This storey was kept for the use of Monsieur and Madame Buonaparte and their friends, and for the reception-rooms. The second storey, up another stone flight, was devoted to the children. Here we saw Napoleon's bedroom, with a broken chair or two, and a curious old inlaid brown wood chest, in which he kept his playthings and clothes. Leading out of it was the children's play-room, where the boy, always military in his tastes, made tiny cannon, and fought on the table mimic battles, which, out of the house, developed into assaults and sieges with his brothers or schoolfellows, of whom he was always the leader. Even as a child, Napoleon was the ruling spirit among his brothers; he was a second Joseph, to whose superior energy and genius the rest of his family intuitively bowed down.
All these rooms were airy, large, and pleasant-looking; and I felt that I had not sufficiently realized before, the comfortable position and ample means belonging to the Buonaparte family.
We came down the stone staircase, and out of the cool, shady rooms, with a strange new feeling of the reality of Moscow, of Waterloo, and of St. Helena; and, going across the sunny glare of the little garden opposite, acceded to the kind invitation of our old woman to visit the snug sitting-room.
This cottage and garden, in which she and her husband live, belongs to the Buonapartes, but is a gift to her for life.
Her little sitting-room, cosily furnished and full of flowers, is a perfect commentary on European history for the last century. Scarcely an inch of the four walls is left uncovered by photograph, engraving, or sketch: nearly all of historical interest.
Madame Mère and the first Napoleon commence the series of portraits—taken from life, nearly a hundred years ago, in their native land; many of the emperor's brothers and sisters are represented also; the present Princess Marianna, with other relatives; sketches of Napoleon's exploits, from the time he was "le petit corporal" until he became the dethroned emperor; and every possible episode in the life of Napoleon the Third, concluding with a large engraving of the Chislehurst exile lying upon his pillow, the crafty, ambitious face still and calm in the solemnity of death. Then came a likeness or two of Eugénie in her exquisite beauty, and a row of portraits of the Prince Imperial, developing from the somewhat plain, pugnacious-looking boy, to the intelligent, spirited, earnest face of the young soldier who fell among the Zulus but yesterday.
Leaving the old woman, with her smiling face and trembling limbs, standing in her sunny porch surrounded by flowers in the quiet little court, and emerging into the noisy street, we seemed to return, with an effort, from the romance of the old empire to the prose of modern life.
Another little property, formerly belonging to the Buonapartes, lies at the end of the Cours Grandval, beyond the hotel. Here is the "Grotte de Napoléon," a little natural arbour or open cave formed by granite boulders and shaded by ilex, where the boy Napoleon used to study his lessons, or arrange his mimic campaigns with his companions.
It was formerly in the midst of a sheltered garden, but a road now runs close beside it; and this publicity destroys much of its romance.
The road, a new, as it is a rough and steep one, ascends for several miles, showing a pretty bird's eye view of the town, and by degrees revealing a panorama of distant mountains in every direction, standing in purple and snowy circles round the greener, smaller hills.