Mme. Cornu, Louis Napoleon’s foster-sister, who had had a sincere affection for him prior to the coup d’état, execrated him for that act, declined to see him when he called upon her, and, as he stood at the bottom of the stairs, shouted to him from above that she would have nothing to do with “a man whose hands were covered with blood.” Her resentment continued for years; then, one day, she went to the Tuileries, saw the Emperor and Empress, took the little Prince in her arms, and “made it up.”
I would fain hope that we may find the “true truth” in these eloquent words of the statesman who knew the real Louis Napoleon better, perhaps, than most men, excepting De Morny, De Persigny, Fleury, Conti, and, I will add, Franceschini Pietri—I mean, as will have been guessed, M. Émile Ollivier:
Despite all that has been written on the Emperor Napoleon III., no personage is less known. He has been described as un esprit nébuleux; in reality, no one had a clearer mind. He has been called an egotistical calculator: no one was more disinterested or more preoccupied with the national grandeur. But he placed that grandeur very high. He believed that France was the soldier of God; that his mission was not to gratify miserable cupidities, but to work for the freedom and happiness of peoples. He did nothing on behalf of dynastic interests, but he neglected no opportunity of advancing the principle of nationalities, which is that of justice, peace, and civilization. And that will be his immortal glory in the future. He would not have sent the French fleet to prevent the brave Cretans from uniting themselves with Greece, if they desired to do so. He would not have made France the synonym for egotism and platitudes. All his dreams were those of one of the most beautiful minds which ever ruled over men since the days of the Antonines.[117]
The value of that glowing tribute, that certificate of character, depends upon the impartiality and capacity of the person who penned it. I myself consider M. Émile Ollivier—Napoleon’s last Prime Minister, upon whom and his colleagues was imposed the dire duty of declaring war—an impartial witness. He may not—I fear he will not—be accepted as such by all. Is he not the Minister who said he entered upon the war “with a light heart”? He is the selfsame man; only it is too often forgotten that he qualified that expression at the moment he uttered it by explaining that he was “light-hearted” because of “his conviction that Prussia was in the wrong and was deliberately attacking France.”[118]
It must be remembered that while M. Ollivier was devoted to Napoleon III. he was regarded with not over-friendly eyes by the Empress Eugénie. He necessarily had frequent formal and informal audiences of the Emperor, and that some of these interviews took place unknown to the imperial lady we know from the Emperor’s letter asking the statesman to enter the Tuileries on a certain occasion by “the little door” in the garden, in order that the Empress might not know he was in the Palace!
M. Ollivier, as the historian of “L’Empire Libéral,” intends to be absolutely unbiassed and impartial. He has taken upon himself the Herculean task of defending that Liberal Empire, the Liberal Emperor, and the Liberal Premier of 1870 (himself), and he has had to make the best case possible for all three. His work is a monument of research, memory, and industry. His fifteen great volumes are for the world’s criticism; some may see in them only a brilliant plaidoirie, admirably conceived and ingeniously executed—the whole a phenomenal literary performance, yet, of course, written with parti pris, and as such challenging critical comment. But may we not accept without carping, and with faith in his sincerity, his estimate of the Man Napoleon III., the Pale Emperor, in whose words, “The crown has thorns, and often some of them sink deeply into the head,”[119] we seem to see the epitaph he would have wished?
The responsibility for the war of 1870 has been laid, firstly, to the charge of the Empress Eugénie, and, secondly, to that of the Emperor. In a previous volume I printed the complete text of what, since its publication in that work, has become known as “the Empress’s Case”—Her Imperial Majesty’s Reply to her Accusers. One of my numerous very appreciative American critics took occasion to remark that, in order to prove the Empress’s blamelessness, something more was required than the mere word of M. Gaston Calmette.[120] To remove all misapprehension, I now put it on record that the document in question contained the Empress Eugénie’s ipsissima verba; otherwise it neither could nor would have been published.
I pass on to a consideration of the measure of the Emperor Napoleon’s responsibility for the war with Germany.
Those who have taken the trouble, and who have the competency, to investigate the numerous causes which were the genesis of the war have satisfied themselves that, to employ a colloquialism, Napoleon III. was “dead against” entering into a conflict with Prussia. These investigators now know, although they may not all have known it twenty, or ten, or even five years ago, that the Emperor was forced into the field, partly by the diplomacy of the then Count Bismarck (other diplomatists aiding), partly (and to a greater extent) by the practically unanimous voice of his own subjects.
Let there be no longer any doubt about this: the French themselves, not primarily, but ultimately, were responsible for the war. It was not Paris this time, but the entire nation, and, with very few exceptions, the Press, which made it impossible for the Emperor and his Government to refrain from throwing down the gauntlet. That the Empress should have sided with the “war party” is not surprising, for the “war party” was the country, and she would have been voted anti-patriotic (and we know what that means) had she not fallen into line with those millions who professed their anxiety to get “to Berlin,” although they knew no more how they were to get there than they knew how to reach the planet Mars.