Later (in January, 1868) he was invited to a ball at the Tuileries:
It was a hard winter, and all the gay world was skating in the Bois de Boulogne. There were Mme. de Metternich, plain, with the exception of fine, roguish eyes, and always beautifully dressed, and Mme. de Galliffet, with whose looks I was disappointed. Thanks to some French friends—the Boyers—I saw a ball at the Tuileries without the trouble of a presentation to their Imperial Majesties. As a sight the ball was interesting, unlike any other Court ball that I have seen. Perhaps the most striking sight was the double file of Cent Gardes, in their gorgeous pale blue and silver uniforms, lining the State entrance and staircase and standing sentry at the doors. After passing the Salon de Diane and struggling through a crowd principally composed of officers, I got a good place in front of the daïs, on which the Emperor and Empress were seated. The Empress was all in white, and looked strikingly handsome. The Emperor did not appear to advantage in his white silk tights and stockings, and seemed tired and bored. During, and between, the dances he walked across the open space in front of the daïs and conversed with some of the officers and diplomatists. He was a long time in conversation with a fat General, who I was told was Lebœuf. The supper was admirably managed. Piles of truffes en serviette abounded, and here there was less of a crowd than at Buckingham Palace.
The Duchess of Sutherland was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria when the Empress paid Her Majesty a visit at Windsor.[54] Lord Ronald, then at Eton, was sent for by his mother, who was in attendance on the Queen. He says:
I had a glimpse of the Empress as she passed through a corridor in the castle, and was greatly struck by her beauty. She had shortly before lost her sister, the Duchesse d’Albe, and was in deep mourning for her. An odd idea had taken her fancy—to build on the site of her sister’s house in Paris, which, after the Duchesse’s death, she had razed to the ground, a similar building in every respect to Stafford House, and she had visited that house and sent architects over to take its dimensions. But the plan fell through; perhaps it was thought to be too considerable a scheme for realization.
When the Duchess of Sutherland was in Germany in 1864, accompanied by Lord Ronald, the then Crown Princess (afterwards the Empress Frederick) invited her to dine at Potsdam, and the Duchess observed that in the royal lady’s sitting-room the furniture was covered with Gobelin tapestry, the gift of the Empress Eugénie.[55]
Among the diplomatists accredited to the Court of the Tuileries until his retirement in 1867 was Mr. John Bigelow, United States Minister, who has put on record this not very complimentary appreciation of the Emperor and Empress of the French:[56]
That the lesson of Louis Napoleon’s life and death might not be too soon lost to the memory of that portion of the world still in need of its instruction, his widow, whose picturesque career raises the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights almost to the dignity of history, though happily spared in a measure the fate of her unfortunate sister of Belgium [the Empress Charlotte], shares another fate scarcely less pitiable. Like Salathiel,[57] she still tarries, one of the most unhappy of mortals, an Empress without a country.
In the sous-sols of the Pavillon de Flore were the kitchens of the Tuileries.[58] This annexe of the Palace was constructed, from the modified plans of Visconti, by Lefuel, who was interrupted in his work by the war. He had, however, just time to finish the great staircase, which is decorated with a beautiful ceiling by Cabanel and four bas-reliefs by Eugène Guillaume.
In this immense and sumptuous temple—such as Brillat-Savarin and Grimod de la Reynière could not have dreamt of—all the meals required for the imperial family and the household were prepared by an army of cooks, male and female. We can see, in the magnificent nave, the goings and comings of the officiers de bouche, the patissiers, and the marmitons. At the entrance of each section was a large marble slab, inscribed, in gold letters, Vestiaire, Contrôle, Porcelainerie, Lavoir de l’Argenterie, Pâtisserie, Lavoir de la Cuisine, and so on. All the walls were oak panelled, finely carved.
On great tables the silver and porcelain vessels were ranged—thousands of pieces. The most marvellous sight of all—after the kitchens (all separate) for sauces, for grills, for soups, for pastry, and for stews—was the huge kitchen in which the roasting was done. This occupied the whole of the sous-sol of the “Flora” wing. Between two immense stoves, each having three compartments, each compartment capable of receiving two sheep and five or six dozen fowls, was the Brobdingnagian fireplace, of wrought iron and varnished tiles. Each stove measured nearly fourteen feet in width and about sixteen feet in height, and each had two solid, movable beams, from which hung spits. Of the latter there were twenty, with steel racks. Here whole oxen could be roasted. Above the fireplace was a gigantic central motor, with a clockwork arrangement, for turning the spits. It was a complicated piece of machinery, subdivided, and furnished with devices for turning joints at various speeds. The fuel was naturally wood, with which only can meat be properly roasted. The logs used were more than twelve feet in length. The table on which the meat was cut before roasting was of dimensions which suggested to the more imaginative lookers-on a “village green”! The wine-cellars sloped downwards beyond the kitchens and their annexes under the pavilion of the Salle des États, which extended to the entrances to the Carrousel.[59]