The allusion to the French alliance was made with skill and tact. “You will come to Paris this summer,” said the Emperor to the Queen when he was bidding her farewell at Windsor. “Yes,” she replied, “if my public duties do not prevent me.” These duties it was now obvious would in no way prevent her, and it was therefore determined that the Queen and her husband should spend eight days with the Emperor and Empress. The visit was to begin on the 18th of August, and before that day came round the British fleet in the Baltic and the allied armies in the Crimea had won some slight successes, which rendered the war a little less unpopular than it had been in France. Still, despite the victory at Tchernaya, it was unpopular. France, according to Frenchmen, was spending blood and treasure for English interests. The alliance between the two countries was giving England the time and experience needed to improve her defective military system—leaving her in relation to France stronger than ever. As for the political parties—Legitimists, Orleanists, and Democrats—they looked on the Queen’s visit with hostility, because it was meant to strengthen the hands of a usurper, whom they all hated. The visit therefore was not made under auspicious circumstances. Just before the Queen started on this journey the King of Portugal arrived at Osborne, and on the 4th of August the Prince tells Stockmar how they had to lodge him on their yacht, to keep him out of danger from scarlet fever—the two eldest children in the Royal Family having alone escaped the malady. Many visits were interchanged, however, between the King and the Queen and Prince Albert. The Queen, indeed, at the request of her Ministers, had agreed to persuade King Pedro to join us in the war, a proposal which he, however, very sensibly rejected.[239]
It was in the early dawn of Saturday, the 18th of August, that the Queen and Prince Albert, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, embarked at Osborne, and, escorted by a steam squadron, proceeded to Boulogne, where they arrived at one o’clock in the afternoon. Salutes of cannon from the heights, volleys of musketry from the troops, and enthusiastic cheers from the people greeted the visitors. When the Royal yacht came to the pier the Emperor hastened on board, saluted the Queen, kissing her hand and both cheeks, and then shook hands with Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal. The Queen and her family drove to the station, the Emperor and Marshal Magnan riding on each side of her carriage. They took train to Paris, where they were cordially received. From the terminus of the Strasbourg Railway to the Palace of St. Cloud the houses were all in festal array, and 200,000 National Guards formed a double line for five miles along the route. This brilliant display was somewhat lost on the Queen, for her arrival was delayed till seven in the evening. She, however, had the pleasure of seeing Paris under the flare of illumination, and when she approached the Arc de Triomphe her escort carried blazing torches, which gave a strange picturesque effect to the scene. She was welcomed to the Palace of St. Cloud, which had been set apart for her, by the Empress and the ladies and high officers of the household; and Prince Albert describes their reception by the people as “splendid” and “enthusiastic.” The Queen says in her Diary, “I felt bewildered but enchanted—everything is so beautiful.” Sunday, the 19th, was devoted to a quiet morning drive with the Emperor, who was in high spirits over the Crimean news, and to church-going—service being held in one of the rooms of the palace by the chaplain to the British Embassy. Then there was a charming drive in the afternoon to Neuilly, and later on a dinner-party, at which Canrobert appeared, almost fresh from the Crimean trenches. He sat next the Queen, and was surprised to find that she was nearly as well acquainted with the details of the war as he was himself. On Monday, the 20th, the Emperor escorted his guests to breakfast—“the coffee quite excellent, and all the cookery very plain and very good,” writes the Queen, and served “on a small round table as we have at home.” A visit to the Exhibition of Fine Arts, luncheon at the Elysée, a long drive through the chief streets of Paris, and a theatrical performance in the evening (at the Palace) of the Demoiselles de St. Cyr, formed the programme. Tuesday, the 21st, was dedicated to a visit to the Palace of Versailles and the Trianon, associated with mournful memories of Marie Antoinette and the ladies of her court, who used to retire at times to this retreat to play at Arcadian simplicity. In the evening, after dinner, the Queen and her hosts went to the Opera, where her Majesty’s reception was most cordial and gratifying. The notabilities of Parisian society were there, and they were all charmed with the easy, cheerful, high-spirited bearing of the Queen. On Wednesday, the 22nd, she visited the Exhibition of Industry, remarking that the English exhibits of china were the most striking. Then she drove to
THE QUEEN AT THE FÊTE IN THE FOREST OF ST. GERMAIN.
the Tuileries, and accepted an invitation from the Préfet and the Municipality of Paris to a ball at the Hôtel de Ville. The Queen, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and Princess Royal next drove through Paris incognito, and in the evening were entertained at a great dinner, at which eighty guests were present. At this dinner the Queen and the Emperor talked long and earnestly over the Anglo-French alliance—he telling her that Drouyn de Lhuys had suggestively reminded him how Louis Philippe became unpopular because of his alliance with England; the Queen retorting that it was not Louis Philippe’s friendship with England, but his insincerity and treachery, which caused his fall. On Thursday, the 24th, the Louvre was visited, and in the evening the Queen attended the ball at the Hôtel de Ville—the opening quadrille being danced by her Majesty, the Emperor, Prince Albert, the Princess Mathilde, Prince Napoleon, Lady Cowley, Prince Aldebert of Bavaria, and Mdle. Haussmann, daughter of the Prefect of the Seine. The scene was brilliant beyond conception. It was a triumph of decorative art having, as the Queen said, “all the effect of the Arabian Nights.” Picturesque Arabs from Algeria at one part of the proceedings came forward and did homage to the Emperor and his guests, staring admiringly at the Koh-i-noor which the Queen wore in her diadem. The Royal party made the tour of the rooms, tarrying for a little in the Salle du Trône, where Robespierre was wounded and Louis Philippe proclaimed; and where the Emperor gallantly said to the Queen, “This occasion will banish from us all sad remembrances.” On Friday, the 24th, the Queen visited a second time the Palais d’Industrie, lunched at the École Militaire, and witnessed a review of the troops. Their smart uniforms, her Majesty writes, “are infinitely better made and cut than those of our soldiers, which provokes me much.” After this the Queen drove to the Hôtel des Invalides, to visit the tomb of the first Emperor. As she stood before the coffin leaning on the Emperor’s arm, by a strange coincidence, while the organ of the church was pealing forth the solemn strains of the English National Anthem, a dreadful thunder storm broke overhead. At dinner the Emperor and Queen that day entertained each other with complaints about the incapacity of their generals in the Crimea, and in the evening another visit, but not in State, was paid to the Opera. On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen attended a hunt in the forest of St. Germain, where she was received by the local curé and a bevy of village maidens, one of whom broke down in the middle of her complimentary address to the visitors, though when the curé prompted her, greatly to the Queen’s amusement, she went on glibly to the end. In the evening there was a grand State Ball at Versailles, the Empress, as she appeared at the head of the grand staircase, says the Queen, “looking like a fairy queen or nymph,” and surprising even the Emperor into exclaiming, “Comme tu es belle!” (“How lovely you are!”) After a splendid display of fireworks there was dancing, and many distinguished guests were presented to the Queen, amongst others Count Bismarck, then Prussian Minister to Frankfort. But he did not make himself agreeable to her Majesty, for when she expressed her admiration for Paris as a beautiful city, he replied, “Yes, even more beautiful than St. Petersburg”—a very significant indication of his strong pro-Russian sympathies. On Sunday, the 26th, Prince Albert’s birthday was quietly celebrated, and the Queen and Emperor had some serious talk over the persecution of her friends—the Orleans Princes and Princesses—in the course of which she very frankly and honestly explained to the Emperor the precise nature of her relations to them. Monday, the 27th, was devoted to leave-takings and the journey home. At Boulogne there was an inspection of troops and the camps of Hensault and Ambleteuse were visited, and late at night the Queen steamed away in her yacht from Boulogne Harbour. “Adieu, Madame, au revoir,” to which I replied, “Je l’espère bien”—these, according to the Queen, were the parting words which passed between her and her Imperial host. By half-past eight next morning her Majesty reached Osborne, finding her younger sons waiting on the beach to welcome her home.
The Queen was deeply impressed, she says, with the Emperor’s quietness, gentleness, and simplicity of manner. She felt encouraged to confide in him without reserve, and was greatly charmed by his kindness and attention to her children, and his admiration for Prince Albert. The Prince, however, did not quite share the Queen’s enthusiasm for their host, though he admitted that the Emperor had great powers of fascination when he chose to exert them. Lord Clarendon, who was Minister in attendance on her Majesty, told Mr. Greville that during this visit “the Queen was delighted with everything, and especially with the Emperor himself, who, with perfect knowledge of women, had taken the surest way to ingratiate himself with her. This it seems he began when he was in England, and followed it up at Paris. After her visit the Queen talked it all over with Clarendon, and said ‘it is very odd; but the Emperor knows everything I have done, and where I have been ever since I was twelve years old; he even recollects how I was dressed, and a thousand little details it is extraordinary he should be acquainted with.’ She has never before been on such a social footing with anybody, and he has approached her with the familiarity of their equal positions, and with all the experience and knowledge of womankind he has acquired during his long life, passed in the world and in mixing in every sort of society. She seemed to have played her part throughout with great propriety and success. Old Jérôme[240] did not choose to make his appearance till just at the last moment, because he insisted on being treated as a king, and having the title of ‘Majesté’ given him—a pretension Clarendon would not hear of her yielding to.... Clarendon said nothing could exceed the delight of the Queen at her visit to Paris, at her reception, at all she saw, and that she was charmed with the Emperor. They became so intimate, and she on such friendly terms with him, that she talked to him with the utmost frankness, and even discussed with him the most delicate of all subjects—the confiscation of the Orleans property, telling him her opinion upon it. He did not avoid the subject, and gave her the reasons why he thought himself obliged to take that course; that he knew all this wealth was employed in fomenting intrigues against his government, which was so new that it was necessary to take all precautions to avert such dangers. She replied that even if this were so, he might have contented himself with sequestrating the property and restoring it when he was satisfied that all danger on that score was at an end. I asked Clarendon what he thought of the Emperor himself, and he said that he liked him and that he was very pleasing, but he was struck with his being so indolent and so excessively ignorant. The Prince of Wales was put by the Queen under Clarendon’s charge, who was desired to tell him what to do in public, when to bow to the people, and whom to speak to. He said that the Princess Royal was charming, with excellent manners and full of intelligence. Both the children were delighted with their séjour, and very sorry to come away. When the visit was drawing to a close, the Prince said to the Empress that he and his sister were both very reluctant to leave Paris, and asked if she could not get leave for them to stay there a little longer. The Empress said she was afraid this would not be possible, as the Queen and Prince Albert would not be able to do without them; to which the boy replied, ‘Not do without us! don’t fancy that, for there are six more of us at home, and they don’t want us.’”[241]
MAP OF CRATHIE AND BRAEMAR.