| THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE AS AN ODALISQUE (TURKISH DANCING-GIRL). | THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE AS MARIE ANTOINETTE. |
Her Imperial Majesty represented these characters at costume balls given at the Palace of the Tuileries. The illustrations are from private photographs, and are reproduced by permission of the proprietors of Femina, the popular illustrated Paris paper, in which they originally appeared.
CHAPTER XI
THE FOREIGN LEGION; AND SOME GREAT LADIES
A legion of foreigners awaited the establishment of the Second Empire to swoop down upon Paris and make it their happy hunting-ground. These invaders came from all countries; the majority, perhaps, from the South American Republics, the lands then flowing in milk and honey, as typified by gold and silver. They were called “Exotics,” and Paris was swamped by “l’Exotisme.” For countenancing these parasites, these nobodies, with their riches and their low moral code, three ladies were blamed—the Empress Eugénie, the Princesse de Metternich, and the Comtesse de Castiglione: a Spaniard, an Austrian, and an Italian.
In this vulgar crowd were Princes and Princesses, some, at least, of whom, had conferred these titles upon themselves; a few were of princely rank, but these were not the wealthiest. “Paradoxical as it may appear, Exoticism was Parisian in its essence.”[68] The women were superb, “with lips amorously red and facile; the girls had wicked eyes and undulating forms; the faces of the men were sufficiently bronzed to give a suggestion of dramatic adventures aforetime. The Exotic ladies, with all the assurance of a ribald gang raiding a town, gave themselves great airs”; but their hauteur did not prevent them from opening their arms. Parisians at first held aloof from these besiegers, smelling disgustingly of money; but the revolt did not last long, and it was followed by new expressions of amiability. Brazilians, Armenians, and Turks—new and unknown meteors—came, and in a fit of remorse for their previous disdain Paris society flocked to the abodes of the new-comers, clamouring for champagne and sandwiches.