Her iron will ably seconded the Emperor's attempts at gaining aristocratic recruits round his standard, and when the Duc de Guiche joined their ranks—the Duc de Guiche whom the Duchesse d'Angoulême had left close upon forty thousand pounds a year—Mdlle. de Montijo might well be elated with her success. Still, at the celebration of her nuptials, the gathering was not le dessus du panier. The old noblesse had the right to stay away; they had not the right to do what they did. I am perfectly certain of my facts, else I should not have committed them to paper.
As usual, on the day of the ceremony, portraits of the new Empress and her biography were hawked about. There was nothing offensive in either, because the risk of printing anything objectionable would have been too great. In reality, the account of her life was rather too laudatory. But there was one picture, better executed than the rest, which bore the words, "The portrait and the virtues of the Empress; the whole for two sous;" and that was decidedly the work of the Legitimists and Orleanists combined. I have ample proof of what I say. I heard afterwards that the lithograph had been executed in England.
For several months after the marriage nothing was spoken or thought of at the Tuileries but rules of precedence, court dresses, the revival of certain ceremonies, functions and entertainments that used to be the fashion under the ancien régime. The Empress was especially anxious to model her surroundings, her code of life, upon those of Marie-Antoinette,—"mon type," as she familiarly called the daughter of Marie-Thérèse. If, in fact, after a little while, some one had been ill-advised enough to tell her that she had not been born in the Imperial purple, she would have scarcely believed it. When a daughter of the House of Savoy had the misfortune to marry Napoléon's cousin, the Empress thought fit to give the young princess some hints as to her toilette and sundry other things. "You appear to forget, madame," was the answer, "that I was born at a court." Empress Eugénie was furious, and never forgave Princess Clotilde. Her anger reminds me of that of a French detective who, having been charged with a very important case, took up his quarters with a colleague in one of the best Paris hotels, exclusively frequented by foreigners of distinction. He assumed the rôle of a retired ambassador, his comrade enacted the part of his valet, and both enacted them to perfection. For a fortnight or more they did not make a single mistake in their parts. The ambassador was kind but distant to his servant, the latter never omitted to address him as "Your Excellency." When their mission was at an end, they returned to their ordinary duties; but the "ambassador" had become so identified with his part that, on his colleague addressing him in the usual way, he turned round indignantly, and exclaimed, "You seem to forget yourself. What do you mean by such familiarity?"
Of all the entertainments of the ancien régime lending themselves to sumptuary and scenic display, "la chasse" was undoubtedly the one most likely to appeal to the Imperial couple. Louis-Napoléon had, at any rate, the good sense not to attempt to rival Le Roi-Soleil in spectacular ballet, or to revive the Eglinton tournament on the Place du Carrousel. But—
"Il ne fallait au fier Romain
Que des spectacles et du pain;
Mais aux Français, plus que Romain,
Le spectacle suffit sans pain."
No one was better aware of this tendency of the Parisian to be dazzled by court pageants than the new Emperor, but he was also aware that, except at the risk of making himself and his new court ridiculous, some sort of raison d'être would have to be found for such open-air displays in the capital; pending the invention of a plausible pretext, "les grandes chasses" at Compiègne were decided upon. They were to be different from what they had been on the occasion referred to above: special costumes were to be worn, splendid horses purchased; the most experienced kennel and huntsmen, imbued with all the grand traditions of "la Vénerie," recruited from the former establishments of the Condés and Rohans;—in short, such éclat was to be given to them as to make them not only the talk of the whole of France, but of Europe besides. The experiment was worth trying. Compiègne was less than a hundred miles from Paris; thousands would flock, not only from the neighbouring towns, but from the capital also, and the glowing accounts they would be sure to bring back would produce their effect. There would be, moreover, less risk of incurring the remarks of an irreverent Paris mob, a mob which instinctively finds out the ridiculous side of every ceremonial instituted by the court, except those calculated to gratify its love of military pomp and splendour. As yet, it was too early to belie the words, "L'empire, c'est la paix;" we had not got beyond the "tame eagle" period, albeit that those behind the scenes, among others a near connection of mine, who was more than half a Frenchman himself, predicted that the predatory instincts would soon reveal themselves, against the Russian bear, probably, and in conjunction with the British lion,—if not in conjunction with the latter, perhaps against him.
At any rate, les grandes chasses et fêtes de Compiègne formed the first item of that programme of "La France qui s'amuse,"—a programme and play which, for nearly eighteen years, drew from all parts of the civilized world would-be critics and spectators, few of whom perceived that the theatre was undermined, the piece running to a fatal dénoûment, and the bill itself the most fraudulent concoction that had ever issued from the sanctum of a bogus impressario. But had not Lamartine, only a few years previously, suggested, as it were, the tendency of the piece, when, in the Chamber of Deputies, he said, "Messieurs, j'ai l'honneur et le regret de vous avertir que la France s'ennuie"? Louis-Napoléon was determined that no such reproach should be made during his reign. He probably did not mean his fireworks to end in the conflagration of Bazeilles, and to read the criticism on his own drama at Wilhelmshöhe, but he should have held a tighter hand over his stage-managers. Some of these were now getting their reward for having contributed to the efficient representation of the prologue, which one might entitle "the Coup d'État." General Magnan was appointed grand veneur—let us say, master of the buckhounds,—with a stipend of a hundred thousand francs; Comte Edgar Ney, his chief coadjutor, with forty thousand francs. History sees the last of the latter gentleman on a cold, dull, drizzly September morning, of the year 1870. He is seated in an open char-à-bancs, by the side of some Prussian officers, and the vehicle, in the rear of that of his Imperial master, is on its way to the Belgian frontier, en route for Cassel. He is pointing to some artillery which, notwithstanding its French model, is being driven by German gunners. "A qui ces canons-là?" "Ils ne sont pas des nôtres, monsieur," is the courteous and guarded reply. Verily, his father's exit, after all is said and done, was a more dignified one. Michel Ney, at any rate, fell pierced by bullets; the pity was that they were not the enemy's. In addition to the grand veneur and premier veneur, there were three lieutenants de vénerie, a capitaine des chasses à tir,—whom we will call a sublimated head-gamekeeper;—and all these dignitaries had other emoluments and charges besides, because Louis-Napoléon, to his credit be it said, never forgot a friend.
The whole of the "working personnel" was, as I have already said, recruited from the former establishments of the Condés at Chantilly, of the late Duc d'Orléans, the Ducs de Nemours and d'Aumale; and such men as La Feuille, whose real name was Fergus, and La Trace could not have failed to make comparisons between their old masters and the new, not always to the advantage of the latter. For though the spectacle was magnificent enough, there was little or no hunting, as far as the majority of the guests were concerned. After a great deal of deliberation, dark green cloth, with crimson velvet collars, cuffs, and facings, and gold lace, had been adopted. In Louis XV.'s time, and in that of the latter Bourbons, the colour had been blue with silver lace; but for this difference the costume was virtually the same, even to the buckskins, jackboots, and the "lampion," also edged with gold instead of silver.[62] The Emperor's and Empress's had a trimming of white ostrich-feathers. The dress could not be worn, however, by any but the members of the Imperial household, without special permission. The latter, of course, wore it by right; but even men like the Duc de Vicence, the Baron d'Offrémont, the Marquis de Gallifet, the Marquis de Cadore, women like the Comtesse de Pourtalès, the Comtesse de Brigode, the Marquise de Contades, who held no special charge at court, had to receive "le bouton" before they could don it.[63]
The locale of these gatherings differed according to the seasons. Fontainebleau was chosen for the spring ones, but throughout the reign Compiègne always offered the most brilliant spectacle, especially after the Crimean war, when Napoléon III. was tacitly admitted to the family circle of the crowned heads of Europe. The shooting-parties were a tribute offered to the taste of the English visitors, who, after that period, became more numerous every succeeding autumn, and who, accustomed as they were to their own magnificent meets and lavish hospitality at the most renowned country seats, could not help expressing their surprise at the utterly reckless expenditure; and, if the truth must be told, enjoyed the freedom from all restraint, though it was cunningly hidden beneath an apparently very formidable code of courtly etiquette. As one of these distinguished Englishmen said, "They have done better than banish Mrs. Grundy; they have given her a special invitation, and drugged her the moment she came in."
The Court invariably arrived on the first of November, and generally stayed for three weeks or a month, according to the date fixed for the opening of the Chambers. From that moment the town, a very sleepy though exceedingly pretty one, became like a fair. Unless you had engaged your room beforehand at one of the hotels, the chances were a thousand to one in favour of your having to roam the streets; for there were hundreds and hundreds of sight-seers, French as well as foreign, desirous of following the hounds, which every one was free to do. In addition to these, many functionaries, not sufficiently important to be favoured with an invitation to the Château, but eager for an opportunity of attracting the notice of the sovereign—for Napoléon was a very impulsive monarch, who often took sudden fancies—had to be accommodated, not to mention flying columns of the demi-monde, "pas trop bien assurées sur la fidélité de leurs protecteurs en-titre et voulant les sauvegarder contre les attaques de leurs rivales dans l'entourage impérial." What with these and others, a room, on the top story, was often quoted at sixty or seventy francs per day. I know a worthy lieutenant of the cavalry of the Garde who made a pretty sum, for two years running, by engaging three apartments at each of the five good hotels, for the whole of the Emperor's stay. His regiment was quartered at Compiègne, and, as a matter of course, his friends from Paris applied to him.