“I have a lady with me whom I am taking to a private asylum,” Evans explained to the innkeeper, “and I would like a quiet room with shutters on the windows.”
His request was complied with without question, and here Eugénie and her companion were able to enjoy a few hours’ rest. Evans’s colleague returned to Paris with the doctor’s carriage which they had used thus far, and a coach was hired for them by the landlord to convey the invalid to the institution where she was to be left in charge. Further to carry out the plan, it was privately arranged that the Empress should appear to protest against being taken there, and make such forcible resistance on the way that they would apparently be forced to take another road. They had driven for scarcely half an hour, therefore, when a loud dispute arose between Eugénie and the doctor, which became so violent that Evans called to the coachman to stop that he might try and induce the patient to go a short distance on foot.
“I will not—I will not!” stormed the Empress, and her screams frightened the horses so that the driver declared he would go no further unless the disturbance was stopped.
“I will never go to that place, I will not!” shrieked Eugénie afresh, and at last there seemed nothing for it but to turn back and drive to the nearest post station, whence the coach was sent back. As a further measure of precaution they changed conveyances at every station, now, however, taking the road to their real destination—the watering-place of Deauville, where Mrs. Evans was then staying.
For many weeks, as we have seen, Eugénie had lived in constant agitation and anxiety—the days full of exhausting labor, the nights without sleep—and had suffered both mentally and physically in consequence. She was no longer able to eat, and had lived for the last four or five days literally on nothing but black coffee and chloral, which she had been in the habit of taking in large quantities to drown her troubles. She wept almost incessantly; and even when sleep lent her a few moments’ respite, she would start up suddenly, begin to talk and laugh excitedly, then as quickly burst into tears and relapse again into deepest melancholy.
After two seemingly endless days, the fugitives reached Deauville on the evening of September 6, and Evans took the Empress and her companion at once to his wife. Mrs. Evans was about the same size as Eugénie, and gladly packed up a part of her wardrobe with some necessary articles of toilet for the Empress’s use, while the doctor hastened to discover what boats were leaving for England. Two vessels were in the harbor, the larger an American ship, the other a pleasure yacht, the Gazelle, belonging to Lord Burgoyne. Finding the former not sufficiently seaworthy, Evans applied to Lord Burgoyne, who at first flatly refused to take the Empress across, partly for political reasons, partly because a storm was brewing. But Eugénie’s protector insisted so urgently that he finally yielded on condition that the ladies should not come aboard till just before the boat sailed, lest the fact that he had passengers should attract attention. Shortly before midnight Eugénie, accompanied by Evans and her faithful Lebreton, hurried on board the yacht, which did not weigh anchor, however, till the next morning.
The dangers by land now lay behind the fugitives, but others still awaited them by sea. Soon a fearful storm arose, and the little craft was tossed about at the mercy of the elements. The crew, little suspecting that an Empress looked to them for rescue, labored on bravely and calmly, as is the way of sailors, who know at any moment they may be called into eternity. Still the storm increased in violence, and the danger grew greater every moment. The ladies were flung about the tiny cabin like bales of merchandise. By nightfall all hope seemed vanished. Pale as death, terror stamped on every line of his countenance, Lord Burgoyne appeared at the door of the cabin, crying that they were lost.
“It is all your fault!” he shouted, glaring wildly at the doctor, then rushed away as suddenly as he had come. The three passengers looked at one another in amazement, and seasick, exhausted, and disheartened as she was, Eugénie could not help laughing at the Englishman’s frenzy of terror. Still the brave little Gazelle struggled on against wind and wave until at last the storm began to subside, and about three o’clock the next morning, after what seemed a miraculous escape, they reached the harbor of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
With what feelings must the ex-Empress have once more beheld this coast! Must she not involuntarily have recalled that first visit with her mother to England so long ago, in her joyous care-free youth? And again, when she took that first important step toward recognition by the European sovereigns, and as the favorite of fortune, gay, courted, and admired, landed amid the enthusiastic shouts of the people, as the honored guest of Queen Victoria? To-day she turned to England for refuge—no longer the beautiful sovereign of a great European power, but a wretched fugitive, an unhappy woman exhausted with fatigue and faint for lack of food. Those shores on which she had once been hailed with triumph now in the gray dawn were sole witnesses of her mute despair.