"Oh speak, sir, speak! What crown is it you see? It cannot be a Queen's."
"No, señora, an Empress's."
—Folly! Austria and Russia were the world's toll of Emperors: portents were mocking her. Still, suppose Destiny were reserving her some faery fate? Suppose—and she said "No" to the Duke of Ossuna. Suppose this comic "Prince-President" of the new French Republic, this poor parrot-faced Louis-Napoleon, this parody of his great uncle—suppose he carried the parody just one act further? (One never knows.) Once introduced to Sick Poll-Parrot through friends in Paris, she lost no single opportunity of meeting him—especially by chance. Ambition is no idler, and toils at all his plans. She used humility and gave admiring glances, employed her unmatchable beauty and gave alluring ones; listened attractively to his every word, wrote devoted letters of support. Soon whisperings reached her: the nation too was beginning to say Suppose? After all, should not a Bonaparte don royaller headgear than republican top hat? (Mad hopes grew bolder.) Yet the step was no easy one: to re-establish Empire in Republican France was still a conspirator's dream.
On December the Second the dream came true: multitudes acclaimed the Third Napoleon. Not least Eugenie, for he had now that crown to bestow. Soon she triumphed, and forced her way into his heart. He loved her. An Emperor loved her. But love is little and marriage much. There, on the very threshold of glory, lay a new danger. She faced it boldly. Desperate in his amorous intent—one night that they chanced to be spending under the same roof as Imperial host and humble guest—he made seen his wish.
"Señora," in a voice plaintive with passion, "which is the way to your bedroom?"
"Sire," she replied, "it lies through a well-lighted church."
What vice and ambition had achieved, virtue thus completed. Her purity won the crown, the crown won her purity. Through the bannered luminous nave of Notre Dame de Paris he made his way to her bedchamber, and she hers to the girl's wild dream that had come true. Together they scaled the highest peaks of human glory.
The morning of the arrival our Villebecq party assembled in good time on the little wayside platform. The Countess was fussy, full of absurd anxieties; Suzanne in the gayest spirits, Elise calm, de Fouquier debonair. There were guests from neighbouring houses, François with assistants to cope with the Imperial luggage, and a crowd of peasants outside the barrier. During a long wait we kept straining ears and eyes for a sign of the expected train: I could not help thinking of Tawborough on the far-off day when Satan Came.
"Here it is!" cried Suzanne.
The Countess had a last convulsive movement of agony: "I do pray that nothing may go wrong."