To the Republicans the Emperor remained in 1863 (the first year of the “adventure” in Mexico) the “Sire de Framboisy.” They resolved never to come to terms with him. The Sire de Framboisy was the hero of an inept song, to which the stupidity of the police in 1859 had given a semblance of actuality. The Sire de [or Lord of] Framboisy, on his return to Paris from the wars, misses his wife. He searches for, and ultimately finds, his errant spouse in doubtful company at a bal de barrière. He addresses her:
“Corbleu, madame, que faites-vous ici?”
and she replies:
“J’y danse le cancan avec tous mes amis.”
When the Emperor returned to St. Cloud after the Italian campaign some of the street “loafers” took to humming these two lines; the Censeur was shocked, and ordered this “couplet à clef” to be cut out—a step which had the natural result of increasing the popularity of the song.
The year 1860 (says M. James de Chambrier in his brilliant collection of studies, “Entre l’Apogée et le Déclin”) finished under the double aureole of the “political successes and military glories acquired for the Second Empire as much by the personal action of Napoleon III. as by the endurance and entrain of his armies.” The Syrian expedition had liberated the Christians of the Lebanon. Lord John Russell[47] had occupied himself less with the security of the Christians from Turkish attacks than with the Emperor’s aims in Syria, and perhaps in Egypt. The Porte gradually became more reasonable, and on June 9, 1861, signed the Act by which the Lebanon, reorganized, had for its administrator a Christian Governor. Six weeks later French and English were again fighting side by side in China. By the end of October the war was over, and the news of the success of Palikao[48] was “received with just pride at the Tuileries.”
In November and December, 1860, the Empress was in Scotland—the result of “scenes” with her consort at the Tuileries. She returned to Paris in time to receive the usual New Year congratulations (January 1, 1861), but her emotion overcame her as she stood by the side of the Emperor in the salon, where the members of the Diplomatic Body and of the Household had gathered to greet the Sovereigns.
CHAPTER VII
TWO EMPRESSES
To the château of Bouchout, hard by Laecken, the thoughts of the châtelaine of Farnborough Hill must often have wandered. The beautiful avenue of Meysse, which links the royal estates of Bouchout and Laeken, was a favourite walk of the late King Leopold, for it leads to his sister’s house. The Empress Eugénie has, indeed, reason to bear well in mind this Belgian Princess—Charlotte, Empress of Mexico—whose widowhood is of older date than that of the Emperor Napoleon’s consort, even as her story is still more pitifully tragic. The imperial crown of Mexico, which Napoleon III. placed on the heads of the Archduke Maximilian Ferdinand Joseph and the sister of Leopold II., cost the Emperor of Austria’s ambitious brother his life and the Belgian Princess her reason. The Empress Eugénie must not, then, absorb all our pity; some of it should be bestowed upon the demented occupant of Bouchout, aunt of Prince Napoleon’s consort, Princesse Clémentine.
Seven years before the disruption of the Empire the throne of Mexico was offered to Maximilian by Napoleon III., who guaranteed to leave in the country for three years an army of occupation, 25,000 strong, commanded part of the time by Marshal Bazaine. This engagement Napoleon fulfilled to the letter; then the French troops were withdrawn. Maximilian was in dire extremity, and in 1867 the Empress Charlotte journeyed to Paris to implore help. In her absence the Mexicans executed the man who had been foisted upon them as their “Emperor.”[49]