“Pardon me,” replied the Empress gently, “but this is a question of humanity, not of politics.” And she finally carried her point. The youthful prisoners of La Roquette were sent into the country, and the cell system was abolished. It was not without anxiety that the warders received the new inmates, fearing it would be a hard task to manage them and that the well-behaved children would be corrupted by the others. Results proved, however, that the Empress was right, for even the most depraved and hardened culprits improved with kind treatment and work in the open air.
Equally worthy of note was the day spent by the Regent at St. Lazare—a place of confinement for abandoned women. News of the Empress’s visit to this place spread like wildfire over the city, and on leaving these poor, despised creatures she received touching proofs of the people’s devotion to her. The crowds assembled in the streets murmured blessings on her, while the women knelt to kiss the hem of her gown.
Toward the end of September, 1865, cholera broke out in Paris, and the court, which was then at Biarritz, decided to return to the capital at once. The memory of the terrible epidemic of 1849 was still fresh in the minds of the people; and when, after apparently subsiding, the disease broke out again with renewed violence a terrible panic ensued. The courage and self-sacrifice displayed by Eugénie during this time won universal applause; the newspapers, even those hostile to her, were loud in praise of the royal “sister of charity.” On the twenty-first of October the Emperor made a long visit to one of the cholera hospitals, and on leaving ordered the sum of fifty thousand francs to be distributed for the relief of the sufferers. Eugénie, to whom he had said nothing of his intention, was much disappointed at not having accompanied him. The next morning she drove from St. Cloud to Paris, where she made the rounds of all the cholera hospitals herself, going from bed to bed with words of cheer and comfort. Once, pausing beside a man who was dying, she took his hand in hers gently and spoke some words of sympathy to him. Thinking it one of the nuns, the poor fellow summoned up his last remnants of strength to kiss her hand. “Thanks, sister,” he murmured. The sister of charity who accompanied the Empress leaned over and said:
“You mistake, my friend; it was not I, but our gracious Empress who spoke to you.”
“Never mind, sister,” interposed Eugénie, “he could have given me no more beautiful name—” a saying which was repeated and long remembered among the people.
* * * * * * * *
Yet much as Eugénie had endeared herself to the masses by her fearlessness and kind-heartedness during the cholera epidemic, it was not long before the feeling against her on account of her bigotry, extravagance, and frivolity again came to the surface, not alone in court circles but throughout the whole Empire. To lay to the Empress’s account all the follies and indiscretions, all the worldliness and self-seeking, of Parisian life at that time, would be most unfair; yet it cannot be denied that her influence had much to do with the luxury and the eccentricities of fashion that prevailed. Doomed by her rank to a life of idleness and inactivity, the lack of proper food for heart and mind forced her energies to find outlet in trifles. The gratification of her vanity became the chief object of life. With the sceptre of France, her slender hand also grasped that of the world of fashion—a domain in which she was no beneficent sovereign, but a tyrant whose yoke was borne without a murmur. Even when she was a young girl her costumes excited envy and admiration for their originality, and at every watering-place she visited, bungling imitations of the beautiful Spaniard’s toilettes were to be seen in hotels and gaming halls. In Paris her influence soon began to be felt, and almost before her name had become familiar to the people her waistcoats were being copied and sold by all the fashionable tailors, and the high-heeled riding boots she had worn at Compiègne were adopted by every French court lady. Every morning, as we have seen, before going to mass, Eugénie devoted one or two hours at least to the study of dress.
Her bedchamber, with its adjoining oratory, was at some distance from her other apartments and lacked all stamp of individuality. The bed, heavily draped with rich hangings, was raised on a dais, and resembled a throne. In this room she kept the Golden Rose that was presented to her by the Pope, and beside the bed stood one of the palm branches sent her each year by the Holy Father with his blessing. Yet here she spent far less time during the day than in the dressing-room next it, where there were several large movable mirrors enabling her to see herself from all points. On the floor above, connected by elevator and speaking tube with her private apartments, were the rooms occupied by her waiting-women. Here was a vast store of silks, velvets, and satins, with gowns and every conceivable article of wearing apparel. Ranged along the wall were rows of dresses and wraps of all sorts and colors, with receptacles for hats, shoes, fans, parasols, etc. In one of the rooms were several life-sized forms which the Empress had had made, exactly reproducing her own figure in size and height, and dressed like living women to the smallest detail; for in spite of the pains taken by the modistes and tailors to win her approval, it was seldom that a costume entirely suited her.
She was tireless in her quest for novelty. With each change of season, quantities of models and materials were brought to her to choose from, and numberless conferences were held with Madame Virot, the court milliner, as well as Worth, the famous ladies’ tailor, whose reputation she founded. He would often send her costumes costing one or two hundred thousand francs, and once he made her pay as much as fifty thousand francs for a simple cloak. Even these works of art met with no mercy in their original form, but were always remodelled and altered according to her orders, until her own carefully cultivated taste produced the desired effect of perfect harmony. All the artistic talent she possessed was devoted to the study of dress, and under her sway fashion rose into the realm of art. Inseparable from the image of the beautiful Spaniard is the energy with which for eighteen long years she wielded its sceptre. Her greatest interest in life, it constituted at once her strength and her weakness—weakness because from it sprang the charge of folly and extravagance justly made by France against its former sovereign; strength, because of the art with which it enabled her to hold her place on the pedestal to which she had been elevated, and gave her the power to dazzle and fascinate not only the masses but also her equals and contemporaries.