EMPIRE,
1856-1858.
With Four Portraits. Price, $1.50.
The three years bridging the time from the Crimean to the Italian war
of 1859 form the epochs treated in the latest of M. de Saint-Amand's
books. The author follows the course of public events in a brilliant
chronicle of the treaty of Paris, the baptism of the Prince Imperial, the
Coronation of the Czar Alexander II, the attempted assassination by
Orsini and his fellow-conspirators of the Emperor Napoleon, and the
diplomatic meetings which prepared the way for the war for Italian libera
tion. The secret history of this movement, contemplated by Napoleon
as soon as the Crimean war had closed, and pursued by him with equal
skill and success, is also strikingly unfolded.

LOUIS NAPOLEON AND MADEMOISELLE
DE MONTIJO.
With Two Portraits. Price, $1.50.
This volume begins the author's elaborate study of the history of
France during the reign of Napoleon III. The accession of the new
dynasty marked a new era which in its own way and under the changed
conditions of modem times, recalled the brilliancy of the First Empire.
In this initial volume the author shows the development of Louis Napo
leon's character from the days of his early childhood, through his varied
experiences in Italy, Switzerland, England and America ; his fiascos of
Strasburg and Boulogne ; his long imprisonment and escape ; his return
to France, and election, first to the Chamber of Deputies, then to the
Presidency of the Republic, and finally the covp d'etat and the proclama
tion anew of the Empire. The charming young Empress Eugtnie makes
a delightful companion portrait

NAPOLEON III. AND HIS COURT.
With Four Portraits. Price, $1.50.
The second volume of the new Napoleonic series covers the period
from the proclamation of the Second Empire to the birth of the Prince
Imperial in 1856. It is the period ofthe alliance of France and England
and the Crimean War, of which latter it is one of the most effective con
densed accounts existing. The volume is full of striking historic portraits,
Marshals Canrobert and Pelissier, the Emperor Nicholas, the Princess
Mathilde, M. Drouyn de Lhuys and others, that agreeably vary the nar
rative, itself crowded with interesting and rapidly succeeding events.

FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT.

" In these translations of this interesting series of sketches, -we have
found an unexpected amount of pleasure and profit. The author cites
for us passages from forgotten diaries, hitherto unearthed letters, extracts
from public proceedings, and the like, and contrives to combine and
arrange his material so as to make a great many very vivid and pleas
ing pictures. Nor is this all. The material he lays before us is of real
value, and much, if not most of it, must be unkno-wn save to the special
students of the period. We can, therefore, cordially commend these
books to the attention of our readers. They will find them attractive in
their arrangement, never dull, with much variety of scene and incident,
and admirably translated" — The Nation.
" Indeed, a certain sanity of vision is one of M. de Saint- Amana" s
characteristics. . . . He evidently finds it no difficult task to do justice
to Legitimist and Imperialist, to the old world that came to an end with
the Revolution and to the new world that sprang from the old world's
ashes. Nor do his qualifications as a popular historian end here. He
has the gift of so marshalling his facts as to leave a definite impression.
These are but short books on great subjects ; for M. de Saint-Amand is
not at all content to chronicle the court life of his three heroines, and
writes almost more fully about their times than he does about themselves ;
but yet comparatively short as the books may be, they tell their story, in
many respects, better than some histories of greater pretensions" — The
Academy, London,
FOUR VOLUMES ON WOMEN OF THE VALOIS AND VERSAILLES COURTS.
Each with Portraits, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $5.00; half calf, $10.00.
WOMEN OF THE VALOIS COURT.
THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.
THE COURT OF LOUIS XV.
THE LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV.
The splendid pageantry of the court over which Catherine de' Medici presided
and in which she intrigued, and the contrasting glories and shames of the long reigns
of the " Sun King " and of Louis XV. are the subjects of these four volumes which
depict the most brilliant days of the Valois and Bourbon dynasties.
2

FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT
THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE,
Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in pox, cloth, $3 75; half calf, $7.50.
MARIE ANTOINETTE ANO THE END OF THE OLD REGIME.
MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES.
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY.
In this series is unfolded the tremendous panorama of political events in which
the unfortunate Queen had so influential a share, beginning with the day* imme
diately preceding the Revolution, when court life .it Versailles was so gay and unsus
pecting, continuing with the enforced journey of the royal family to Paris, and the
agitating months passed in the Tuileries, together with the ill-starred and unsuccess
ful attempt to escape from French territory, and concluding with the abolition of
royalty, the proclamation of the Republic, and the imprisonment of the royal family,
— the initial stage of their progress to the guillotine.
THREE VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.
Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half calf, $7.50.
CITIZENESS BONAPARTE.
THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL.
THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.
The romantic and eventful period beginning with Josephine's marriage to the
young commander whose " whiff of grapeshot " had just saved France from anarchy,
and whose wonderful career was about to begin, comprises the astonishing Italian
campaign, in which the power of Austria was so unexpectedly and completely hum
bled, the Egyptian expedition, the coup d'e"tat of Brumaire, and is described in the
first of the above volumes; while the second treats of the brilliant society which issued
from the chaos of the Revolution, and over which Madame Bonaparte presided so
charmingly; and the third, ofthe events between the assumption of the imperial title
by Napoleon and the end of 1807, including, of course, the AusterUtz campaign.
FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE.
Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $5.00; half calf , $10.00.
THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE.
MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE.
MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814.
MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS.
The auspicious marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise to the master of
Europe; the Russian invasion, with its disastrous conclusion a few years later; the
Dresden and Leipsic campaign; the invasion of France by the Allies, and the mar
vellous military strategy of Napoleon in 1814, ending only with his defeat and exile
to Elba; his life in his little principality; his romantic escape and dramatic return to
France; the preparations ofthe Hundred Days; Waterloo and the definitive restora
tion of Louis XVIII., closing the era begun in 1789, with "The End of the Old
Regime," — are the subjects of the four volumes grouped around the personality of
Marie Louise. 3

FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT
TWO VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME.
Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $2.50; half calft $5.00.
THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME.
THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS.
The period covered in this first of these volumes begins with the life of the
daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette imprisoned in the Temple after the
execution of her parents, and ends with the accession of Louis XVIII. after the abdica
tion of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. The first Restoration, its illusions, the characters
of Louis XVIII., of his brother, afterwards Charles X., of the Dukes of Angouleme
and Berry, sons of the latter, the life of the Court, the feeling of the city, Napoleon's
sudden return from Elba, the Hundred Days from the Royalist side, the second
Restoration, and the vengeance taken by the new government on the Imperialists,
form the subject-matter of the second volume.
THREE VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF BERRY.
Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half calf , $7.50.
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVIII.
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF CHARLES X.
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE REVOLUTION OF JULY, 1830.
.The Princess Marie Caroline, of Naples, became, upon her marriage with the
Duke of Berry, the central figure of the French Court during the reigns of both
Louis XVIII. and Charles X. The former of these was rendered eventful by the
assassination of her husband and the birth of her son, the Count of Chambord, and
the latter was from the first marked by those reactionary tendencies which resulted
in the dethronement and exile of the Bourbons. The dramatic Revolution which
brought about the July monarchy of Louis Philippe, has never been more vividly
and intelligently described than in the last volume devoted to the Duchess of Berry.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.
With Four Portraits. Price $1.25.
M. Imbert de Saint-Amand's volume on " The Duchess of Berry and the Revo
lution of 1830," which described the turbulent accession of Louis Philippe to the
throne of France, is followed by the account of the Citizen King's equally agitated
abdication and exile during the Revolution of 1848. As always, the historian writes
from the inside, and his description of the exciting events of the February days that
led to the overthrow of the Orleanist dynasty, the flight of the last king France has
had, and the dramatically sudden establishment of the Second Republic is familiar
and intimate rather than formal, and the reader gets a view of what passed behind
the scenes as well as on the stage at that interesting and fateful moment.
4