This double character of her destiny has stamped upon the physiognomy and the person of the Empress a pathetic expression which strikes those who have not seen her often of late years. It is with a tender and sympathetic respect that one contemplates the widow of Napoleon III. and mother of the Prince Imperial, enveloped in sombre vestments, but, in the winter of her days, more beautiful than ever, if the supreme expression of beauty is that of the ideal. She evokes in our imagination the picture of Marie Stuart at Holyrood or on the banks of Lochleven. The look of melancholy, which has become a second nature, cannot efface the sweetness and charm which will be always hers. It is her tranquil and touching majesty which reveals the
| Lord Kitchener. | ||
| The Hon. Charlotte Knollys. | The King of Denmark. | King Edward. |
| Queen Alexandra. | The Empress. | Princess Beatrice of Coburg. |
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE ON BOARD THE ROYAL YACHT, AUGUST, 1902, AT THE REVIEW OF THE FLEET BY KING EDWARD.
From a Photograph by J. Russell & Sons, Baker Street, London, Photographers to H.M. the King.
Specially prepared by Messrs. Russell for this work (1911).
woman beneath the Sovereign, the tenderness of the heart under the height of the rank; but there is, besides, the victorious prestige conferred upon her by misfortune heroically borne. That power of attraction which would have made Napoleon I. say of her as he said of Joséphine, “I win the battles, she wins the hearts,” is now shown afresh by the emotion which is aroused as we gaze upon her venerable figure.
“Dans toute grande chose il s’est toujours rencontré une femme,” said Lamartine; and there will be found in history certain epochs—the most brilliant ones—which are incarnated for posterity in a feminine personality. The Empress represents, in the most fascinating guise, the greatness of one or other of those epochs—the noble impulses, the generous inspirations, the heroisms, the radiant dawns, and the grandiose twilights. Such women impress their personality upon their contemporaries by their witchery, for they are beautiful even to idealism. In their souls they are still more perfect; they achieve conquest by their suffering, for, in order that they may be quite complete in all things, misfortune touches their brow with its black wing. And behold them become, for all men to remember, the eternal radiance, the eternal compassion, of history, of poetry, of legend.