Upon making inquiries at Paris it was found that the same question had been raised there, the Turkish Ambassador having made a remonstrance against the Khedive being lodged in the Elysée, and a special request that at least the room in which the Sultan slept should not be desecrated by his obnoxious vassal. The French Foreign Minister had thereupon advised the Ambassador to consider the remonstrance about the Elysée and the bedroom as non avenue, as it could only serve to make the Ambassador and his Government look ridiculous. Nevertheless, M. de La Valette admitted that the Viceroy was taking too independent a line, and that the proposal to neutralize the Suez Canal was an Imperial question which should originate from the Porte, and not from the Egyptian ruler.
The other and more illustrious traveller was the Empress Eugénie, who was desirous of attending the inauguration of the Suez Canal, and who unexpectedly intimated that she wished to make a tour in India. Upon this becoming known, Queen Victoria caused her to be informed that her presence in any part of the British dominions would always be most welcome, and that every arrangement would be made for her comfort and convenience.
'The Empress talked to me last night,' wrote Lord Lyons, 'for a very long time and with great animation, not to say enthusiasm, of her project of going to India. She gives herself two months away from France, during which she proposes to go to Ceylon and most of the principal places in India except Calcutta. She repeated her thanks to the Queen and to you, and said that as the Queen had never been herself to India, she herself, as a Foreign Sovereign, could not think of receiving Royal Honours, and besides, that she particularly wished for her own sake to observe the incognito and to be allowed to go about and see things in the quickest and most unostentatious manner. I told her that she had only to let us know exactly what her wishes were and every effort should be made to carry them out. She particularly begged that her idea of going to India might not be talked about, lest it should be discussed and criticized in the papers. I cannot suppose she will ever really go to India, but she is full of it now. La Valette will stop it if he can, for his own sake; for he depends a good deal upon her support at the Palace.'
This journey, of course, never took place. La Valette prevented it by representing to the Empress that if she went to Suez she must also go to Constantinople, and thus sufficient time for a tour in India was not available.
A trivial incident in French high society which occurred about this time serves to show with what extraordinary facility the most exaggerated statements can be circulated and credited. Writing to Lord Lyons, Lord Clarendon stated that he had been informed that the former had been placed in a most disagreeable position at a party given by Princess Mathilde, at which a recitation had been delivered marked by the most furious abuse of the English, and that the Emperor had gone up to the reciting lady and ostentatiously complimented her.
Lord Lyons to Lord Clarendon.
Paris, May 9, 1869.