Very much might be said about the ladies of the Court. There were lovely women, such as the Countess Valovska, née Anna Ricci, the dark Florentine, whose smiles won her so many hearts, including that of Napoleon III.; others were clever like Pauline Metternich, and some were both lovely and clever, Mélanie Pourtalès for instance, that star of the Empire who condescended later to shine in the Republican firmament, and who to this day is one of the celebrities of Paris, in spite of her seventy odd years. There was the Duchesse de Persigny, and the Duchesse de Cadore, and the Baroness de Rothschild, and many others, but among them all the Empress could not boast of a real friend, always with the exception of the Duchesse de Mouchy, who owed her far too much ever to dare criticise anything she did.
I have mentioned the Princess Metternich. Among all those to whose fatal influence the Second Empire owed its fall she holds one of the first and foremost places. She it was who sapped its foundations and lowered its dignity; she it was who with a rude hand pulled back the veil which, until she appeared at Compiègne and at the Tuileries, had still been drawn between the general public and the Imperial Court. Young and ugly, but clever and gifted with what the French call brio, she lived but for one thing, and that was amusement in any shape or form. She had no respect for the society in which she found herself, and brought to Paris an atmosphere of carelessness such as we sometimes display when we find ourselves travelling in a country where we are unknown, and where we can do what we like without fear of the qu’en dira-t-on, or, as they say in England, “Mrs. Grundy.” After some experience of the strict etiquette of the Austrian Hofburg, she felt delighted to be able to dispense with it, and treated the Empress with disdain, making use of her in order to attain her own ends, and ruling the Tuileries like some of the present great ladies in pecuniary straits rule the houses of the American or South African millionaires whom—for a consideration—they introduce into society. The behaviour of the Princess Metternich can be characterised by her remark to a lady who, at Compiègne, reproved her for trying to induce the Empress to appear in public in a short gown, a thing that was not considered to be proper at the time of which I am writing. The friend asked her at the same time whether she would have advised the Empress Elizabeth to do such a thing; she replied vehemently: “No, certainly not, I would not do such a thing, but then my Empress is a real one.”
Pauline Metternich never liked Eugénie; she secretly envied her for her beauty. She encouraged her in every false or mistaken step the Empress unwittingly took. She brought a shade of vulgarity into all the entertainments over which she presided and which she organised. She smoked big cigars without minding in the least whether it pleased the Empress or not, and she allowed herself every kind of liberty, sure of immunity, and careless as to what people thought about her. She showed herself the most ungrateful of beings, forsaking her friend when the latter was precipitated into obscurity and misfortune, never once giving her a thought. Pauline Metternich was a perfect type of an opportunist without a memory, and after having danced, eaten, smoked, enjoyed herself at the Tuileries where she always was a favoured guest, she never once sent a message of sympathy to the discarded Sovereign, whose acquaintance she probably thought irksome and inconvenient. Once in a moment of expansion, so the story goes, she gave way to a remark which deserves to pass to posterity concerning those years during which she was the leading spirit at all the entertainments given at the Tuileries, and which I cannot help reproducing here: A diplomat who had known her in Paris asked her whether she did not regret the Second Empire, and received a characteristic reply: “Regret it? Why? It was very amusing, very vulgar, and it could not last; we all knew it, and we all made hay whilst the sun shone.”
Countess Mélanie Pourtalès, in that respect, was far superior to Princess Metternich; she at least had the decency to remain faithful to her former sympathies and to her Bonapartist leanings. To this day she sees the Empress when the latter visits Paris, and she never indulges in one word of blame concerning that far away time when she also was one of the queens of the Tuileries.
Mélanie de Bussières is one of the marvels of last century. As beautiful as a dream, she had an angelic face, lovely innocent eyes, which used to look at the world with the guilelessness of a child, and a Madonna-like expression that reminded one of a long white lily drooping on its stem. She was intelligent, too, had an enormous amount of tact, and succeeded, whilst denying herself none of her caprices, in keeping unimpaired her place in Parisian society, of retaining as her friends all those to whom the world had given another name, and of acquiring a position such as few women have ever had before her. Always kind, rarely malicious, smiling alike on friends and foes, she contrived to disarm the latter, and never to estrange the former. Though very much envied, yet she was liked, and she inspired with enthusiasm all those with whom she was brought into contact. Now she is a great-grandmother, but still a leading light of social Paris, and those who formerly admired her beauty continue to crowd around her in order to listen to her conversation.
When I entered the circle of Imperialist society, I was struck by the number of pretty women that I met there. They were not all clever; a good many were vulgar, but most of them were lovely. A ball at that time was a pretty sight, far prettier than it is at the present day, and as for amusement, one could find it wherever one went. Morals, on the other hand, were no worse than is the case at present; indeed, in many respects they were better, insomuch that it was far more difficult then, owing to the conditions of existence, for a lady belonging to the upper classes to misbehave herself than is the case at present, when women go freely everywhere, whilst during the Second Empire it was hardly possible for a well-known lady to be seen in a cab or a ’bus, or even walking in unfrequented streets. “Le diable n’y perdait rien,” to use an old French expression; but a certain decorum, totally absent nowadays, had to be adhered to, and the Empress was very severe upon all those who infringed its rules. She had attacks of prudery, as it were, during which she posed as a watcher over the morals of her Court. Such a procedure among the very carefully immoral persons who surrounded her made many people smile.
The Emperor also had but few personal friends. The most faithful and devoted perhaps was Dr. Conneau, who had watched over Queen Hortense during her last illness, and who had given to her son the most sincere proofs of affection that one man can give to another. Conneau was that rara avis, a totally disinterested person. Millions had passed through his hands, but he died poor, and when the Empire fell he was reduced to selling a collection of rare books he possessed, in order to have bread in his old age. He loved Napoleon with his whole heart, soul, and mind, and belonged to the very few who cared for and believed in the traditions of the Bonapartes. He did infinite good during the eighteen years the Empire lasted, and never refused to lay a case of distress before Napoleon III. once it was brought to his notice. Everybody respected him, and he was a general favourite with everyone, except perhaps with the Empress, who felt no personal sympathy for him.
Conneau had voluntarily asked to be allowed to share the Emperor’s captivity at Ham, and it was thanks to him that the latter contrived to escape from that fortress disguised as a workman, with a plank on his shoulder, behind which he hid his face. Whilst Napoleon was hastening towards the Belgian frontier, Conneau did his best to hide his flight from the authorities, declaring to those who wanted to see him that he was ill and asleep in his bed. Conneau had cunningly arranged the pillows in such a way that they appeared to represent a body wrapped up in blankets. He knew very well that in doing this he was running a great risk, but nothing stopped him, and it is certain that to his bold initiative Napoleon III. owed first his escape and afterwards his Imperial Crown.
Conneau never left the Emperor, who breathed his last in that faithful servant’s arms, murmuring before doing so: “Conneau, were you at Sedan?” thus showing how incurable had been the wound received on that fatal day which saw the fall of his throne and of his dynasty.
Conneau, with perhaps the exception of M. Mocquard, Napoleon’s private secretary, was the person who knew the best of the Emperor’s character, and he remained faithful to him to the last. One day a friend asked him whether he was sorry not to have died before the fall of the Empire, and to have witnessed the terrible catastrophes that accompanied it. Conneau immediately replied: “I am sorry for myself, but glad for the Emperor who would have had one friend less around him in his misfortune.” The remark is characteristic of the man.