Napoleon III. had a great liking for Fontainebleau, the scene of his Uncle’s abdication. It may well have been that he desired to banish from the place all that reminded him of the ill-fate of his family. It seemed to him pleasantly audacious to make this attempt at the outset of his reign—to instal the newborn sovereignty in the very place which had witnessed the shipwreck of the victor of Austerlitz. This act pleased the nation by its audacity; people saw in it an evidence of disdain for the evil horoscopes which already abounded. By this clever coup he cast ridicule on the predictions of immediate disaster with which the new reign had been greeted. He left people no time to think of anything but years of prosperity and glory. It was a bold way of taking possession, almost equal to an 18 Brumaire.
But the days of the First Emperor at Fontainebleau were not recalled merely by lugubrious legends—by the table on which the Act of Abdication was signed and the staircase of the farewells. Everywhere in the Palace he had left the mark of his glory. Here, as at the Tuileries, he had written his name under the signatures of the old Kings of France: the calligraphy differed, it is true, but it was equally bold and equally firm. Under the Restoration, as under the Monarchy of July, Fontainebleau was not perceptibly changed. The Nephew entered into possession of his inheritance after the lapse of forty years. The trees had grown, and the carp in the pond had whitened, but nothing else seemed to have changed; one might have expected to see the Great Emperor’s red-coated little pages and the Mamelukes, or even, at the end of an alley, Marie Louise and the King of Rome. The adventurous and sceptical temperament of Napoleon III. was allied to sentimental reveries. His ideas forced themselves upon him, and greatly amused him. Not that he showed himself an artist in these things. There was nothing of the artist about him, but there was great simplicity, often to the point of emotion. Formed in the fashion of his time, he was quite capable of pushing grave resolutions to extremes without regret, although he would weep over a poor man’s dog or the cross worn by a peasant soldier. Fontainebleau had for him an interest of this kind, and he hastened to it at the earliest moment. The military subjects painted by Raffez, Charlet, and Bellangé greatly amused and interested Napoleon III. To those artists he owed a considerable part of his political success. They had resuscitated the Bonapartist legend, and had made the Great Emperor the hero of an artistic and literary cycle comparable to Charlemagne.
At the Fontainebleau “chasses” Napoleon III. wore the extraordinary hunting-dress which had been devised for him; it was, in fact, a revival of the Louis XV. costume. The ladies and their cavaliers were equally delighted with it. English “followers,” whom the imperial couple heartily welcomed both at Fontainebleau and Compiègne, thought the costume picturesque, but theatrical. The green tunic was worn in remembrance of Napoleon I. The waistcoats were similar to those worn by the roués of the Regency, as seen in the pictures by Compte-Calix. The hat was the tricorne (“lampion”), which looked well on the head of a pretty woman, but did not accord with whiskers or waxed moustaches; yet it escaped criticism—was, indeed, generally admired. And it was in this curious garb that Napoleon III., flanked by the irresistible Marshal Magnan, the head of the Imperial Hunt, entered the château which the Uncle had left in his grey redingote. Over the door of a room at Fontainebleau there used to be a picture, by Schoppin, representing the killing of a stag in a pond in the forest. The Emperor is taking a gun from the hands of Edgar Ney; the Empress is preparing to cover her eyes with a pocket-handkerchief; and in the background is Marshal Magnan, who looks as if he were thinking of anything but the stag which the Emperor is about to shoot.
Under the new régime events advanced at a gallop; everything had to be done quickly; and, as political considerations had to be taken into account, the odd sight was witnessed of the titular director of the Imperial Hunt being no less a personage than a Marshal of France, a good soldier, an excellent Freemason, but unlearned in the art and science of venery. By the grace of the Marquis d’Aigle, a ready-made pack came into being at Fontainebleau, soon reinforced by English hounds, and La Trace, who had been the piqueur of Napoleon I. and of the Orleans Princes, was placed in charge. We see the newly-promoted taking lessons from the subalterns—Napoleon I. from the piqueurs of Condé, and Napoleon III. from his Uncle’s piqueur. The worthy La Trace was the real autocrat of the hunt, instructing everybody who was willing to be taught, and prescribing what was and what was not “good form”; and under his gilded “lampion” Marshal Magnan was observed learning his lesson with comical intentness. What was of the first importance was that members of the imperial house should be made to appear thorough sportsmen.
An Empress was still lacking when, for the first time, Napoleon III. rode into the old and melancholy château in the midst of fanfares, soon to be followed by torchlight “curées” and gay “shoots.” It was a strange monde, mostly composed of very “new” people, not devoid of naïveté, and vastly different from their predecessors. Then an Empress came, and Fontainebleau was an Elysium.
At Fontainebleau the Empress could indulge in dreams. Her apartments, which had been occupied by Marie Antoinette, looked into the oval courtyard. The cabinet de toilette was decorated by Rousseau, the eighteenth-century architect, in honour of the Queen, who had made of it an exquisite boudoir. Painted in green and gold, mellowed by time, the ceiling of this room was the work of Barthélemy, pupil of Boucher; the door-hangings represented the Muses. On the mahogany parquet were mosaiced the Queen’s initials; Goutière’s brasswork ornamented the fireplace. This boudoir was more in accord with the Empress’s tastes than the bedroom, hung with large Lyons flowered damasks, with its gorgeous bed in the centre, recalling that of Louis XIV. at Versailles. Despite the fleurs-de-lis on the ceiling, and the winged cherubs round the daïs, and Rièsener’s furniture, the Empress was oppressed by all this parade. How different were all these splendours from the cosy little room, lacquered with white, which she had hoped to get for her villégiature! She had dreamt of a tiny chamber with all its little nothings within reach; walls covered with souvenirs and medallions; flower-stands, low couches, bureaux no larger than gridirons, no lustres—everything small and homely. At Fontainebleau, in the midst of the woods, in the full sunlight, the Tuileries followed her, just as they had followed Marie Antoinette to Versailles. But the Queen could fly off, alone, to Trianon in her early happy days. That made all the difference.
Hence her desire to break the bonds of strict etiquette and to become “Ourenia” once again. (“Ourenia” was Eugénie de Montijo, Mlle. de Téba.) The plainest walking dress, a simple hat, stout boots, cane in hand. How much she would have liked to milk a cow and to make butter! But that would have provoked ill-natured talk in the capital, and songs about the Andalusian dairymaid. So she resigned herself to sleep in that vast tabernacle, with its gleaming lustre, its gold and its silk—like a doll in a giant’s bed. She felt thankful that she had not, like Marie Antoinette at Versailles, to don her chemise under the gaze of her “ladies.”
When the “good-nights” had been said, the Emperor, the Empress, and the Prince were preceded to their rooms by the stately “Suisses,” and followed by the members of the Court. The guests, after the baise-main, deep curtsies, and low bows, found their way to their bedrooms without further, or with very little, ceremony. Octave Feuillet has told us what these Fontainebleau bedrooms were like: delightful beds, baths already prepared for the morning ablutions, and the apartments brilliantly lighted by great chandeliers. In some of the rooms little parties of friends gathered to talk over the day’s events, finish stories which had been commenced in the salon, and breathe fervent hopes that the new Empire had “come to stay.”
The Emperor slept in what had been the room of Napoleon I. High above the doors were Cupids, in grisailles, by Sauvage; lower down, cameos of the old times and Pompeian arabesques. Placed close to the wall, against an immense glass, was the bed, still decorated with the Uncle’s “N” and the gilded frontals. Louis Philippe had restored the wood panelling with its carved figures, and had renewed the hangings; but the clock of Pope Pius VII. stood on the mantelpiece, the arm-chairs were those of the Great Emperor, and he had paced the mosaiced floor. When Napoleon III. left his bedroom for his study he wrote surrounded by relics of the First Empire: the bureau carved by Jacob, the chairs, the writing-desk—everything remained intact. One new thing there was—Nieuwerkerke’s white marble bust of the Empress, showing her as she was at the time of her marriage. Even she, by no means easy to please in these matters of portraiture, was enthusiastic over this work, revealing a face of charming archness.
The special attraction at Fontainebleau was the forest, through which long drives in char-à-bancs were often taken. Sometimes the Empress improvised a dinner in the open air at the gorges of Apremont, and clambered over the rocks with an alacrity which proved very disconcerting to those of her suite who accompanied her on these excursions in the glaring sun. At other times the Empress arrived unexpectedly in the valley of the Sole, while the annual manœuvres of the cavalry brigade of the Imperial Guard were on. Then there would be a goûter for the officers of the two regiments engaged, the Empress herself doing the honours and putting all at their ease. One day (and I give the story on the authority of that popular personage, the late Marquis de Massa) she asked if someone would sing a military ditty, “un peu Gauloise, mais pas trop.” A young officer of the Chasseurs, M. de Batsalle, was indicated as possessing a repertoire of this description. When called upon, however, he energetically pleaded to be excused, on the ground that the songs which he knew were not suitable for the Empress’s ears.