The bourgeoisie itself was more disgusted still. Incredible as it may seem, they did resent Napoléon's slight of their daughters. "A défaut d'une princesse de sang royal, une de nos filles eut fait aussi bien qu'une étrangère, dont le grand père, après tout, était négociant comme nous. Le premier empire a été fait avec le sang de garçons d'écurie, de tonnelliers; le second empire aurait pu prendre un pen de ce sang sans se mésallier." The bourgeois Voltairien was more biting in his sarcasm. In his speech to the grand officers of State and corporations, Napoléon had alluded to Empress Joséphine: "France has not forgotten that for the last seventy years foreign princesses have only ascended the steps of the throne to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution. One woman alone appears to have brought the people better luck, and to have left a more lasting impression on their memory, and that woman, the modest and kindly wife of General Bonaparte, was not descended from royal blood." Then, speaking of the empress that was to be, he concluded, "A good and pious Catholic, she will, like myself, offer up the same prayers for the welfare and happiness of France; I cherish the firm hope that, gracious and kind as she is, she will, while occupying a similar position, revive once more the virtues of Joséphine." All of which references to the undoubtedly skittish widow of General de Beauharnais made the satirically inclined bourgeois, who knew the chronique scandaleuse of the Directoire quite as well as Louis-Napoléon, sneer. Said one, "It is a strange present to put into a girl's trousseau, the virtues of Joséphine; the Nessus-shirt given to Hercules was nothing to it."
The Faubourg St.-Germain made common cause for once with the Orleanists salons, which were avenging the confiscation of the princes' property; and both, if less brutal than the speaker just quoted, were not less cruel. The daughter had to bear the brunt of the mother's reputation. Public securities went down two francs at the announcement of the marriage. There was but one man who stood steadfast by the Emperor and his bride, Dupin the elder; but his ironical defence of the choice was nearly as bad as his opposition to it could have been. "People care very little as to what I say and think, and perhaps they are right," he remarked; "but still, the Emperor acts more sensibly by marrying the woman he likes than by eating humble-pie and bargaining for some strait-laced, stuck-up German princess, with feet as large as mine. At any rate, when he kisses his wife, it will be because he feels inclined, and not because he feels compelled."[60]
Nevertheless, amidst all this flouting and jeering, the Emperor and his future consort felt very uncomfortable, but they showed a brave front. He inferred, rather than said to one and all who advanced objections, that his love for Mdlle. de Montijo was not the sole motive for his contemplated union. He wished to induce them into the belief that political motives were not foreign to it—that he was, as it were, flinging the gauntlet to monarchical Europe, which, not content with refusing him a wife, was determined to throw a spoke in his matrimonial wheel.
Unfortunately, he and his bride felt that they could not altogether dispense with the pomp and circumstance of courts. Like his uncle, Napoléon III. was exceedingly fond of grand ceremonial display, and he set his heart upon his Empress having a brilliant escort of fair and illustrious women on the day of her nuptials. To seek for such an escort among the grandes dames of the old noblesse would, he knew, be so much waste of time; but he was justified in the hope that the descendants of those who owed some of their titles and most of their fortunes to his uncle would prove more amenable. In this he was mistaken: both the Duchesse de Vicence and the Duchesse des Lesparres, besides several others to whom the highest positions in the Empress's household were offered, declined the honour. The Duc de Bassano did worse. Much as the De Caulaincourts and the De Lesparres owed to the son of the Corsican lawyer, the Marets owed him infinitely more. Yet their descendant, but a few days before the marriage, went about repeating everywhere that he absolutely objected to see his wife figure in the suite of the daughter of the Comtesse de Montijo, "who" (the daughter) "was a little too much of a posthumous child." He not only relented with regard to the duchesse at the eleventh hour, but accepted the office of Grand Chambellan, which office he filled to the end of his life.
In fact, honours and titles went absolutely a-begging in those days. Let me not be misunderstood. There were plenty of men and women ready to accept both, and to deck out their besmirched, though very authentic, scutcheons with them; but of these the Empress, at any rate, would have none. She would have willingly thrown overboard the whole of her family with its doubtful antecedents, which naturally identified it with that brilliant and cosmopolitan society, "dans laquelle en fait d'hommes, il n'y a que des déclassés, et en fait de femmes que des trop-bien classées." The Bonapartes themselves had, after all, a by no means cleaner bill of health, but, as usual, the woman was made the scapegoat; for though a good many men of ancient lineage, such as the Prince Charles de Beauveau, the Duc de Crillon, the Duc de Beauveau-Craon, the Duc de Montmorency, the Marquis de Larochejaquelein, the Marquis de Gallifet, the Duc de Mouchy, etc., rallied to the new régime, most of them refused at first to bring their wives and daughters to the Tuileries, albeit that they went themselves. When a man neglects to introduce his womenkind to the mistress of the house at which he visits, one generally knows the opinion he and the world entertain—rightly or wrongly—of the status of the lady; and the rule is supposed to hold good everywhere throughout civilized society. Yet the Emperor tolerated this.
Knowing what I do of Napoléon's private character, I am inclined to think that, but for dynastic and political reasons, he would have willingly dispensed with the rigidly virtuous woman at the Tuileries, then and afterwards. But at that moment he was perforce obliged to make advances to her, and the rebuffs received in consequence were taken with a sang-froid which made those who administered them wince more than once. At each renewed refusal he was ready with an epigram: "Encore une dame qui n'est pas assez sure de son passé pour braver l'opinion publique;" "Celle-là, c'est la femme de César, hors de tout soupçon, comme il y a des criminels qui sont hors la loi;" "Madame de ——; il n'y a pas de faux pas dans sa vie, il n'y a qu'un faux papa, le père de ses enfants."
For Louis-Napoléon could be exceedingly witty when he liked, and his wit lost nothing by the manner in which he delivered his witticisms. Not a muscle of his face moved—he merely blinked his eyes.
"Si on avait voulu me donner une princesse allemande," he said to his most intimate friends, "je l'aurais épousée: si je ne l'avais pas autant aimée que j'aime Mademoiselle de Montijo, j'aurais au moins été plus sûr de sa bêtise; avec une Espagnole on n'est jamais sûr."
Whether he meant the remark for his future consort or not, I am unable to say, but Mademoiselle de Montijo was not witty. There was a kittenish attempt at wit now and then, as when she said, "Ici, il n'y a que moi de légitimiste;" but intellectually she was in no way distinguished from the majority of her countrywomen.[61] On the other hand, she had an iron will, and was very handsome. A woman's beauty is rarely capable of being analyzed; he who undertakes such a task is surely doomed to the disappointment of the boy who cut the drum to find out where the noise came from.
I cannot say wherein Mdlle. de Montijo's beauty lay, but she was beautiful indeed.