Eugenie, Empress of the French

At length came the final blow. On the afternoon of the third of September, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs was on his way to the Tuileries, he was met by the Superintendent of Telegraphs.

“I have just received a most important telegram for the Empress from the Emperor,” he said. “I usually attend myself to the messages that pass between Their Majesties, but this one I have not the courage to deliver.” It was the well-known despatch:

“The army is defeated and has surrendered. I myself am a prisoner.

“Napoleon.”

The Minister went at once to Eugénie with this terrible news, the reality of which exceeded all that her darkest fears had painted, and her feelings at this moment may be better imagined than described. Yet even then she did not consider her own fate. Her only thought was for France; and she firmly refused to employ the troops in her own defence against the people, for that would have added the terrors of civil strife to those of war. Late that evening the bad news reached the city, but instead of uniting to make a brave stand against the enemy, the populace rose in arms, and it was plain that the Empire’s days were numbered. The streets were filled with surging throngs, shouting “Down with the Emperor! Down with the Empress! Long live the Republic!” On all sides was heard the expression, “An Emperor dies, but does not surrender.”

About one o’clock that night the Legislature held a special session. Not a member was absent, and the galleries were crowded. Amid a deathly silence the president arose. He said:

“A calamity has brought us together here at this unwonted hour. I have called the session to discuss our present situation.”

Not a sound broke the stillness. All eyes were fixed on the Ministers’ bench. Count Palikao rose. The aged hero was no orator, but his voice was firm as he announced the disaster of Sedan. He added, slowly:

“With such news it is impossible for the ministry to enter into any discussion before to-morrow. I was called from my bed only a short time since, to come here.”

The president of the Exchequer then put the question as to whether the meeting should be adjourned. “Aye-aye,” shouted several voices. Suddenly a bushy head arose, and a loud, discordant voice made three motions:—“Deposition of the Emperor; Appointment of a provisional Government; Retention of Trochu as Governor of Paris.” It was Jules Favre.

Only members of the Extreme Left subscribed to these motions, which were received with surprising indifference. One member of the Right protested against the Emperor’s deposition, but an ominous silence greeted his words. For the rest of the night a similar silence reigned throughout the city. It was the hush before the storm.

That Eugénie was far from suspecting an uprising is shown by the fact that she made absolutely no preparations for flight. The next morning she arose early, heard mass in her private chapel, and made her rounds of the hospitals as usual. At nine o’clock she received General Trochu, who, although only a few hours since placed at the head of the new Government, still solemnly protested his loyalty to her. Later in the forenoon a deputation waited on the Regent to inform her of the appointment of a commission to assume control of the Government in her place, in other words, to request her resignation. She listened quietly to their explanation and dismissed them with the following words:

“What you mean to offer me, gentlemen, is the pledge of a peaceful future, on condition that I renounce the present and abandon in time of danger the post entrusted to me. That I cannot do. To such terms I certainly will not subscribe. Go back to the Assembly and say to General Palikao and his colleagues that I rely upon them implicitly; that I grant them full power to take any steps proper for the interest of the country, and approve the same in advance.”

Meanwhile the public tumult increased in violence. The red flag was hoisted everywhere. A boy of nine years even climbed up and fastened one to the top of the bronze railing that surrounded the Tuileries. Thousands filled the Place de la Concorde, roaring the Marseillaise at the top of their voices. The Assembly had again met, but so many forced their way into the chamber, and the uproar was so great, that it was impossible to transact any business.

“Not here shall the Republic be proclaimed,” shouted Gambetta, “but at the Hôtel de Ville!”

This suggestion met with great applause, and the deputies adjourned to that edifice, where a Government of National Defence was formed. The news that the Empire no longer existed quickly spread and was hailed with wildest enthusiasm. Not a voice was raised in behalf of the fallen dynasty. Vast throngs invaded the Hôtel de Ville and valuable portraits of the Emperor and Empress were hacked with knives, trampled under foot, and tossed out of the windows. The imperial emblems were torn to pieces, and the eagle, which could not be easily removed, was covered with paper.

“At the windows of the huge barracks filled with troops supposed to be loyal unto death to the Emperor,” says an eye-witness, “I saw soldiers laughing, waving their handkerchiefs, and shouting ‘Long live the Republic!’ Strangers hugged and kissed one another for joy. In the neighborhood of the Pont Neuf, people mounted on high ladders were busy pulling down busts of the Emperor, which were carried in mock state and flung into the Seine, shouts of laughter and applause greeting the splash with which the mutilated images of their former sovereign struck the water.”

Chapter XII
Eugénie’s Flight to England

The Empress mean while was still at the Tuileries. One of the palace prefects had returned from the Assembly with news of what had passed, but she refused to desert her post even though the mob was already at the gates of the palace and a dull roar penetrated the deserted halls. Eugénie’s question as to whether it would be possible to defend the Tuileries without bloodshed was answered in the negative by the governor of the palace, General Mellinet, and she still refused to have a drop of blood shed in her behalf. Nearer and nearer sounded the uproar, and the trampling of feet was now distinctly audible. Shouts were heard: “She will escape!” “Long live the Republic!” “Down with the Spaniard!” “Forward! Into the palace—forward!”

Prince Metternich and the Italian ambassador, Count Nigra, who had hastened to the side of the Empress, urged her to flee, as every moment that passed made escape more difficult. But to run away from danger was foreign to Eugénie’s nature, and she could not bring herself to believe it necessary, in spite of the raging mob without trampling on one another, swaying now forward, now back, striving with shrieks and blows to make room and force open the gates of the palace, all animated by a single impulse—hatred for the imperial house. At length sounds of tumult were heard on the great staircase, and the Empress’s attendants implored her to leave the palace and not expose their lives to danger.

“Is there no other way?” she asked in despair. “Is there nothing we can do to defend ourselves? At least, you can say I have done my duty to the last.”

Deeply moved, they kissed her hand without replying; but the Prince urged them to hurry, as there was no time to lose. A dark cloak was thrown around the Empress, and, accompanied by her reader, Madame Lebreton, with the two ambassadors, Minister Chevreau, and a few members of her court, she consented at last to go. Escape was impossible through the palace courtyard; for the Place du Carrousel, from which it was separated only by a slender railing, was packed with people. Some other way must be found; but before leaving her rooms Eugénie went to the window and stood looking down for a moment on the seething mass below.

“Alas!” she cried, “what folly to spend their strength in this way, when the enemy is at the gates!” Then, as she turned to go, she added with emotion:

“Unhappy palace! fate seems to have ordained that all crowned heads shall leave you in this way.”

By this time her escort was reduced to the two ambassadors and Madame Lebreton. The others had already fled to seek their own safety. She took Count Nigra’s arm, and Madame Lebreton followed with Prince Metternich. Through the Flora Pavilion of the Tuileries they hurried to the Louvre, the galleries of which they must traverse at full length to reach an exit on the side toward St. Germain. But here, too, the street was crowded with people shouting, “Long live the Republic!” “Down with the Emperor!”

The little party halted before the door, but behind them also sounded the roar of the mob. To turn back would be inevitably to fall into their hands. The risk must be taken; there was nothing to do but go on. Even at this critical point the Empress’s courage did not forsake her; indeed, she had never given clearer proof of it than now.

“You are holding my arm,” she said to Nigra; “do you feel it tremble?”

“Not in the least, Madame,” replied the Count.

The gentlemen opened the doors. The ladies passed out, and Eugénie found herself face to face with the populace who were inflamed with hatred against her. She was within a hair’s-breadth of sharing the fate of Marie Antoinette, or perhaps being torn to pieces by the rabble. The excitement was so great, there is no knowing what terrible scene might have been enacted had she been recognized.

Luckily a closed carriage happened to be standing near by, and with great presence of mind she rushed toward it. A street urchin spied her and shouted, “Look, look! the Empress!” but no one heeded the words. Nigra stopped and spoke to the boy to divert his attention while Eugénie threw herself into the carriage, followed by Madame Lebreton. Prince Metternich shouted an imaginary address to the driver, and off they went, safe at least for the time being. But their troubles were not yet ended. In her haste, Eugénie had forgotten her purse; and when her companion drew hers from her pocket she found to her horror that it contained only three francs in all, scarcely enough to pay for the carriage. To avoid a discussion with the driver, they determined to continue on foot, but whither, they had not yet considered. At the Boulevard Haussmann, therefore, they alighted, and while Madame Lebreton paid the coachman, Eugénie stepped into the shadow of a doorway.

It is said that the Empress knocked in vain at many doors before she succeeded in finding a temporary asylum in her own capital; but at length the happy thought occurred to her of applying to Dr. Evans, a well-known American dentist whom she had known for years and often received at the Tuileries. Arrived at his office, she had to wait with other patients in the anteroom till her turn came; but at last Madame Lebreton was able to gain admittance to the dentist and told him that the Empress was without, hoping to find a refuge under his roof until she could make her escape from Paris.

Evans’s astonishment was beyond words. Unaware as yet of the sudden change in affairs, he could not believe it possible that the Empress should have cause to fear for her safety. Nevertheless he begged the ladies to wait while he went out into the street to convince himself of the true condition of things. In a short time he returned, convinced that they had not left the Tuileries a moment too soon; and without a thought of his own danger or the possible detriment to his business, he promised to aid them to the full extent of his power. His wife was away at the time, and as luck would have it, he was expecting the arrival that day of two patients who were unknown to his servants. He now introduced the Empress and Madame Lebreton as these persons. His own bedchamber was prepared for Eugénie and an improvised couch placed in it for her companion.

While the Empress was thus being harbored in the house of the chivalrous American, and full of anxiety as to what the morrow would bring forth, all Paris was mad with joy. Men, women, and children marched up and down the streets all night, singing and shouting, oblivious of the disaster of Sedan and the country’s danger, and rejoicing that the Empire was no more.

Evans, meanwhile, had instantly set to work. Under pretext of a professional visit, but in reality to prepare for the Empress’s escape, he drove out that very day to the Neuilly Bridge where he was stopped and asked to give his name, also his destination and his errand. One of the guards who happened to know him, however, called to his comrade to let the American pass.

“I may be frequently obliged to pass the barriers,” remarked the Doctor coolly; “look well at me, my man, so that you will know me again and that I may not be detained unnecessarily.”

His plan was already made. On his return he informed the ladies that they would be able to pass the Neuilly Bridge the next day under his protection if Her Majesty would consent to play the part of a mad woman. He would pretend to have a patient with him on her way to an asylum beyond Neuilly, while Madame Lebreton could pass as her attendant. Accompanied by a friend and countryman of Dr. Evans, who was taken into their confidence, they started off the next morning. All went well. The sentry at once recognized the doctor, while the Empress, leaning back in the carriage, her face hidden by a thick veil, passed unnoticed. This danger past, they reached St. Germain in safety, and then Nantes, where they put up at an inn.

“I have a lady with me whom I am taking to a private asylum,” Evans explained to the innkeeper, “and I would like a quiet room with shutters on the windows.”

His request was complied with without question, and here Eugénie and her companion were able to enjoy a few hours’ rest. Evans’s colleague returned to Paris with the doctor’s carriage which they had used thus far, and a coach was hired for them by the landlord to convey the invalid to the institution where she was to be left in charge. Further to carry out the plan, it was privately arranged that the Empress should appear to protest against being taken there, and make such forcible resistance on the way that they would apparently be forced to take another road. They had driven for scarcely half an hour, therefore, when a loud dispute arose between Eugénie and the doctor, which became so violent that Evans called to the coachman to stop that he might try and induce the patient to go a short distance on foot.

“I will not—I will not!” stormed the Empress, and her screams frightened the horses so that the driver declared he would go no further unless the disturbance was stopped.

“I will never go to that place, I will not!” shrieked Eugénie afresh, and at last there seemed nothing for it but to turn back and drive to the nearest post station, whence the coach was sent back. As a further measure of precaution they changed conveyances at every station, now, however, taking the road to their real destination—the watering-place of Deauville, where Mrs. Evans was then staying.

For many weeks, as we have seen, Eugénie had lived in constant agitation and anxiety—the days full of exhausting labor, the nights without sleep—and had suffered both mentally and physically in consequence. She was no longer able to eat, and had lived for the last four or five days literally on nothing but black coffee and chloral, which she had been in the habit of taking in large quantities to drown her troubles. She wept almost incessantly; and even when sleep lent her a few moments’ respite, she would start up suddenly, begin to talk and laugh excitedly, then as quickly burst into tears and relapse again into deepest melancholy.

After two seemingly endless days, the fugitives reached Deauville on the evening of September 6, and Evans took the Empress and her companion at once to his wife. Mrs. Evans was about the same size as Eugénie, and gladly packed up a part of her wardrobe with some necessary articles of toilet for the Empress’s use, while the doctor hastened to discover what boats were leaving for England. Two vessels were in the harbor, the larger an American ship, the other a pleasure yacht, the Gazelle, belonging to Lord Burgoyne. Finding the former not sufficiently seaworthy, Evans applied to Lord Burgoyne, who at first flatly refused to take the Empress across, partly for political reasons, partly because a storm was brewing. But Eugénie’s protector insisted so urgently that he finally yielded on condition that the ladies should not come aboard till just before the boat sailed, lest the fact that he had passengers should attract attention. Shortly before midnight Eugénie, accompanied by Evans and her faithful Lebreton, hurried on board the yacht, which did not weigh anchor, however, till the next morning.

The dangers by land now lay behind the fugitives, but others still awaited them by sea. Soon a fearful storm arose, and the little craft was tossed about at the mercy of the elements. The crew, little suspecting that an Empress looked to them for rescue, labored on bravely and calmly, as is the way of sailors, who know at any moment they may be called into eternity. Still the storm increased in violence, and the danger grew greater every moment. The ladies were flung about the tiny cabin like bales of merchandise. By nightfall all hope seemed vanished. Pale as death, terror stamped on every line of his countenance, Lord Burgoyne appeared at the door of the cabin, crying that they were lost.

“It is all your fault!” he shouted, glaring wildly at the doctor, then rushed away as suddenly as he had come. The three passengers looked at one another in amazement, and seasick, exhausted, and disheartened as she was, Eugénie could not help laughing at the Englishman’s frenzy of terror. Still the brave little Gazelle struggled on against wind and wave until at last the storm began to subside, and about three o’clock the next morning, after what seemed a miraculous escape, they reached the harbor of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

With what feelings must the ex-Empress have once more beheld this coast! Must she not involuntarily have recalled that first visit with her mother to England so long ago, in her joyous care-free youth? And again, when she took that first important step toward recognition by the European sovereigns, and as the favorite of fortune, gay, courted, and admired, landed amid the enthusiastic shouts of the people, as the honored guest of Queen Victoria? To-day she turned to England for refuge—no longer the beautiful sovereign of a great European power, but a wretched fugitive, an unhappy woman exhausted with fatigue and faint for lack of food. Those shores on which she had once been hailed with triumph now in the gray dawn were sole witnesses of her mute despair.

Chapter XIII
The Empress in Exile

Early on the morning of the eighth of September, the landlord of the Hotel York in Ryde was awakened by a loud knocking, and found a man and two women standing outside the door. They had gone first to another inn, but had been refused admittance, their appearance was so bedraggled and forlorn. Yet worn and travel-stained as they were, the doors of the York were opened to them without hesitation, and here the Empress and her companions were able to rest for a few hours after their exhausting journey. That same afternoon, however, they went on to Brighton, where the Empress heard that the Prince Imperial had escaped through Belgium and landed at Dover the preceding day. Through all her own danger and distress she had been tortured by constant suspense as to the fate of her son. Now, therefore, she hurried at once to Hastings where she hoped to meet him; and that day witnessed the reunion of mother and child. But how different, alas, was this meeting from that of which Eugénie had dreamed, when the Prince—hailed with cheers from the troops and the people, and followed by a mother’s proud hopes—had departed “à Berlin” under his father’s care!

There could have been no greater contrast than that of the life that now began for Eugénie in Hastings, with her brilliant career as Empress, or even with that troubled war-time and the dangers and excitements through which she had passed. Torn by alternations of hope, fear, and disappointment, she had scarcely had time during the past month to think of herself, much less give way to her feelings. Here, at the Marine Hotel, for the first time she found leisure to look back on what had happened and to review her past life—that inevitable time of reckoning from which no life is wholly free. Hitherto she had known nothing but gratified desires, glittering triumphs, and realized ambitions. She had had no cause to distrust friends or doubt their loyalty, no experience of ingratitude. Rarely forgetful of a service done her, and incapable of falsehood herself, she had preserved an almost childlike faith in human nature. Now, for the first time, fate was to make her thoroughly familiar with this bitterest chapter in the book of experience. Scarcely had she turned her back on the Tuileries before her own servants rifled her apartments. Later, when news came that the rabble had broken into the palace and wrought havoc there, Eugénie’s first thought was “Poor Trochu!”

“Why do you pity him?” asked her companion, in surprise.

“Because he has sworn so often to me that only over his dead body should any assailant enter my palace, that I feel sure he must be dead,” was the reply.

That this General, who so basely deserted his sovereign in the hour of danger, was on the contrary quite well and enjoying life in his self-appointed position as head of the Government is only a single instance of how those who in time of prosperity bowed lowest before the Empress were the first to desert her in misfortune. Every newspaper that she saw showed her the meaning of adversity. Those who had received the most signal marks of favor were the loudest now to denounce the defenceless woman. With petty spite, the Government of National Defence had destroyed all the emblems of imperialism and done everything in its power to represent the dynasty, which for nearly twenty years had upheld the welfare and prosperity of France, as a curse to the country. Anxious to discover, if possible, something derogatory to the character of the Empress, it had caused the palace to be searched for any private papers she might have left behind, but without success. Even the few letters that were published for the purpose of exposing her disclosed nothing in the least compromising.

Her jewels and dresses, with some ready money that was found in the Tuileries after her flight, were sent to her in England. Yet although she was forced to dispose of her diamonds to defray necessary expenses; and although Napoleon, to provide himself with funds, sold his private estate in Rome, the “Palazzo dei Cesari,” for a few hundred thousand francs, it was persistently asserted in Paris that the imperial family were in possession of millions of francs with which they had enriched themselves at the people’s expense; also that Napoleon had made enormous sums in foreign speculation and owned capital in Dutch, English, and American bonds.

Filled with anger and despair at these lies and petty persecutions, Eugénie found life at Hastings unendurable. The prying curiosity of the townspeople and of the crowds of strangers that flocked thither was a torment to her. Even the sea air she so loved did her no good; the magnificent view only served to rouse bitter memories of the happy days at Biarritz. The King of Prussia had offered her and her son a residence in Wilhelmshöhe, but she would accept no hospitality from France’s enemy. At length, through Dr. Evans, she rented Camden House at Chiselhurst, whither she moved toward the end of September.

But even though dethroned and an exile, Eugénie did not altogether cease to concern herself with politics. While she was at Hastings, and the situation following her flight was so new as still to warrant recognition of her authority as Regent, Bismarck sent an envoy to her to discuss terms of peace. She replied that so long as there remained a single enemy on French soil, or there was question of even the smallest cession of territory, she would enter into no negotiations with him.

Bismarck was not the only one who tried to induce her to intervene in this matter. There was still one post in France that held out against the Germans, still one general at least who was loyal to the Empire. Marshal Bazaine was in Metz with a force of 170,000 men, all picked troops, including the Imperial guard which had so often filled the Parisian populace with pride at state reviews. Believing himself strong enough to exert some influence over the question of peace or a continuation of hostilities, he sent General Bourbaki to Chiselhurst, with the consent of the King of Prussia, to inform the Empress that he was in favor of concluding peace if she would so authorize him. Tempting as this opportunity of again wielding power was to Eugénie’s active nature, she prudently forbore, realizing that her best plan was to withdraw entirely from the field of politics at present and await a more favorable opportunity, when she might work with redoubled energy for the restoration of her family. This course was also in accordance with the wishes of Napoleon, to whom she made a secret visit in October in order to consult with him, while General Bourbaki was at Chiselhurst awaiting an answer.

In spite of Eugénie’s continued refusal to mix in any public affairs, the “salon at Chiselhurst” was persistently reported to be the centre of political intrigue; and Prince Jerome Napoleon, who in the absence of the Emperor wished to appear as head of the imperial family, presented himself at Camden House one day to demand of the Empress an explanation. A stormy scene followed between these two bitter enemies, and the “red Prince” was careful that a properly distorted account of the interview should be made public.

After an imprisonment of about seven months, Napoleon was at last free to return to his wife and son at the little home in Chiselhurst, where the imperial family continued to live in the simplest manner; for although Camden House did not lack comfort and even elegance, it was so limited as to space that it was impossible to accommodate more than one or two guests at a time. Yet the joys of family life compensated in a measure for all the luxury and state of which they had been deprived by fortune, and in this smaller sphere Eugénie lost none of the dignity and charm of manner for which she had been so conspicuous. It was the more easy for her to adapt herself to these new conditions as gradually a circle of their old friends began to gather about the exiles, and expressions of loyalty and devotion arrived nearly every day from France, with many proofs of friendship from Queen Victoria and other royalties.

A great task still lay before her—to provide for the future of her son. She had always been a wise as well as devoted mother, and had not failed to impress on the young Prince that more would be required of him than of others, in order properly to fit himself for the high position he would one day be called upon to occupy. Now that the throne must be won back again, it was doubly important that he should receive a thorough military education. This son was now her only thought. She centred in him all her hopes and expectations, for the Emperor’s health—which had been poor for years—was now rapidly failing. She could never count on Napoleon the Third’s return to the throne; but as the mother of Napoleon the Fourth she saw herself in fancy once again in France, more highly honored, even prouder and happier if possible, than before.

The chronic ailment from which the Emperor had always suffered threatened, toward the close of 1872, to take a fatal turn and his physicians advised an operation. Personally, Napoleon was strongly opposed to it; but the Empress, not realizing the danger, and perhaps with the secret hope that it might enable her husband to become once more a power in French politics, urged him to yield to the physician’s advice. He submitted accordingly to the operation, but had not strength enough to recover from the shock; and on the ninth of January, 1873, the “dreamer” passed quietly away without a word or a sign.

Chapter XIV
Death of Prince Imperial

Eugénie’s grief at her husband’s death was deep and sincere. Over his bier she wept far bitterer tears than those she had shed during those dreadful days following her flight from the capital. Indeed she was so prostrated as to be unable to appear at the funeral. Human nature is elastic, however, and it was never the Empress’s way to fold her hands and brood over her troubles. She found one source of consolation, moreover, in the constant proofs of attachment that reached her, not only from the friends that had remained faithful to her through all the changes of fortune, but also from many others who had long seemed to have forgotten their vows of allegiance.

As death had removed all possibility of the restoration of Napoleon the Third to the throne, his old adherents rallied to the support of his son; and as there was still a large Bonapartist party in France, it seemed not improbable that with the exercise of courage and patience the Empire might one day be revived. In 1873, by uniting with the Legitimists and Orleanists, they succeeded in deposing Thiers, who had been President of the Republic since 1871, and electing Marshal MacMahon in his place, a change greatly to the advantage of the Bonapartists, who now entered the political arena once more as a regular party.

In the Autumn of 1872 the Prince Imperial entered the military academy at Woolwich, where he studied hard and made gratifying progress; and on the death of his father he was generally recognized as heir to the imperial throne, in spite of all the efforts made by his cousin Napoleon to prevent it. Eugénie now lived only in this son and his future; no stone was left unturned to smooth his pathway to the throne. As yet he had a hard struggle before him; but her faith in his ultimate victory was supreme; and supported by ex-Minister Rouher, the leader of the Bonapartists, then as ever one of Eugénie’s stanchest friends, she carefully but firmly gathered up the threads by which she hoped to guide the course of events.

On the seventh of February, 1875, the Prince passed the required examinations and left Woolwich with an officer’s commission. He had developed greatly in every respect, to his mother’s joy and the pride of his party, whose hopes were now fixed on him. His amiability and charm of manner won him friends wherever he went. Unlike his father, he objected strongly to any radical measures or political agitation of any sort, and hoped to recover what he considered his rightful crown by the natural allegiance of France. Besides her political ambitions for her son, Eugénie was anxious also to arrange a suitable marriage for him; but in this she was disappointed. The wooing of Napoleon the Fourth met with the same fate as that of his father. There were repeated rumors of a betrothal between him and Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter, Beatrice, who is said to have cherished a warmer feeling than friendship for the exiled Prince; but, deep as was the sympathy felt for him by the English royal house, and true a friend as Victoria had proved herself, to entrust her daughter’s fate to young Napoleon seemed to her a trifle too uncertain. When this plan failed, Eugénie fixed her hopes on the Princess Thyra of Denmark; and in 1878 the Prince made a visit to that country to try his fortune with the Danish court; but here, too, he was rejected as a suitor.

The Bonapartists now felt that to have any serious hope of gaining the French crown the Prince must first win his laurels as a soldier; they urged him, therefore, to join the English army, which was about to go to war with the Kaffirs of Zulu. Much as she desired to see her son seated on the throne, Eugénie shrank from this method of achieving it; but the Prince fell in at once with the suggestion, and unmoved by his mother’s attempts to dissuade him, sailed for Africa with the English troops, leaving a message of farewell to his followers.

On the ninth of April, 1879, he arrived at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, Lord Chelmsford, and took part in several actions with great spirit and courage. In May, while he was on a reconnoitring expedition in the neighborhood of Itelezi with a fellow officer and several men, the party was suddenly surprised by a band of Zulus who sprang out from behind an ambuscade. Abandoned by his companions, who fled to save themselves, the Prince held out bravely as long as he could, but at length one of the savages dealt him a fatal blow, and he fell, his body pierced with seventeen spears. The Military Gazette, in which the young Prince received honorable mention, says:

“Thus did an inscrutable fate grant to him what it cruelly denied both his father and the great founder of their race—to fall in battle, bravely fighting against the foe.”

The death of the Prince Imperial created the profoundest sensation. As soon as the news reached England, Colonel Sidney, an old friend of the family, was sent to break it to the Empress, but before he could get to Chiselhurst she had already heard of it. That morning all newspapers and telegrams had been carefully withheld from her, but her letters were overlooked. One of these was doubly addressed, to her and to Secretary Pietri, and contained an allusion to “the dreadful news” without mentioning what it was. She sent at once for the Duke of Bassano to ask for an explanation; and when he arrived speechless with emotion, she suspected that it concerned the Prince. Chilled with fear at what she read in his countenance, she stood as if turned to stone. That son, for whom she longed day and night, her only joy in life! The thought was so terrible, Eugénie could not pursue it to the end.

“Something has happened to my son,” she groaned; “I must start at once for the Cape.”

Unable to reply, the Duke went out into the hall, where he met Colonel Sidney, who brought confirmation of the sad tidings. The Empress sent again for the Duke and insisted upon hearing all, repeating that she should go to Africa at once.

“Alas! madame,” said the Duke, “it is too late.”

“Oh, my son—my poor son!” shrieked the mother, and fell senseless to the floor.

After the first paroxysm of grief was over, she neither wept nor spoke, but listened with feverish despair while the Duke related all the circumstances of her son’s death, not withholding a single painful detail. Madame Lebreton then led her gently into her bedchamber where the Abbé Goddard tried to comfort her. But the religion that had been such a source of support to her through all her troubles now proved of little consolation. Her whole life had been bound up in her child, and now that this last earthly support had crumbled, all hope and joy lay buried in the dust. For several days and nights she neither ate nor slept, but remained sunk in a sort of torpor from which she roused only to ask in tones of agonized pleading if it might not be that her son was only ill or wounded, and she could go out to nurse him back to health. Fortunately for her life or reason, she at last found relief in tears, and now she wept unceasingly.

The whole world shared the stricken mother’s sorrow, and thousands of messages of sympathy were received at Chiselhurst. Telegrams of condolence came from all the courts of Europe, as well as from President Grévy of the French Republic, Marshal MacMahon, and many others. Requiem masses were held in every Roman Catholic church in London. Especial sympathy was felt for her in Spain, but the consolation of weeping out her grief on a mother’s bosom was denied her, as the Countess Montijo was then so old and feeble it was thought best not to inform her of her grandson’s death.

Republican, not to say radical, as the French capital was at that time, the death of the Prince Imperial caused general consternation. The Empire was still fresh in the minds of all. At the birth of the Emperor’s son innumerable prayers had been offered for both mother and child. Step by step the affections of the gay Parisians followed the little Prince, and when at the age of three he rode with his mother to Notre Dame to the thanksgiving services for the victory of Solferino, the state coach was scarcely able to make its way through the admiring and enthusiastic throngs. Since that day the Napoleonic dynasty had suffered many reverses. The Empress, once the pride and glory of her subjects, was an exile, surrounded by only a few friends, and living in comparative poverty. Now she had suffered the last and heaviest blow of fate in the loss of her only child. Yet many more hearts went out to Eugénie in this hour of trial than in the days of her prosperity. Great and small, rich and poor, friend and foe, united in heart felt sympathy for the grief-stricken mother. But it was a grief that was beyond consolation. She had done with life. “All is finished,” were the words she constantly repeated, and sobbing aloud would bury her face in her hands to shut out the awful vision that was always before her—the body of her son pierced with cruel spear-wounds.

* * * * * * * *

When the remains of the Prince Imperial, which had been sent back to England under a military escort, were borne into the hall at Camden House by some of his former comrades at Woolwich, a single cry of anguish escaped the Empress, but she did not shed a tear. All night she remained on her knees in prayer beside the coffin; at dawn, when the flame of the wax tapers began to pale in the growing light, she heard mass, after which she shut herself closely in her own room and did not leave it again till after the funeral services were over.

The burial of Napoleon the Third had been only the usual drama enacted in every family when a beloved one is laid to his last rest, but that of the Prince Imperial was a scene that touched even the coldest and most indifferent, and excited world-wide interest. At the Emperor’s death, despite their grief, the mourners had looked with hope and confidence toward his son; now this last hope had vanished, and tears were seen even on the cheeks of grizzled veterans. Where hundreds had accompanied the father’s remains to their resting-place, the son’s bier was followed by thousands of every rank and station.

Early in the morning of the day of the funeral, July 12, Queen Victoria arrived at Camden House with her daughters Alice and Beatrice, and with her own hands laid a laurel wreath of gold upon the coffin. Many other royal and distinguished personages followed, and the expression of genuine sorrow visible on every face lent an air of remarkable solemnity to the occasion. The Archbishop of Southwark performed the burial rites for which some of the most famous opera singers had proffered their services. Those of Madame Caters and Christine Nilsson were accepted; but the latter, some of whose happiest memories were associated with the palmy days of the Empire, and who had then considered it her highest honor to sing before the now broken-hearted Empress, was for the first time unequal to her task. Her voice failed, and she burst into tears.

* * * * * * * *

Broken by mental and physical suffering, the ex-Empress Eugénie still lives on, awaiting the moment of release that shall reunite her with those dearest to her on earth. She made a pilgrimage to Zululand to see the spot where her son met his death. She has frequented various watering-places seeking relief from the physical infirmities from which she suffers. She visits many hospitals and charitable institutions to minister to the sick and wounded; yet these acts of mercy serve only to revive her sorrows, and emphasize the void in her lonely life.

From Chiselhurst, which held so many painful memories, she moved to Farnborough, whither she also had the bodies of the Emperor and the Prince Imperial conveyed. With the Queen of England Eugénie enjoyed the same close friendship as in earlier years, and until the time of Victoria’s death she was a frequent visitor at Windsor, although she never appeared at any Court festivities. She still receives frequent proofs of loyalty from France, and every year on her birthday she is overwhelmed with flowers and good wishes. Yet nothing can rouse her from her melancholy. Whole days and nights she sits brooding over the past, haunted by faces and presentiments of death. At one time her attendants even found it necessary to remove all the portraits of her husband and son in order to preserve her reason.

A sad change has also taken place in her appearance. Portraits of her in the early days of her widowhood show a still attractive figure whose unhappy fate is suggested only by her mourning and the lines about the eyes. But years such as she has since experienced count heavily. Her hair is now snowy white. The slender figure is bowed with age and grief. Scarce a trace is left of her wonderful charm and fascination, and in the pale mourner with sunken eyes and faltering step there is no longer the faintest resemblance to the once beautiful and splendor-loving Empress.

What a contrast, alas! between her youth and her age! In the one, a triumphant goddess, soaring from victory to victory, a sovereign tried by many disappointments and disillusionments indeed, yet never disheartened, never harboring bitterness or resentment in her heart: in the other, a broken and grief-stricken woman, weighed down with sorrows for which time brings no consolation, and whose thoughts are ever with her beloved dead.

The historian of the future, undazzled by the glittering splendor of the Second Empire, and unbiassed by sympathy for the unfortunate widow and mother, will scarcely judge the Empress Eugénie as leniently as the critic of to-day, yet more fairly than those of her own realm who have tried to blacken her reputation by calumny. He will find palliation for her faults, not so much because they were the result of her origin and training as because they were more than counterbalanced by her better qualities, especially her warm-heartedness and dauntless courage. He will also recognize that, as the wife of a usurper, she was beset with complications to which a born princess would not have been exposed, and that, taking all things into consideration, she filled that difficult position with credit to herself and France.

Footnotes

Appendix

The following is a chronological statement of the principal events during the career of Empress Eugénie and Louis Napoleon: