An Empress of Romance.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 10, 7 September 1910, Page 43

An Empress of Romance.

Eugenie, Widow of Napoleon 111. a Woman Whose Career Surpasses Fiction.

By

HARRY THURSTON PECK.

A cablegram of August 13 staled that the aged ex-Enipress Eugenie, mixing ninth the ordinary sight-seers, revisited the Palace of Compiegne, and viewed the pictures of her sori’s rooms. She was deeply affected.

G'j f BO L T sixty years ago, the chief { I cities of Europe were well acJ J[ quainted with a Spanish lady,, a widow of rank, who was fond of Changing her abode at (brief intervals, and who was best known for the fact that she was always accompanied by two beautiful daughters. This lady was the Countess of Montijo, who also had the right to style herself Countess of

which was at times quoted regarding these three ladies. It runs: A woman should be pretty, if she can; she may be accomplished if she wishes; but she must be absolutely respected, as the very first necessity. Now the two daughters of the Countess of Montijo were more than pretty—they were exquisitely beautiful; but they ‘were not remarkable for their accomplishments, and it cannot be truly said that they were respected in the highest sense of the word. Many found them interesting, and every one admitted that they were lovely; but, according to Continental notions in 1846, ladies of rank ought not to live in hotels and be seen at public dining-tables. Nevertheless, the elder daughter made a brilliant inarriage with the Spanish Duke of Alva—for whom, indeed, this historic dukedom was revived. The younger daughter, at the age of 25, was of a very complex character. Her admirers had much to say of her admirable t raits. Those who did not like her had many tales to tell to her discredit. Weighing all the evidence, it appears that she was proud, and. to most persons, somewhat reserved; that she was rather selfish and ungrateful; and finally that within her there burned the fires of an impetuous, passionate disposition. She would accept the most

Teba, since her husband had borne many (titles in his lifetime. The Countess of

Montijo was herself the daughter of a Scotch-Irishman named Kirkpatrick, and her daughters showed the traits of both their ancestors. The elder was essentially Spanish, being a brunette, and haughty in her manner. The younger sister, Eugenie, in looks at least, was of a, more northern type of beauty, since she had dark chestnut hair, violet eyes, and a beautifully oval face, with a complexion that was wonderfully pure and delicate.

The mother loved to lead a semi-bohe-mian life, and this is why she travelled from one brilliant capital to another, accompanied by her two daughters, while they wore still at an age when Spanish usage would have kept them within the limits of a convent school. As it was, they 'both mingled with the world, and formed many acquaintances of rank and position, though it was noticed that more men than women paid their respects to these three attractive ladies. Had the countess and her daughters been American or English, they would have experienced no criticism; but since 1 hey were Spanish, and spent their time wholly on the Continent, they were generally regarded with a shade of mockery, and oven

marked attentions, and then display r, curious indifference ami ingratitude. On •the other hand, she almost tiling herself at the feet of one or two attractive noblemen, for \Vhoin she conceived a sudden and very ardent love. At one time she was wildly infatuated

with the lifted eyes of suspicion. \ There is a saying of Beaumarchais

with the Count of Galva, a handsome young Spaniard. To him she would give the privileges which others had procured

for her. When he finally made it plain that he cared nothing for hrr, Eugenie fell into a tempest. <>£ despair, and tried to poison herself by swallowing the contents of a bottle of blacking. This was very vhr.racteristic of Eugenie de Montijo.' Her love and her despair might well excite one’s sympathy; but to attempt suicide with a blacking-bottle converted sympathy into laughter; so that the Marquis of Hertford, when he heard of it, remarked: — “It would have taken her less time to die from strychnine or pmssic acid, apart from the disagreeable experience of having her soul mistaken in the other world for that of a nigger!” Mr Albert Vandam sums up her character by saying that she frightened her admirers by’ her lack of mental simpli-

To see a girl assume the roles of Lydia Languish. Becky Sharp and Lady Teazle, all in the space of 24 hours, is apt to breed misgiving in the mind of a man intent on matrimony, however young and deeply smitten he may be. Such, then, was Mlle. Eugenie de Montijo in 1851. when she was just 25 years of age, and when her mother brought her to Paris—a city which was then, above all other cities,* attracting the attention of the world. Not long before. Louis Napoleon had been elected president of the second Kron ch Republic. In the same year came the famous coup d’etate, in which the troops of the Prince-President shot down •hundreds of innocent persons along the boulevards. His daring stroke succeeded; he caused himself to be reelected for a term of ten years, and in 1852 to be proclaimed as Emperor of the French, with the title of Napoleon HL The new ruler opened the Tuilleries with lavish magnificence. He tried to make his new regime seem like that of a long-established empire. He courted the favour of the old-t’ine royalists, and he sought almost pathetically the good will of the other sovereigns in Europe: but at first his success was rather slight.

On the other hand, there were many thing's which gradually worked in his favour, until he came to be regarded as at once the shrewdest and the • most powerful monarch in all Europe. In the first place, he bore the magic name of Bonaparte, though there is reason to doubt whether there was in his veins a single drop of Napoleonic blood. In the second place, he promised to rule with a, strong hand and thereby secure .peace to France. Tie had the advantage of the advice of his illegitimate half-brother, the Due de Morny—an extremely able man. He was personally brave, or at least he had a fatalist's disregard of danger; and finally, the splendid way in which he established his court in Paris appealed to the French love of grandeur and display. There was another trait of the third Napoleon which to Anglo-Saxons seems far from creditable, yet which in Franco by no means hurt the new emperor's reputation. He bad a fondness for casual amours, and the list of his known favourites would be a very long one. It was in 1851, before the coup d’etat, that the prince-president first met Eugenie de Montijo and her mother. He was fascinated by the young girl's beauty, and there was something about the bohemianisin of her life that attracted one who had so long pursued an

adventurous, hand-to-mouth career. So, without any particular formality, he at once made love to her in an easy going way. Bhe and her mother were invited to the Ely see, and there they got on very well with this would be emperor. They were among those who congratulated him as soon as his ambitious hopes were realised.

But not for a moment did Napoleon intend to marry this attractive Spanish girl. He wished to strengthen his throne by an alliance with some woman of royal Jdood. lie begged Prince Hohenlohe for the hand of the Princess Adelaide of

Prussia. He appealed to the Dowager Duchess of Baden to help him find a princess for his wife. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were sounded on th * subject. It is certain, that, had any woman of royal rank been willing to accept him, he would have married, her with eagerness. Vet all the while he was growing more and more in love with Mlle, de Montijo. passing hours in her company, flirting with her openly, and hading her shrewd old mother to dream that her daughter might soon become an empress. All Napoleon’s matrimonial schemes came to nothing. He felt snubbed and more or less humiliated, yet even then he said no word of inarriage to the (beautiful Eugenie. If all reports be true, however, he offered her a lefthanded alliance. She was not to be acknowledged as his wife, but she was to •be magnificently provided for, and was to share his heart if not his throne. To this proposal it is said that she made the famous answer: “Your majesty should know that the only approach to my bed-chamber is through the door of the church." Then she turned and left him, and for a while refused to see him any more, because he had insulted her. This was exactly the sort of treatment to make Napoleon yield, lie brooded over her beauty, and his love for her became almost frantic. Besides, had he not been humiliated by the kings and primes of Eu rope ? One last sting,drove him to his final decision. His uncle. Prince Jerome, the former King of W’e-tphalia, wlio had a malignant hatred of his nephew, caused a rumour to be spread abroad that Napoleon was incapable of marriage. The story was disseminated far and wide. Bismarck is said to have believed it, and it was also accepted as true by the members of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, who did not know that the emperor had in his days of exile led a life that was checkered with loose loves. When Napoleon was informed of it by his minister of police, it served to bring matters to a crisis. He once more asked Eugenie to his residence at Compiegne, ami in the romantic woods which surrounded the chiteau the fateful words were spoken. i • emperor ami Eugenie strolled through the park. A dozen members of the court followed the pair at a respectful distance, ami watched every motion of their master. 'The end of their conver-ation is said to have been a curious one. Napoleon asked Mlle, de Montijo. in earnest tones, whether she had ever had a serious attachment. This meant that he had heard from unfriendly sources many stories about her earlier mreer. She paused

fur a moment, ami then, looking him in the eyes, said slowly: “ 1 should deceive yon, sire, if I did not confess that my heart has been touched, and more than once. Rut I can assure you of this one thing, ami that is that I am still Mlle, de Montijo.” W hen she had finished this assurance, given in language so delicate and yet so explicit, the emperor smiled, and said: “ Well, then mademoiselle, you shall ba an empress!” # He broke from a hedge several slight green branches, and twisted them into a crown. Tiiis he placed upon his companion's head, and said, in a tone loud enough to be heard by all: “Wear this while waiting for the other.” From that moment F.ugenie was hailed as the Empress of France. On January 30, 1853. she and Napoleon were married in the historic cathedral of Notre Dame with much pomp and ceremony, and began their remarkable reign, in which fo much that was good was mingled with eo much that was evil. The position of the imperi.il pair at first was rather difficult. Eugenie, of course, not bring of royal blood, felt ill at ease. Her enemies, both political and social, repeated all sorts of stories about her. Napoleon himself, who had knocked aroun I the world in a somewhat disreputable way, found it difficult to assume the state of one born to the purple. He was foolish enough to put forth a proclamation regarding his marriage in which he said: “I cherish the firm hope that, gracious and kind as she is, she will, in occupying a similar position, revive once more the virtues of Josephine.” The virtues of Josephine! At this phrase (he cynical Parisians laughed and sneered, remembering, as they did, the many infidelities of Josephine, both before and after her marriage to the great Corsican. It was not safe at that time to publish or to say anything directly venomous; but the sharp wit of Paris hit upon an ingenious device. The capital was flooded with cards bearing the portrait of the now empress. Underneath was printed the ambiguous sentence : “ The portrait and the virtues of the empress—the whole for two sous. Eugenie’s influence over her husband was always great, and she urged him into many things which were, -as the event showed, dangerous to the empire; but for twenty years Frame was victorious in war and magnificent in peace. The court glittered with vivid costumes, and received sovereigns from all over the world. At Paris, at St. (loud, at Versailles, at Compiegne, and at Fontaine-

bleau there were gathered together great parties of frivolous yet clever guests. There were hunts by day and balls and concert* by night. Every form of extravagance was encouraged, and amid all the luxury and splendour the empress shone with the supreme radiance of womanly fascination. It has been said that the empress still retained her hold over the affection* of her rather tickle husband, and this hold was strengthened when she gave him an heir in 1856 —the little Prince Louis, whose end was destined to be so tragic. But in some ways Napoleon became partially estranged from her. He wa* an easy-going, good-tem-pered man, with the instincts of a bourgeois, and he did not like to have her interfere with his political affairs. In spite of this fact, with the intriguing genius of her race, she actually formed a party whose members openly boasted in the Chamber of Deputies that they were “the party of the empress,” and more than once they thwarted the policy of the emperor. Again, he had discovered that in one small respect, at least, his consort had deceived him. Before their marriage many letters were exchanged between them, and hers were marked by a peculiar grace and eharm. As a matter of fact, Eugenie never wrote these letters. She was quite incapable of writing in such a vein, for she wa* not a very' clever woman. They were written for her by Prosper Merimee, the distinguished writer so well known to English readers by his story of “The Venus of llle” and other curious fancies. Some time after their marriage the empress visited Scotland, and then the letters that came from her were, when compared with the brilliant ones of Merimee, little better than a cookmaid's. Indeed. Merimee himself is quoted as having said: “God gave the Montijos the choice between beauty and brains, and they chose beauty.” In many ways Eugenie’s influence was bad, though she was herself, as she had undoubtedly been all her life, a woman whose character was fundamentally sound. She was accused of flirting, and she may have flirted; yet nothing worse can be set down against her. Many men, no doubt, fell in love with her, yet sire could at least assume the dignity of her rank. Eugenie liked young people to be about her. She admired youth and health and good looks; and in this way stories without foundation were circulated concerning her. But the worst that can be said with any truth is this —that her carelessness, and her occasional lack of

dignity, made those about her cast aside propriety, so that the Napoleonic court gradually became vicious and almost depraved. Men of honour and experience found themselve* unwelcome. A handsome face, a gift for epigram, or a reputation for romantic adventures secured

place and honour for those who were quite unworthy of it. Notorious women were freely admitted to the imperial palaces; and Offenbach’s cynical, lascivious lyric operas were, so to speak, a musical type of the Second Empire. Thus came about the gradual decay which honeycombed the military system of France and made it an easy prey for the German invaders in 1870.

Pierre de Lano tells a story that is instructive. Mme. Metternich, wife of the Austrian ambassador, once proposed to attend the race* in short skirts, so as to have more freedom of movement. The empress carelessly' caught at the suggestion as an amusing thing, and most of her ladies in waiting were equally pleased with the idea. One of them, however, was shocked to see the Empress of the French exhibit herself in so eccentric a costume, and at once she protested to Mme. Metternich. . “Short skirts may do for us,” she said, “but not for an empress. Would you advise your sovereign in Austria to dress herself in this undignified way?” “Decidedly not!” cried the Austrian ambassadress imprudently. “That is quite another thing. Of course, I wouldn't try to persuade the Empress Elizabeth to go about in short skirts. But our empress was a royal princess—• a real princess; whereas yours, my dear, was only Mlle, de Montijo.” This anecdote shows very clearly one source of Eugenie's unpopularity. Not being of royal blood, she should have been all the more strict in the observance of ceremonial. As she was not royal, the women of France not unnaturally asked: “If the Emperor Napoleon did not care to marry a princess, why did he not take one of us?” And so Eugenie was called contemptuously “the Spaniard,” just as Marie Antoinette had once been dubbed “the Austrian.” It was a strange career, that reign of nearly twenty years. The empress was finally received 'by the heads of royal families. She and her husband visited England. Napoleon HI. quite won over Queen Victoria, who had hitherto been suspicious of him, and Eugenie's personal charm made a conquest of Prince Albert.

England and France had fought through the Crimean War s?Ue by side, and when the four royal personage* occupied a. special box at the Haymarket in London, at a gala performance of opera, they were received with thunders of applause by the audienee that leaped to its feet

on their appearance. The man who had once been a constable in the streets of London was now an emperor “by the grace of God.” The beautiful woman who 'had knocked about Europe with her, Bohemian mother, and had swallowed blacking at the end of an unfortunate love-affair, was now an empress, ■welcome at every court in Europe. Eugenie was three times made regent of France—once while Napoleon was with the army in Italy, during the war, of 1859; again in 1865, when Napoleon visited Algeria; and finally, in 1870, at the time of the Franeo-Prussian War.

When the Suez Canal was opened, In 1869, the empress was sent to represent the French people at the extraordinary fetes given by Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, who was known as the greatest spendthrift of modern times. The ceremonies combined the gorgeousness of the Orient and the ingenuity of the West. They were like a dazzling nightmare, with millions of lights glittering upon gilded pavilions, long lines of fezwearing soldiers, and wild sheiks from; the deserts. Palaces had been constructed overnight, and there were music ami banquets and revelry. On a soft-footed camel, the Empress rode to the central point of the festivities, and there she saw the opening of that great engineering -work which the ancient Egyptians had planned thousands of years before; which the first Napoleon had surveyed; which a Frenchman—, AL de Lesseps—had pushed to completion : and which was now opened to tho world by Eugenie de Montijo. Its construction had cost nearly half a billion! francs, much of it wrung 'from the wretched fellaheen. It was on one night of this most gorgeous celebration that Verdi’s “Aida” was first produced at Cairo. The Empress occupied the Khedival box, her escort being Ismail himself, ■who had paid Verdi 18,000 francs fon writing the score of this wonderfully beautiful and appropriately Oriental opera. When ever Napoleon left the Empress, to act as Regent in his absence from Paris, he did so with the stipulation that! she should not summon the French Parliament in session. lie knew too well that her intriguing disposition might! cause political trouble. But when tiW

®Y*noo-Prussian war broke out, in 1870, She disregarded this condition.

She had been in many ways- her husband’s evil genius. She had urged him to set up the pinchbeck empire in Mexico, in defiance of the United States, and in order that she might patronise a people speaking her native Spanish tongue. ‘When that Empire fell, and Maximilian 'was shot, there came the beginning of the end in Eranee, for Napoleon’s star was waning.

It was her ‘‘party” that had been eager for the war with Prussia, and had practically forced it upon Napoleon, though he knew well how unprepared his country was. (After the first two great disasters in the field, he would have returned to Paris to prepare for the defence of the capital, and to help secure his dynasty; but the headstrong Eugenie had now gone beyond all bounds. JShe wrote that he must not come with the disgrace of two defeats upon him, and then she summoned Parliament.

She had done everything to bring defeat on Erance. She had refused to allow the King of Italy to occupy the city of Rome, though in return for this he would have lent his armies to Napoleon. Estranging Italy, she also lost the support of Austria, which at first might have joined in the alliance. She deprived her country of allies; she left her husband to be made prisoner at Sedan; the Parliament that she summoned dethroned her and her consort; the glittering Empire, in -which she had shone with all her ibeauty, was lost fin one tremendous crash. Her very life was threatened by the ruffians of the faubourgs, so that at last, haggard and in disguise, she was glad to take refuge in the house of the American dentist, Dr. Evans, who conveyed her and one of her ladies to the Sea coast, whence an English yacht carried her, in the midst of a tremendous Btorm, to the safe shelter of a British port.

All the glory and the pride of life had fallen from her like a garment. When the fallen Emperor was released from his captivity in Germany, and joined her, together with their son, they retired to a modest home at Chiselhurst, in Kent, Where, three years later, the ex-Emperor died of a disease that had tortured him for vears.

It- would seem as if fate could have nothing more of bitterness in store for her, and yet she was destined still to suffer. Her son, the young Prince Louis, who, she hoped, might some day regain the throne of France, was brought up to

believe in such a destiny. He was carefully educated in the English military school at Sandhurst. He was a wellmannered, amiable and attractive youth of 23, when he was sent out to South Africa, in 1879, to see some active service in the field against the Zulus. It was thought that this would appeal to the military instincts of the French, but they only jested and sang in their cafes chan-

tants a mocking song with the absurd refrain: — ' I.oulou! Loulou! 11 chasse les Zoulous! Vet even the French turned from mockery to sorrow when ‘"Loulou” was ambushed and stricken down by the assegais of the savage blacks, being left to his fate by an English officer who mistakenly supposed that the Prince had reached his horse and had escaped with the rest of the party. There is a story to the effect that Prince Louis had fallen in love with a young English girl living near Chiselhurst —a girl of humble station —and that he wished to marry’ her. In this way some have accounted for the fact that he was sent to Africa. They believe that it was done to separate him from the girl he loved. If so, then the ex-Erapress must have one more source of grief, since it was she who brought on the Mexican disaster, the defeat and surrender of her husband, the downfall of her Empire, and the death of her only son. After her first sorrow had spent itself, she left her home at ( hiselhurst, and purchased an estate at Farnborough, where she has built a mausoleum for her husband and her son. She is now bent and worn, though still her face shows traces of her former beauty. She has often visited Paris, and no one has molested her. Even the most radical Parisians show respect for that bowed figure clothed in deepest mourning. Not long ago, for the first time in more than 30 years, she met the aged Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef. The memories which arose within her opened new wells of poignant feeling, so that she is said to have fallen on her knees before him and to -have wept with all the pentup sorrow of the past. Quite recently an Italian writer met her on the Riviera, where she spent -a portion of the winter. He spoke to her with tact, and she replied, turning upon him a face of infinite sadness as she said: — ‘T am the past. I am the distant horizon, where exists a mirage, a shadow, a phantom, a living sorrow. It is all a dream that now is dissipated. It is a dream that has been killed by’ fate. I wish to disappear with it. That has been my desire, ever since the shadowy fabric of my’ dream was torn apart. Now I am an old woman, poor in everything that makes a woman rich. I have lived. I have been what I have been. I do not ask for more. I ask only not to be remembered.”