From an unpublished photograph, privately taken at the instance of the Comte de La Chapelle, of the picture painted by the distinguished French artist, Olivier Pichat. Lent for this work by the Vicomte de La Chapelle.
two before the surrender and with a Prussian officer who was one of Napoleon’s escort. Both closely scrutinized the captive, but neither noticed any unusual colour in his face. Zola was not the first Frenchman to accuse Napoleon III. of cowardice (for that is what is implied by the story of the painted cheeks); he may have borrowed the idea from Kinglake, who describes the Emperor at Magenta turning green, yellow, and white under the Austrian fire.
Those who enjoyed the personal acquaintance of the Emperor are unanimous in the opinion that he was less of a poseur than most men. There was nothing of the “roi du théâtre” about him. Throughout the short campaign which finished for Napoleon III. at Sedan he was, both physically and mentally, unstrung by his malady. It was indispensable that he should begin the campaign in good health, and be able to keep the saddle for several hours at a stretch. Gamble, the Scotsman, who superintended the imperial stables for many years, and stood by the Emperor on the day of Sedan, said that His Majesty “did his best to court death,” despite the entreaties of his officers; and Gamble’s testimony is confirmed by many other eye-witnesses.
The late M. Paul de Cassagnac gave Zola credit for his account of Sedan, but emphatically denied the rouging story. De Cassagnac was a good witness, for he was with the Emperor at Sedan. “It was on my shoulder,” he has told us, “that Napoleon III. leaned when, seriously ill and suffering terribly, he got into the carriage in order to surrender himself as a prisoner.”
The question was even discussed by M. Melchior de Voguë, who affirmed that Zola was wrong.[100] Princesse Mathilde, cousin of Napoleon III., “refused to believe that the Emperor would have acted so theatrically on such a momentous occasion.” She had certainly never told anyone that her relative was rouged. M. Robert Mitchell corroborated Paul de Cassagnac. He was a volunteer in the 3rd Zouaves at Sedan, often saw the Emperor, and was certain he was not rouged. M. Mitchell argued (and military experts will agree with him) that no writer, “not even Zola,” could adequately describe what happened at Sedan without having been actually in the battle. We may believe Paul de Cassagnac and Robert Mitchell, and may be certain that Zola was misinformed.
I pass on to the final phase of Sedan.
In newspapers, in magazines, in volumes of memoirs, in histories of the war, there have appeared, year after year, ever since the autumn of 1870, as many different accounts of what passed the day following the battle of Sedan, at the interviews which Napoleon III. had, first with Bismarck, and next with the King of Prussia, as would fill volumes. It is natural that it should be so, for at the meeting of the Emperor and the King no third person was present, and the Emperor’s talk with Bismarck was heard by only one other man. What passed between the two Sovereigns was related to his son, the then Crown Prince, by the King, and recorded by the Prince in his “Diary,” in his royal father’s own words. The Prince-reporter’s account of the interview is as follows:
The King began by saying that, as the fortune of war had gone against the Emperor, and as the latter had handed his sword to the King, His Majesty had come to ask Napoleon III. his present intentions. Napoleon replied that he placed himself in the King’s hands. The King rejoined that it was with a feeling of real compassion that he saw his adversary in such a position; the more so as he knew that it had not been easy for the Emperor to resolve upon war. This assertion was visibly welcome to Napoleon. He warmly assured the King that he had given way to public opinion when he decided upon war. Thereupon the King remarked that, as public opinion had had that tendency, those who had excited it were the more culpable. Then, recurring to the immediate object of the Emperor’s visit, the King asked Napoleon if he wished to enter into negotiations.