The stately function was over. “As we were going along to the Emperor’s apartments,” wrote the Queen, “he said, ‘I heartily thank your Majesty. It is one bond the more. I have given my oath of fidelity to your Majesty, and I will keep it carefully.’” A little later in the day the Emperor said to the Queen, “It is a great event for me, and I hope I may be able to prove my gratitude to your Majesty and to your country.” And to a friend he observed, “Enfin je suis gentilhomme!” The “parvenu,” as he had styled himself, was making headway, thanks to Queen Victoria.
No need to dwell upon the return visit paid by the Queen and the Prince Consort in the summer of the same year. The English Sovereign and her consort entertained the Emperor and Empress of the French for the second time in 1857. The scene was the Isle of Wight. Although it was a private, “an even most sequestered,” visit, it was said that “matters of high import to the welfare of both nations” were discussed at Osborne, and that “more than one rock which threatened shipwreck to the cordial understanding between the two countries was removed.” The suite accompanying the French Sovereigns was limited to the Princesse d’Essling, Comte and Comtesse Walewski, General Rollin, and General Fleury, whose son, Comte Serge, was in England, lecturing (and this is worthy of note) on the Empress Eugénie, in the summer of 1908. The imperial yacht, Reine Hortense, reached the island at half-past eight in the morning (August 6), and the Queen and the Prince Consort, accompanied by Prince Alfred, the Princess Royal, and Princess Alice, went down to the pier to welcome the imperial pair. Lords Palmerston and Clarendon enlivened the royal party at the dinner-table that evening. Of all these the solitary survivor is the Empress.
The Empress Eugénie must often recall those quiet, happy days which she and her consort passed at Osborne—the excursion to Carisbrook Castle, the drive to Cowes to witness the conclusion of the race for the cup, the visit, on the Sunday, to the Catholic Church at Newport, and the gay scene on the Solent as the Reine Hortense threaded her way between the yachts and warships. Nor can the imperial lady have forgotten that while she and her husband were the Queen’s guests three Italians—Tibaldi, Bartolotti, and Grilli—were being tried in Paris for an attempt on the life of the Emperor. Possibly, too, she may remember that so anxious had the Emperor been, on the morning of their arrival, to get a good view of Osborne that he betook himself to the bridge of his yacht, slipped on the ladder, and rolled to the deck. “As we are proceeding to the conquest of England,” he said, smiling, “I ought to have waited until landing before falling.” These were true words spoken in jest, for throughout his reign he never lost sight of one object—the political conquest of England. And here one recalls what the Emperor is asserted to have said on his arrival, with the Empress, at Windsor Castle in 1855: “In seeing again the country in which I lived when I was poor, and which I left to make my fortune, I am reminded of the story of the man who, as a boy, arrived in Paris in wooden shoes, and when he became rich went for a day to his native village and slept in the hovel which had sheltered him in his boyhood.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE TUILERIES
The “great” balls at the Tuileries were given before Lent; the “little” balls, otherwise known as the Empress’s “Mondays,” after Easter. At the larger of these entertainments all the men were in uniform. The Emperor, the Generals, and the officers of the household wore white cashmere breeches, silk socks of the same colour, and pumps with buckles. Civilians were in Court dress, with embroidered collars and cuffs, and swords; the crush hat (clâque) was carried under the arm. One person only wore buckskin breeches and high riding-boots of varnished leather: this was the écuyer on duty.
At the “Mondays” the guests were restricted to those who had been previously “presented”; they were selected in rotation from a list—this was the “séries.” Court functionaries and a few of their Majesties’ most intimate friends were invited to all the “Mondays.” The regulation garb for men on these occasions was either “shorts,” or very tight-fitting trousers, and black tail-coats. The Emperor and the officers of the household were in evening dress, the coat being of a dark blue cloth, with velvet collar, the lapels lined with white satin, and gilt buttons bearing a crowned eagle.
Each ball was preceded by a family dinner, the guests being Prince Napoleon and his wife, Princesse Clothilde; Princesse Mathilde, the Murat Princes and Princesses, Prince Charles and Princesse Christine Bonaparte, the Marquis and the Marquise de Roccagiovine, and Comte and Comtesse Primoli.
About ten o’clock the Emperor and Empress entered the salon of the First Consul. Here the guests had previously assembled, here new presentations were made by the First Chamberlain, Comte Bacciochi, and their Majesties made the tour of the room, saying a few words to all before the dancing began. The Empress, who seldom danced, took up her position in an adjoining salon, whither she was generally followed by diplomatists like Lord Cowley (H.B.M. Ambassador), Prince de Metternich, and Chevalier Nigra, and by intimate friends like Prosper Mérimée, Édouard Delessert, Onésime Aguado, and a few others.
During the dancing the Emperor chatted for an hour or so with his Ministers; then, reappearing in the ballroom, chose a partner, and himself led a “boulangère,” or formed a set of the “lancers,” preferring either of these to quadrilles, which he found lacking in “go.” Then came the cotillon, led by Princesse Anna Murat and the volatile Marquis de Caux (both unmarried at the time, and both in high favour with the Sovereigns), who took up their position in chaises volantes in front of the fireplace. In the cotillon forty couples took part, including on one occasion (the Marquis de Massa noted) Mlles. de Heeckeren, de Seebach, de Bassano, Harvey, de Errazu, Magnan, Haussmann, Hamelin, and Bouvet, whose cavaliers were MM. Davilliers, Castelbajac, Poniatowski, d’Espeuilles, Duperré, du Bourg, Clermont-Tonnerre, des Varannes (all of whom were either écuyers or officiers d’ordonnance), Arthur de Cossé-Brissac (the Empress’s Chamberlain), etc. The cotillons at the Tuileries were very simple affairs, the presents distributed being merely flowers and coloured rosettes. The guests supped standing at a buffet, and by one o’clock the ball was over.
At one of the first of the grand balls given at the Tuileries before the marriage the Emperor danced in the quadrille of honour with Lady Cowley, wife of the British Ambassador. “He danced another quadrille with Mlle. de Montijo, who,” Baron Imbert de Saint-Amand has told us, “was assuredly the most beautiful of all the women present. Her resplendent beauty and extreme elegance excited general admiration.... How she would have shuddered could she have foreseen the state in which she would find this supper-room in 1870, at the beginning of the fatal war! Then she would instal an ambulance there. Instead of women loaded with jewels, there would be sisters of charity with their white cornettes.”