From the painting by Cabanel.

NAPOLEON III.

France from Behind
the Veil: Fifty Years
of Social and Political Life

BY
Count Paul Vassili
Illustrated

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
New York and London
1914

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

While this volume has been passing through the press certain of the personages still living at the time Count Vassili was at work on the manuscript of “France from Behind the Veil” have passed away.

Also, incidents have occurred which are a reflex of matters mentioned in these pages.

In such instances the publishers have thought well to bring the manuscript right up to date, leaving the reader to understand that events happening in 1914, and therefore subsequent to the Count’s death, have been so treated.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

France from Behind the Veil

CHAPTER I
Last Days of the Empire: Napoleon and Eugénie

Towards the end of the year 1868 I arrived in Paris. I had often before been in the great city, but had never occupied any official position there. Now, however, having been appointed secretary to our (Russian) embassy, I consequently enjoyed special privileges, not the least being opportunity to watch quite closely the actors in what was to prove one of the greatest dramas of modern history. I had many acquaintances in Paris, but these belonged principally to the circle known still by the name of Faubourg St. Germain, for I had never frequented the Imperialistic world. Consequently I found myself thrown in quite a different milieu, and had to forgo a great many of my former friends, who would not have cared to receive in their houses one who now belonged to the intimate coterie of the Tuileries. In a certain sense I felt sorry; but on the other hand I discovered that the society in which I now found myself was far more pleasant, and certainly far more amusing, than my former circle. To a young man such as I was at that time, this last consideration, of course, was most attractive.

Paris, during that autumn of the year 1868, was extremely congenial; indeed, it has never been so brilliant since the Napoleonic Eagle disappeared. The Sovereigns liked to surround themselves with nice people, and sought popularity among the different classes of society; they gave splendid receptions, and did their best to create around them an atmosphere of luxury and enjoyment. They frequented the many theatres for which Paris was famed, were present at the races, and in general showed themselves wherever they found opportunity to appear in public. During the summer and autumn months the Imperial hospitality was exercised with profusion and generosity, either at Compiègne or at Fontainebleau, and it was only at St. Cloud or at Biarritz that the Emperor and his lovely Consort led a relatively retired life, while they enjoyed a short and well-earned holiday.

As is usual in such cases, the Imperialistic society followed the lead given to it from above, and pleasure followed upon pleasure, festivity crowded upon festivity during these feverish months which preceded the Franco-Prussian War. In 1868 the clouds that had obscured the Imperial sky at the time of the ill-fated Mexican Expedition had passed away, and the splendours which attended the inauguration of the Suez Canal were already looming on the horizon.

The political situation as yet seemed untroubled; indeed, though the Emperor sometimes appeared sad and anxious, no one among all those who surrounded him shared the apprehensions which his keen political glance had already foreseen as inevitable. The Empress, too, appeared as if she wanted to make the most of her already disappearing youth, and to gather her roses whilst she still could do so, with all the buoyancy of her departed girlish days.

The leading spirit of all the entertainments given at the Tuileries, the Princess Pauline Metternich, was always alert for some new form of amusement wherewith to enliven the house parties of Compiègne, or the solemnity of the evening parties given in the old home of the Kings of France—that home from which Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had gone to the scaffold, and to which their memory clung in spite of all those who had inhabited it since the day they started upon their tragic journey to Varennes.

The fair Eugénie had a special reverence for the memory of the beautiful Austrian Archduchess whose destiny it had been to die by the hand of the executioner within a few steps of the grand old palace that had been hers. With all the impressionability of her Spanish nature she used to say that she was sure a like fate awaited her, and so prepared herself to die as had died the unfortunate Princess whose place she had taken. Eugénie often spoke of what she would do when that day should come, and sometimes amused her friends with her conviction that she, too, was destined to endure tragic misfortunes and calamities. Her presentiments were fulfilled; but, alas! she did not bear them with true dignity.

At the time of which I am speaking—October, 1868—Napoleon III. had just completed his sixtieth year. In spite of the agonies occasioned by the painful disease from which he was suffering, he retained his good looks, and notwithstanding his small height and the largeness of his head, which, compared with the size of his body, would have been ridiculous in any other person, he presented a most dignified appearance, and bore himself like a Sovereign born to the purple would have done. When he chose, the expression of his face was charming, and the eyes, which he always kept half closed, had a dreamy, far-away, mysterious look that gave them a peculiar charm. He spoke slowly, as if carefully weighing every word he uttered; but what surprised one when talking with him for the first time was a German accent in speaking French—a habit retained from his early days spent in Switzerland—from which he could not rid himself, in spite of all his efforts, as well as those of M. Mocquard, his faithful secretary and friend, who, so long as he lived, gave him lessons in elocution. I believe that the slowness with which Napoleon III. expressed himself must be attributed to that circumstance more than anything else. But it is a fact that sometimes it had the effect of irritating those with whom he was engaged in conversation; they never knew what he was going to say next, and ofttimes gathered the impression that some ulterior motive actuated his speech.

With ladies the Emperor was always charming, and his manner with them had a tinge of chivalry that savoured of olden times, and generally succeeded in winning for him all that he wanted. His love intrigues were numerous, and his wife was not always wrong when she complained, though not improbably she would have done better to notice and talk of them less than she did. In general the Empress was much too fond of communicating her feelings and impressions to those whom she considered her friends without the slightest reason for thinking them to be such. Her many intimacies with ladies who bore her no real sympathy, such as Princess Metternich, for instance, did her much harm and caused her many annoyances which she could well have avoided had she shown herself more careful in what she did or said. She never realised that community in amusement does not constitute community of feelings, and that whilst one may like the society of some people because one enjoys their good dinners, or spends one’s time pleasantly in their company, it does not mean that one really cares for them, or trusts them.

Napoleon III. had been a very clever politician. I use the words “had been” intentionally, because, unhappily, it is certain that toward the end of his reign he had lost some of his former sharpness. Neither did he see so plainly the dangers of his situation, nor realise that he could not act as freely as he had done at the time of the coup d’état of December, 1852, and during the Crimean and Italian campaigns.

He felt himself weakened, in part through the mistakes of his early youth, as well as by his associations, which were beginning to tell upon him, and of which he had a nervous dread of being reminded. As an example of this the following anecdote is typical. A Russian lady, the Countess K——, who used to frequent the Tuileries, met one day an Italian statesman, whose name I won’t mention as he is still living. This gentleman suddenly asked whether it would not amuse her to frighten the Emperor. She was young and giddy, and accepted with enthusiasm. He then told her that at the next fancy ball that was going to take place at the Naval Office, the Sovereigns were to attend as the guests of the Marquis and the Marquise de Chasseloup Laubat. The lady was to approach Napoleon and to whisper in his ear the name of an Italian then in Paris, and to remind Napoleon of an interview he had had with him in a small inn near Perugia. No explanations were given to the lady, and she never asked for any, but when the ball took place she managed to approach the Emperor, who was present in a domino, and to murmur in his ear the phrase given her, without, it must be owned, attaching any special importance to it. Napoleon’s face became white, and, seizing her hand, he asked her, in an agitated voice, to tell him from whom she had obtained this information. The Countess was terrified, and replied that a domino had whispered it to her during the ball. The Emperor plied her with questions, but to no purpose, as his extreme emotion had put her on her guard. Two days later, to her surprise, she was invited to dine at the Tuileries. When the meal was over, the Empress, who had been unusually gracious, called her to her side, and taking care no one should hear them, asked her to explain from whom she had heard the incident to which she had alluded during her conversation with the Emperor, at the ball of Madame de Chasseloup Laubat. The Countess, though taken quite unawares, persisted in her assurance that she did not know the domino who had imparted it to her; that she was now very sorry for heedlessly repeating words to which she had attached no importance. Eugénie pressed her again and again, and at last exclaimed with impatience, as she rose from her chair: “People like to be asked to the Tuileries, but do not seem to consider that it is a grievous want of tact to hold converse with the enemies of the Sovereign whilst doing so.” “And,” added the Countess when she related to me this anecdote, “from that moment I was watched at every step by the secret police, and to this day I do not know why I was chosen as the instrument to deal such a blow to Napoleon III.”

I have related this anecdote to prove how very much the Emperor dreaded all that related to his first steps in political life, under the patronage of the Carbonari and other secret associations that were working towards the unification of Italy. He did not feel himself a free agent in that respect; no one knew exactly why, because he never expressed himself on the subject—but it is certain that some of the most unexpected things he did had their source in this mysterious influence which made him appear to be more or less averse to thwarting the desires of his former Italian friends.

Napoleon was not brilliant by any means; but he was certainly clever, though sometimes lacking in initiative. It is not likely that he would ever have had the courage either to escape from Ham, or to overthrow the second Republic, had he not been emboldened in the first of these attempts by Conneau, and in the second by Morny and Fleury, together with the active Maupat. He lived under the spell of the Napoleonic tradition, and being before everything else a fatalist, he thought himself destined to ascend the throne which his uncle had conquered. He never fought against destiny, and so acquired an apathy which totally unfitted him for any unexpected struggle. At Sedan he surrendered with hardly a murmur, as, though he well knew the step to be a fatal one, he had tolerated MacMahon’s fatal occupation of that fortress. He had lost all faith in his future, and he had given up the game long before he handed his sword to the conqueror.

The Emperor’s was essentially a kind nature. During the eighteen years of his reign he did an enormous amount of good, and certainly France owes to him a good deal of her present prosperity. He thought about his people’s welfare more than had any previous Sovereign; the economic question was one to which he had given his most earnest attention. He wanted his country to be strong, rich, an example to others in its energetic progress along the path of material and intellectual development. He was a lover of art; he was a keen student, an admirer of literature; and he appreciated clever men. Catholic in his tastes, he had the rare faculty of forgetting the wrongs done to him, in the remembrance of the many proofs of affection he had experienced. Gifted with a sweet and sunny temperament, he had been brought up in the school of adversity. Amidst all the grandeur that he enjoyed later on, he never forgot the lesson; and when misfortune once more assailed him, he was never heard to murmur, or to reproach those whose incapacity had destroyed his life’s work.

Socially, Napoleon never forgot that the first duty of a monarch is ever to appear to be amiable. Whenever he swerved from that axiom it was always for some very good reason. He had great tact, and possessed to perfection the art of invariably saying the right thing in the right place. Yet he knew very well how to differentiate between persons, and to accord the exact shade of behaviour towards an Ambassador or to an Attaché, to a simple tourist, or to a foreign personage entrusted with a mission of some kind.

He was entirely interesting in all his remarks, and always conversant with the subject about which he spoke. Though he had pretensions to scientific and historical knowledge, he was not at all a well-read man in the strict sense; but he had a wonderful faculty of assimilating all that he read, and after having quickly run through a book, was at once acquainted with its principal points or defects. Sceptical in his appreciations, and perhaps in his beliefs, he had the utmost respect for the convictions of his fellow creatures, and though by no means a religious man, reverenced religion deeply. His faults and errors, in the political sense, proceeded more from the influence of his immediate entourage than from his own appreciation of right and wrong. In many things he deserves to be pitied, and in many of his mistakes he was the scapegoat of those who threw their blame upon his shoulders—a blame that either from indifference or from disdain he accepted without a murmur.

Paradoxical as it may seem to say so, he knew humanity, but not the people with whom he lived. He never expected gratitude, and yet he believed that the men upon whom he had showered any amount of benefits would feel grateful to him. To the last hour of his life he thought that his dynasty had some chance to recover the throne; and he remained convinced of the fidelity of his partisans in spite of the many proofs that he had to the contrary. His many illusions proceeded from the kindness of his nature, a kindness that never failed him, either in prosperity or in disaster.

I was introduced to Napoleon III. at Compiègne. I had been invited there, together with the Russian Ambassador, in the course of the month of November that had followed upon my appointment in Paris. We assembled before dinner in what was called the Salle des Gardes, a long apartment panelled in white, to which a profusion of flowers, scattered everywhere, gave a homely look. We were a very numerous company, and it was on that evening I became acquainted with many leading stars in the Imperial firmament. We did not have to wait long before a door was opened and an huissier called out in a loud voice: “L’Empereur!”

The Sovereigns entered the room, the Empress slightly in front, Napoleon following her with the Princess Clotilde on his arm. He began at once to talk with the members of the Corps Diplomatique, whilst his Consort approached the ladies gathered together at one end of the vast hall. When my Ambassador presented me, Napoleon asked me whether I was the son “of the lovely Countess Vassili” he had known in London, and when I replied to him in the affirmative he at once began to talk about my mother, and the many opportunities he had had to meet her. “I am glad to see you here,” he added, “and I hope you will enjoy your stay in France.”

The Empress on that day, when I beheld her for the first time, did not strike me as so absolutely beautiful as I had been led to expect. Later on I found out that her greatest attraction was in the varying charm of her expressive face. The features were quite lovely in their regularity, but a certain heaviness in the chin robbed them of what otherwise would have been absolute perfection. The mouth had a curve which told that on occasion the Empress could be very hard and disdainful, but the eyes and the hair were glorious, the figure splendid, and she had an inimitable grace in her every movement. With the exception of the Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, I have never seen anyone bow like Eugénie, with that sweeping movement of her whole body and head, that seemed to be addressed to each person present in particular and to all in general. On that particular evening she was a splendid vision in evening dress. Her white shoulders shone above the low bodice of her gown, and many jewels adorned her beautiful person. But though she excited admiration she did not at first appeal either to the senses or to the imagination of men. At least, so it seemed to me, whatever might have been said to the contrary. Later on, however, when one had opportunity to see her more frequently, and especially to talk with her, her personality grew upon one with an especial charm that has never been equalled by any other woman. She was not brilliant; she held strong opinions; she was very much impressed by her position, though, it must be owned, not in the least dazzled by her extraordinary success; she was impulsive; she was not overwhelmingly tactful; had much knowledge of the world, but little knowledge of mankind; she wounded sometimes when she had no intention of doing so; she was romantic, though unsentimental; there were the strangest contradictions in her nature, the strangest mixtures of good and bad; but with all her defects she completely subjugated those who got to know her, whatever might have been the first impression. Her glances had something of Spanish softness blended with French coquetry. In a word, she was a most attractive woman—one of the

EMPRESS EUGÉNIE

most attractive that has ever lived—but she certainly was not an ideal Sovereign.

When Eugénie married she was already twenty-seven, and therefore it was not easy for her to become used to the various duties and obligations of her new position. She was a thorough woman of the world, which rendered her especially charming when at Compiègne or at Fontainebleau, where etiquette was not so strict as at the Tuileries. At those moments she was positively bewitching, but when she thought it necessary to assume her Imperial manner she lost her womanly charm.

There have been many beautiful moments in Eugénie’s life; such, for instance, as her famous visit to Amiens at the time the cholera was raging there, and when, with a truly royal indifference, she exposed herself to very real and serious danger. She was charitable, and preferred not to boast of her charities; but, not possessing the Emperor’s disposition, she resented injuries done to her. She was impetuous in all that she did, thought, or felt; certainly bigoted and superstitious, as Spaniards generally are. She was not courageous, though brave, because these are two very different things. She would not have minded being murdered in state, and the memory of the deed being handed down to posterity; but she could not find the resolution to face an intricate situation, nor to remain silent and firm at a difficult moment. Her nature was essentially restless; she could never wait with patience for what the future might hold. Her attitude on the 4th of September was characteristic, and it was in accordance with her nature that she tried to explain the abandonment of her position as Regent by the word “necessity,” when, in reality, it was the shrinking of a lonely woman, with no one near her to tell her what she ought to do, or to show her how to resist the demands of the mob.

But once more I must say she exercised a wonderful fascination on all those whom she entertained. There was something remarkable in the influence she exercised. In her presence one forgot all save her extraordinary charm.

In her private life Eugénie de Montijo, in spite of all that has been said and written on that subject, has always been irreproachable. Amid all the gaieties of the Court over which she presided she remained pure and chaste, and redeemed the many frailties of her outward demeanour by the dignity and blamelessness of her existence as a wife and mother. She bitterly resented the indiscretions of the Emperor, but she kept herself aloof from everything that could have been construed as a desire on her part to retaliate. Perhaps her temperament helped her; but it is certain that as a wife she was blameless, and that she showed herself an enlightened mother, trying to bring up her son above the flatteries that usually surround children born in such a high position, teaching him to obey, to be grateful to those who took care of him, and loving him quite as well and more wisely than the Emperor, who was perhaps too indulgent in matters which concerned his only son. That the Prince Imperial remained an only child was a source of deep grief to Napoleon III.

When first I saw Eugénie, her whole appearance was fairy-like; in spite of her forty years, she eclipsed all other women. Her slight, graceful figure was almost girlish in its suppleness, and she is the only woman I have ever seen who, though in middle life, did not prompt one to utter the usual remark when lovely members of the fair sex have attained her age: “How beautiful she must have been when she was young!”

CHAPTER II
The Surroundings and Friends of the Sovereigns

When Napoleon III. married, he tried to establish his Court on the same footing as that of his uncle after the latter’s union with Marie Louise, and fearing that, in spite of his affection, his young wife would find it hard to get used to her exalted position, he surrounded her with the trammels of a severe etiquette. From this, however, she gradually emancipated herself, especially during the time when she acted as Regent for the Emperor, at the period of the war of 1859 with Austria.

This emancipation was in itself a curious phase. In her way Eugénie was just as anxious as the Emperor to order her household upon the same lines as those of the other great Courts of Europe. Especially with that of Windsor she had been deeply impressed, when with the Emperor she visited Queen Victoria. But she was not endowed by nature with that reserved dignity which is a necessity to regal rank, and the result stultified her efforts. The Empress, when a girl, had enjoyed far more liberty than girls had at the time of which I am writing. This lack of control led her sometimes to forget her rank as Empress, and she found herself drifting into her old habits of saying everything that occurred to her, or of allowing her sympathies and her antipathies to be seen by a public always eager and ready to criticise.

She had but few friends, and after the death of her sister, the Duchesse d’Albe, she felt very isolated, and in need of one into whose ear she might confide her sorrows and her joys. She did not get on with the members of the Imperial Family, and she had been very much hurt at the attitude taken up in regard to her by the Princess Clotilde. Eugénie had received the Princess with open arms, but had met with repulse from the very first moment Clotilde arrived in France. Then, again, Eugénie’s relations with Prince Napoleon became of the worst, perhaps owing to the fact that there had been a day, before her marriage with the Emperor, when those relations were very near. The antagonism towards her which the only cousin of her husband chose to adopt, wounded her to the quick, and instead of trying to overcome it with tact and apparent indifference, she did her best to accentuate his animosity, until open warfare resulted, and the strained situation became a general topic of gossip.

With Princess Mathilde, the sister of the Prince, the Empress was, also, not on intimate terms, although apparently they bore one another affection. The Princess was perhaps the most remarkable among the many fascinating women with whom the Second Empire will remain associated. Surpassingly beautiful in her youth, she retained her good looks, and notwithstanding her embonpoint, possessed a personality of great dignity. She was certainly a grande dame, despite her numerous frailties.

She was clever, kind, brilliant in more senses than one; very talented, she liked to surround herself with clever people, who, in their turn, were glad to have her appreciation. There had been a time when the question of a marriage between her and her cousin, Prince Louis Napoleon, had been discussed, but the latter’s chances were so uncertain, that neither Mathilde nor her father had had the courage to run the risk of uniting her destiny with that of the Pretender.

The Princess married M. Demidoff, and very soon regretted it; so deeply that she tried to break the bonds. Thanks to the intervention of the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, a separation was arranged under very favourable terms for Madame Demidoff, who, by permission of the government of Louis Philippe, settled in Paris. She did not mix with politics, and only tried to create for herself a pleasant circle of acquaintances and friends. Unfortunately, she possessed in addition to a superior and cultivated mind, a very ardent temperament, and gossip soon became busy with her name, especially after her liaison with Count de Nieuwekerke became a recognised fact.

When the Revolution of 1848 brought back to France the heir to the Bonaparte traditions, the Princess Mathilde at once hastened to his side, and showed herself to be the best of friends. It was the Princess Mathilde who presided at his first entertainment at Compiègne, as well as at the Elysée, where he was residing when in the capital, and it was at her house that the Prince President, as he was called, met for the first time the lovely Spaniard who was later to become his wife.

The Princess Mathilde did not like the marriage, in view of the fact that she might have occupied the place which this stranger took, as it were by storm; she would hardly have been human had she done so. But she was far too clever to show her disapproval, and it is related that when the question arose as to who should carry the train of the new Empress, Mathilde at once declared that she would do so if the Emperor asked her, much to the astonishment and perhaps to the scandal of those who heard her. She bore no malice, and thought herself far too great a lady to imagine that by whatever she might do she would fall in the estimation of others, or that it would be derogatory to her position.

But though she consented to receive the future wife of her cousin when first she entered the Tuileries, and though she tried hard to establish friendly relations with her, all her efforts failed, partly because the young Empress felt afraid of the brilliant Princess, and of her sharp tongue and brusque manners, partly, also, because Mathilde did not care for the people who formed the entourage of the Sovereign, and never felt at her ease at the many entertainments given by Eugénie. She thought them either too dull or too boisterous.

Mathilde was never so happy as when in her own house in the Rue de Courcelles, where all that was distinguished in France considered it an honour to be admitted, and where she could live the life of a private lady of high rank. She was too frank to conceal what she felt, and too honest to flatter the Empress, or to find charming what she considered to be the reverse. Though she disapproved of many things that her brother, Prince Napoleon, did, she did not care to blame him publicly, and thus she maintained a neutral attitude in regard to both. Eugenie’s airy disposition and love of amusement in any shape or form prevented her from finding pleasure in the company of the Princess Mathilde, whom she thought exceedingly dull, and whom she accused of fomenting the accusations which her enemies showered upon her. So long as the Empire lasted there was no sympathy between the Empress and her husband’s cousin, and it was only later, when both ladies had realised the emptiness of worldly things, that their relations became intimate and affectionate, so much so that when Mathilde Bonaparte died, it was Eugénie who watched beside her, and whose hands were the last she pressed before expiring.

The best friend that the Empress Eugénie had among the members of the Imperial Family was the Princess Anna Murat, who married the Duke of Mouchy, to the horror of all the Noailles family, and the chagrin of the Faubourg St. Germain generally. Princess Anna was one of the loveliest women of her time, though perhaps not one of the brightest. Still, she had a warm heart, a kindly disposition, and a sincere attachment for the Empress. She had very nice dignified manners, if sometimes stiff, and was perhaps the only really grande dame, with the exception of the Princess Mathilde, among the many ladies with whom Eugénie liked to surround herself.

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.

Mocquard also belonged to the few friends of Napoleon III. who had known his mother Queen Hortense, and who had devoted his life to the cause of the Bonapartes. He was one of the pleasantest men of his day, always on the alert to learn or to hear everything that could be useful to his Imperial master. Gifted with singular tact, he was able with advantage to come out of the most entangled and awkward situations. His reply to Berryer, who had written to him telling him that his political convictions prevented him from asking to be presented to the Emperor on his election to the French Academy, is well known, and proves his ability in that respect. The great advocate, in writing to Mocquard, had appealed to him as a former colleague. Napoleon’s private secretary at once responded to his request, and gave him the most courteous and most respectful reproof, in which the dignity of his Sovereign and that of the great advocate were equally taken into account.

“The Emperor,” wrote Mocquard, “regrets that M. Berryer has allowed his political leanings to get the upper hand of his duties as Academician. M. Berryer’s presence at the Tuileries would not have embarrassed His Majesty, as he seems to dread. From the height on which he finds himself raised, the Emperor would only have seen in the new Academician an orator and a writer; in to-day’s adversary, the defender of yesterday. M. Berryer is perfectly free to obey the general practice imposed by the Academy, or to follow his personal repugnances.”

A friend of Berryer, who happened to be with him when that letter reached him, related to me later that that famous ornament of the French Bar for once in his life felt embarrassed, and acknowledged his regret at thus having drawn upon himself a well deserved and tactfully administered rebuff.

When Mocquard died his place was taken by M. Conti, also a clever man, who was in possession of the post at the time I arrived in Paris. He did not succeed in gaining the confidence of the Emperor, as his predecessor had done, and I believe never felt quite at ease in his difficult position. I do not know what became of him after the fall of the Empire.

General Fleury was already Ambassador in St. Petersburg at the time of which I am speaking. He had been, and still was, one of the most intimate friends of the Emperor, but he was not liked by the Empress, whose influence he had always tried to thwart. Eugénie was delighted when he was sent on his foreign mission; she had never got used to the General: perhaps he knew too many things relating to that distant time when Mademoiselle de Montijo had never dreamt that fate held a crown in reserve for her. And then one of the Empress’s closest acquaintances, the Comtesse de Beaulaincourt, the daughter of the Marshal de Castellane, and formerly Marquise de Contades, had an undying grudge against General Fleury. It must be owned that he had not behaved altogether well in regard to her, and she used her best endeavours to harm him in the mind of the impressionable Eugénie, to whom she represented the General as one of her worst enemies. This was not the case; but Fleury had no sympathy for the Empress, and certainly did nothing to further her views or her opinions in regard to politics, as she would have liked him to do. To him is credited the most severe comment that ever was made on the subject of the marriage between the Emperor and the lovely Spaniard who had captivated his fancy; that comment was revealed to the world through the indiscretion of Madame de Contades, as she was at that time. Fleury had been asked why he objected so much to his future Sovereign: “I do not like her,” he replied, “because I feel that she will insist upon wearing her crown in her bed and her night-cap in public.” This bitter remark being repeated to the person whom it most concerned, was never forgiven by her.

Fleury, Persigny, and Morny had been the most trusted advisers of Napoleon III., but unfortunately I never had opportunity to meet any of them. With their removal from the political scene, the Empire lost its most solid supports. The ability of M. Rouher could not stave off the supreme calamity that was to cast it into the abyss; and as for M. Emile Ollivier, about whom I shall have more to say presently, he had neither the energy nor the moral courage to resist the current that went against him and that swept away a regime.

In general, when I look back upon those last two years of the Second Empire, and try to recapitulate all that I saw, I cannot find anyone, with the few exceptions already mentioned, who was really the friend of either the Emperor or the Empress. Surrounded by flatterers, admirers, courtiers, they had around them no really devoted people willing to risk anything in order to prove their affection. The Tuileries seemed to be one vast Liberty Hall, inhabited by men and women who knew very well that they had but a short time before them to enjoy the good things of this world, and whose only care was how they could escape with the most advantage from situations which all the time they felt to be shaking under their feet. Indeed, the Court reminded one of a vast cuvée out of which everybody tried to snatch some prize. It was a case of eating, drinking and being merry, but without thinking that for all these things there would one day be a reckoning.

CHAPTER III
Fontainebleau and Compiègne

Though still a young man when I was appointed to Paris—a man of thirty-two years is considered to be quite young—I had already a considerable experience of the world, and knew the society of most European capitals, having been at every European Court. I was very well able, therefore, to judge of what I saw, and to form a reliable opinion, good or bad, of the people with whom I came into contact.

I must confess at once that I arrived in France with certain prejudices against the regime, and I did not examine it at first with over-indulgent eyes. But as I grew to know the Emperor and the Empress well, many of these prejudices vanished. The kindness of the Emperor, and his boundless generosity, could not but impress favourably, and as for Eugénie, her powerful charm made one forget other sides of her character. When in their presence it was difficult to realise that they were Sovereigns, or to have the feeling, whether at the Tuileries, at Compiègne, or at Fontainebleau, that one was at a Royal Court. A mixture of formality and of gaiety without restraint was prevalent, which entirely upset one’s notions of what should constitute the atmosphere of a Court. Eugénie was an incomparable hostess, even if sometimes eccentric; Napoleon was the most thoughtful of hosts, though restless at times, and showing some impatience at different vagaries indulged in by his guests; still, though each was addressed as “Your Majesty,” it was in much the same spirit that one would have said “Monsieur” or “Madame”; deference was lacking.

In spite of the shade of Bohemianism which presided over the annual gatherings at Compiègne and at Fontainebleau, the invitations were always coveted, and with reason, for a week spent at either place was certainly most enjoyable. The autumn season generally saw the Sovereigns at Compiègne, which the Empress liked very much, and there could be met all the celebrities of modern France and a good many foreigners, whom the Imperial couple liked to encourage to visit France, and on whom they lavished every attention. They were generally asked to stay a full week, and privileged persons were sometimes invited to extend their sojourn. Life was very pleasant in this old home of the Bourbon dynasty, and the liberty left to the guests to do what they liked added to its charm. One rode, one hunted, one drove, and one flirted to one’s heart’s content, and the only thing which was asked was punctuality at meals and admiration for the beauty of the Empress.

The exceeding charm and beauty of the Empress was never more seen to advantage than in one of her country homes, where she felt more at her ease than in Paris. She used to ask privileged persons among her guests to drink tea with her in the afternoon. On these occasions she appeared at her best, talking on every subject, and discussing all the new books. She rather prided herself on being what French people call “un bel esprit,” and of caring for literature; she considered it a part of her duty ostensibly to interest herself in the literary and scientific movements of the day. She liked to make herself popular among writers and artists, of whom there was generally a good sprinkling at Compiègne. Among her favourites were Octave Feuillet, Mérimée, and Carpeaux. More than once Carpeaux implored her to allow him to carve her bust, to which, however, she would not agree. Mérimée had been a friend of her mother’s, the Countess de Montijo, and had known her as a little girl; indeed, people whispered softly that he had had a good deal to do with her elevation to the throne, having admirably advised her at that critical period of her existence when first she became the object of Napoleon’s adoration.

Mérimée was a charming man in spite of his misanthropic tendencies and his fits of bad temper, which caused him sometimes to say the rudest things imaginable, but which in reality he did not mean at all. He was, however, a privileged person, being customarily forgiven words which would not have been tolerated in anyone else. He was, perhaps, amidst the crowd which congregated in the vast halls and galleries of Compiègne, the one who judged most clearly what was going on around him, and I remember that one evening, when we were discussing the political situation, he suddenly asked me: “Et vous croyez que cela durera?” (“And you think that all this will last?”) Noticing my surprise, he did me the honour of a lengthy explanation: “You see, my friend, here in this beautiful France of ours we never look beyond the present day; we enjoy ourselves without any thought of what the morrow may bring. We have seen so many changes, so many revolutions, that we have entirely lost the feeling of stability, without which no nation can achieve really great things. In politics one must have either stability, faith in the principles which one is called upon to defend, or else enthusiasm like that felt by our troops at Marengo. Now can you imagine a spirit of enthusiasm for our master here?” And he winked in the direction of the Emperor’s private apartments. “He is good, and kind, and weak, but though the nation and the army shout ‘Vive l’Empereur’ when they see him, it is very doubtful whether they would sacrifice anything beyond the interests of their neighbours for him. And the Empress, she is as much to be pitied as she is to be envied. I am sorry to have to say so, because I am really attached to her, but what can one do! She does not realise that she is not by birth the equal of the other Queens of Europe, and there lies her great mistake. She is so beautiful that one would have worshipped at once Mademoiselle de Montijo, but the nation could not bring itself to respect the Comtesse de Téba in the same way as had she been a Princess born. Now, don’t betray me, please,” he added, “but I know that you are discreet, and, besides, who minds the sayings of that old grumbler Mérimée!”

This boutade left a deep impression on my mind at the time I heard it; it resounded like the “Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” of the Empire, uttered as it was by a man who was well known to have personally a great and sincere devotion for the fair Spaniard whom he had helped to place on the throne of France. Poor Mérimée was not destined to survive the fall of that Imperial regime of which he had been one of the strongest supporters. He died broken-hearted a few days after the disaster of Sedan, writing pathetically to one of his friends just before his end: “I have tried all my life to fight against prejudices, and to be a citizen of the world before being a Frenchman. But all these cloaks of philosophy are now of no avail to me. I bleed to-day of the same wounds as these idiots of Frenchmen, and I weep over their humiliation.”

Octave Feuillet was a great favourite of the Empress. He was a charming man, but always ill and always preoccupied with nursing his health, and his malade imaginaire. His novels were undoubtedly pretty, and created a great sensation at the time. He was the fashionable novelist of his generation, and certainly some of his works deserve to pass to posterity because of their fine observation. He was middle-class to the core, and this made him worship everything that seemed to be above him. He took himself far too much in earnest, and even carried so far his appreciation of his own merit that he wrote once or twice to the Emperor, proffering unsought his advice in political matters. Napoleon III. was far too kind to rebuff him, and sometimes even replied to him, flattering his vanity, as he was accustomed to flatter writers and journalists, in whom he saw the manufacturers of public opinion, and whom he liked to conciliate as far as possible. Octave Feuillet professed a great admiration for the Empress, and he must be given his due—he remained faithful to her after her fall. He was one of the few who went to Chislehurst to present their respects to the exiled and dethroned Sovereigns.

In violent contrast to his behaviour can be instanced that of the architect Viollet-le-Duc, who, after having been loaded with money and kindnesses by the Emperor and his Consort, turned his back upon them after the fall of the Empire, and even tried to make excuses for ever having known them. Unfortunately, he was but one of many, and bitter must have been the thoughts of Napoleon III. and Eugénie when they saw that all the good they had done, the boundless generosity they had exercised, had only made them a few more enemies among the ranks of those who owed them so much.

Carpeaux, in spite of his rudeness, was very much appreciated at Compiègne, and I often saw him there, as indeed I met also most of the illustrious Frenchmen the Empire could boast of at that time. These celebrities, and the number of pretty women who were also invited, made the gatherings unique. The members of the fair sex who were nearly always present were the Princess Metternich, the pretty Comtesse Mélanie de Pourtalès, the Marquise de Galiffet, then separated from her husband, who had already struck up that strange friendship with the Princesse de Sagan, née Seillères, which gave rise to so much talk later on. Mme. de Galiffet was one of the loveliest women of the Imperial Court, and certainly the one who knew the best how to dress. She was an élégante before everything else, and I believe cared even more for her dresses than for her lovers. Her relations with General Galiffet were most strange. They used to meet sometimes in society, and he was always most polite towards her; it was even said that the warmest admirer the Marquise de Galiffet had ever had was her husband. This did not prevent them never agreeing upon any subject save one, and that, it was rumoured, reunited them sometimes, not under the same roof, but under the same tent, as the Marquise de Caux once said with more wit than kindness.

Another habitué of Compiègne was the Baronne de Poilly. She was a daring horsewoman, an eccentric character, full of brusquerie and kindness, but not liked, and very much talked about. She was, with the Comtesse de Beaulaincourt, ex-Marquise de Contades, one of the most dreaded persons in the whole of Paris society.

Speaking of Madame de Beaulaincourt reminds me of various episodes in that lady’s career, which set me wondering how the strict Faubourg St. Germain, as well as the frivolous society of the Second Empire, could have taken her to their hearts in the way they did. She was bad for badness’ sake, as unsparing in her words as in her judgments; always on the look out for something evil to do, or something unpleasant to say. Full of wit with it all, this last circumstance only made her the more dangerous. She was a rare example of a vicious woman who had no charitable instincts; it seemed as if she condemned others the more bitterly because she knew that there was needing much pardon in herself. Nevertheless, Madame de Beaulaincourt was one of the most remarkable personalities at the Court of the Emperor Napoleon III., and as such she deserves to be remembered.

The members of the Cabinet and their wives were generally asked to Compiègne in turn. At Fontainebleau, where the Court used to spend the summer months, this was rarely the case. St. Cloud was too near Paris to be really pleasant as a summer residence. Fontainebleau was quite in the country, and its lovely forest afforded many opportunities for riding, driving, or hunting, which appealed to Eugénie’s tastes. There she used to live a family life free from the restraints of the Court, with the guests whom she asked to share her villégiature. At Fontainebleau, too, the Emperor, always a great stickler for etiquette, allowed it to be relaxed, considering his stay there as a kind of holiday. He was more often in the company of his guests than at Compiègne, and his presence was very much appreciated. When he liked, Napoleon III. could be a charming man and an interesting talker, but it was not often that he allowed himself to become expansive.

Life at Fontainebleau as well as at Compiègne was almost uniform in its round of gaieties. The company assembled for breakfast at noon, after which the guests followed their own inclinations during the afternoon. A few privileged ones, however, were asked to drive or walk with the Empress, and afterwards to have tea with her. All guests enjoyed perfect liberty, but this did not prevent them from watching their neighbours to find out their little weaknesses, for gossip was rife both at Compiègne and at Fontainebleau, and many unpleasant rumours concerning the Emperor and the Empress were started there. The manners and customs that prevailed among the recipients of the Imperial hospitality were publicly criticised, the feeling being that it would certainly have been better had more discrimination been exercised. There was little dignity though much ceremony during these “series,” as they used to be called, and the extreme liberty granted was the source of all kinds of unmerited rumours concerning what happened in those vast halls. Somehow it savoured of desecration to see the gay company of careless men and fashionable women who thronged Fontainebleau without giving a thought to the great events which its walls had witnessed.

One evening at Fontainebleau, after the rest of the world had retired, I was returning late to my bedroom from an enjoyable stroll in the lovely park. There was a beautiful moon, and it lit up the old castle of François I., with its many turrets, its old gables, its whole aspect speaking of the grandeur of many ages. I thought myself the only one to indulge in such an eccentricity, when suddenly I came face to face with the Chevalier Nigra, then one of the great admirers of the Empress, and a general favourite both at Court and in Society. Chevalier Nigra had been the private secretary of Count de Cavour, and was considered one of the stars of Italian diplomacy. He professed the greatest devotion for Eugénie, knew exactly how to flatter her and thus to glean information as to what was going on in the French Cabinet. More clever than lovely Madame de Castiglione, who thought that one of her glances was sufficient to keep the Emperor enchained to her chariot, Nigra did not attempt to play the lover, but rather the worshipper of the Empress, whom he used to tell he had set upon a shrine whence he hoped she would condescend from time to time to smile upon him. He had all the subtlety of the Italian, and had read, and, what is better, thoroughly digested and understood, the philosophy expressed by Machiavelli in his works. He was an ardent patriot, and when he accepted the appointment to Paris it was with the firm intention of using his best endeavours to bring about the completion and recognition of Italian unity.

Nigra was an extremely pleasant man, with a sufficient tincture of cynicism to make him amiable without being aggressive. He rarely spoke the truth, and never said what he thought; but he had the talent of convincing people of his entire sincerity. A keen observer, he had judged better than any of his colleagues the frailty of the Imperial regime, and was only watching for the moment when the house of cards should collapse. On the evening I am referring to he was smoking a big cigar and walking slowly in the flower-garden which stretched in front of the private apartments of the palace, enjoying the scent of the roses, and from time to time raising his eyes towards the only row of windows still showing a light amidst the darkness that enveloped the venerable pile.

When he saw me, he pointed upwards with his finger to these windows, saying at the same time:

“She is not sleeping; she is always the last one to go to rest.”

“I wonder what she is doing so late,” I replied.

“Thinking about her dresses, or the last sermon she has listened to,” was the remark of Nigra. “How little the Empress understands her situation.”

“She gathers her roses whilst she can,” was my reply.

“Yes,” retorted the Italian diplomatist, “and perhaps she does the best thing under the circumstances; all this cannot last.”

“You do not believe in the durability of the Empire?” I asked him.

“No,” was the reply. “I do not believe in it at all. The Italian question will overthrow it sooner than one thinks.”

“You do not admit the possibility of a war between Italy and France on the subject of the integrity of the Holy See?” I inquired.

“Certainly I don’t,” said Nigra, “but I know one thing; the Emperor has no likelihood of keeping his crown, or of passing it to his son, unless he makes up his mind to fulfil the promises which he gave, perhaps in an unguarded moment, and without thinking of the consequences, but which he gave all the same. This hesitation of his has not only entirely destroyed his popularity in Italy, but it has also thrown Italian politicians into the arms of his foes. You see, we cannot prevent the natural course of events taking place; the supremacy of the Pope has had its day, and the Bourbons also have achieved their destiny. Italy, if she is to be regenerated, can only be so under the sway of an Italian dynasty. The Bourbons are not Italians; they are French, with a large admixture of Austrian blood, and their temperament is distinctly hostile to that of the Italian people. The House of Savoy, on the other hand, has everything that appeals to the mind and to the imagination of my country; it will welcome Victor Emmanuel with joy wherever he may appear. You must not forget, either, a thing of which people generally lose sight: Italians are superstitious; they are not at all religious, and they more or less look upon the Pope in the same light as they do the small princes and dukes who have ruled them for so long. Temporal Power has far more prestige abroad than is the case with us, and Italians will only feel wrathful against those who may try to force it upon them. The people of Italy instinctively guess that the Emperor is afraid to go against the popular feeling in France, and that he will at a given moment refuse to help their ambitions if he finds that they clash with his own personal interests. That is where he makes his mistake,” continued Nigra, who had become excited, a rare thing with him; “that is where he makes his mistake. If he upheld our national ambitions he would find us at his side when his hour of peril will strike, whereas now we shall merely look on and do what he did in 1859—seek our own advantage, heedless of the danger in which he may find himself placed.”

I looked at him attentively.

“So you believe that this hour of danger is fast approaching?” I asked.

“Of course it is,” was the reply; “its warning rang long ago, after Sadowa, and when the bullets of Juarez struck the breast of Maximilian at Queretaro. It is only blind people, blinded by vanity, like those who are in power here, who do not see the menace that the armaments of Prussia constitute for the whole of Europe.”

“You do not believe in the readiness of the French army in case of a war?” I asked.

“Do you?” retorted Nigra.

I remained silent.

“No, I do not believe in it,” he went on slowly, “the army is not capable of strong resistance to a well disciplined foe. How can an army be so in a country where politics are paramount? You see there is no real patriotism in France, there is only chauvinism, and that is not quite the same thing. The Frenchman will not admit that he can be conquered by anyone. Why, we have seen it at Solferino, where our troops fought desperately, and were not even thanked by the Emperor, whose soldiers could never have held out alone against the shock of the Austrian regiments. When we came up and decided the fate of the battle they were already giving way. You must not forget one thing, the French soldier gets discouraged at his first reverse, and most certainly the fate of the next campaign will be decided in its very first days.

“The Emperor also is no longer what he once was,” went on Nigra; “he is ill, broken down, either by disease or by worry, he has lost very much of his former elasticity, and is more than ever undecided in the resolutions he is called upon to make. The Empress, on the other hand, believes herself to possess political ability, and is encouraged therein by people who see a source of advantage for them in a Regency over which she would be called upon to preside. The death of the Emperor, which ten years ago would have been regarded in the light of a calamity, not only for France but for Europe, is no longer dreaded, because the feeling is that he has survived himself, that his lucky star has left him. The convinced Bonapartists think that a Liberal Empire is an anachronism; but the Emperor, who was always more or less a conspirator, dreams, on the contrary, of establishing his dynasty on new lines, in which his strong sympathies towards Liberalism will take the upper hand. When once his entourage realise this fact, which so far they do not yet suspect, they will do their best to bring matters to a crisis, and by means of a foreign war divert Napoleon’s mind from his present intentions. And that war——”

He stopped and looked at me significantly.

“That war won’t find Italy the ally of France,” I remarked.

“Certainly not, because there would be no necessity for it. Why should we lose either men or money when nothing could be gained by it? What we want is Rome, and Rome we shall get all the same, whether Napoleon allows it or not. One cannot stop the evolution of history.”

“But she—what will she do?” I asked, pointing up to the windows we had been looking at a few moments before, when, as if in reply to my question, the light suddenly went out.

Nigra shrugged his shoulders, as if this matter did not concern him at all.

“She will never resign herself to her fall, should such a thing occur,” I remarked.

“Oh yes, she will do so,” was the answer. “She will not even attempt to fight against her fate should it prove inimical to her,” he concluded philosophically.

It was during the last time the Imperial Court was at Fontainebleau that this remarkable conversation took place, and it impressed me so much that I noted it down at once when I reached my room. I was to think about it more than once subsequently, and many years later, meeting Count Nigra, as he had become then, in St. Petersburg, where he had been appointed Italian Ambassador, I reminded him of it, and asked him to tell me what had really been the conduct of the Empress Eugénie on that fateful 4th of September when he and Prince Metternich urged her to fly before the revolutionaries.

“She did exactly what I told you that night at Fontainebleau,” replied Nigra; “she declared that she would not go against the wishes of the country, and that, since it wanted her to leave Paris, she would do so. Mind, she knew nothing as to whether this was true or not; no one had told her that the country wanted her to go, one had simply drawn her attention to the fact that her life was in danger, and she believed it at once. Metternich at one moment asked her whether she would not take a few things with her, but she replied that it was not necessary, and she left the Tuileries without even taking a pocket handkerchief.”

CHAPTER IV
Political Men of the Time

I became very well acquainted with both M. Rouher and M. Emile Ollivier. The latter inspired me with warm feelings of friendship. He was essentially an honest man, and his mistakes were more the faults of others than his own. He never had the opportunity really to show of what stuff he was made. Though possessed of the best intentions in the world, he was always misunderstood and suspected, even by the very people who should have had confidence in him and in his sense of justice and impartiality.

When he was called upon to form a Cabinet he was met by the antagonism of the Empress, who did not approve of the new trend in politics, which had replaced the one inaugurated at the coup d’état. She hated the idea of the slightest diminution in the Imperial power and prestige. She did not believe in the necessity of concessions to public opinion, and she was deeply incensed to find that her ideas on the subject were not shared by her husband, who was more or less under the influence of his new Prime Minister. Eugénie, who was superstitious, declared to her friends that she had the feeling when she spoke with Emile Ollivier that he was going to be fatal to her.

The fact is that fate went against the new Prime Minister. M. Ollivier had hardly been in power when occurred an event almost forgotten to-day, but which was to sound the first knell of the Empire. Prince Pierre Bonaparte shot Victor Noir.

Till that fatal day very few people knew anything about Prince Pierre. He was a distant cousin of the Emperor, with whom his relations had never been either affectionate or even friendly. He was the black sheep of a family which at that time could ill afford a setback, and his political opinions, coupled with an irregular connection with a person belonging to an inferior class, and whom he was ultimately to make his wife, had led to his disgrace by the head of his house. Napoleon III. ignored the existence of this inconvenient kinsman, who lived in a little house at Auteuil.

Prince Pierre was a true Corsican in character: violent, and given to strong fits of passion. He professed, together with most Radical political opinions and strong Republican sympathies, an immense worship for the memory of his great ancestor, the first Napoleon, and a great respect for the family traditions of the Bonapartes. And when one day, in a small newspaper edited at Bastia, he chanced across a very vile attack on the family, he got into a rage, and replied to it in the same paper by an equally virulent attack directed against the author.

The matter did not end there, for very soon the Parisian press took part, and the occasion was used by the enemies of the Imperial regime in order to air their grievances against it. At last one of the editors of an opposition paper called La Revanche, M. Paschal Grousset, who later on was to acquire a sorry celebrity during the excesses of the Commune, sent two of his friends to Prince Pierre, to request him either to apologise in person or else to fight.

What happened during the interview no one will ever know. The versions given by the Prince and that of M. Ulric de Fonville, who together with Victor Noir had called at Auteuil at the request of Paschal Grousset, differ entirely as to what passed. The result, however, was the murder of Noir by the cousin of Napoleon III.

This event, occurring as it did at a moment when the Empire was being attacked on all sides and already tottering, added considerably to the difficulties under which the Emperor was labouring. Unfortunately, neither he nor his responsible advisers calculated its consequences. Instead of following the advice given by M. Rouher, who was of opinion that Prince Pierre should have been imprisoned in a fortress until his crime had been forgotten by the public, Napoleon III. decided to have his cousin tried by a special court which assembled at Tours. The court acquitted the accused, which only added to the general exasperation against the government. M. Ollivier was reproached with having lent himself to a travesty of justice, in order to shield a relative of the Sovereign from a justly deserved punishment, and was accused by his former friends and followers of allowing himself to fall under the influence of the Court.

This was gall and wormwood to that sincere politician, and the bitterness which resulted on both sides made the head of the Cabinet lose that calmness which, more than anyone else, he required in the difficult task that lay before him.

As to Prince Pierre, the cause of all this perturbation, he left France after his acquittal, settled in Brussels, and after the fall of the Empire married the mother of his children, and spent his life in comparative poverty until the marriage of his son Roland Bonaparte with the youngest daughter of the celebrated Blanc, of Monaco fame, which brought back financial prosperity to that branch of the family. He did not enjoy it long, because he died a few months later, and was followed very quickly to the grave by his young daughter-in-law. His widow, the washerwoman whose introduction into his family Napoleon III. had deeply resented, went on living with her son Roland, devoting herself to him and to his baby daughter. She never could learn what manners were, but she was kind-hearted in spite of her vulgarity, and did good in every way she could. Prince Roland, on his side, had the tact never to be ashamed of the humble origin of his mother, to surround her always with the greatest respect, and to treat her with the most tender affection. She did the honours of his house as well as she could, and unfortunately for her, died before the marriage of her granddaughter, the Princess Marie Bonaparte, with Prince George of Greece, an event which, had she only lived long enough to witness it, would have proved the supreme happiness of her life.

This digression has led me far away from M. Emile Ollivier. I had the opportunity to see him on the day following the acquittal of Prince Pierre Bonaparte, and was surprised to find him considerably irritated against M. Rouher, whom he accused of trying to influence the Emperor in a direction contrary to the resolutions which the Sovereign had taken in conjunction with Ollivier himself. He seemed as if he wanted to find someone on whom he might vent his anger at his own mistakes. A phrase which he uttered on that day, but to which I did not pay any attention at the moment, struck me later on as the expression of a desire to regain a popularity he had lost:

“Il nous faut maintenant à tout prix regagner notre popularité” (“We must now at all costs win back our popularity”).

It was immediately after these troubled days that the important question of the Plebiscite was raised. It was violently opposed by M. Thiers and his followers, and also by several of the Emperor’s personal friends, who dreaded what it might mean to him. Even when its result ratified the country’s confidence in the Empire and in the Emperor, they were not inspired with any greater confidence in the future. I remember that at a dinner which took place at the house of Marshal Canrobert and at which I was present, M. Rouher, who was among the guests, remarked sadly that there was nothing to be so very proud of in the results of the Plebiscite, because Paris had proved by its vote that it was distinctly hostile to the Government. “Et c’est Paris qui fait les révolutions et renverse les gouvernements” (“And it is Paris which makes revolutions and upsets governments”), he concluded with a sigh.

Without being on intimate terms with him, I liked M. Rouher exceedingly. For one thing, he was really the Emperor’s friend, and for another, when all is said and done, he was a statesman. It is not to be denied that he was ambitious and liked power for power’s sake. He did not care so much for the welfare of France as he did for that of the Bonaparte dynasty, but he had a clear apprehension of all the political necessities of the moment, and saw farther than those who were listened to with greater attention than himself. He did not perhaps like the Empress very much, but he remained faithful to her, and out of respect for the place which she occupied and the crown which she wore, always tried to uphold her prestige. He loved Napoleon III. truly and sincerely, and always gave him disinterested advice. Like all strong men he had enemies, and like all sincere people he was accused of dissimulation and intrigue by those who did not understand that to tell the truth is sometimes the best way not to be believed.

He has been accused of having gathered immense riches whilst he was in power. I can testify that this has not been the case by far, and that when the “Second Emperor,” as he was sometimes called, died, he was comparatively a poor man.

Socially, M. Rouher was charming, and his conversation was most enjoyable. He had what French people call “le mot pour rire,” as well as a marvellous skill for parrying questions addressed to him, and replying without answering anything. He had dignity, and gave constant proofs of it in his presidency of the Senate, where he displayed the rarest qualities of tact and skill.

Talking of tact, leads me to say a few words respecting a personage who, to his own misfortune, as well as to that of other people, did not know the significance of that word. It is of Prince Napoleon, Prince Plon Plon, as the Prussians called him, that I am thinking.

This first cousin of the Emperor was certainly a remarkable personage, and undoubtedly a most clever man. But evidently, also, a bad fairy had presided at his birth, and blighted with her magic wand all the great qualities with which nature had endowed him. His was essentially a restless nature, incapable of contentment, even when it had what it wanted. Had he been Emperor he would have lived in opposition to himself, faute de mieux. Of ambition he had a lot; of desires and passions even more, but he lacked an evenly balanced mind, and that most essential of all qualities, submission before accomplished facts and the things that human will cannot change. His intelligence was sharp, bright, and clear; he was capable of resolution, and had initiative in his character. He was gifted with rare eloquence, and, possessing also an easy pen, wrote pages that great writers would have felt proud to sign. He was brilliant, too, in conversation, and to all these talents he added qualities that, joined with the prestige of his name, and of his position, might have called him to great destinies, could he but have learned how to use them. His existence was essentially one aptly described by the French expression “une vie manquée,” and he was his own worst enemy. Always in opposition to his cousin he succeeded in rousing in revolt against himself not only the advisers of the Crown, but also the Emperor, and especially the Empress. Eugénie, with whom he had been ardently in love when she was still Mademoiselle de Montijo, was the object of his especial animosity later on, and he never lost an opportunity of displaying it, forgetting even that she was a lady, and that he should have shown himself a gentleman in his behaviour towards her. Among the survivors of the time none will have forgotten the scandal he caused at Compiègne when he refused to propose the health of the Empress on the day of St. Eugénie, when the Emperor asked him to do so. On that occasion as on many others, he quite lost sight of the politeness which a Sovereign and a woman has the right to expect, even from her worst enemies.

Prince Napoleon was all his life in opposition to somebody or something, and by poetic justice before his death he was to experience the sorrow of finding his own son oppose him and his principles. Deception dogged his footsteps, disappointment seemed to pursue him, for which he himself was partly responsible, and partly the victim of circumstances. He is more to be pitied than anything else. His life seemed to be spent in seeing withdrawn from his lips the cup that a wicked fairy kept presenting to him in order to tempt him with its contents.

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.

I must say, when I look back on this period which preceded the war, that a general uneasiness had pervaded the public mind ever since the constitution of the Ministry presided over by Emile Ollivier. No one trusted it, even among the personal friends of its head, and as a very clever woman, the Vicomtesse de Janzé, now Princesse de Lucinge, said at the time: “Its enemies do not trust it, and its supporters do not like it.” The words were cruel, but very true.

The last twelve months of the Empire’s existence saw vanish from the political, and indeed from this earthly scene, three men who had once played a considerable part in the world, and whose names are remembered to this day: Montalembert, Berryer, and Lamartine. I never saw Lamartine, but had the honour to know Montalembert well, and to have been received often by Berryer, whose great figure considerably impressed me. It was impossible to feel for him anything else but the deepest, the most sincere respect. He was an admirable example of fidelity to principles, of convictions that the vicissitudes of life cannot change, and that even the errors of those who represent them cannot weaken. He died as he had lived, a Legitimist, believing in the divine right of kings, and determined to uphold his ideals to the end. Throughout his career he retained a wide sympathy in his estimates of men and of things, and an indulgence for the imperfections of those with whom he came into contact. Though he would permit no compromise with his own conscience, he realised very well that other people were different, and that he must make allowances. Though very disdainful, he was not vindictive in his old age, whatever he might have been in his youth, and the admirable serenity which pervaded all his judgments and opinions reminded me very often of the beautiful sunset of a beautiful day.

Montalembert, though broken by illness more than by old age, had, nevertheless, kept some of that brilliant and caustic wit for which he had been famous, and which had amused me so much when I first saw him in the early ’sixties. He was of that school of French Catholics who had never been able to shake off the influence of Lamennais, and to whom the exuberance of men like Veuillot was simply insufferable. The question of the Papal infallibility, which had been submitted by Pius IX. to the Vatican Council just before his death, had been the last great preoccupation of Montalembert, who could not reconcile himself to what, in his eyes, was a disastrous measure. His religion was of the broadest, and in his last years he looked at things with less partisan enthusiasm, and more clearness of judgment. I believe that in his inmost heart he regretted sometimes having violently separated himself from Lamennais, with whom he had worked on the famous paper L’Avenir. He never owned it, however; he always said that intentions were what must be considered and thought of, and that it was by their intentions, more than by their actions, that people ought to be judged. In his way Charles de Montalembert was just as great a figure as Berryer, whom he only survived by a few months.

As for Lamartine, his death brought back to the public mind all the events which had preceded the proclamation of the Second Empire, and that period during which he had been at the head of the Republic, whose triumph he was not destined to see. Cruel material losses had reduced him almost to penury, and his only means of existence was a pension which, unknown to many, he received from the private purse of the Emperor, who had had the delicacy to extend it to him in such a way that the poor poet never knew to whom he owed the gift.

This reminds me of one of the nicest remarks that Napoleon III. ever made in his life. When he was asked why he insisted so much on Lamartine never learning who was his secret benefactor, the Emperor replied that “France owed so much to M. de Lamartine, that it would be a great shame if he was made to feel he had need to be grateful to its Sovereign.”

The year 1869 had come to an end under a cloud, which even the Empress’s triumphs in Egypt and at Constantinople had not brightened. Napoleon III. was worried, not only by the political situation, but also by the state of his health. Notwithstanding the absence of his Consort he invited people to Compiègne as usual, and there several persons besides myself noticed that he looked ill and tired, and that his eyes had an anxious expression which had never been observable before. He showed himself even more affectionate than usual towards his son, and was heard sometimes to sigh whilst watching him. Nevertheless, no one suspected that anything was radically wrong, and not a single man or woman among those who were gathered in the Castle thought that it was the last time that they would be the guests of the Sovereign who welcomed them with such kindness and affability. Among all those who passed their hours in amusement in the Salle des Gardes, or in the long gallery where meals were served, not one recognised that a hand was already writing on the wall the same fatal words that appeared during the Babylonian monarch’s last banquet.

CHAPTER V
Before the Storm

When the news of the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne reached me, together with a letter from my Ambassador urging my return to Paris, I was staying in a little village on the coast of Normandy. Though I started at once for the capital, I could hardly bring myself to believe in the possibility of a war between France and Prussia. The thing appeared to me to be quite impossible, especially in view of a conversation I had had with the Emperor immediately after the results of the Plebiscite of May, 1870, had become known. I had ventured to offer to the Sovereign my congratulations upon the new triumph he had obtained. Napoleon III. seemed also delighted, and though it was most unusual for him to be demonstrative, yet he did not, on that occasion, attempt to hide what he was feeling, going so far as to tell me that the results of the Plebiscite in his opinion “had not only consolidated the dynasty, but also had done away with the legend that represented him as desirous of a foreign war in order to add to his prestige.” “No one can say so at present,” added the Emperor, “because, after France has so positively affirmed its allegiance to the Empire, it would be madness for me to risk losing popularity through a war which, even if victorious, would always materially impoverish the country.”

Napoleon III. did not seem to have noticed that M. Rouher had at once observed that the vote of Paris had been distinctly hostile to him, and that as things were organised, it was Paris which overthrew dynasties and governments.

But that wisdom which is born of attentive observation of the events of the world, as well as of outward and sometimes insignificant circumstances that lead on to their development, seemed to be absent from the thoughts of the principal politicians who, at that particular moment of her history, held in their hands the destinies of France. Neither the Emperor nor his responsible advisers saw farther than the victory of the moment, and they all rejoiced together at the new triumph which they had won for themselves, as well as for the party which they represented.

A few days after the Plebiscite, I happened to be calling on a social celebrity, the Countess de Castiglione, about whom so much has been written and said. Nature had been generous to her in many ways, but she was not destined to keep her fairness much longer than a rose its freshness. At the time of which I am speaking, she had barely reached her thirtieth year, and was already the ghost of her former self. I don’t think I have ever met a woman who faded so quickly; I have often thought about it, and come to the conclusion that her beauty was so dazzling that it obliterated the imperfections it possessed, just as the Neapolitan or Sicilian sun prevents us from noticing aught else but the brilliance of the places it lights up with its rays. At the first glance, her loveliness literally took one’s breath away, as it did mine the first time I saw her in 1868, when already she was going down hill. I can therefore imagine what she must have been at the time she first startled Paris by her glorious complexion and extraordinary beauty, and conquered the senses if not the heart of the Emperor.

Madame de Castiglione, without being the very clever woman she has been represented by some, nor the stupid one she has been described by others, was possessed of an intelligence that was certainly above the average, but completely spoiled, her severe critics said, by an inordinate vanity, which prostrated her at the feet of her own beauty, and made everything in her life subservient to it. She firmly believed that she had only to show herself to conquer, and in a certain sense it was quite true, until the numerous victims of her charms learned to know her well. She had been sent to France by her cousin, the great Cavour, with a mission to influence Napoleon III. in favour of the cause of Italian independence. In a certain sense she succeeded, though much of her success can be attributed to the personal sympathies of the Emperor as well as to the rash promises of which had been so generous in regard to the various secret societies and associations with which he had been connected in his youth. But he was a master in the art of flattery, and it pleased his fancy to allow the young and lovely woman to think that she, and she alone, had been the means of Italy attaining her liberty. Madame de Castiglione thereafter took herself au sérieux, and believed she was a political heroine.

Later on, however, clouds came to obscure the horizon of her successes; the sensation caused by the lovely Italian very soon vanished, and though she was talked about a great deal in society, though painters still raved about her, and old men devoured her with their eyes, whilst young ones sighed at her feet, though women grew green with envy when they saw her enter a room, certain it is that her success was neither a long nor a permanent one. As a dream she flitted through that brilliant, frivolous society of the Second Empire, and as a dream she vanished into the darkness of the night that overtook it.

The curious thing in the career of Madame de Castiglione was the way in which she used to come and go, the eclipses her personality underwent, and the notoriety that, now and then, arose in regard to her. There had been a day when she was asked to leave France altogether, but then she very soon returned to it, more arrogant, more haughty, more than ever ardent in resuming a political rôle. But she did not like Napoleon III., whom, perhaps, she did not forgive for the light-heartedness with which, after all, he had treated her. Though she would never have owned to it, she knew in her inmost heart that he had taken her as he would have taken any other pretty woman weak enough to have been dazzled. Madame de Castiglione was then in the glory of her youth and beauty, and she may well be forgiven. Principles she had few, religion and morals still less, or she would not, upon more occasions than one, have forgotten the great name she bore, or the high social position she enjoyed, and accepted, for instance, the banknotes of Lord Hertford, and of many others.

A curious trait in that celebrated woman’s character was her pride in what others generally hid from the eyes of the world. A characteristic anecdote can be told on this subject. One day, as one of the very few friends she had left was talking with her of that period of the Empire when she had been its brightest star, suddenly Madame de Castiglione exclaimed: “I shall take care that even after I am dead the world shall know how great I was whilst it lasted”; and with a cynicism such as she alone would have been capable of, she rang the bell, and turning towards the maid who had appeared in answer to it, “Luisa,” she said, “montrez à Monsieur, la chemise de nuit de Compiègne.” And when an elaborate garment all batiste and lace was brought to her, she added: “I shall leave instructions to bury it with me.”

To come back to what I was saying at the beginning of this chapter, I had called upon Madame de Castiglione just after the Plebiscite, and naturally the conversation turned towards that event. The Countess listened very seriously to all the remarks exchanged between the two or three people who were present in the room, and at last surprised us considerably by saying: “You are all mistaken; the Plebiscite will not consolidate the dynasty. Up to now neither Italy nor Prussia thought that it could maintain itself à la longue in France, where it was firmly believed that no political regime was able to last beyond a few years. The results of the Plebiscite have proved that this conviction was an erroneous one; and the consequences will be that both these nations will use their best endeavours to inveigle the Emperor into a war. It is very well known that France is unprepared. Such an event will naturally throw her back into a state of revolution, and for a time will wipe her off the European slate.”

No reply was made to this extraordinary remark, but when we went out together with Alphonse Rothschild, who had been one of those who had heard her, he turned to me and said with the clear insight of a financier, combined with the cleverness of a diplomat and his experience of the world: “How that woman hates the Emperor.”

And now as I was hastening back to Paris on that July day of the year 1870, I remembered both the remark of the Baron and the tone of animosity with which the Countess de Castiglione had spoken on that occasion, and something like apprehension suddenly seized me, apprehension I did not know of what, but of a danger which I felt rather than saw, swooping down upon this brilliant society of the Second Empire, which I had grown to like so much and so well.

I reached Paris late in the evening of July the 16th, twenty-four hours after war had been declared, and was struck by the extraordinary aspect of the people who crowded the boulevards. Much to my surprise they were singing the forbidden Marseillaise, and altogether they presented an excited appearance. The cafés were full, and from time to time someone would stand up, and scream loudly: “À Berlin!” whereupon the mob took up that cry, and vociferated in its turn, “À Berlin! À Berlin!” All Paris seemed to have gone mad, but already, in spite of what has been said to the contrary, remarks were heard hostile to the Emperor and to the government, who, it was said, had not soon enough tried to avenge the insult which France had received, but had done their best to prevent the outbreak of a war which, as someone remarked in my presence that same evening, “was indispensable to the dignity and the greatness of the country.” To attempt reasoning with such folly was out of the question. I stopped the cab which had brought me from the station, and, alighting near one of the cafés on the boulevards, sat down under the pretext of having something to drink, but in reality to observe the scenes that were taking place. All the windows and balconies were full of people looking down in the street below, and watching the movement of the crowd, listening to its warlike cries. And later, when the theatres were over, the boulevards seemed to fill even more than they had been before. Women appeared wearing the national colours, and above the noise, the shouts, the movements of that great agglomeration of human beings, resounded again one great acclamation, one immense cry: “À Berlin! À Berlin!”

When at last I reached our Embassy, I found that consternation prevailed; not at the war, though everybody agreed that anything more foolish than the circumstances that had led to it had never been seen, but at the weakness displayed by the government, which certainly ought to have checked that exuberance of public opinion, and prevented manifestations that at any moment might turn against itself. Then surprise was expressed at the disorderly attitude displayed by the troops when starting for the frontier, as already one or two regiments had done that morning. No one ventured to make a prediction as to what the future was holding in reserve, but serious apprehensions were entertained concerning the ultimate fate of the Emperor and of his dynasty.

That last feeling was very general, and I found it prevailed among all the foreigners then at Paris. Two or three days after my return to the capital, I called upon an old friend of mine, Madame Jules Lacroix, an extraordinary old woman, a Russian by birth, whose sister was the widow of the novelist Balzac, and who had made her home in France ever since her marriage with M. Lacroix, the brother of the famous novelist known under the pseudonym of “Bibliophile Jacob.” Madame Lacroix presided over one of the pleasantest salons of the time; within its walls one was always sure to meet some important and interesting persons. She had been a great friend of Morny, and though her family had been Legitimists—she used to boast of her alliances with the Bourbons through Queen Marie Leszczinska, her aunt many times removed—all her sympathies were with the Napoleonic dynasty. She possessed a villa in St. Germain, where she used to spend her summers, and was there at the time the war broke out. I went to dine with her in the endeavour to find out something about the events that had brought about the present crisis.

Madame Lacroix received me with effusion, and talked of little else than the war, and of the consequences it would have. To my great surprise, however, I did not find her by any means so enthusiastic as I had expected, rather she was subdued and anxious. She related to me that her great friend General Castelnau, one of the aides-de-camp of the Emperor, who was later on to share his captivity, did not look at the situation with over-confident eyes, and that he had given her to understand that he had some apprehensions as to the ability of the army to come out victorious from the struggle it was about to enter.

“The Emperor is more ill than one supposes,” added Madame Lacroix, “and should his strength fail him, who can take his place at the head of the army? Indeed, it would be far better if he did not attempt at all to lead it, because his presence in Paris will be more necessary than at the frontier. Suppose a revolution breaks out here, who is to confront it? The Empress is too unpopular through her clerical leanings to inspire confidence in a nation that has lost every respect for priests and their protectors.”

Several episodes were then related concerning the deliberations which had taken place at St. Cloud during the momentous days before the solemn question of war or peace had been decided. It seems that when the first telegrams from Berlin announcing the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne had arrived in Paris, the Duke de Gramont had immediately sent them to the Emperor, though it was in the middle of the night, and that in a long conversation which he had subsequently held with his Sovereign, he had insisted on the affront such a candidature represented for France. Why it was an affront probably the Duke himself could not have properly explained.

On the contrary, the Empress, who was afterwards to be represented as having done all that was in her power to decide Napoleon to declare war against Prussia, had been far from urging him to it, if we are to believe what I heard on that day at Madame Lacroix’s. It seems that when it was found to be impossible to resist the public clamour for revenge against this insolence of Prussia, as the chauvinists, who held the upper hand at that moment, were pleased to call the Hohenzollern candidature, the Empress was very much upset, and to General Castelnau, who saw her come out from her room with red eyes and in great agitation, she said that she felt very anxious and very much afraid at the responsibility that was to become hers when she would be left as Regent alone in Paris. The General then advised her not to allow the Prince Imperial to accompany his father to the frontier, upon which she exclaimed: “Oh! I can’t keep him here, he will be much safer amidst the army than with me!” Singular remark for a mother to make.

Altogether it seems to me, from what I had opportunity to hear, that at this crisis of her life Eugénie entirely lost her head, and that from its very outset allowed outward circumstances and impressions to obscure her clear judgment. I have been told that she was extremely superstitious, and firmly believed that what she once described in one of her conversations with an intimate friend as “the obstinacy” of the Emperor in not imposing the weight of his authority upon King Victor Emmanuel, to oblige him to abandon his secret ambitions to annex to his crown the territory of the Holy See, would prove fatal to him as well as to the Bonaparte dynasty. She was a fervent and devout Catholic and, in addition to her misgivings as to the future, feared the wrath of God.

I was not present when the Emperor left St. Cloud and looked for the last time on his home of so many happy years, but I am told that nothing could be sadder than this departure, so very different from that other occasion, some ten years before, when, amidst the hurrahs of the Parisian population, he had started for the Italian frontier to take part in a struggle the end of which had been so glorious. And yet the present war was a great deal more popular than had been that of 1859. Not only was it desired, but almost imposed on the Sovereign, by a nation who would never have forgiven him had he not acceded to her wishes. And yet, when Napoleon took leave of his wife, his Ministers, and the members of his household, on that eventful 28th of July, though few eyes were dry in bidding him good-bye, the country over which he had ruled for eighteen years did not unite in wishing him God-speed. On the eve of the greatest catastrophe of modern times, an atmosphere of foreboding was already making itself felt in the sadness of that early departure.

When the Sovereign had gone, a period of anxious waiting ensued. Paris got wilder and wilder, became more and more riotous. One of the Empress’s familiar friends called upon her one day at St. Cloud, before she had left that residence to return to the capital, and thought it his duty to draw her attention to that fact, and to express to her his apprehensions that the excitement might have serious consequences should any reverse happen to the army. She replied with vivacity: “Oh, not only in case of reverse, also in case of victory, the nation only wants a pretext to get rid of us.”

These words are remarkable, and, so far as I know, no one had voiced such sentiments before; they reveal on the part of the Regent a state of discouragement which explains, perhaps, her total collapse when the dreaded crisis at last occurred; maybe it was this belief which led to the indifference with which she submitted to a destiny which she had accepted as foreordained, and against which she had recognised the utter futility of rebelling.

She was leading a feverish existence, which left her little time to think over her difficult position, or to make plans concerning her own future. After having tried to imbibe the enthusiasm with which she was told the declaration of war against Prussia had been received in the whole of France, she was now realising how little grounds there had been for it. Before even the earliest news of the first disasters of this deplorable campaign had been brought to her, she had prepared herself for the worst, and believed in the worst, though when that worst came it was to surpass all that she had most dreaded or imagined.

Before she decided to leave St. Cloud, she went for a walk in the park with one of her ladies in waiting. On the last evening she gave way to the apprehensions that were torturing her soul. The sun was setting after a glorious day, and the Imperial residence had never seemed so beautiful, nor so peaceful; a peace in such contrast to the agitation of the country, that the Empress could not refrain from remarking upon it. Her companion tried to cheer her with words of hope and encouragement: “No,” replied Eugénie, “I have no hope left, and if I could still wish for something, it would be to stop the course of time; to have a few more hours to look upon St. Cloud and its gardens; but see,” she added, and pointed with her hand towards the sun that was slowly disappearing below the horizon, “see, this is how our prosperity is also setting, and who knows what will happen in the night that is falling upon us!”

And covering her face with her hands, she who was still Empress of the French sobbed bitterly.

CHAPTER VI
The Disaster

When the war broke out, I had just obtained a long leave which I intended to spend in Russia, and immediately after my return to Paris began to make preparations for my departure. The situation, however, was getting so very interesting that I kept putting off my vacation from day to day, especially after the first reverses had proved to every impartial observer that the days of the Bonaparte dynasty were numbered.

No one, however, imagined that the campaign would so very quickly decide the momentous questions that were hanging in the balance. The government was doing its very best to prevent news from leaking out and to hide from Paris, as well as from the country in general, the extent of the first reverses that the French army had encountered. This was a great mistake in more senses than one, because it allowed the wildest rumours to get about, which would not have been possible had the truth been made known at once. Had she only shown frankness and decision, the Regent might still have succeeded in rallying around her a considerable proportion of the people desirous of maintaining public order. To secure that, her best course would have been to appeal publicly to the whole nation; to point out that the refusal of the Chambers to grant the necessary military credits the government had asked for a year before had contributed to the disaster that had overtaken France; and then to declare that she was going to do her best to negotiate an honourable peace. Above all things she should never have convoked the Chambers, the more so that constitutionally she had no real right to do so. The Emperor himself pointed this out later on, in a memorandum which he wrote for one of his great friends, Le Comte de la Chapelle, and he very justly remarked that by doing it a pretext was given for revolution to break out. But the impulsive Empress only thought that the return of Napoleon, vanquished and defeated in his capital, would expose him to insult, and endanger the dynasty; therefore, she urged him to keep away.

Émile Ollivier, who had judged differently, entreated her to insist on Napoleon’s return to Paris, but Eugénie, instead of listening to his advice, did her best to thwart it, under the mistaken idea that with another Cabinet she had more chances to meet the difficulties of the situation. From some strange reasoning she interfered with MacMahon’s plan to draw his army back towards Paris in order to defend the capital, and gave him peremptory command to join Marshal Bazaine’s army. Stranger still, MacMahon, who, being responsible for his troops, should not have allowed politics to interfere with his plan of campaign, acceded to her request, and marched to his destruction in the direction of Sedan.

That initial mistake of the Regent was the principal cause of the revolution which followed upon the surrender of the French army to the Prussians. I do not mean to say that this revolution might have been averted in the long run, but certainly it might have been delayed, and some attempts might have been made to save the dynasty. Unfortunately the Empress thought she was acting very cleverly by seeming to give no thought to that dynasty, and affecting indifference as to its fate. She allowed the romantic side of her character to take the upper hand even in that supreme disaster of her life, and refused to give the necessary orders that might, perhaps, have averted a catastrophe not only where the Imperial regime was concerned, but also to the country. She refused to defend the Tuileries; she refused to defend the cause of order which she represented; she refused to defend her throne and that of her son; she refused to act energetically, in order to subdue the insurrection that was already making itself heard under her windows; she refused to meet the mob that was invading the palace; and ultimately she fled.

It has been said that she was betrayed by those upon whose devotion she had the right to count. It is not to be contested that the conduct of General Trochu was cowardly, but the misfortune of Eugénie was that she had never succeeded in inspiring any other feeling than admiration for her beauty.

It is extraordinary, when one remembers all that happened at that time, to realise how each and all lost their heads. There was still a government in Paris on the 4th of September, there was an army, a responsible ministry that might have appealed to it, and yet no one seemed to have thought it possible to resist the demands of the mob—and such a mob, too. I think I may affirm that none were more surprised at the easy way the Empire was overturned than the members of the government that succeeded to the administration of the country. As a proof of this, I may mention a remark made to me many years later by Gambetta in the course of a conversation which we had on the subject: “I did not know when I left the Hotel de Ville after the proclamation of the new government, whether I should not find the police waiting to arrest me when I reached my home,” was what he said.

Had the Empress personally gone to the Corps Législatif and given orders to sweep away the mob about to invade it, and to arrest Trochu, it is probable that the Parisians, cowed by her personal courage, would have acclaimed her, and cried out: “Vive l’Impératrice!” It is certain that no one would have harmed her, but Eugénie lost her presence of mind upon finding herself so utterly abandoned, and fled from the Tuileries, forgetting everything in the disorder of that moment.

Vague news concerning the disaster of Sedan had reached Paris in the course of the evening of the 2nd of September, rumours with no official authority to explain them, but which, nevertheless, circulated everywhere. Later on the Empress was reproached for not acting at once upon them by rallying around her the few partisans that were still left to the Empire. But she was not to blame for this apparent inactivity, because it was only the next day that she received the telegram from the Emperor confirming the dreadful news.

Among the diplomatic corps it had been known earlier, and commented upon as it deserved. In the late afternoon of the 3rd of September, I went out, and directed my steps towards the Tuileries. The palace seemed quite peaceful. The usual sentinels that were guarding it were all at their posts, and a crowd on the Place de la Concorde was neither numerous nor hostile, certainly nothing that pointed to insurrection.

Among the curious people that were standing in front of the palace I could hear remarks and comments on the catastrophe of the day before, but what struck me was that these remarks were not hostile to the Empire; on the contrary, words of regret were continually expressed, and many sympathised with the Emperor, and especially the Prince Imperial. After having waited for some time I turned my steps towards the Cercle de la Rue Royale, where, meeting some friends, I told them that I was surprised to find the capital so quiet, and that I thought that the Empress would be well advised if she took advantage of this sympathetic attitude of the public, to attempt to negotiate a peace. Every well-wisher of France felt that peace was indispensable in order to avoid worse calamities. I was very much surprised when a man whom I knew to be well informed as a rule, replied that very probably the next day would see a proposition promulgated to depose the Emperor. He added the remarkable news—which surely was absurd—that this would be done at the secret instigation of the Regent, who believed the Prince Imperial’s only chance of ascending the throne consisted in the removal of his father from the political scene.

I could not bring myself to believe such an unfair canard. Whatever has been said to the contrary since, Napoleon was always popular with a large section of people; the Parisian workmen especially liked him, and felt grateful for the care with which he had seen to their welfare. It is true there were some who screamed that he was responsible for the military disasters which had overtaken the country, but these belonged to that section of unruly spirits that take every possible opportunity to attack every government. It must not be forgotten that in spite of the Lanterne and other revolutionary organs of the same kind, the influence wielded by the press had not reached the power it now possesses; after eighteen years of Imperialistic rule, the country was disciplined and trained to obedience, and it is most probable that had the Emperor personally been able to make an appeal to it, it would have responded heartily. If the Regent could have obtained the liberation of her husband, and so secured his help to conclude peace with Prussia, such an ending to the campaign might have been possible at that particular moment—it was certainly not the time to talk of the sovereignty of the people and of bowing to the will of the country.

The evening passed off quietly. I walked along the boulevards after eleven o’clock; the night was beautiful, and the streets as animated as usual. I could not discern much consternation among the crowds, everyone seemed only to be more subdued than had been the case lately. And when I left my house on the morning of the 4th there were certainly no signs whatever of a revolution in the streets, nor any atmosphere of impending disaster.

I was living in the Avenue de l’Impératrice, now Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and as I reached the Champs Elysées, I found that everything was as quiet as usual. The fountains were playing in front of the Palais de l’Industrie, children were romping in the walks, and there was no indication that anything unusual was going on. I went to breakfast at the Cercle, and it was only after leaving that I was accosted by a friend on the Place de la Concorde who told me that the Corps Législatif had been invaded by the mob. Curious as I am by nature, I turned my steps towards the Palais Bourbon, and found really an enormous crowd assembled there; but even then, there was nothing hostile in its attitude, it was rather good-humoured than anything else. Some leaders, however, were shouting: “La déchéance! La déchéance,” at the top of their voices. No one seemed to offer any resistance, and the attitude of the deputies, when I managed to enter the gallery reserved to the Corps Diplomatique in order to obtain a view of what was going on inside the House, was rather one of surprise than anything else. Amidst the hum of voices could be heard the deep tones of M. Jules Ferry urging those present to go to the Hotel de Ville and to proclaim the Republic, but with the exception of Jules Favre, and of M. de Kératry, no one seemed to share his opinion. I am convinced that if, at that moment, the Regent had occupied the Palais Bourbon with a military force, the Revolution would never have succeeded, and to this day I fail to understand how it was that no member of the government had the presence of mind to take upon himself the responsibility for such a measure, which might have changed the whole history of France. It is quite certain that even when the three leaders of the Revolutionary movement started for the Hotel de Ville, they did not possess the sympathy of many of their colleagues, rather, the latter only wanted the support of the government then in power, to get rid of them. None would have objected to the arrest of these three men, had there been found but one person strong enough to put such a measure into execution.

The fact is, the majority of the members of the Corps Législatif seemed to be quite dazed by what was happening; they did not at all understand what was going on. I am convinced that they left the hall where the sitting had taken place, without having realised that it was for the last time. As soon, however, as they had done so, the mob invaded the Palais; but the scenes of disorder that are asserted to have followed, never took place. I remained some time unobserved at my post, and failed to see the excesses of which some speak as occurring. Of course, shouts were heard, a boy of about eighteen years old sat down in the Presidential armchair, and rang the bell with all his might, but this was done more in childish amusement than anything else. I repeat that the slightest appearance of a military force would have restored order at once, and this makes the subsequent events more unpardonable still.

After having spent about an hour watching the scenes that attended the end of the Legislature which, under Napoleon III., had ruled France for eighteen years, I left the Palais Bourbon and turned my steps towards the Tuileries. There the crowd was more hostile, especially the Garde Nationale. The men had turned their rifles upside down, and some of them were screaming aloud they would never fire against “la nation.” Now and then a cry resounded: “La déchéance! La déchéance,” and the accents of the Marseillaise made themselves heard; but it must be remarked that no cries of “Vive la République!” were to be noticed, at least I did not hear any. Another strange feature of this pacific revolution was that the mutineers were in small bands, which were each followed by a considerable crowd of onlookers, which probably would have dispersed at sight of the first company of soldiers. The police had mysteriously vanished, and the whole aspect of the crowd was good-natured in the extreme; it was composed of as many women, children and dogs as of insurgés, and seemed more on amusement bent than on anything else. Even when the gates of the Tuileries were at last forced, and the mob found itself in the big courtyard, it did not attempt to enter the interior of the Palace; the people merely walked about the garden and the inner courtyard that led from the Carrousel to the private gardens. Had the Empress remained she would not even have noticed the invasion, and the best proof of what I say here lies in the fact that when the members of the new government arrived a few hours later in the Tuileries, they found everything in the same state as usual; nothing had been disturbed, and even the papers forgotten by the Empress on her writing table had been left untouched, the servants were all there, but had only taken care to take off their liveries, with the alacrity which people of their class always display in turning against their former masters as soon as misfortune comes in any shape or form.

I was one of the persons who visited the Tuileries on the evening of that memorable 4th of September, which saw the fall of Napoleon III.’s dynasty. No one knew at that moment what had happened to the Empress, nor where she had fled, and rumours were going about in some quarters that she had tried to join the Emperor, and in others that she had directed her steps towards Metz with the intention of seeking a refuge with the army of Bazaine, and establishing there the seat of government.

When I visited the Palace I found that no one there believed she had gone away for ever; indeed—and this is a detail that I believe has never been recorded elsewhere—I found one of her maids preparing her bed just as usual! It was evident the flight had been a hurried one. In the private rooms, letters never meant to be seen by a stranger’s eye were scattered about; a gold locket with the portrait of a lovely woman, the Duchesse d’Albe; another one with that of a baby in long robes, the first picture of the Prince Imperial; one small golden crucifix; a note just begun, and addressed no one knows now to whom, but of which the first words ran thus: “Dans la terrible position où je me trouve, je ne——” The writing stopped there; evidently she who had started it had been interrupted by the bearer of some evil message, and there it lay forgotten, in the midst of the tragedy which had put an end to so many things and to so many hopes.

The Revolution of the 4th of September was especially remarkable for the inconsiderable impression it produced in Paris itself. Life went on just as usual, and save for a few expressions of wonder, no one seemed quite to realise the importance of it. The capital began to prepare for the siege, rather with mirth than anything else. To tell the truth no one seemed to believe in its possibility, and I remember one day, when visiting a friend who was living on the Quai Malaquais, she pointed to the Seine flowing softly under her windows, saying at the same time: “Croyez-vous que les Prussiens arriveront devant mes fenêtres comme les Normands jadis sont entrés à Paris?” (“Do you think that the Prussians will arrive in front of my windows as the Normans entered Paris in days of yore?”)

I reproduce this remark just to show how very little those in the capital realised either the present or the future at this particular moment.

Another thing which struck me, was that existence out of doors seemed to go on much as usual, in spite of the bad news that continued to pour in. The theatres were full, and people seemed to make the most of the late summer days that were coming to a close. There was very little excitement, and the feeling that predominated was one of curiosity. Some people were departing, but not in large numbers, and it was only towards the end of September that people began seriously to look at the situation. By that time I had already left Paris. I went on the 15th of September, hoping to return in January, not suspecting then that the war would drag on as it did. I, together with many reasonable people, still hoped that the new government would see the necessity of ending a hopeless struggle before it was too late.

All my suppositions turned out to be wrong, however, and it was only towards the end of February that I was once more to find myself at my old post, by which time the unfortunate Emperor, languishing in captivity, seemed to be forgotten, and the Republic had grown to be an established fact.

CHAPTER VII
Letters from Paris during the Siege

Paris was already invested when I succeeded in leaving it with the help of a diplomatic passport, and it was in Vienna that I read in the papers the news of the useless interview that took place between Prince, at that time still Count, Bismarck, with M. Jules Favre at Férrières. I never understood how the German Chancellor, who at that time had not the slightest intention to conclude peace, consented to receive the representative of a government which he had not acknowledged. I was told later on, that it was at the request of the King of Prussia he had given his assent to Favre’s arrival at the German headquarters.

The results of this hopeless attempt are well known. Jules Favre talked as only an advocate can talk. But he pleaded sentimental reasons where hard facts only had to be considered. When he returned to Paris, it was with the conviction that as the government of the Défense Nationale was neither strong enough nor respected enough to compel the country to accept a shameful peace, the only thing was to allow matters to drift.

A good many of my friends, and of my colleagues, had elected to remain in the capital, and there await the end of the war, and I must own that I regretted later on that I had not been given the same opportunity. That period was most interesting, and I have always felt that to understand the genesis of the events which happened later on, one ought to have experienced those months of anxiety, when the great capital was abandoned to her fate, with the Prussian guns levelled against her.

I was not, however, left entirely without news, and as regularly as was possible received letters from besieged Paris, sent either by balloon or by carrier pigeons. I have kept them all, and from their pages now give extracts which will give an idea of the feelings of the Parisians during the trial they had to undergo.

September 25th, 1870.

“My very dear Friend,—You will be wondering what is happening to us, and I do not want to let pass the present opportunity to send you some news concerning us. We are now quite resigned to the prospect of a siege, and the only question that is agitating the public mind is how long it will last. The most contradictory rumours are spread, and some of them even attribute to Jules Favre the intention of trying to restore the Empire, after having assured himself that he would remain its Prime Minister. Of course this is nothing but humbug, and I only mention it to you to show you to what extent public imagination can cajole itself. What is not humbug, however, is the difficulty the government finds in attempting anything in the way of peace negotiations. It begins to see the great mistake which was made when a small minority overthrew the Empire so unexpectedly. Had it been left standing, all the onus of the disastrous peace, which, whether France likes it or not, will have to be concluded, would have fallen upon its shoulders, whilst at the present moment, it is the Défense Nationale which will bear the brunt of anger at the dismemberment of our France. This may sound the death knell of the Republic, and those who are at its head know it but too well. I think that the unlucky phrase of Jules Favre, when he said that he would never give up ‘un pouce de notre territoire, ni une pierre de nos forteresses,’ was more a calculated pronouncement than the result of an enthusiasm too strong to think of the consequences its imprudent words might have. He wanted to ward off the evil moment when he would be called upon to do that which the Empire he had helped to overthrow would have done had it been left in power; and feeling this to be inevitable, had tried to keep the knowledge of this bitter fact from the public. One begins to realise the mistake one has made, I repeat it, but unfortunately one does not see what ought to be done to mend it. The public feeling in the city is very different from that which was prevailing on the 4th of this month. The Parisians begin to realise the seriousness of the situation, but there is no talk of a surrender, and the confidence that victory will return to France is very dominant among the lower classes, whilst it is recognised among the higher ones that the deal has been irrevocably lost, and that peace ought to be concluded, else serious disturbances may occur among the Garde Nationale and the numerous militia.

“The government does nothing, and when I have said this, I say everything. They say that they can do nothing and that it is to the Tours delegation they must look for an attempt to stop the progress of the Prussian army. So long as Gambetta was here there was some activity in ministerial offices; now he has gone there is absolute stagnation. All these ministers, suddenly called upon to exercise functions for which they were totally unprepared, seem lost, and Jules Favre looks at the political situation with the same eye he would look at some big criminal or civil law case—from the outlook of an advocate, not from that of a statesman. They say he actually cried during his conversation with Bismarck. The question arises whether these tears were genuine ones of grief, or simply a rhetorical incident. How much more dignity there was in the conduct of General Wimpffen and his colleagues, when they discussed with the German Minister and the German General Staff the conditions of the capitulation of Sedan! No one likes Jules Favre, whom even his partisans consider to be a demagogue of talent, but nothing more. And certainly France does not need demagogues at the present time.

“There are comical notes in the gravity of the situation. People talk about never surrendering, about dying for their country, whilst running about buying hams and butter, and as many provisions as they can, in view of the siege. Vegetables are at a premium, meat will soon become a luxury, bread is already looked upon in the same light that cakes were formerly, and frivolous women are getting excited at the thought of the many privations which they expect they will be called upon to endure. Yet comparatively few people have left the capital, where, after all, perhaps, one is safer than in the provinces. News leaks out sometimes from the outside, mostly false; for instance, it was related the other day, that the Prince Imperial had reached Metz, and put himself under the protection of Marshal Bazaine. All the partisans of the Empire believed it, but serious people did not attach any faith to this rumour. The Legitimists are full of hope that out of the present complications a monarchical restoration may ensue; the Radicals, on their part, are sure that, sooner or later, the government will fall into their hands. The principal question that is agitating the public mind, is as to who would eventually have the right to conclude peace with Prussia. No one, to begin with the members of the present administration (for one can hardly call it a government), believes that the King of Prussia would consent to treat with them. Therefore the calling together of a National Assembly is imperative, but would this Assembly be the expression of the will of the nation, when the elections would have to be held under the muzzles of the enemy’s guns? In a word, we live in a state of uncertainty such as France has never yet experienced, no one knows what the morrow holds in reserve, and though there is a government of the National Defence, yet there is no one to defend the country.”

I have reproduced this letter in its entirety, because it seems to me that it explains very well the state of opinion in besieged Paris. Later on, I was to receive another communication from the same correspondent, written immediately after the insurrection of the 18th of October. This one is more alarming even than the first.

“We have had the other day,” he writes on November 4th, “the first taste of that revolution which we shall not escape. It began by an échauffourée of the National Guard, and ended by an invasion of the Hotel de Ville by the mob. It was repulsed, but for how long? This is the question, and the population of the faubourgs is getting so excited that at the first opportunity it will most certainly again take the offensive, and this time with greater chances of success. Don’t forget that, after all, we have no regular army in Paris worthy of that name, that arms have been distributed not only to the National Guard, but to a great part of the population; that, consequently, it is the latter, and not the pseudo-government, that in reality holds the power to impose its will upon the capital. One talks a lot about patriotism, believe me there is very little of patriotism about; all the politicians who have tried to persuade themselves that they have the qualifications of real statesmen, only think of their future, and of the possibility of their own greatness rising out of the ruins of their fatherland. They do nothing else but talk; I wish they would work—it would be more to the point.

“I must tell you something that will surprise you. Rumours have been going about that the Prussian government had started some negotiations with the Empress in England. She is still Regent in name if not in fact, and her intervention, especially if it was strengthened by a demonstration of the army of Metz in her favour, might decide the King of Prussia to conclude an honourable peace, or at least one which would be termed honourable by every reasonable person. Well, will you believe me that a Bonapartist, quite au courant with what goes on, and who knows, moreover, the character of the Empress, told me that in his opinion she would always hesitate to take measures which might afterwards be attributed to her as proceeding from a desire to save the dynasty? She persists in that attitude which she has adopted from the outset, of putting France before everything, and of appearing to be careless of the interests of her family. She will not see that, at a time of such crisis, the interests of the dynasty are inseparable from those of the country, and that if by means of an intervention of the army of Metz in its favour she can conclude peace under more favourable conditions than those which Prussia would impose on a Republican government, it is her clear duty to do all that she can to achieve that result, no matter what reproaches might be hurled at her in the future. The Empire still has many partisans in France, especially among the working classes; they would most certainly have rallied around the Regent if it had been properly explained to them that she had saved the army of Metz from the fate that had overtaken that of Sedan, and, in consideration of this service, one would have forgiven her many things. Of course what I am telling you here reposes on hearsay, and you most probably know more about it than we can here, separated as we are from the outside world; but I repeat it, strong rumours have been going about, that Eugénie has been approached by Prussia, who, it seems, is even more eager for peace than we are, and that it has been hinted to her that every facility would be granted to her to appeal to France, to help her out of the terrible situation in which both find themselves at present. Among a certain circle strong hopes were indulged at one time that these rumours would turn out to be true, consequently the news of the capitulation of Metz, which the Prussians took good care should reach us, came as a thunderbolt to the Bonapartists, who openly declared that it had been brought about through the refusal of the Empress, from mistaken dynastic reasons, to assume the responsibility of a peace, the conditions of which, including, as they necessarily must have done, a concession of territory, would have excited indignation throughout France.

“All that I am telling you is, of course, the result of my private observations, but these may interest you, in view of your Imperial sympathies.

“And now you shall ask me what I am doing personally in our poor besieged Paris. Well, I happened to be near the Hotel de Ville on that memorable 18th of October, and I was much interested in the motley crowd that assembled in front of it. What struck me extremely was the large contingent of women, who were trying either to help or to excite their husbands or friends. I did not think that Parisian females were so revolutionary, nor that they counted in their midst such a number of old hags worthy to rival the witches of Macbeth in appearance. I am afraid that if we see a real revolution—which God forbid, though I am inclined to think its advent is inevitable—the women will show themselves ten times more ferocious than the men, and that the days of the tricoteuses, who dictated to the Convention in 1793, are not by any means over yet.

“The remnant of society left in the capital has bravely made up its mind not to eat, drink and be merry, but to go through all the hardships of the siege with good humour and resignation. People still see each other, and indeed social life has not changed, although the menus of the dinners to which one is invited are anything but luxurious. For instance, yesterday I was asked to lunch by my old friend Countess Stéphanie Tascher de la Pagerre, together with two other people, and this is what we were offered: a potage Liebig with macaroni, roasted horseflesh, fresh beans, and chocolate cream without cream, but made with tinned milk. With the most charitable feelings in the world, it would be impossible to say that it was good, or that anyone liked it.

“Clubs, too, are just as formerly, though they present the unusual sight of members dressed in uniform, who often come to lunch direct from the front, and who leave a rifle instead of a stick to the care of the hall porter, whilst they snatch a hasty and nasty meal. The theatres play just as usual; an ambulance has been organised in the foyer of the Comédie Française, and Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt is just as bewitching under the white cap and apron of a nurse as she was in her most gorgeous stage dresses. In short, the comédie humaine has become the comédie parisienne, notwithstanding the tragedy of Paris and of France.”

This letter, penned by an American who had elected to remain in Paris during the siege, gives pretty well the idea of the spirit that prevailed among the Bonapartists, and the one which animated the grand monde, or at least those who had not fled abroad. To complete the picture, I must give another letter, one from an old lady whose name I have already mentioned in these pages—Madame Lacroix, who had returned from St. Germain after the 4th of September, and, notwithstanding her great age, had remained in Paris, where her salon was the rendezvous of her numerous friends, and just as animated as it had been formerly.

“Our situation is always the same, just as lamentable and just as sad. Nothing seems to change around us, save the fact that provisions are getting scarcer and scarcer, that butter is not to be had for love or money, and that dogs, rats, and cats appear on the best tables in place of beef and mutton. Gas also is a thing of the past, and one has to exercise strict economy in oil and paraffin. I have now only one lamp burning in my drawing-room, which we take along with us when we go to the dining-room. The population begins to get exasperated at this heavy inaction that weighs upon it; the absence of all reliable news also tells on the hearts and minds. On the 29th of November we were awakened by the sound of the cannon, and one heard that at last the government had decided to make an effort to attack the enemy, in the endeavour to effect a junction with the army of the Loire, which, as it seems, was quite near to us; at least this is what our government choose to tell us. Trochu has published another proclamation, addressed to the population, just as devoid of common sense as all his previous ones have been. For about three days we were left absolutely without news, though it was rumoured that the Prussians had been defeated by Ducrot, but at last it leaked out that the plans of Trochu had failed, and that the effort made by the garrison of Paris had been unsuccessful.

“On the 5th of December we were startled by the news of the defeat of the army of Chanzy near Orleans, and I must confess to you that now the most sanguine hopes have been shattered, and the only feeling left is the desire to see this nightmare under which we are living come to an end.”

This letter was written just before the end of that sad year 1870, which had begun so brilliantly with a reception at the Tuileries, now standing deserted and abandoned by its former masters. In the first fortnight of January a curious incident occurred, which, I believe, has not been widely known among the public, but yet, in view of the events that happened later on, offers a certain interest. I will relate it in the words of the friend who informed me of it, the American whose letter I have already given:

“I am going to tell you something which will probably appear to you rather like a scene taken out of a comic opera, but which I am assured really took place the other day. A friend of the Orleans princes asked General Trochu to grant him an interview, and tried to win his support to a proposition to ask the Duke of Aumale to accept, if only for an intermediary period, the post of President of the National Defence. Trochu, after having indulged in the usual rhetoric of which he is so fond, at last pathetically replied that he had sworn fidelity to the Republic, and that as a soldier he could not break his oath; to this his visitor retorted that probably that oath was sworn on something he respected more than the one he had made to the Empress Eugénie when he told her she could rely on his honour as a soldier, a Catholic, and a Breton. Trochu was silent for a few minutes, and then said: ‘J’ai fait passer la patrie avant tout lorsque——’ ‘Lorsque il s’est agi pour vous de vous mettre à la tête du gouvernement vous-même’ (‘I put my country first when——’ ‘When it was a question of placing yourself at the head of its government’) interrupted the other.

“I cannot, of course, vouch for the truth of the anecdote, but it was told to me by a person who is generally well informed. But what I do know, is that very few people have been or are despised to the extent of General Trochu, for whom no one finds a good word to say, and everyone is hoping that his colleagues will oblige him either to sign the capitulation of Paris, which cannot be delayed much longer, especially now that the bombardment has commenced [this letter was written on the 25th of January], or else to resign his functions altogether. His dispatch of the 20th only confirmed the opinion one had as to his military ability, and certainly nothing could be more lamentable than the sight of the troops returning into the town after the battles of the 19th and 20th, weary, hungry, worn out, and exasperated against their leaders. That exasperation has again brought down from the faubourgs the agitators that have ever since the 4th of September kept Paris in a state of turmoil, and on the 22nd of January in the night they invaded the prison of Mazas, and delivered several political men detained there, among others Flourens. They also made an attempt to occupy the mairie of the 20th arrondissement. A battle has taken place opposite the Hôtel de Ville, and the government is entirely discredited; even among the former most determined partisans of war being continued at any price, the feeling prevails that peace, no matter on what conditions, would be better than the present state of things, which is only favourable to promoters of disorder, of which there are but too many.”

As is known, the capitulation of Paris took place on the 28th of January, and I prepared myself at once to return. After a journey devoid of serious incidents, but long and fatiguing, I reached Versailles on the 31st of that month, having taken four days to do so. I had started from Berlin, where I had been waiting for the first opportunity to return to my post in Paris. At Versailles I found M. Thiers, who was already busy negotiating the conditions of a peace that most certainly the Empress Regent, had she only taken the responsibility of its conclusion, would have been able to sign under more favourable clauses than those to which France had to submit. It is possible, if not probable, that the Imperial eagles would not have witnessed the entry of the German troops into Paris, a humiliation which old King William did not see the necessity to spare a Republic for which it was impossible to feel the least respect.

Before closing this chapter I must mention one letter among the many which reached me at Versailles during those days from friends who were in Paris, giving me some details concerning this crowning episode to the many sad and disgraceful ones that will make the war of 1870 for ever memorable.

March 4th, 1871.

“We were all waiting with anxiety for that 1st of March that was to see the German troops enter the capital. Grave apprehensions were entertained on the subject by many people, who declared that very probably the excited Parisians would indulge in demonstrations of hostility against the Prussians, which would assuredly have terrible consequences. On the 27th of February I called at Rothschild’s bank in the Rue Lafitte, hoping to hear some news there, where they were generally better informed than anywhere else. One of the principal employees, whom I knew well, told me with tears in his eyes that no efforts of Jules Favre had availed, and that the German army would occupy Paris on the 1st, but that, as a last concession, that occupation would be limited to a certain zone, and not extend itself to the whole city. Great preparations had been made, and the shopkeepers in the streets through which the troops of the enemy were to pass had declared that they would close their doors and shutters ‘pour ne pas assister à cette honte,’ as one of them told me himself; it was also tacitly understood that private houses would pull down their blinds. Curious to see how things would go on, and feeling convinced that, in spite of the apprehensions entertained in certain quarters, no disturbances of any kind would occur, Frenchmen being always cowed down whenever they see real strength before them, I was up very early, and, rejoicing at the splendid weather which had suddenly set in after very dark and gloomy days, as if to welcome the triumph of Prussia, I went down the Champs Elysées, and was present when the first German detachments made their appearance. The sight was imposing, and could only suggest many philosophical thoughts. The greatest discipline prevailed, and this discipline seemed to make a great impression on the numerous throngs that lined the streets to see the unusual spectacle. A few women were weeping with a certain affectation, but there were also some girls smiling and welcoming with glances full of coquetry the Prussian officers riding in front of their regiments. At about four o’clock everything was over, and the soldiers settled in the cantonments which had been allotted to them for the night. The next day the sight was stranger still. The population of Paris, notwithstanding what may have been told to you to the contrary, had fraternised with the enemy, and one saw the usual camelots that appear in the streets of Paris whenever there is something new to see, offer to the Prussian soldiers cigarettes, matches, and newspapers, whilst girls timidly extended some flowers to them—not, however, before looking carefully around them to see whether anyone watched them doing so. When, on the 3rd of March, the German troops retired, I heard that typical remark, from a woman who had been watching their going away with eager eyes: ‘Après tout, ce sont de beaux soldats que ceux-là!’ she cried.

“It seems that a solemn moment occurred during the review held by the new Emperor on the Hippodrome de Longchamps, before the troops started to enter Paris. I have been told the sight was most imposing, and must have roused a world of remembrances in the heart of its principal hero. What must have been his thoughts at a moment when the history, as it were, of a whole century was suddenly recapitulated before his eyes? His fate had made him witness the present triumph, after the humiliations of Jena and that first occupation of the French capital by the allied troops in 1815, when another Napoleon had seen fortune retire from him! It seems that after the review was over, the Emperor looked wistfully for a considerable time at the long line of troops filing along on their triumphal journey, and before dismounting from his horse he turned towards the Crown Prince with the simple remark, ‘I hope that you, too, have thanked God to-day!’”

CHAPTER VIII
The Commune

As already mentioned, I returned to Versailles during the last days of January, and, except a short visit to Paris, whither I went to see after my household gods which had been left to their fate during the siege, and to inquire after the friends who had remained in the capital during those anxious months, I stayed there until I left for Bordeaux, where the National Assembly met in order to ratify the conditions of the peace that was ultimately to be signed in Frankfurt.

At Bordeaux, to my great surprise, I found that the sole topic of popular conversation was the declaration of the overthrow of the Bonaparte dynasty. It seemed as if that was the principal object of the elections that had taken place, and that it was far more important than the establishing of an understanding with Germany. The ambitions of the different parties which divided public opinion in France had been newly awakened at the unforeseen chances which they suddenly saw looming before them. Orleanists, Legitimists and Republicans were all eager to come forward with schemes to take the place of the regime that had so recently come to a tragic close. I remember that one evening after dinner I was sitting together with some friends in one of the most elegant restaurants of Bordeaux, and we listened to a discussion that was taking place at the next table, and during which the chances of the different parties that the country had sent to represent it at the National Assembly were enumerated. What struck me in this conversation was that France itself was not even mentioned; it seemed as if the catastrophes that had accompanied the war had swept it from the face of the earth, and had only left political parties and political convictions, the leaders of which wanted to find some personal advantage out of the general disasters. Another thing I also observed that appeared even then strange to me, and it seems stranger still to-day—it is that very few people believed the Republic would be able to maintain itself. On the contrary, they felt convinced that France was standing upon the threshold of a Monarchist restoration. The Orleans princes had a considerable number of adherents, and were made much of in certain quarters, where the courage displayed by the Duc de Chartres and the Prince de Joinville, who had joined the Republican armies as volunteers, was extolled at every opportunity; whilst the Legitimists kept hoping that the Comte de Chambord would seize the opportunity and rally himself to the tricolour flag, thus to clear his path to the throne of his ancestors. The Republicans seemed still surprised and dazed by the unexpected events that had raised them to power, and did not believe that their party would succeed in maintaining itself at the head of the country. I believe that if the Orleans princes had been generous enough to forgo the millions that had been confiscated under Napoleon III., and which they hastened to claim from the State, they would have been able easily to provoke a manifestation in their favour that would eventually have led to a restoration of their dynasty. The government was thoroughly discredited, in spite of the great influence wielded by Leon Gambetta, in whom everyone saw the man of the future, and it was generally felt that it would not be strong enough to compel the country to accept the heavy peace conditions which Germany was determined to enforce. Unfortunately, among all the representatives of the nation who met at Bordeaux, there was not a man daring enough, and brave enough, to suggest the recall of any of the pretenders. On the other hand, the Bonapartes had still a considerable number of partisans, who did their best to paralyse every effort to substitute another dynasty. They hoped that, in spite of Sedan, France would remember the eighteen years of prosperity which it had just gone through, and would recall the child who had been so popular, under the name of “le petit Prince,” until the catastrophe that had sent him together with his parents in exile on British shores.

The only one who appreciated rightly the intricacies of the situation such as it presented itself, and who very cleverly played his cards, in such a manner that he made himself indispensable, was M. Thiers. He flattered everybody, promised everything that was required of him, gave every pledge that he was asked for, and finally secured his own unanimous election at Bordeaux, by the National Assembly, as chief of the executive power—one did not dare yet to use the term President of the French Republic.

The new head of the government very soon made himself the master of the situation, and his influence became in a short time paramount in everything. He rapidly brought to a close the peace negotiations with Germany, and on the 26th of February its preliminaries were signed at Versailles.

M. Thiers returned to Paris, determined to settle down to the task of mending the many sores and wounds which the months that had just elapsed had left behind them. Unhappily he found himself confronted by a situation far more dangerous than he had expected, owing to the want of foresight of Jules Favre, who had not had the courage to resist the foolish demands of the mob, and who, obeying the orders which he had received from the leaders of the extreme Radical party, had during the peace negotiations with Prince Bismarck insisted upon the Parisian population being allowed to retain their rifles, and the National Guards not being disarmed. In a curious book called “Journal d’un Officier d’Ordonnance,” an aide-de-camp of General Trochu, Comte d’Hérisson, relates that Bismarck replied to these demands with the prophetic words: “I am willing to accede to your request, but believe me you are acting stupidly.”

Stupidity or not, the National Guard was left in possession of its weapons, and the first thought of M. Thiers when he reached Paris was to take them away. But this was not so easy; the National Guard was for the greater part composed of excitable men who dreamed only of the sovereignty of the mob. When the hour for laying down their arms arrived, the Guard refused to do so, and the rebellious feelings which had been brewing ever since the revolution of the 4th of September broke out at last into a fury that culminated in the brutal assassination of two generals, Clément Thomas and Lecomte, who had been sent by the government to disarm the National Guard.

Much has been written about the day which saw the beginning of the Commune; I will merely add a few quite personal remarks, which, perhaps, will make the reader understand more clearly than a long narrative the state of mind of the Parisian population at that particular moment.

The insurrection of the 18th of March had come quite unawares upon the authorities, who had neither foreseen it nor attempted to crush it, which would have been easier than generally believed, but unfortunately everybody seemed so overpowered by surprise that the simplest measures of precaution were disregarded, and what was at first but a revolt was soon transformed into a revolution through the negligence of the very people who ought to have been guiltless of carelessness at this grave juncture.

This is not an historical book, consequently I am not going to relate the details of the flight of M. Thiers to Versailles as soon as he heard of the revolt of Montmartre, and of the assassination of Clément Thomas and Lecomte, but I am going to speak of what I myself had occasion to observe on that memorable 18th of March which marked the beginning of the Commune.

I had gone out of my house on the morning of that day, quite unconscious that anything like a revolution, or even a mutiny, was in the air. As chance would have it, I had the necessity to go to Montmartre to see an old servant who had been in the army and was severely wounded at that sortie which Ducrot had attempted just before Paris capitulated. The man was living not far from the Rue des Rosiers, which was to become so memorable. When I reached the last-mentioned street I found it invaded by a most threatening and angry crowd, which kept howling: “Vive la Commune! Vive la révolution sociale!” Realising that matters were getting dangerous, I hastily retraced my steps, and hoped that I should succeed in escaping the attention of the mob, when one of the National Guard stopped me and asked what I was seeking and why I had come there. He would not listen to my explanations, and suddenly said: “Toi tu me fais l’effet d’être un Prussien, montres donc tes papiers” (“You look like a Prussian, just show me your papers”). When I said I had not got them about me, he took me by the arm and said: “Toi, mon garçon, tu iras t’expliquer au poste, allons, marche en avant, ou sinon——” (“Now, my lad, you will go and explain yourself at the guardhouse, march, or else——”) He showed me his rifle. Seeing that things were getting serious, I told my tormentor that if he wanted to be reassured as to my identity, he had better take me to the mayor of the 12th arrondissement, M. Clemenceau, who knew me personally and could vouch that I was not a Prussian spy, which he was taking me for. The man looked at me sharply, and then said: “Clemenceau, Clemenceau, mais avec celui là on ne sait jamais ce qu’il va faire, ce n’est pas un pur” (“Clemenceau, Clemenceau, one never knows what he is up to, he isn’t straight”). I have never forgotten this remark, which perhaps explains better than anything else the strange attitude of M. Clemenceau on that day, and the timidity which he displayed. He has, I know but too well, been bitterly accused of having witnessed, without trying to save them, the execution of the two unfortunate generals. In justice to him, I must say, first of all, that he arrived upon the scene when the executions were already over, and secondly, that his efforts would have probably been quite useless, as at that time he was himself held in suspicion by the leaders of the rebellious movement.

I do not know how my adventure would have ended if by chance one of the National Guard gathered on the spot had not recognised me as a foreign diplomat. Formerly he had been a butler at the Russian Embassy, and of course had seen me there. It is to his intervention that I owed my liberty, which without him would probably have been difficult to obtain. He further gave me an escort, to whom he gave orders to take me safely back to my own house, which, however, they did not do, much to my joy; they left me in the Rue Lafayette, where probably they thought it was not safe for them to venture, owing to their torn and dirty clothes and the loaded rifles which they carried. I made my way on to the boulevards and met at once some friends, to whom I expressed my apprehensions that the revolutionary movement which had broken out would prove much more serious than those of a like nature that had taken place on the 31st of October and the 22nd of January preceding. We were still talking when we were joined by General d’Abzac, one of the aides-de-camp of Marshal MacMahon, of whom I shall have more to say by and by. He told us that M. Thiers had either left or was leaving for Versailles, where it was intended to remove the seat of government.

No one understood why this decision had been taken, and especially taken with such haste. I was afterwards assured, by a person who was in a position to be well informed, that one of the reasons which had induced M. Thiers’ precipitancy was that he believed he would with greater facility be able to disarm the population of Paris if he could excuse this measure by the dread of a revolution breaking out, if it were not resorted to at once.

Nevertheless the revolution did break out, and for once the government found itself utterly unable to crush it. There was no army, and, what was worse, there were no leaders. The troops taken captive at Sedan and at Metz were only just returning, and it was to be dreaded that, very justly infuriated against their former generals and commanders, they would not feel disposed to listen to them or to follow them, especially if they were ordered to fight against their fellow men, and this, furthermore, in presence almost of the enemy who had not yet left Versailles or its neighbourhood.

I left Paris at the end of March, indeed I was one of the last of the diplomatic corps to go away. I went to Versailles, as everybody else did, and happened to be present at the first review held by MacMahon of the troops that had just returned from their German captivity. This review had been rather dreaded, because it was uncertain how the soldiers would receive the unfortunate chief, to whose military mistakes they owed their misfortunes. Nevertheless the ceremony went off comparatively well, though the troops preserved an absolute silence and did not greet their former commander either with enthusiasm or with disapproval. Afterwards I had occasion to ask an officer how it was that this review had taken place without the slightest manifestation of any kind. He replied to me that the soldiers did not want to give way to their feelings in presence, as it were, of the enemy, and that it had been very wise to hold this first meeting between them and MacMahon under circumstances that excluded the possibility of any attempt to make him aware of the angry feelings which were entertained in regard to him by the troops whom he had led to defeat and to a shameful surrender.

During the two months which I spent in Versailles, until the end of the Commune, I found many opportunities of talking with leading French politicians gathered there, as to the future prospects of the country. They were unanimous in maintaining that the Republic would not be able to hold out very long, and that a monarchical restoration was imminent. Some went even so far as to believe that the Empire still had many partisans, and that, provided Napoleon III. himself consented to give up his rights and pretensions to his son, the Bonapartes might still reascend the throne. They had kept their popularity among the working classes, who undoubtedly had reaped great advantages from the solicitude concerning their welfare which the Emperor had exercised on their behalf ever since he became the Head of the State. Whatever may be said now, the idea of a Republic becoming permanent was not then congenial to the mass of the nation, who felt more in unison with a Sovereign, no matter who that Sovereign might be. The only one who saw clearly the future was M. Thiers, who, in one of his conversations with an intimate friend, forgot himself so far as to say that “The Republic has long years of life before it this time.” He did not add that he thought so because he was himself at its head.

I do not think that any nightmare can be more awful than the last four days which preceded the entry of the troops of Versailles into Paris. I will only mention briefly the assassination of the Archbishop, Monsignor Darboy, together with other victims, and the desperate resistance which was offered on the heights of Père-la-Chaise to the army of M. Thiers by the remaining Communards, who had fled there for safety, the interior of Paris no longer offering asylum to them. All these things are matters of history, but, to the stranger who had seen the capital in all its glory during the last years of the Empire, it seemed that the effect of the cataclysm which had taken place would never be erased, nor the gay city ever recover the appearance of peace and prosperity it had enjoyed before the horrors of the Commune had occurred. There was something too sinister for words in the sight of the ruins which greeted the troops of Versailles when at last they occupied the town. The sight of the destroyed Tuileries and the burned streets, which testified to the horrors which they had witnessed, appeared as things almost too terrible to be true.

But, even in those days of terror, the indifference of the French people to everything that did not personally concern them, could not fail to strike one. As soon as order was more or less restored, life began as usual, and the only lamentations which one heard were directed towards individual misfortunes and losses, rather than towards the misfortunes of the nation, the prestige which had been destroyed, and the humiliations that had been endured. Having one day the opportunity of discussing with a tradesman in my neighbourhood the sad and terrible events which had occurred, I asked him whether the change of government had affected commerce and industry, and I was very much surprised to hear him reply that it had not, because the Germans had spent so much money that one had not been able to perceive any difference. When I expressed my wonder that France had accepted their money with the satisfaction which he seemed to feel, he simply remarked that “C’est bien égal à qui nous vendons nos pommes de terre; l’important c’est de les vendre, et nous en avons vendu bien plus pendant l’année qui vient de s’écouler que nous ne l’avions jamais fait auparavant” (“It is quite indifferent to whom we sell our potatoes; the only important thing is to sell them, and we have sold ever so many more during the last year than we had ever done before”).

In fact, satisfaction at the profits which private people had derived from German occupation had quite taken the upper hand of the sorrow the nation felt at the misfortunes that had fallen upon her.

This statement of mine will probably be questioned far and wide, but I shall always maintain it, in spite of any denials it may meet with. Patriotism with Frenchmen is mostly a question of words; it rarely goes beyond phrases, full of enthusiasm but devoid of real meaning. The country is essentially egoistical, and it is perhaps for that very reason that it has not only survived its disasters, but has emerged from them far more prosperous, in the material sense of the word only, than before the Germans overran the fair land of France.

One of the painful sights, in the days which followed immediately upon the occupation of Paris by the troops of Versailles, was the ferocious way in which the members of the Commune were hunted and executed. Awful scenes, in which private vengeances played a part perhaps even more important than public reasons, were enacted. The work of repression was a terrible one in the worst sense of the word, and the wanton cruelty which accompanied it will ever remain a dark page in the career of M. Thiers and of the members of his government. It is to be questioned whether it was indispensable, or even necessary, to exercise such utterly ruthless cruelty. The only explanation that can be given for such ferocious tyranny is that people in authority grew frightened and thought that, in order to hide their fear from the public, extreme severity was best, as it would at least have the advantage of instilling dread into the hearts of those who otherwise might have felt tempted to follow the example of Rossel, Raoul Rigault, and others.

When all was over and order restored, M. Thiers, who was still residing at Versailles, came to Paris for a few hours, just to see for himself the damage which his house in the Rue St. Georges had suffered, and to pay a brief visit to the Elysée, which he had left with such alacrity on the 18th of March, as soon as he had heard of the incidents that had taken place at Montmartre. The reason for this hurried appearance at the palace was, so he said, to see whether some important papers he had locked up in a safe, in his study there, had not been seized by the members of the Commune. As luck would have it, no one had discovered them, and the First President of the Third Republic was able to regain possession of his property.

A friend of his, to whom he mentioned the incident, asked him of what nature were those papers about which he had been so anxious during the whole of the two months the Commune had lasted. M. Thiers smiled, and replied simply: “They were not of any particular importance, but that was just the reason why I was afraid that the Commune should get hold of them. I had told everybody that they were of a most compromising nature for some of the people actually in power, and for the pretenders to the crown of this country. Imagine how compromised I would have been had it been found out that they were merely tradesmen’s bills!”

CHAPTER IX
M. Thiers

I had had many opportunities of meeting M. Thiers during the last years of the Empire. I had known him even before I came to Paris in an official capacity, had often seen him at the houses of some mutual friends, and we came to know each other very well. He was one of the cleverest, nicest little men in the world, and even among the many interesting people who abounded in France at that time, he stood out conspicuously as one of the pleasantest. He had many enemies, which is not to be wondered at if one takes into consideration the vivacity which he always displayed in his likes and dislikes, and the bitterness, or rather the caustic tendencies, of his tongue. But friends and foes alike were loud in their praise of his intelligence, and especially of his wit. I am not talking of his moral character, which was discussed in many ways and which in part justified the attacks that were levelled against it. The Legitimists could not forgive him the part he had taken in the arrest of the Duchesse de Berry, nor the attitude of the ministry of which he was a member with regard to that unfortunate Princess whose frailties were so mercilessly displayed before the public before the end of her captivity in the fortress of Blaye. The Orleanists also did not care for him, in spite of the pledge which he had given to their party; but Louis Philippe personally was fond of him, perhaps because their tastes were very much alike, and because the sternness and austerity of Guizot, his great opponent, had never appealed to the heart of the King, who stood rather in awe of that imposing figure in modern French political life. The bonhomie of Thiers, his easygoing manners, were more in accordance with the homely attitude which at that time distinguished the Orleans family circle. As Montalembert once said very wittily: “Thiers, c’est le ministre bourgeois d’une dynastie bourgeoise.”

And the remark contained a great deal of truth, though it is much to be doubted whether the brilliant Catholic leader appreciated at their real worth the sterling qualities which M. Thiers was hiding under the sometimes frivolous manner in which he treated serious subjects.

As a writer he was one of the greatest of his epoch, and his work on the Consulate and the First Empire will always rank among the classics. Few people have understood so well as he did the gigantic figure of the first Napoleon, and certainly his knowledge of history, the wonderful way in which he remembered its lessons, and knew how to apply them where it became necessary, constituted a unique thing even in France, where at that time there was a superabundance of clever writers and great thinkers, of whom he was one of the foremost.

Some enemies of M. Thiers assured me that he would have done better to confine himself to his historical studies, and that it was a mistake on his part to throw himself into the struggles of a political career. I do not share this opinion personally, because the very nature of Thiers would have protested against a life spent only in thinking without the emulation of doing. He was essentially a great patriot, far greater than the general public supposed, and if he had personal ambitions, which cannot be denied, it must also be admitted that in the great moments of crisis through which his country passed during his lifetime, he never hesitated to put all his strength, all his experience, and all his knowledge of public affairs, as well as his influence at home and abroad, at her service, sparing neither time nor trouble, nor energy, in his endeavours to help her.

During the whole reign of Louis Philippe, M. Thiers was a conspicuous figure in Paris society, and, strange to relate, this petit bourgeois had succeeded in entering the most exclusive circles of the Faubourg St. Germain, and contrived to install himself in the favours of its leaders, masculine as well as feminine. He was essentially the type of a middle-class man, in spite of the high offices which he had held, and never could rid himself of the habit of tying a napkin round his neck at meals, when he was in his family circle, neither would he go out without the umbrella that remained the distinctive sign of that epoch still known as the “époque de Louis Philippe,” where the bourgeoisie reigned supreme, and where the Sovereign tried by all means to win for himself the sympathies of the mob by coming down to its level.

M. Thiers did not care for the mob. He was of an autocratic character, and of an imperious disposition, admitting no sovereignty apart from his own. But, nevertheless, he remained the child of his generation and of his class. He rose, but neither by adapting himself to circumstances, nor to the conditions of existence around him. Original he was in mind, in intelligence and in manners, and he did not change; he always appeared to his friends as a man of happy disposition tempered with affability, and tinged with familiarity; his distinctive characteristic from the very first days he entered public life.

Thiers was essentially “un homme d’opposition,” as one of his enemies once remarked, but he was a statesman of a type such as is no longer found nowadays; an active, busy, little individual, always on the look out for his adversaries’ mistakes, and terrible in the merciless way in which he noticed them—and, what is worse, made others notice them. He had but little pity in his heart for the errors of mankind, but was wise enough not to show the disdain in which he held it. He had been at a good school, had frequented the salon of Talleyrand, and studied politics by contact with the politicians who had ranked among the foremost in Europe. He used to relate a funny little anecdote from his early days, when he had been introduced to Prince Metternich, during one of his journeys to Vienna, whither he had repaired to study certain episodes of the history of Napoleon, and examine certain documents deposited in the Imperial Archives of the Burg. The statesman to whose intrigues the great Emperor had in part been indebted for his fall received Thiers in his study, and it seems received him very badly. But the little Frenchman, far from appearing to notice it, began at once to talk with the Austrian Chancellor as if he had known him for years, and did not scruple to question him on the subjects about which he desired to learn, a thing which Metternich, who liked above all things to hear himself speak, particularly disliked. Surprised at first, then slightly bored, the Prince told Thiers that he had better question the Director of the Archives about the various points he desired to clear up, to which the historian of the Consulate and the Empire replied quite brusquely that this personage could not tell him anything worth listening to, and that he never took lessons in history from those who had only read it. Metternich, more and more astonished, asked him what he meant. “Oh, nothing very important,” was the answer; “seulement je crois que personne ne pourrait mieux me renseigner sur Napoleon que vous qui êtes parvenu à le tromper si complètement et si souvent” (“I merely think no one should be better able to give me information about Napoleon than yourself, who succeeded in deceiving him so completely and so frequently”). When Thiers told this anecdote he never failed to add that “Metternich ne trouva rien d’autre à me répondre que de sourire avec la remarque: ‘Vous connaissez bien votre histoire, jeune homme’” (“Metternich in reply could do nothing but smile, accompanying it with the remark: ‘You are well up in your history, young man’”).

Impudence, as one can see from the above, was not wanting in the character of the future President of the French Republic, and this impudence never deserted him in later years. It has been said that his vanity was intense, and that there was some truth in this accusation cannot be denied; but beneath this vanity there lay the latent consciousness the man had of his own moral and intellectual worth, and of the immense distance that existed between him and the other men of his generation. He tried to impose his ideas on others; he was despotic in his decisions, his judgments and his opinions, but he was not devoid of impartiality, and he was very well aware of his own faults. He loved France with a sincere affection, which saw through her faults, and there was no chauvinism in his feelings. He would have liked to see his fatherland prosperous and powerful, but he never rushed into extremes as Frenchmen are so often inclined. Whilst he was the responsible minister of the dynasty of July, he served it faithfully and to the best of his ability, and though he has been often accused of opportunism, yet he never would accept office under the Bonapartes, though, and this is rather curious, he always was of opinion that their dynasty was the most popular one among all those that aspired to the government of France.

When, together with the other members of the Legislative Chamber, he was imprisoned by the President on the day of the coup d’état of the 2nd of December, he is said to have made the following typical remark: “Le Président nous fait enfermer, c’est son droit; espérons pour lui, qu’il saura en profiter, et ne donnera pas dans le travers de vouloir gouverner constitutionnellement. Il ne peut pas avoir de Constitution pour les Bonaparte, tout au plus peuvent ils prétendre à ce que leur règne soit celui où on parle de Constitution comme les malades parlent des mêts que leurs médecins leur interdisent de manger” (“The President is having us shut up, it is his right; let us hope for his own sake that he will know how to profit by it, and will not make the mistake of wanting to govern constitutionally. There can be no constitutional government for the Bonapartes. The utmost they can lay claim to is that during their reign the Constitution should be spoken of in the tone in which invalids speak of dishes that their doctors forbid them to eat”).

During the eighteen years that the Empire lasted, Thiers always refused to take office, though he owned later on that he felt once or twice sorely tempted to do so. But he realised that the regime could not last, and reserved himself for the moment when it would be overturned, feeling convinced in his mind that that day would be also that of his own personal triumph, and that whether the country liked it or not it would be compelled to turn to him for advice and for help.

When after the first defeats which characterised the war of 1870, the Empress Eugénie felt inclined to appeal to him to help her, and had him sounded by one of her friends who was on terms of close intimacy with him, M. Thiers replied that it was either too late or too early for him to do anything, and that as matters stood, the best thing to do was to allow events to take their course. “But the dynasty,” said his visitor; “are you going to allow the dynasty to fall like that?”

“If the dynasty were wise, I certainly would do my best to support it,” was the unexpected reply; “but the dynasty will not be wise; it will never have the common sense to bring itself to conclude peace just now, and to enforce the conditions of that peace, even by measures of violence against those who would undoubtedly oppose it. If I thought the Regent was strong enough and firm enough to arrest half the members of the Corps Législatif, and to send the other half back to their own firesides to meditate on the wisdom of a useless opposition, if she would make up her mind to govern for a time without the Chambers, then I would at once accept office; but she will never have the courage to take such a responsibility before the country, and therefore I cannot do anything for her. There are moments in the life of nations when it is indispensable for their welfare that those who govern them should feel no hesitation in resorting to violence, and France just now has reached such a moment. It is a thousand pities that the Regent or the Emperor fails to see it is the case. Under such circumstances my help would be useless to them, and it might compromise my own future prospects.”

This conversation gives a very good insight into the character of M. Thiers. It also accounts in part for the ruthlessness which he displayed in the crushing of the Commune a few months later.

Apropos of this, a few weeks before his death, I had the opportunity of talking to him about it at St. Germain, whither he had repaired to spend the summer, and where he was preparing himself for the struggle of the coming elections, which he fondly hoped would prove fatal to the government of Marshal MacMahon, whom he still expected to replace as head of the State. Thiers was in a communicative mood that afternoon, and he spoke with great vivacity of that time when he had displayed such energy, as his friends said—such brutality, as his foes maintained—in fighting the unruly and disorderly elements that had so very nearly destroyed France. On that occasion he used these memorable words: “I know that I have been severely blamed for the orders which I had given to Galiffet, to show no mercy to the insurgents, but, frankly, what else could I do? We had just gone through an unfortunate war; the enemy was at our gates, we had to execute a most onerous treaty, and above all to clear our territory from the invader, who certainly would never have left it, had he thought that this rebellion was going to take the upper hand. We had the whole country to reorganise, and this under the most deplorable conditions that have ever existed in the life of a nation. We were without an army, without any regular government, and had to fight the many ambitions of those who thought to seek their own advantage out of the general ruin. The first thing to do was to strike fear into the hearts of those who already thought that they could bring their own party to the head of affairs and thus add something to the general confusion. Don’t forget that in order to oblige the Prussians to recognise that we were strong enough to rule France, and to rule it well, we had not only to assert ourselves, but also to drive out of the minds of all our opponents, and of these there were legions, the idea that we had not got power enough on our side.

“You tell me that the Commune might easily have been subdued on that eventful and fatal 18th of March. This perhaps is true, because it did not even exist at that time, and we were face to face with a simple insurrection, not with a revolution. But would it have been wise? I don’t think so. Had we not acted as if we were in presence of a real and earnest danger, had I not retired to Versailles in a hurry as I did, the mutiny of the 18th of March would have repeated itself a few months later, and this sort of thing would have gone on continually. The government would have been weakened quite uselessly, and the prestige of France fallen a little lower than was the case already. A revolution is an incident, perhaps sad and bloody, but an incident all the same; whereas continual rebellions mean the demoralisation of a nation.

“I knew that France was demoralised in the sense I mean, but why need the world come to the same conclusion? Surely, none at all. Therefore we had to show the world that we were a strong government, that, what is even more important, we were a government, a fact which many people doubted still; and that as such we were determined to enforce order, to enforce it in the most determined manner possible, even at the risk of spilling more blood than we would have cared to do at other times. Of course I could not foresee the excesses to which the Commune would resort, nor the murder of the hostages, or the destroying of half Paris by fire, but I will be frank with you, I much preferred this to the consequences which would have ensued for the future of France, in an unsettled state of things such as would have resulted had the government of which I was the head not had occasion to show its energy and its decision to make itself respected. Of course, when Bismarck saw that we could cope with the situation, that we did not require his, or anyone else’s help, he gave up all idea of making difficulties in the execution of the different clauses of the treaty of peace. The army also, having just returned from its captivity in Germany, required something to divert it from the many anxious and rebellious thoughts it had had time to indulge in, during the long months of its imprisonment in German fortresses. The Commune came opportunely to allow it to let its thoughts drift into another channel.

“To resume the main point, I do not think that more indulgence towards the rebels would have helped us to regain the position to which even as a defeated nation we were entitled. For these reasons I do not regret that I enjoined severity to the troops that entered Paris. This severity had the result that out of the moral ruins left by the Empire, and those material ruins which resulted from the fleeting victory of the Commune, rose a government which won for itself the respect of Europe, and the esteem of Germany, who, seeing what it was capable of, gave up every thought of putting difficulties in its way. No, when I remember all that happened at that time, I cannot say I am sorry for anything I did, or which was done under my responsibility. I may deplore it, but I cannot regret it. One cannot be sentimental in politics.”

I wrote down this conversation in my diary when I got home, and every time I have the occasion to read it over again, I remember the vivacity with which Thiers developed to me his ideas on this important subject, ideas which I believe have never before been made known to the public.

It is strange how, with all his penetration, and his wonderful insight into politics, Thiers did not foresee the circumstances that brought about his own downfall. There were lacunes in that remarkable mind, lacunes which proceeded from his inordinate vanity. For instance, when he had started on that journey across Europe, in order to implore her help during the Franco-German war, he never for one moment imagined that he would be unsuccessful, or that his entreaties would be repulsed. The indifference with which the fate of his country was viewed beyond its frontiers proved a terrible blow to the old man, who sadly said, or, rather, repeated, the famous words: “Il n’y a plus d’Europe,” when his last hope, his trust in Alexander II. of Russia, also proved elusive. But with his usual ability he managed to mask his defeat under the pretext that neither Italy, Austria, nor Russia would have anything to do with the Imperial regime, and that as they hadn’t been sure it was definitely to be classed among the past things of history, they had thought it best and wisest to remain neutral, and not to interfere with the course of events. Out of that circumstance Thiers made enough capital to ensure his own election as head of the government, and once established at Versailles in that capacity he felt sure that he would remain at his post until his death.

He had no real adversaries worthy of that name. With consummate skill he had succeeded in entirely discrediting the Orleans princes by the willingness with which he had helped them to get back their confiscated millions, and he knew that henceforward they had made themselves impossible. There was still the Comte de Chambord, but in his case Thiers had at his disposal sources of information that left him no doubt as to the attitude that the latter would eventually take, if offered the crown of his ancestors. The only adversaries he dreaded were, therefore, the Bonapartes; and this danger seemed, for the present, to have drifted away by the death of Napoleon III. and the extreme youth of his son.

Whether it was this last circumstance, or simply that his watchfulness had relaxed, the fact remains that Thiers never noticed the storm that was looming in the distance, and threatening him. And when an accidental circumstance brought about his fall, in quite an unexpected manner, he was more astonished than anyone else at the event.

Nevertheless, he took it quite good humouredly, and with far more philosophy than could have been expected from him. I saw him a few days after it had occurred and was struck with his indifference. I think that upon the whole he was glad that his fall had taken place for a neutral cause, and that it had been his person that had been objected to rather than his manner of conducting the government. He hoped that the future would avenge him, and though such an old man, yet he was making plans for the day when France would call him back to the head of affairs. He knew that no matter what his enemies might say, he had deserved and had earned the gratitude of his country, and won for himself a glorious page in its annals. And if the truth be told, he was rather glad to be once more in the ranks of the opposition, and thus able to live over again the past days, when a word of his could overturn a government. He devoted all his energies to the struggle which he fully intended to initiate against President MacMahon, whom he had never liked, even when he had employed him, and whom he never forgave for having taken his place. Thiers had always been of opinion that the Marshal’s intellectual capacities were of the smallest kind, and that except honesty of purpose, he possessed none of the qualifications that are required of the Head of a State. It was gall and wormwood to him, to find his place had been taken by a man who would destroy some of his work, and a great deal of his plans. So he devoted all his energies to prepare the defeat of the Marshal after the latter’s coup d’état of the 16th of May.

Fate, however, interfered and carried off M. Thiers after an illness of a few hours at St. Germain, where, as I have already related, he spent the last summer of his life. In spite of his advanced age, he died in full possession of his faculties, and with his intelligence as bright and clear as it had ever been. The emotion provoked by his death was considerable. The old man was, after all, more popular than one had thought, and the nation was very well aware that in burying him, she was also burying a great patriot, who had been true to her in the hour of her greatest adversity. I followed in his funeral procession, and as we were marching towards distant Père la Chaise, I heard the following remark which left a deep impression on my mind: the more so that it was uttered by a common workman whom certainly I wouldn’t have believed to be capable of it: “Il avait des défauts, le petit homme, mais après tout c’est grâce à lui que Belfort est resté français!” (“He had his faults, the little man; but, after all, it is thanks to him that Belfort remained French”).

I think that Thiers would have thought, had he listened to these words, that they constituted the best recognition that had ever been uttered of his long life of service to the nation.

CHAPTER X
The Comte de Chambord and His Party

I had had the honour to be introduced to the Comte de Chambord in Vienna, long before the fall of the Empire had once more put him forward as a Pretender to the throne of France; I had even once or twice been invited to Frohsdorf. These visits always left me a sadder if not a wiser man. They were more like a pilgrimage to an historical monument, than a visit to a living man. Everything seemed dead in that small, unpretentious house, for it could hardly be called a castle, in which the last direct descendant of Louis XIV. was ending his uneventful existence. The walls themselves told you of something that was past and gone, and the inhabitants of this living grave flitted like ghosts of the great traditions that were embodied in them. Everything was dignified, solemn, and hushed. The rooms were small, but full of great things and mementoes, from the large equestrian portrait of Henri IV., to the stately picture of Louis XVI., and the smiling one of unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Lackeys in the blue livery of the House of France, met you at the door, and ushered you into an unpretentious study, where, sitting at a table littered with books and papers, the Comte de Chambord was awaiting his visitors.

He was a most charming man, with grand manners, and much stateliness, but one on whom the many deceptions of his life had left their impress, and aged before his time. He always questioned all those whom he was about France, Paris, and everything that was going on there, taking the liveliest interest in his country, but not understanding it at all, and not realising that the France of after the Revolution was no longer the France which the old Bourbon monarch had ruled. He had strong principles, earnest convictions, was in the full sense of the term a “chevalier sans peur et sans reproche,” but he harboured no illusions as to his possibilities of playing any part in the political life of his country. Had he had any children it is probable that he would have tried to reconcile the traditions of his family with the requirements of modern France, but in presence of the fact that with him the elder branch of the House of Bourbon was coming to an end, he must have had the feeling, though he never owned to it in public, that there was no necessity for him to abdicate any part of the inheritance of his ancestors, in order to benefit the Orleans dynasty who had sent his great-uncle to the scaffold, and had tried to dishonour his own mother. He was too much of a gentleman not to have received with politeness the overtures of his cousins when they made up their minds to come and pay their respects to him at Frohsdorf; but he could not, and would not, affect in regard to them a cordiality which he did not really feel.

The Comte de Chambord was essentially un homme d’autrefois; he never shirked what he considered to be his duty, but who would never give himself the appearance of liking what he did not, or of respecting what did not deserve respect. He had grand manners that savoured of hauteur, and left one in no doubt as to what he thought or believed. Life had been one long disappointment to him, which he had accepted with a true Christian spirit, devoid of the slightest shade of rebellion, and he had picked up his burden, and carried it nobly to the end. He died wrapped in the folds of the old flag which he had refused to renounce, even when a crown would have rewarded him for its abandonment.

At Frohsdorf he led the existence of a country gentleman; there was no semblance of a Pretender about him. As he once said to a visitor who very tactlessly had remarked upon it: “I am not a Pretender, and do not need give myself the appearance of one. I am a principal for those who see in me their King.”

And yet there was much that was kingly in that quiet Austrian domain, to which the Duchesse d’Angoulême had retired towards the end of her earthly career, and which she had bequeathed to her nephew. The big drawing-room where one assembled in the evenings after dinner had a vague appearance of a palace, though the master of it did his best to put his visitors at their ease; but the Comtesse de Chambord sitting in her big arm-chair by a round table, upon which her needlework was laid, or bending over the stitches of her tapestry, looked every inch a sovereign, in spite of the knitted scarf which she often tied round her head, or the extreme simplicity of her black silk dress, made quite high to the throat and finished by a plain white linen collar. The atmosphere of the room, too, was laden with a hush and solemnity that at once made one feel and understand that one was not in the dwelling of a common mortal. These evenings were anything but amusing, though the Comte did his best to keep the ball of conversation rolling; but somehow it was impossible to give it a frivolous turn, or to drive away an impression that everyone in the room was waiting for something. What, of course, was not known; but one was waiting, waiting like the son of the murdered Duc de Berry had been waiting ever since his birth, for the call of his country, which never came, or at least not in the way in which he would have cared to respond to it.

A great deal has been said concerning the attempt at a monarchical restoration that had taken place during the presidency of Marshal MacMahon, and the circumstances which had accompanied it have not been commented upon in a manner favourable to the Comte de Chambord. I was in Versailles at the time it occurred, and from what came to my knowledge I do not think that the real reasons which influenced Henri V., as his adherents called him, have ever been known in their entirety. One has spoken of the flag and of the reluctance of the Pretender to accept the tricolour, but what has never been revealed to this day is that a compromise had been suggested by a clever French politician who had been consulted. Gifted with a singular gift of observation, this politician was very well au courant of the feelings of the different parties which were represented in the National Assembly, and consequently he was in a position to give sound advice to those who had recourse to his experience.

His compromise was that the national flag should remain the tricolour, whilst the King would keep for his own personal emblem the white cravat of his ancestors, that alone would be borne before him on all State ceremonies which were not purely military ones. Strange to say, the Comte de Chambord had at first appeared willing to consent, understanding well, in spite of the prejudices of his earlier education, that he would be obliged to make some concessions to the times before he could hope to be accepted by France as its legitimate King. But, before giving his final adherence to this compromise, he wished to know the opinion of his cousin, the Comte de Paris, and to learn from him whether or not he would, when in due course he succeeded him, ratify this arrangement, and maintain its clauses. The Comte de Paris refused to assume the responsibility of saying yes, and replied evasively that his uncle the Duc d’Aumale ought to be consulted. The latter, however, declared that he could not advise his nephew, but that it would be difficult in his opinion for an Orleans prince to forget that the fate of his dynasty was bound up with that of the tricolour banner, and that to renounce it even in part, was to renounce the glorious principles of the Monarchy of July. This answer, when it became known to the Comte de Chambord, did away with his last hesitation. Urged by the strong dynastic feelings that swayed him, he might have made up his mind to sacrifice some part of his principles to the welfare of his race; but only if this sacrifice would have been of some use to it. Seeing that it would only be interpreted as a desire on his part to put on his head a crown he did not care for, and which in his inmost heart he did not think he had either the strength or the ability to carry or to defend, he gave up every idea of winning it by means of a compromise where, in the best of cases, some of his own personal dignity would have foundered; and after a short stay in France, he returned to his beloved Frohsdorf, to die there a few years later, the last of the Burgraves of his generation.

I had occasion to see him during the short stay which he made at Versailles under an incognito which was only discovered by a very few. We took a walk together in the park, and along the alleys of that garden of Trianon, where the young and frivolous Queen, so brutally murdered by the bloody Revolution which she had neither foreseen nor understood, had walked together with the lovely Lamballe and her train of gay courtiers. Everything looked sad, and deserted, and abandoned; it all spoke of a dead past, and of a departed glory. Suddenly the Comte de Chambord stopped in his walk, and turning to me said those memorable words which I have never forgotten: “What a pity that this place was not entirely destroyed in 1793!”

I looked at him with surprise.