“Thus did an inscrutable fate grant to him what it cruelly denied both his father and the great founder of their race—to fall in battle, bravely fighting against the foe.”
The death of the Prince Imperial created the profoundest sensation. As soon as the news reached England, Colonel Sidney, an old friend of the family, was sent to break it to the Empress, but before he could get to Chiselhurst she had already heard of it. That morning all newspapers and telegrams had been carefully withheld from her, but her letters were overlooked. One of these was doubly addressed, to her and to Secretary Pietri, and contained an allusion to “the dreadful news” without mentioning what it was. She sent at once for the Duke of Bassano to ask for an explanation; and when he arrived speechless with emotion, she suspected that it concerned the Prince. Chilled with fear at what she read in his countenance, she stood as if turned to stone. That son, for whom she longed day and night, her only joy in life! The thought was so terrible, Eugénie could not pursue it to the end.
“Something has happened to my son,” she groaned; “I must start at once for the Cape.”
Unable to reply, the Duke went out into the hall, where he met Colonel Sidney, who brought confirmation of the sad tidings. The Empress sent again for the Duke and insisted upon hearing all, repeating that she should go to Africa at once.
“Alas! madame,” said the Duke, “it is too late.”
“Oh, my son—my poor son!” shrieked the mother, and fell senseless to the floor.
After the first paroxysm of grief was over, she neither wept nor spoke, but listened with feverish despair while the Duke related all the circumstances of her son’s death, not withholding a single painful detail. Madame Lebreton then led her gently into her bedchamber where the Abbé Goddard tried to comfort her. But the religion that had been such a source of support to her through all her troubles now proved of little consolation. Her whole life had been bound up in her child, and now that this last earthly support had crumbled, all hope and joy lay buried in the dust. For several days and nights she neither ate nor slept, but remained sunk in a sort of torpor from which she roused only to ask in tones of agonized pleading if it might not be that her son was only ill or wounded, and she could go out to nurse him back to health. Fortunately for her life or reason, she at last found relief in tears, and now she wept unceasingly.
The whole world shared the stricken mother’s sorrow, and thousands of messages of sympathy were received at Chiselhurst. Telegrams of condolence came from all the courts of Europe, as well as from President Grévy of the French Republic, Marshal MacMahon, and many others. Requiem masses were held in every Roman Catholic church in London. Especial sympathy was felt for her in Spain, but the consolation of weeping out her grief on a mother’s bosom was denied her, as the Countess Montijo was then so old and feeble it was thought best not to inform her of her grandson’s death.
Republican, not to say radical, as the French capital was at that time, the death of the Prince Imperial caused general consternation. The Empire was still fresh in the minds of all. At the birth of the Emperor’s son innumerable prayers had been offered for both mother and child. Step by step the affections of the gay Parisians followed the little Prince, and when at the age of three he rode with his mother to Notre Dame to the thanksgiving services for the victory of Solferino, the state coach was scarcely able to make its way through the admiring and enthusiastic throngs. Since that day the Napoleonic dynasty had suffered many reverses. The Empress, once the pride and glory of her subjects, was an exile, surrounded by only a few friends, and living in comparative poverty. Now she had suffered the last and heaviest blow of fate in the loss of her only child. Yet many more hearts went out to Eugénie in this hour of trial than in the days of her prosperity. Great and small, rich and poor, friend and foe, united in heart felt sympathy for the grief-stricken mother. But it was a grief that was beyond consolation. She had done with life. “All is finished,” were the words she constantly repeated, and sobbing aloud would bury her face in her hands to shut out the awful vision that was always before her—the body of her son pierced with cruel spear-wounds.
* * * * * * * *