A good many of Prince Napoleon’s defects proceeded from a spirit of bravado, such as that which distinguished the Italian condottieri of old. He took a vicious pleasure in appearing to be what in reality he was not, and in defying public opinion, as in the case of his famous Good Friday dinners, when he asked his best friends to help him to eat ham and roast beef on an occasion when the gayest of gay Parisians would not have dreamt of touching anything else but fish. His unorthodoxy was more affected than sincere, more frequently it was adopted because it amused him to shock people.
His wife, the virtuous Princess Clotilde of Savoy, was a saint in her life and habits. She had absolutely no bond of sympathy with him, and made him always feel that duty alone kept her at his side. She had great, noble, and even grand qualities, but her disposition was neither amiable, nor sympathetic, and Prince Napoleon should have had a wife he could love, rather than one whom he could only respect.
When he died alone in Rome, within a stone’s throw from the palace where his distinguished relative, Madame Mère, had ended her sad existence, and within sight of the chapel where rests the mortal remains of the Princess Borghese, née Pauline Bonaparte, he was on terms of intimate friendship with a lady well known in Paris society, the Marquise de ——, whose salon is to this day the rendezvous of a certain circle of people, among whom may be seen some enjoying a great social position, and about which I shall have something more to say later on. This lady was passionately attached to Prince Napoleon, for whom she had sacrificed a good deal. She had been a beautiful woman, gifted with a splendid voice, admired by many, and loved by not a few. Her devotion to the Prince was admirable, but her presence at his bedside robbed his last hours of dignity.
His widow, the Princess Clotilde, retired to the castle of Moncalieri, where she, too, died a few years ago, after having seen her eldest son, Prince Victor, married to the Princess Clementine of Belgium. Her youngest boy, Prince Louis Napoleon, after serving for several years in the ranks of the Russian army, lives now in comparative solitude, at the castle of Prangins in Switzerland, having inherited the fortune of his aunt, the Princess Mathilde. As for Princess Clotilde’s daughter, the Princess Letitia Bonaparte, she married, under rather singular circumstances, her uncle, the Duke of Aosta, the brother of King Humbert of Italy. When I use the words “singular circumstances,” I am alluding to the popular belief that the Duke had no particular intention of marrying his niece. The Princess Letitia, however, had inherited the ardent temperament of her father, Prince Napoleon. The Duke died shortly after the marriage. At present the widowed Duchess of Aosta spends part of her time in Turin, and part in Paris, where she has an apartment in the Hotel de Castiglione, Rue de Rivoli, and enjoys herself as much as she possibly can, being a general favourite everywhere.
After the Plebiscite, it was generally felt that some changes in the Cabinet of M. Emile Ollivier had become imperative, especially as its principal members, M. Buffet and M. Daru, were not entirely in accord with M. Ollivier, being more or less under the influence of Thiers, who had been a resolute adversary of the Plebiscite. The portfolio of Foreign Affairs, becoming vacant owing to the retirement of Comte Napoleon Daru, was offered to the Duc de Gramont, who accepted.
The Duc de Gramont, among all the people who had rallied to the Empire, was the one whose adherence had caused the most pleasure at the Tuileries. He had been the favourite of the Duchess d’Angoulême, the daughter of Louis XVI. and of Marie Antoinette, and had inspired such a deep affection in that severe Princess, that she had left him a large fortune, from which he derived an income of about one million francs. All his family traditions were connected with those of the House of Bourbon, and one would have thought that nothing could have made him swerve from his allegiance to the Comte de Chambord. When he forsook his former masters, and enlisted among the followers of the Napoleonic dynasty, there was great rejoicing at this unhoped-for and unexpected defection, and great bitterness at Frohsdorf. The Empress Eugénie lavished her best and most amiable smiles on the descendant of the famous Corisande, and very soon the Duke found himself the cherished guest at all the festivities that took place, either at Fontainebleau or at Compiègne, or the Tuileries.
He was made an ambassador at Vienna, no one knew why, presumably for no other reason than that it was necessary to make something out of him, and to shower honours and dignities on his head. He did not make himself liked in Austria, and the statesmen with whom he found himself thrown into contact did not form a high opinion of his diplomatic talents. He felt himself secretly despised, and being of an ambitious turn of mind, he wanted to do something very striking in order to make himself appreciated by others to the same degree as he appreciated himself.
It was with joy he accepted the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and the first time he presented himself before Eugénie after his appointment he told her rather theatrically: “Les intérêts de la France ont été remis en de bonnes mains par l’Empereur, Madame, soyez en sûre” (“The interests of France have been confided by the Emperor into good hands, rest assured of that, Madame”).
I did not know the Duc de Gramont well, and for that reason refrain from judging him. He has been accused of being the most guilty among the many guilty people to whom the responsibility of the unfortunate Franco-German War may be attributed. Doctor Evans, in the very interesting memoirs published after his death, relates that at the time of the Duke’s appointment at the head of foreign affairs, a foreign statesman whom he knew well used the following ominous words: “Believe me, this nomination is the forewarning of a Franco-German war.”
It would not be fair to go as far as that, but I will say that the Duke was attacked more than any of his colleagues with the folie des grandeurs. Moreover, he was suffering acutely from the national vanity which felt itself thoroughly convinced that nothing could resist the courage of the French army. It did not strike him that this courage would be of no avail in the presence of the perfect discipline of the foe it would have to meet.