THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5496, 28 June 1879, Page 7

THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE.

No living woman has had such a chequered career as that most charming of women, the Empress Eugenie. In future times her history will tempi: many a noveliat, poet, and playwright; but I doubt whether aDy romancist will be able to weave fictions about her so marvellous aa the facts of her real life. In the year 1545, or thereabouts, the Parisian Prefecture of Police turned its attention, to the Countess de Montijo, who was then residing with her two daughters on the third floor of a house in the Rue St. Antoine, Paris, and asked the commissaire of the quarter to make inquiries about this ladv. The request was not an nnusual one, for the police of Continental cities are accustomed to pry into the affairs of strangers ; so the coramissaire sent in n. report, which ran substantially thus:—"The Countesa de Montijo, divorced wife of a Spanish grandee, seems to live in easy, but not affluent circumstances. She receives few ladies, but many distinguished foreigners of her own and other countries. She gives occasional tea patties, at which carda are played. Her daughters, one aged nineteen, and the other eighteen, are renowned for their great beanty. Ifc ia aid that the eldest is going to marry the Duke D'Albe," S:c, &c. My object in quoting this ia to retail the impressions which existed in the official mind as to the respectability of the Countess de Montijo, Sho •wa3 rated in police books, as a lady whom society rather cut, and whose drawing room was little better than a polite gambling saloon. The truth is, that there was nothing against Madame de Moutijo except her separation from her husband. After this unfortunate domestic event, she went travelling about the world with her two daughters, who received a kind of flyinp education in Germany, in EDg!an3, and finally in Paris. The Countess enjoyed a lnndsotne allowance, and her daughters were taught by the beat snasters ; but of course there was a tinge of Bohemianism in the existence of a lady roaming from city to city with.her children, and never remaining in one place more than a year at a time. One can make some allowance therefore, for the pious horror of M. Fialin, (better known under the name of De Persigny,) which bj had usurped) wheo, on hearing of Napoleon llL's intended marriage with Mdlle. Eugenie de ilontijo, he threw himself on his knees and besought his master not to do this rash thing. Xapoleon hsd tried to contract marriage with a princess in Bavaria, but had been rebuffed. He had then made aa offer of his hand to the Princess Carola Wasa, of Sweden, but had failed in this quarter also. With a proper spirit, he resolved that ho he wonld have nothing more to do with manages ele covenances, but wonld make a love match. He had repeatedly noticed Mdlle. de Montijo, who used to attend the balls at the ElysGe with her mother and her sister, who had become Dnchess D'Albe. He gave the countesa an invitation to spend a week at St. Cloud, and at the expiration of the visit announced abruptly to hia Ministers that he was going to raise Mdlle. Eugenie to the throne. Count de Moray was the firat to anderstand the situation, and after warmly congratulating the Emperor on his admirable choice, ran off to proffer his compliments to the future Empress. Her Majesty never, in after time, forgot tbia act of chivalry and presence of mind. France took the thing very coolly. Little time was given for objections, as the marriage was solemnised eight days after the notification appeared in the Moniteur ; and the Municipal Council had to vote their gift of £24,000 to the Empress with as much haste as good speed. Mdlle. de Montijo was then 27 years old, and there is no harm in saying, since the matter is notorious, that she had already had several offers of marriage. Her reason for refusing some of these is said to have lain in a little pique whioh she had experienced at the very brilliant marriage wkich her sister had made. Somehow she had got to think that the Duke D'Albe was paying his court to herself. When she discovered her mistake she bore ths disappointment (if it was one) very good-naturedly, but vowed that, since her sister had wedded a Spanish grandee of the first-clasß; she too would marry nobody under tlie rank o! a duke. One of Mdlle. Eugenie's suitors was a Scotch officer of the British army, a young man of good family, who met her at Brighton in 1546 and proposed out of hand. One would have liked to see the face of this worthy fellow when he subsequently learned to what high destinies his cruel one had come. He is now, like the hero of "Locksley Hall," the very cheerful father of a grown-up family. Mdlle. de Montijo was also sued by a French nobleman, who sat on the Legitimist benches in the Constituent Assembly of IS4S; and by a famous and witty French author, who became an Imperial senator, and who lived to congratulate the Empress frequently and laughingly on her goud sense in having rejected him. He remained single though, and cherised to his life's end the most knightly reverence for the lady whom he believed to be peerless among women. The Emperess Eugenie is, indeed, the most delightful of women. Her beauty, which she still retains, was at one time splendid; but she had also what La Fontaine called La grace pins belle encore qae la beaato. I have seen her repeatedly in State pageants, at Court receptions, on occasions when she ■was travelling or receiving visitors in eemiprivacy, and J have never seen any woman in the circle around her who could Tie with her ia beauty. Her manners are exquisite. She has dignity without stiffness, and affability without vulgarity. In the daye when Bhe helped to rule the.most reetive people on earth, she was ever kind and merciful, happy to render service to people in trouble, generous with her money, faithful in keeping promises. Ho act of spite was imputed to her, though, her patience was often sorely tried. 3he had not the instincts of statesmanship, for her heart was too warm, her impulses too quick, and her wit too lively to make her brook the delays and tortuous methods by which men are managed. At one time she begged that the Emperor wonld let her attend the Cabinet Councils over which he presided, and his Majesty consented; but lie soon had to withdraw the permission, for the Empress startled steadygoing politicians like MM. Konher and Barocbe out of their senses. She wan, to begin with, » most fervent Catholic, nnd could never be made to uDderetand that the French people were not so after the same fashion as the Spaniards. She would nob have restored the Inquisition, but she had an iiea that soldiers should be made to attend mass whether they likea it or not, and used to vex the souls of generals and colonels by asking them whether they discharged their religious duties properly. There is no denying that she often gave the Emperor very impracticable advice, and sometimes made his Ministers shiver under brief squalls of that ill-temper to which all pretty women are liable; but on the other hand, she was cheerfnl, brave, and mo3t helpful in the hours of trouble. When Orsini made Ma cowardly attempt on the Emperor's life outside the epera in 185S, the Imperial couple only escaped by a miracle, but the Empress neither fainted nor screamed, and on alighting from, the smashed carnage, she insisted on going into her boz to eliew the audience that she was not hurt or afraid. As soon as she appeared on the Emperor's arm the audience rose en matse, and she recoived their acclamations with brimming eyes, but no other sign of weakness. Again, in 1865, when ebe visited the hospital of Amiens during the cholera epidemic, her inspection of the fever wards was something very different from an official ceremony She went courageously from bed to bed, talking to the patients, comforting them, promising them aid when they got cured, and leaving money meanwhile for their wives and children. With admirable devotion she risked even the contagion of small-pox, to go and carry hopeful words to some poor wjmen who were recovering from the hideous disease. By-and-by—that is in 1870—when calamities had commenced, and the Emperor's throne was totterin" the Empress sliewed herself equally "brave for herself and considerate for others. She did not indeed evince that queenly amazon epirit which would have impelled » woman like Elizabeth of England to get on horseback and overawo the revolutionary mobs, by placing herself at the head of the army, and vowing to lead the defence of Paris like a second Jeanne Hachette or Joan of Arc. Such an attitude might perhaps have saved the crowns but, lacking the warrior nerve, Eugenie at least displayed the softer feelings of womanhood, for »he refused to let a single drops of blood he shed in guarding the Tnilleries. There was something at once touching and grand in her behaviour on that fatal Sunday afternoon of the 4th September, when the rabble were marching upon the palace. Hearing that some hot-blooded courtiers had brought revolvers and talked of using them, she sent to beg them for her sake not to offer resistance ; and the command which she seat down to the officers of the Palace guard ,

ww that they should "let the-people pass." At 3 o'clock, when M. Ferdinand de Lessepa told her that the Second Empire was virtually at an end, and that she had best i leave France, the Empress turned to the faithful band of .adherents—some three hundred .in number—who were gathered in the reception saloon, and made them her stateliest courtesy before retiring. On going : to > her private apartments to put on her bonnet, she found that some servants had absconded with a small travelling jewel-case and a purse that had been prepared for her journey, so that on landing at Weymouth two days afterwards, she had only a valiso full of linen and twenty Napoleons in gold, which had been lent her by the Chevalier Nigra. As an instance of the confusion which prevailed at that epoch, I may mention that M. "Wolmer, the Emperor's cashier, assured me that he had, on the 4th September, £60,000 belonging to the Civil list, which the Empress might have drawn by cheque, but she quite forgot to do so. Many have laid on the Empress Eugenie the responsibility of the Franco-Prussian war ; and to such an extent as a lady may be held answerable for such a great affair she no doubt was so. When the Hohenzollern difficulty had reached its critical pass, Marshall Lebceuf, the War Minister, was summoned to the Tuilleries, and he plainly told the Emperor and Empress in private that the army was not ready. The Empress fired up, and with flashing eyes, exclaimed, "A French Marshal ought to be ashamed to use such craven language !" The Marshal bowed and left the reom. In the antechamber ho asked for pen and paper, and wroto out his resignation; but before he had signed it, the Emperor came out and begged him not to quarrel with a lady. L'lmpcratrice a ses ner/s were His Majesty's textual words, and he added the request that the Marshal would stay at his post and do his best. This is JLebceufsown version of the matter, and he complains to this day that he went to war against his will. The Empress cannot be blamed, however, for having been indignant to hear that the army was unready. It speaks rather to her credit that she trusted her husband's advisers sufficiently to think they hrd done their duty in making the troops eiScient. In a country like France, to say that a queen or empress has been irreproachable aa a wife means something more than that she had been virtuous ; it signifies that she has kept such watch over her conduct that not a breath of ecandal could touch her. Napoleon 111. had so many millions of enemies continually peering at his court that, had the Empress committed herself to a single imprudent act or word, the thing would have been trumpeted forth with a thousand exaggeration in all lands. As it was, malice could invent nothing against the Empress. Since the Empress's exile in England, her Majesty has been alluded to more than once as intending to re-marry ;. but she is a woman of nobler mode than Napoleon I.'s wife, Marie Louise, and she will certainly retain her titlo of Emperor's widow to the end.— Truth.