To this list must be added the familiar names of Mrs. Ronalds and Mme. De Arcos, both of whom have been for many years popular members of English society, and both residing in London. The last-mentioned lady and her sister, Mrs. Vaughan, are among the Empress’s most attached surviving friends; and Miss Vaughan has accompanied Her Majesty on some of her recent tours. M. Franceschini Pietri remains the most invaluable and devoted of secretaries.
Illustrious disparus include King Edward and his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh; the King and Queen of the Belgians and the Comte de Flandre; the King of Denmark, Queen Alexandra’s father; the King of Holland, father of Queen Wilhelmina; Queen Sophia of Holland; the King of Sweden, father of his present Majesty; the King of Portugal, Dom Manoel’s grandfather; the Emperor William I.; the Emperors Alexander II. and Alexander III.; Ismaïl Pasha; Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Turkey from 1861 until 1876; Prince Jérôme Napoleon, father of the Bonapartist Pretender; Prince Pierre Bonaparte, father of Prince Roland and grandfather of Princess George of Greece; Princesse Mathilde, cousin of Napoleon III. and aunt of the Princes Victor and Louis; the Prince Imperial of France; the Prince of Monaco, father of the present ruler of the Principality; that Prince of the Netherlands popularly known as “Citron,” Bismarck, the great Moltke, Princesse Clotilde, and Queen Maria Pia.
The Empress Eugénie: 1910-11.
Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Eugénie, who is deeply interested in the future of Prince and Princesse Napoleon, celebrated her eighty-fifth birthday on May 5, 1911. The unexpected and tragic death of King Edward, on May 6, 1910, came as a great shock to the Empress, who had known our beloved Sovereign from his boyhood—in fact, since 1855, when, some six months before he had attained his thirteenth year, he and his eldest sister (the Princess Royal, afterwards Crown Princess of Prussia, and later Empress Frederick) accompanied their august parents on their memorable return visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French. As Prince of Wales, King Edward had been present, earlier in that year, at the installation, at Windsor, of the Emperor Napoleon III. as a Knight of the Order of the Garter, and heard from his royal mother that, after the ceremony, the Emperor had expressed his gratitude for the honour conferred upon him, and, in a moment of rare expansiveness, had said to the Queen, “Now, at last, I feel I am a gentleman!”—a frank admission which much pleased, and probably amused, our beloved sovereign lady.
A week after the King’s death I learnt (although no mention of the fact had been made public) that early on the morning of May 7 (His Majesty passed away at a quarter before midnight on the 6th)—the Empress Eugénie had telegraphed “heart-felt condolences” to Queen Alexandra, Princess Henry of Battenberg, and Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. It was also confided to me that, immediately after telegraphing, the Empress, although momentarily “stupefied” by the calamity which plunged our Empire into mourning, had written what were described to me as “very beautiful and most pathetic letters” to the three royal ladies. I was privileged to see other letters written by the Empress in May, 1910, and I do not hesitate to say that they were truly remarkable productions, revealing Her Imperial Majesty (as the Emperor once wrote of her) “in her true colours.”
I have a word to add. The Empress commissioned a Paris art firm to execute a very beautiful souvenir of King Edward. This she sent to Queen Alexandra, and in the autumn it was placed near the King’s tomb in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The Empress lunched (for the last time) with King Edward and Queen Alexandra, at Buckingham Palace, on December 16, 1907, when the imperial lady was accompanied by Mrs. Vaughan (whose sister, Mme. De Arcos, represented the Empress at the funeral of Queen Victoria) and M. Pietri.
In the summer of 1910 the Empress cruised in the Thistle for more than two months, visiting, besides Italian ports, Corfu, Athens, the Dalmatian coast, Smyrna, and Constantinople, which she first saw in 1869, when she went to Egypt to inaugurate the Suez Canal. The Sultan of those distant days and the Sultan of these entertained her. In the August of 1910 the Empress was in the Solent, and witnessed the launch of the Orion at Portsmouth. Later in the year she lunched, for the first time, with the King and Queen at Marlborough House, M. Pietri accompanying her.
The Empress signalized her eighty-fifth birthday (May 5, 1911) by a very pleasant cruise in the Mediterranean, as the guest of Sir Thomas Lipton, Bart., on board his yacht Erin, and on June 24 she witnessed the review of the fleet.
In my previous volume[187] I dwelt upon the solicitude of Queen Victoria and other members of our Royal Family—notably King Edward and Queen Alexandra—for the Empress Eugénie and the fatherless Prince Imperial. I note the fact here because I am delighted to find that the details which I gave of that more than cordial—that affectionate—relationship are supplemented by M. Xavier Paoli in his volume of Souvenirs, entitled “Leurs Majestés....”[188] Some two years ago, in the “Pall Mall Gazette,” I announced M. Paoli’s intention to produce his reminiscences, and I emphasized the opinion that his work would contain some entertaining and piquant “indiscretions” concerning Queen Victoria and the Empress Eugénie. That my anticipations have been fully realized will be seen by what follows.
When Queen Victoria was at Nice a grave responsibility fell upon those who, like M. Paoli, the “Protector of Sovereigns,”[189] were charged with the onerous duty of guarding the royal residence without any great display of force, almost without any indication of it. The small body of infantry installed near the Queen’s abode had merely to present arms when the august lady appeared, and when French official personages called upon her.