The famous Good Friday dinner at which the Prince and his guests ate charcuterie and drank a somewhat profane toast was the base of the belief respecting his religious opinions—a belief greatly magnified and spread by the Empress Eugénie. Prince Napoleon never knew when to speak and when to remain silent, although a magnificent orator, and his failing has been well summed up by a famous senator: “The Prince speaks well, he is the best of orators—but he says only too well what had best been left unsaid.”
His friends were the most famous men of the day, Victor Hugo, Edmond About, Ste. Beuve and Père Hyacinthe, who sent him his blessing as he lay dying. His relations with the Emperor show many instances of his want of tact. Having been complimented by Napoleon upon two speeches delivered in the Senate against the temporal power of the Pope, he resolved to improve upon them, and then delivered his famous anti-Papal speech at Ajaccio, a speech which drew forth the following interesting letter of remonstrance from the Emperor:
“Monsieur Mon Cousin,—I cannot help informing you of the painful impression which I received on reading the speech you delivered at Ajaccio. When I left you in Paris with the Empress and my son and as President of the Privy Council, I hoped that you would prove yourself by your acts, conduct and speeches, worthy of the trust which I had placed in you, and that you would set the example of that unity which ever ought to exist in our family. You have raised questions which no longer concern our day. It is necessary to have borne, as I have, the responsibilities of power in order to judge how far the ideas of Napoleon I. are applicable to the present time. Before the great statue of the founder of our family, what are we but pigmies, only able to behold a part and incapable of grasping the whole? One thing, however, is certain, and that is that Napoleon exercised—first of all in his family and then in his government—that severe discipline without which all government is impossible, and without which all liberty leads to anarchy. Having said this much, my cousin, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping.
Napoleon.“
This letter was written in 1866, when the Emperor was traveling in Algeria.
After the fall of the Empire and the death of the Emperor, Prince Napoleon kept up a sort of armed neutrality with the Empress Eugénie and his young cousin, the Prince Imperial (then Napoleon the Fourth), after whom, he was the head of the Bonapartist party. When the Prince Imperial fell in Zululand in 1879, Prince Napoleon became the head of the family. But the Prince Imperial had made a foolish, boyish will in which he named his cousin, Prince Victor, the eldest son of Prince Napoleon, his heir and successor. The Empress Eugénie was only too glad to annoy her hated foe by pretending to accept this absurd arrangement, and unfortunately Prince Victor Napoleon fell into the hands of foolish advisers, quarreled with his father and set up a party of his own. For several years father and son have not spoken, each claiming to represent the Imperialist party in France. But it is now stated with authority that Prince Victor Napoleon was reconciled to his father on his death-bed, and this will do much towards wiping out the memory of his unfilial conduct. But he was strongly tempted. The Empress Eugénie urged him, all the old adherents of his great family urged him, to set up the Napoleonic standard, while his father seemed apathetic and indifferent. Then, of course, he commanded a divided allegiance. Now he stands at the head of a united party. Thousands of men who would not join Prince Napoleon on account of his anti-clerical opinions and who refused to support Prince Victor Napoleon against his father, are now rallying to the Imperial standard.
Scoffers said the Napoleonic legend was dead when the first Napoleon died. Scoffers say so now. Yet Napoleon III. proved that it was very much alive in the fifties, and it is well on the cards that Napoleon VI. may do so in the nineties. The new Emperor de jure, is clever, eloquent and possesses tact, above all the sine qua non of one in his position. He has few enemies and many friends and will inherit the Empress Eugénie’s large fortune upon her death.
And so the greatest service Prince Napoleon has ever done for his family and cause is by dying, for his death unites, while his life divided, his party.
History will judge him fairly. Brilliant, clever, witty, statesmanlike, eloquent and masterful, his life has been ruined by want of tact. His last words are significant: (I quote from the London Times.)