“She showed me her diamonds yesterday, and some of them are magnificent, particularly the necklace presented to the Empress Josephine by the city of Paris. It is a rivière of large diamonds, of such immense value that none but a sovereign, or some of our own princely nobility, could become the purchaser. Her other diamonds are very fine, and consist of many parures, some presented to her as Queen of Holland; and others bequeathed to her, with the necklace, by her mother. Her bed, furniture, and toilette service of gilt plate, are very magnificent, and are the same that served her in her days of regal state. The arrangement of her apartments indicates a faultless taste, uniting elegance and comfort with grandeur. She has some fine portraits of Napoleon and Josephine in her possession: on our contemplating them, she referred to her mother with as much sensibility as if her death had been recent.
“Prince Louis Bonaparte lives with his mother, and never did I witness a more devoted attachment than subsists between them. He is a fine, high-spirited youth, admirably well educated, and highly accomplished, uniting to the gallant bearing of a soldier all the politeness of a preux chevalier; but how could he be otherwise, brought up with such a mother? Prince Louis Bonaparte is much beloved and esteemed by all who know him, and is said to resemble his uncle, the Prince Eugène Beauharnois (sic), no less in person than in mind; possessing his generous nature, personal courage, and high sense of honour.”
It is not necessary to follow in any detail the career of Louis Napoleon, so we will skip on to the year 1840, when on 6th August he made his absurd descent upon France, landing at Boulogne with about sixty followers.
Lord Malmesbury, who was often a visitor at Gore House, mentions a curious little happening.
“7th August.—News arrived this morning of Louis Napoleon having landed yesterday morning at Boulogne with fifty followers. None of the soldiers, however, having joined him, the attempt totally failed, and he and most of those who accompanied him were taken. This explains an expression he used to me two evenings ago. He was standing on the steps of Lady Blessington’s house after a party, wrapped up in a cloak, with Persigny by him, and I observed to them: ‘You look like two conspirators,’ upon which he answered: ‘You may be nearer right than you think.’”
Disraeli writes on the same day:—
“The morning papers publish two editions, and Louis Napoleon, who last year at Bulwer’s nearly drowned us by his bad rowing, has now upset himself at Boulogne. Never was anything so rash and crude to all appearances as this ‘invasion,’ for he was joined by no one. A fine house in Carlton Gardens, his Arabian horses, and excellent cook was hardly worse than his present situation.”
He was captured, tried, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and consigned to the fortress of Ham, where he remained for five years, and then escaped to England.
On August 2nd, 1840, Planché relates that he went between ten and eleven to Gore House, where there had been a small dinner party, of which four men had stayed on, Lord Nugent, “Poodle” Byng, and two strangers. “The youngest immediately engaged my attention. It was the fashion in that day to wear black satin kerchiefs for evening dress; and that of the gentleman in question was fastened by a large spread eagle in diamonds, clutching a thunderbolt of rubies. There was but one man in England at that period who, without the impeachment of coxcombry, could have sported so magnificent a jewel; and, though I had never to my knowledge seen him before, I felt convinced that he could be no other than Prince Louis Napoleon. Such was the fact; and his companion was Count Montholon.” Planché walked home with Nugent and Byng, one of whom remarked: “What could Louis Napoleon mean by asking us to dine with him this day twelvemonths at the Tuileries?” The ill-starred landing at Boulogne a few days later explained the mystery.
But earlier in this same year (1840), D’Orsay had supported the Prince in another adventure.