The Empress Charlotte sailed for Europe full of hope. When she landed at Brest she looked round to see who had come to receive her on the part of the French Emperor. No one was visible. This was her first disappointment. Her suite sought to console her. There must have been a mistake. The official reception would be in Paris. Court carriages would be awaiting her at the railway-station. One of the Emperor’s chamberlains would certainly be there to greet her—perhaps the Emperor himself. “Perhaps not,” she murmured.
As it had been at Brest, so it was at Paris. No one at the station to receive her, no imperial carriage, no bowing court chamberlain to pay her homage and offer her the traditional bouquet, not even a strip of red carpet on the grey asphalte. Yet she was a King’s daughter, a Kaiser’s sister-in-law, and an Empress in Mexico.
Charlotte was taken to the Grand Hotel in a “carriage”—either a cab called “off the rank,” or the hotel ’bus. Miss Howard or Mlle. Bellanger would have fared better.
The Empress Charlotte shut herself up alone in her room, refused to see anyone, and would not touch the food which was placed before her. One of the ladies of her small suite said: “Her Majesty has evidently had a great shock. She has never looked as she now looks since the death of her father, King Leopold. She is like a dead woman.”
The next day passed without any indication from the Court that an Empress had arrived. On the third day an imperial chamberlain brought an invitation to lunch with their Majesties at St. Cloud. Charlotte disdainfully declined it, and bade the official say she would drive to St. Cloud during the afternoon.
She had been weeping all the morning, foreseeing that her petition for help would be addressed to “deaf ears and a callous heart.” In the carriage she worked herself into such a frenzy that her companion, the Comtesse del Bario, was on the point of telling the coachman to return to the Grand. However, they drove on, and entered the courtyard of the château. Stiffening herself, Maximilian’s wife walked up the great staircase and, with a firm step, her cheeks burning, entered a salon. Napoleon was there, waiting for her. He looked preoccupied and annoyed, and twirled his moustache. By his side were the Empress Eugénie and the Prince Imperial. There were the usual greetings, official smiles, and presentations. Etiquette being thus satisfied, the Emperor entered his cabinet, followed by the two Empresses. The doors were closed, and Charlotte’s suite resigned themselves to a long wait in an adjoining room.
Presently came a faint sound of talking, then it became louder, betokening an animated discussion, and then a silence. Charlotte’s friends looked at one another anxiously, as they heard the raucous voice of their imperial mistress: “How can I ever have forgotten who I am and who you are! I ought to have remembered that the blood of the Bourbons flows through my veins, and not have disgraced my race by humiliating myself before a Bonaparte and negotiating with an adventurer!”
There was a sound as of someone falling—then dead silence. The door opened. Napoleon III., very pale, stood on the threshold. Glancing at the Comtesse del Bario, he said, “Venez donc, je vous prie.”
In the imperial cabinet the Comtesse saw her mistress, stretched out on a couch, apparently lifeless. The Empress Eugénie, weeping, had unfastened Charlotte’s corsage, taken off the sufferer’s boots and stockings, and was kneeling by the icy body, rubbing Charlotte’s feet with eau-de-Cologne. Slowly recovering consciousness, Charlotte, seeing the Comtesse, held out her hand, saying tremblingly, “Manuelita, don’t leave me.”
The Emperor, looking bewildered, hovered round the prostrate form on the couch, strode up and down the room, left the apartment, and came back again. He had “lost his head.” He called for a doctor; then ordered a messenger to go as quickly as possible and bring Dr. Semeleder, the Empress Charlotte’s doctor, from the Grand Hotel. Meanwhile the Empress Eugénie, in words interrupted by sobs, told the Comtesse what had brought about the attack—the Emperor’s refusal to grant Charlotte’s request, her prayers, her entreaties, her tears, her threats, and her wild ejaculations. Whilst speaking soothingly, the Empress Eugénie had prepared a glass of eau sucrée, and tried to make Charlotte drink it. But the Mexican Sovereign pushed it from her with a furious gesture, shrieking, “Assassins! Go away, and take your poisoned drink with you!”