Walewski had none of the vivacity of most of the Bonapartes. I knew him a good many years before, and after the establishment of the Second Empire, and have rarely seen him out of temper. I fancy he must have made an admirable ambassador with a good chief at his back; he, himself, I think, had little spirit of initiative, though, like a good many of us, he was fully convinced of the contrary. He was, to use the correct word, frequently dull; nevertheless, it was currently asserted and believed that he was the only man Rachel ever sincerely cared for. "Je comprends cela," said George Sand one day, when the matter was discussed in her presence; "son commerce doit lui reposer l'esprit."
It is worthy of remark that during the reign which succeeded that of Louis-Philippe, the man who wielded the greatest power next to the Emperor was, in almost every respect but one, the mental and moral counterpart of "the citizen king." I am alluding to M. Eugène Rouher, sometimes called the vice-emperor.[54]I knew Eugène Rouher some years before he was thought of as a deputy, let alone as a minister—when, in fact, he was terminating his law courses in the Quartier-Latin; but not even the most inveterate Pumblechook would have dared to advance afterwards that he perceived the germs of his future eminence in him then. He was a good-looking young fellow, in no way distinguished from the rest. He was a not unworthy ornament of "La Chaumière," and did probably as much or as little poring over books as his companions. Still, there could be no doubt as to his natural intelligence, but the dunces in my immediate circle were very few. He was not very well off; but, as Ihave said elsewhere, the Crœsuses were also rare. At any rate, Eugène Rouher had entirely passed out of my recollection, and when, eleven or twelve years later, I saw his name in the list of Odilon Barrot's administration as Minister of Justice, I had not the remotest idea that it was the Eugène Rouher of my Quartier-Latin days. I am certain that a great many of our former acquaintances were equally ignorant, because, though I met several of them from time to time on the "fashionable side" of the Seine, I do not remember a single one having drawn my attention to him. It was only at one of the presidential receptions at the Élysée, in 1850, that I became aware of the fact. He came up to me and held out his hand. "Il me semble, monsieur, que nous nous sommes déjà rencontrés au Quartier-Latin," he said. Even then I was in the dark with regard to the position he was fast assuming; but the Prince-President himself enlightened me to a great extent in the course of the evening. "It appears that you and Rouher are old acquaintances," he said in English; and on my nodding in the affirmative, he added, "If you were a Frenchman, and inclined to go in for politics, or even an Englishman in need of patronage or influence, I would advise you to stick to him, for he is a very remarkable man, and I fancy we shall hear a good deal of him within the next few years." I may, therefore, say without exaggeration that I was one of the first who had a trustworthy tip with regard to a comparatively "dark political horse," and from a tipster in whom by that time I was inclined to believe.
Though I was neither "a Frenchman inclined to go in for politics," nor "even an Englishman in need of patronage or influence," my curiosity had been aroused; for, I repeat, at the time of our first acquaintance I had considered Eugène Rouher a fairly intelligent young fellow; but his intelligence had not struck me as likely to make a mark, at any rate so soon, seeing that he was considerably below forty when I met him at the Élysée. It is idle to assert, as the republicans have done since, that he gained his position by abandoning the political professions to which he owed his start in public life. Among the nine hundred deputies of the Second Republic, there were at least a hundred intelligent so-called republicans ready and willing to do the same with the prospect of a far less signal reward than fell eventually to Rouher's lot.
My curiosity was doomed to remain unsatisfied until two or three years later, when Rouher had already become a fixturein the political organization of the Empire. It was De Morny himself who gave me the particulars of Rouher's beginnings, and I have no reason to suppose that he painted them and the man in deliberately glowing colours, albeit that in one important crisis they acted in concert. Clermont-Ferrand was only about twelve miles from Riom, Rouher's native town. I have already remarked that De Morny, at the time he met with his brother for the first time, was at the head of an important industrial establishment. It was at the former place; De Morny, therefore, was in a position to know.
Eugène Rouher, it appears, like a good many men who have risen to political eminence, belonged to what, for want of a better term, I may call the rural bourgeoisie—that is, the frugal, thrifty, hard-headed, small landowner, tilling his own land, honest in the main, ever on the alert to increase his own property by a timely bargain, with an intense love of the soil, with a kind of semi-Voltairean contempt for the clergy, an ingrained respect largely admixed with fear for "the man of the law," to which profession he often brings up his son in order to have what he likes most—litigation—for nothing. Rouher's grandfather was a man of that stamp; he made an attorney of his son, and the latter established himself in the Rue Desaix, in a small, one-storied, uninviting-looking tenement, where, in the year 1814, Eugène Rouher was born.[55]Rouher's father was not very prosperous, yet he managed to send both his sons to Paris to study law. The elder son, much older than the future minister, had succeeded in getting a very good practice at the Riom bar, but he dieda short time before Eugène returned from Paris, leaving a widow and a son, who, of course, was too young to take his father's place. The young barrister, therefore, stepped into a capital ready-made practice, and being exceedingly amiable, bright, hard-working, and essentially honest, soon made a host of friends.
"I have frequently found myself opposed to Rouher," said De Morny; "but his unswerving loyalty to the Empire and the Emperor is beyond question. I should not wonder but what he died poor.[56]
"As you know, Eugène Rouher was really very handsome. Mdlle. Conchon—that is Madame Rouher's maiden name—thought him the handsomest man in the world. True, her world did not extend beyond a few miles from Clermont-Ferrand; but I fancy she might have gone further and fared worse. You know old Conchon, and the pride he takes in his son-in-law. Well, he would not hear of the marriage at first. Conchon was a character in those days. Though he had but a poor practice at the Clermont bar, he was clever; and if he had gone to Paris as a journalist, instead of vegetating down there, I am sure he would have made his way. He was very fond of his classics—of Horace and Tibullus above all—and turned out some pretty Anacreontic verses for the local 'caveau;' for Clermont, like every other provincial centre, prided itself on its 'caveau.'[57]
"A time came, however, when Conchon's fortunes took a turn for the better. You can form no idea of the political ignorance that prevailed in the provinces even as late as the reign of Louis-Philippe. Any measure advocated or promulgated by the Government was sure to be received with suspicion by the populations as affecting their liberties, and, what was of still greater consequence to them, their property. The First Republic had given them license to despoil others; any subsequent measure of the monarchies was looked uponby them as an attempt at reprisal. In 1842 a general census was ordered. You may remember the hostility it provoked in Paris; it was nothing to its effect in the agricultural and wine-growing centres. The Republican wire-pullers spread the report that the census meant nothing but the thin end of the wedge of a bill for the duties upon wine to be paid by the grower. There was a terrible row in Clermont-Ferrand and the neighbourhood; the 'Marseillaise' had to make way for the still more revolutionary 'Ça-ira.' Conchon was maire of Clermont-Ferrand, and he who was as innocent of all this as a new-born babe, had his house burned over his head. The Government argued that if the mob had burned the maire's dwelling in preference to that of the prefect, it was because the former was a more influential personage than the latter; for there could be no other reason for their giving him the 'Legion of Honour,' and appointing him to a puisne judgeship on the bench of Riom, seeing that he had neither made an heroic defence of his property, nor endeavoured to carry out the provisions of the census bill by armed force. In fact, the latter step would have been an impossibility on Conchon's part. You and I know well enough how difficult it is to make Frenchmen hold their tongues by means of troops; to endeavour to make them speak—in distinction to yelling—by similar means is altogether out of the question. You cannot take every head of a family, even in a comparatively small town like Clermont-Ferrand, and put him between two gendarmes to make him tell you his name, his age, and those of his family. I fancy, moreover, that Conchon was not at Clermont at all when the mob made a bonfire of his dwelling; it was on a Sunday, and he had probably gone into the country. At any rate, as I told you, they gave him the cross and a judgeship. It never rains but it pours. Contrary to the ordinary principles of French mobs of hating a man in proportion to his standing well with the Government, they started a subscription to indemnify Conchon for the loss of his house, which subscription amounted to a hundred thousand francs.
"Conchon had become a somebody, and refused to give his daughter to a mere provincial barrister now that he belonged to 'la magistrature assise.'[58]The young peoplewere, however, very fond of one another, and had their way. They were a very handsome couple, and became the life and soul of the best society of Clermont-Ferrand, which, exclusive as it was, admitted them as they had admitted the widow of the elder brother. The younger Madame Rouher was by no means as sprightly or as clever as she has become since. She was somewhat of a spoilt child, but her husband was a very brilliant talker indeed, though, unlike many brilliant talkers, there was not an ounce of spite in his cleverest remarks. The electors might have done worse than send him to Paris the first time he invited their suffrages in '46, under the auspices of Guizot. Nevertheless, he was beaten by a goodly majority, and he had to wait until after the Revolution of February, when he was returned on the Republican list."
So far De Morny. Consulting my personal recollections of Eugène Rouher, whom I still see now and then, I find nothing but good to say of him. I am not prepared to judge him as a politician, that kind of judgment being utterly at variance with the spirit of these notes, but I know of no French statesman whose memory will be entitled to greater respect than Rouher's, with the exception, perhaps, of Guizot's. Both men committed grave faults, but no feeling of self-interest actuated them. The world is apt to blame great ministers for clinging to power after they have apparently given the greatest measure of their genius. They do not blame Harvey and Jenner for having continued to study and to practise after they had satisfactorily demonstrated, the one the theory of the circulation of the blood, the other the possibility of inoculation against small-pox; they do not blame Milton for having continued to write after he had given "Paradise Lost," Rubens for having continued to paint after he had given "The Descent from the Cross," Michael-Angelo for not having abandoned the sculptor's chisel after he had finished the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. The bold stroke of policy that made England a principal shareholder in the Suez Canal, the Menai Bridge, the building of the Great Western Railway, were achievements of great men who had apparently given all there wasin them to give; why should Rouher have retired when he was barely fifty, and not have endeavoured to retrieve the mistake he evidently made when he allowed Bismarck to humiliate Austria at Sadowa, and to lay the foundations of a unified Germany? Richelieu made mistakes also, but he retrieved them before his death.
Be this as it may, Rouher was both in public and private life an essentially honourable and honest man—as honest as Louis-Philippe in many respects, far more honest in others, and absolutely free from the everlasting preoccupation about money which marred that monarch's character. He was as disinterested as Guizot, and would have scorned the tergiversations and hypocrisy of Thiers. He never betrayed his master's cause; he never consciously sacrificed his country to his pride. The only blame that can be laid to his charge is that he allowed his better sense to be overruled by a woman; but that woman was the wife of his sovereign.
He was, above all, a staunch friend to those who had known him in his early days. "There will be no Auvergnats left in Clermont-Ferrand and Riom if this goes on," said a witty journalist, seeing Rouher constantly surrounded by the natives of that particular province, to the exclusion of every one else. "We'll send an equal quantity of Parisians to Auvergne; it will do them good, and teach them to work," replied Rouher, when he heard of the remark. "And in another generation or two Paris will see what it has never seen before, namely, frugal Parisians, doing a day's labour for a day's wage, for we'll have their offspring back by then." For Rouher could be very witty when he liked, and never feared to hit out straight. He was a delightful talker, and, next to Alexandre Dumas, the best raconteur I have ever met. It was because he had a marvellous memory and a distinct talent for mimicry. Owing to this latter gift, he was unlike any other parliamentary orator I have ever heard. He would sit perfectly still under the most terrible onslaught of his opponents, whoever they were. No sign of impatience or weariness, not an attempt to take a note; his eyes remained steadily fixed on his interlocutor, his arms folded across his chest. Then he would rise slowly from his seat and walk to the tribune, when there was one, take up the argument of his adversary, not only word for word, but with the latter's intonation and gestures, almost with the latter's voice—which used to drive Thiers wild—and answer it point by point.
He used to call that "fair debating;" in reality, it was the masterly trick of a great actor, who mercilessly wielded his power of ridicule; but we must remember that he had originally been a lawyer, and that the scent of the French law-courts hung over him till the very end. "I am not always convinced of the honesty of my cause, but I hold a brief for the Government, and I feel convinced that it would not be honest to let the other party get the victory," he said.
He was, and remained, very simple in his habits. He would not have minded entertaining his familiars every night of the week, but he did not care for the grand receptions he was compelled to give. He was very fond of the game of piquet. His father-in-law, who had been promoted to a judgeship in one of the Paris courts, had been a foeman worthy of his steel; "but I am afraid," laughed Rouher, "that his exaggerated admiration for me affects his play."
Rouher was right; M. Conchon was inordinately proud of his son-in-law. He lived, as it were, in the Minister of State's reflected glory. His great delight was to go shopping, in order to have the satisfaction of saying to the tradesmen, "You'll have this sent to my son-in-law, M. Rouher." The stir and bustle of the Paris streets confused him to the last, but he did not mind it, seeing that it afforded him an opportunity of inquiring his way. "I want to get back to the Ministry of State—to my son-in-law, M. Rouher." It was not snobbishness; it was sheer unadulterated admiration of the man to whom he had somewhat reluctantly given his daughter.
Society during the Second Empire — The Court at Compiègne — The English element — Their opinion of Louis-Napoléon — The difference between the court of Louis-Philippe and that of Napoléon III. — The luggage of M. Villemain — The hunts in Louis-Philippe's time — Louis-Napoléon's advent — Would have made a better poet than an Emperor — Looks for a La Vallière or Montespan, and finds Mdlle. Eugénie de Montijo — The latter determined not to be a La Vallière or even a Pompadour — Has her great destiny foretold in her youth — Makes up her mind that it shall be realized by a right-handed and not a left-handed marriage — Queen Victoria stands her sponsor among the sovereigns of Europe — Mdlle. de Montijo's mother — The Comtesse de Montijo and Halévy's "Madame Cardinal" — The first invitations to Compiègne — Mdlle. de Montijo's backers for the Imperial stakes — No other entries — Louis-Napoléon utters the word "marriage" — What led up to it — The Emperor officially announces his betrothal — The effect it produced — The Faubourg St.-Germain — Dupin the elder gives his views — The engaged couple feel very uncomfortable — Negotiations to organize the Empress's future household — Rebuffs — Louis Napoléon's retorts — Mdlle. de Montijo's attempt at wit and sprightliness — Her iron will — Her beauty — Her marriage — She takes Marie-Antoinette for her model — She fondly imagines that she was born to rule — She presumes to teach Princess Clotilde the etiquette of courts — The story of two detectives — The hunts at Compiègne — Some of the mise en scène anddramatis personæ— The shooting-parties — Mrs. Grundy not banished, but specially invited and drugged — The programme of the gatherings — Compiègne in the season — A story of an Englishman accommodated for the night in one of the Imperial luggage-vans.
I was a frequent visitor to Compiègne throughout the Second Empire. I doubt whether, besides Lord H—— and myself, there was a single English guest there who went for the mere pleasure of going. Lords Palmerston, Cowley, and Clarendon, and a good many others whom I could name, had either political or private ends to serve. They all looked upon Napoléon III. as an adventurer, but an adventurer whom they might use for their own purpose. I am afraid that the same charge might be preferred against persons in even a more exalted station. Prince Albert averred that Napoléon III. had sold his soul to the devil; Lord Cowley, on being asked by a lady whether the Emperor talked much, replied, "No, but he always lies." Another diplomatist opined "that Napoléon lied so well, that one could not even believe the contrary of what he said."
Enough. I went to the Compiègne of Napoléon III., just as I had gone to the Compiègne of the latter years of Louis-Philippe—simply to enjoy myself; with this difference, however,—that I enjoyed myself much better at the former than at the latter. Louis-Philippe's hospitality was very genuine, homely, and unpretending, but it lacked excitement—especially for a young man of my age. The entertainments were more in harmony with the tastes of the Guizots, Cousins, and Villemains, who went down en redingote, and took little else; especially the eminent professor and minister of public education, whose luggage consisted of a brown paper parcel, containing a razor, a clean collar, and the cordon of the Legion of Honour. There were some excellent hunts, organized by the Grand Veneur, the Comte de Girardin, and the Chief Ranger, the Baron de Larminat; but the evenings, notwithstanding the new theatre built by Louis-Philippe, were frightfully dull, and barely compensated for by the reviews at the camp of Compiègne, to which the King conducted his Queen and the princesses in a tapissière and four, he himself driving, the Duc and Duchesse de Montpensier occupying the box seat, the rest of the family ensconced in the carriage, "absolument en bons bourgeois." With the advent of Louis-Napoléon, even before he assumed the imperial purple, a spirit of change came over the place. Hortense's second son would probably have made a better poet than an emperor. His whole life has been a miscarried poem, miscarried by the inexorable demands of European politics. He dreamt of being L'Empereur-Soleil, as Louis XIV. had been Le Roi-Soleil. Visions of a nineteenth-century La Vallière or Montespan, hanging fondly on his arm, and dispelling the harassing cares of State by sweet smiles while treading the cool umbrageous glades of the magnificent park, haunted his brain. He would have gone as far as Louis le Bien-Aimé, and built another nest for another Pompadour. He did not mean to make a Maintenon out of a Veuve Scarron, and, least of all, an empress out of a Mademoiselle Eugénie de Montijo. Mdlle. de Montijo, on the other hand, was determined not to be a Mdme. de Maintenon, let alone a La Vallière or a Pompadour. At any rate, so she said, and the man most interested in putting her assertion to the test was too infatuated to do so. "Quand on ne s'attend à rien, la moindre des choses surprend." The proverb holds good, more especially where a woman's resistance is concerned. Mdlle. de Montijo was a Spaniard, or at least half aone, and that half contained as much superstition as would have fitted out a score of her countrywomen of unmixed blood. One day in Granada, while she was sitting at her window, a gipsy, whose hand "she had crossed with silver," is said to have foretold her that she should be queen. The young girl probably attached but little importance to the words at that time; "but," said my informant, "from the moment Louis-Napoléon breathed the first protestations of love to her, the prophecy recurred to her in all its vividness, and she made up her mind that the right hand and not the left of Louis-Napoléon should set the seal upon its fulfilment." My informant was an Englishman, very highly placed, and distinctlyau courantof the private history of the Marquise de Montijo y Teba, as well as that of her mother. Without the least fear of being contradicted, I may say that the subsequent visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was due to his direct influence. I will not go as far as to assert that Louis-Napoléon's participation in the Crimean war could not have been had at that moment at any other price, or that England could not have dispensed with that co-operation, but he, my informant, considered then that the alliance would be more closely cemented by that visit. Nor am I called upon to anticipate the final verdict of the social historian with regard to "that act of courtesy" on the part of the Queen of England, not the least justified boast of whose reign it is that she purified the morals of her court by her own example. Still, one may safely assume, in this instance, that the virtue of Mdlle. de Montijo would have been proof against the "blandishments of the future Emperor," even if she had not had the advice and countenance of her mother, whose Scotch blood would not have stood trifling with her daughter's affections and reputation. But to make the fortress of that heart doubly impregnable, the Comtesse de Montijo scarcely ever left her second daughter's side. It was a great sacrifice on her part, because Mdlle. Eugénie de Montijo was not her favourite child; that position was occupied by her elder, the Duchesse d'Albe. "Mais, on est mère, ou on ne l'est pas?" says Madame Cardinal.[59]
Mdlle. de Montijo, then, became the guiding spirit of thefêtes at the Élysée. She and her mother had travelled a great deal, so had Louis-Napoléon; the latter not enough, apparently, to have learnt the wisdom of the French proverb, "Gare à la femme dont le berceau a été une malle, et le pensionnat une table d'hôte."
I have spoken elsewhere of the Coup d'État and of the company at the Élysée, immediately previous to it and afterwards; early in 1852—
"The little donedidvanish to the mind,Which forwardsawhow much remained to do."
The Prince-President undertook a journey to the southern parts of France, which he was pleased to call "an interrogation to the country." It was that to a certain extent, only the country had been crammed with one reply to it, "Vive l'empereur." Calmly reviewing things from a distance of a quarter of a century, it was the best reply the nation could have made. "Society has been too long like a pyramid turned upside down. I replaced it on its base," said Louis-Napoléon, on the 29th of March, 1852, when he opened the first session of the Chambers, and inaugurated the new constitution which was his own work. "He is right," remarked one of his female critics, "and now we are going to dance on the top of it. À quand les invitations?"
The invitations were issued almost immediately after the journey just mentioned, and before the plébiscite had given the Prince-President the Imperial crown. One of the first was for a series of fêtes at Compiègne. The château was got ready in hot haste; but, of course, the "hunts" were not half so splendid as they became afterwards.
The most observed of all the guests was Mdlle. de Montijo, accompanied by her mother, but no one suspected for a single moment that the handsome Spanish girl who was galloping by Louis-Napoléon's side would be in a few months Empress of the French. Only a few knowing ones offered to back her for the Imperial Stakes at any odds; I took them, and, of course, lost heavily. This is not a figure of speech, but a literal fact. There were, however, no quotations "for a place," backers and bookies alike being agreed that she would be first or nowhere in the race.
How it would have fared with the favourite had there been any other entries, it would be difficult to say, but there were none; the various European sovereigns declined thehonour of an alliance with the house of Bonaparte, so Mdlle. Eugénie de Montijo simply walked over the course. One evening the rumour spread that Louis-Napoléon had uttered the magic word "marriage," in consequence of a violent fit of coughing which had choked the word "mistress" down his throat. Not to mince matters, the affair happened in this way, and I speak on excellent authority. The day before, there had been a hunt, and between the return from the forest and the dinner-hour, Napoléon had presented himself unannounced in Mdlle. de Montijo's apartment. Neither I nor the others who were at the château at the time could satisfactorily account for the prologue to this visit, but that there was such a prologue, and that it was conceived and enacted by at least two out of the three actors in the best spirit of the "comédie d'intrigue," so dear to the heart of Scribe, admits of no doubt; because, though the first dinner-bell had already rung, Mdlle. de Montijo was still in her riding-habit, consequently on the alert. Nay, even her dainty hunting-crop was within her reach, as the intruder found to his cost; and reports were rife to the effect that, if the one had failed, the mother, who was in the next room, would have come to the rescue of her injured daughter.
The Comtesse de Montijo was spared this act of heroism; Lucrece herself sufficed for the task of defending her own honour: nevertheless, the mother's part was not at an end, even when the decisive word had been pronounced. According to her daughter, she objected to the union, from a sincere regard for her would-be-son-in-law, from an all-absorbing love for her own darling. The social gulf between the two was too wide ever to be bridged, etc. "And though it will break my heart to have to obey her, I have no alternative," added Mdlle. de Montijo, if not in these selfsame words, at least in words to that effect. "There remains but one hope. Write to her."
And Louis-Napoléon did write. The letter has been religiously preserved by the Montijo family. In less than three mouths afterwards France was officially or semi-officially apprised of the Emperor's intended union; but, of course, the news had spread long before then, and a very varied effect it produced. Candidly speaking, it satisfied no one, and every one delivered judgment in two separate, if not different, capacities—as private citizens and as patriotic Frenchmen. The lower classes, containing the ultra-democratic element, wouldhave perhaps applauded the bold departure from the old traditions that had hitherto presided at sovereign unions, if the bride had been French, instead of being a foreigner. They were sensible enough not to expect their new Emperor to choose from the bourgeoisie; but, in spite of their prejudices against the old noblesse, they would, in default of a princess of royal blood, have liked to see one of that noblesse's daughters share the Imperial throne. They were not deceived by Napoléon's specious argument that France had better assume openly the position of a parvenu rather than make the new principle of the unrestricted suffrage of a great nation pass for an old one by trying to introduce herself at any cost into a family of kings.
The bourgeoisie itself was more disgusted still. Incredible as it may seem, they did resent Napoléon's slight of their daughters. "A défaut d'une princesse de sang royal, une de nos filles eut fait aussi bien qu'une étrangère, dont le grand père, après tout, était négociant comme nous. Le premier empire a été fait avec le sang de garçons d'écurie, de tonnelliers; le second empire aurait pu prendre un pen de ce sang sans se mésallier." The bourgeois Voltairien was more biting in his sarcasm. In his speech to the grand officers of State and corporations, Napoléon had alluded to Empress Joséphine: "France has not forgotten that for the last seventy years foreign princesses have only ascended the steps of the throne to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution. One woman alone appears to have brought the people better luck, and to have left a more lasting impression on their memory, and that woman, the modest and kindly wife of General Bonaparte, was not descended from royal blood." Then, speaking of the empress that was to be, he concluded, "A good and pious Catholic, she will, like myself, offer up the same prayers for the welfare and happiness of France; I cherish the firm hope that, gracious and kind as she is, she will, while occupying a similar position, revive once more the virtues of Joséphine." All of which references to the undoubtedly skittish widow of General de Beauharnais made the satirically inclined bourgeois, who knew the chronique scandaleuse of the Directoire quite as well as Louis-Napoléon, sneer. Said one, "It is a strange present to put into a girl's trousseau, the virtues of Joséphine; the Nessus-shirt given to Hercules was nothing to it."
The Faubourg St.-Germain made common cause for oncewith the Orleanists salons, which were avenging the confiscation of the princes' property; and both, if less brutal than the speaker just quoted, were not less cruel. The daughter had to bear the brunt of the mother's reputation. Public securities went down two francs at the announcement of the marriage. There was but one man who stood steadfast by the Emperor and his bride, Dupin the elder; but his ironical defence of the choice was nearly as bad as his opposition to it could have been. "People care very little as to what I say and think, and perhaps they are right," he remarked; "but still, the Emperor acts more sensibly by marrying the woman he likes than by eating humble-pie and bargaining for some strait-laced, stuck-up German princess, with feet as large as mine. At any rate, when he kisses his wife, it will be because he feels inclined, and not because he feels compelled."[60]
Nevertheless, amidst all this flouting and jeering, the Emperor and his future consort felt very uncomfortable, but they showed a brave front. He inferred, rather than said to one and all who advanced objections, that his love for Mdlle. de Montijo was not the sole motive for his contemplated union. He wished to induce them into the belief that political motives were not foreign to it—that he was, as it were, flinging the gauntlet to monarchical Europe, which, not content with refusing him a wife, was determined to throw a spoke in his matrimonial wheel.
Unfortunately, he and his bride felt that they could not altogether dispense with the pomp and circumstance of courts. Like his uncle, Napoléon III. was exceedingly fond of grand ceremonial display, and he set his heart upon his Empress having a brilliant escort of fair and illustrious women on the day of her nuptials. To seek for such an escort among the grandes dames of the old noblesse would, he knew, be so much waste of time; but he was justified in the hope that the descendants of those who owed some of their titles and most of their fortunes to his uncle would prove more amenable. In this he was mistaken: both the Duchesse de Vicence and the Duchesse des Lesparres, besides several others to whom the highest positions in the Empress'shousehold were offered, declined the honour. The Duc de Bassano did worse. Much as the De Caulaincourts and the De Lesparres owed to the son of the Corsican lawyer, the Marets owed him infinitely more. Yet their descendant, but a few days before the marriage, went about repeating everywhere that he absolutely objected to see his wife figure in the suite of the daughter of the Comtesse de Montijo, "who" (the daughter) "was a little too much of a posthumous child." He not only relented with regard to the duchesse at the eleventh hour, but accepted the office of Grand Chambellan, which office he filled to the end of his life.
In fact, honours and titles went absolutely a-begging in those days. Let me not be misunderstood. There were plenty of men and women ready to accept both, and to deck out their besmirched, though very authentic, scutcheons with them; but of these the Empress, at any rate, would have none. She would have willingly thrown overboard the whole of her family with its doubtful antecedents, which naturally identified it with that brilliant and cosmopolitan society, "dans laquelle en fait d'hommes, il n'y a que des déclassés, et en fait de femmes que des trop-bien classées." The Bonapartes themselves had, after all, a by no means cleaner bill of health, but, as usual, the woman was made the scapegoat; for though a good many men of ancient lineage, such as the Prince Charles de Beauveau, the Duc de Crillon, the Duc de Beauveau-Craon, the Duc de Montmorency, the Marquis de Larochejaquelein, the Marquis de Gallifet, the Duc de Mouchy, etc., rallied to the new régime, most of them refused at first to bring their wives and daughters to the Tuileries, albeit that they went themselves. When a man neglects to introduce his womenkind to the mistress of the house at which he visits, one generally knows the opinion he and the world entertain—rightly or wrongly—of the status of the lady; and the rule is supposed to hold good everywhere throughout civilized society. Yet the Emperor tolerated this.
Knowing what I do of Napoléon's private character, I am inclined to think that, but for dynastic and political reasons, he would have willingly dispensed with the rigidly virtuous woman at the Tuileries, then and afterwards. But at that moment he was perforce obliged to make advances to her, and the rebuffs received in consequence were taken with a sang-froid which made those who administered them wince morethan once. At each renewed refusal he was ready with an epigram: "Encore une dame qui n'est pas assez sure de son passé pour braver l'opinion publique;" "Celle-là, c'est la femme de César, hors de tout soupçon, comme il y a des criminels qui sont hors la loi;" "Madame de ——; il n'y a pas de faux pas dans sa vie, il n'y a qu'un faux papa, le père de ses enfants."
For Louis-Napoléon could be exceedingly witty when he liked, and his wit lost nothing by the manner in which he delivered his witticisms. Not a muscle of his face moved—he merely blinked his eyes.
"Si on avait voulu me donner une princesse allemande," he said to his most intimate friends, "je l'aurais épousée: si je ne l'avais pas autant aimée que j'aime Mademoiselle de Montijo, j'aurais au moins été plus sûr de sa bêtise; avec une Espagnole on n'est jamais sûr."
Whether he meant the remark for his future consort or not, I am unable to say, but Mademoiselle de Montijo was not witty. There was a kittenish attempt at wit now and then, as when she said, "Ici, il n'y a que moi de légitimiste;" but intellectually she was in no way distinguished from the majority of her countrywomen.[61]On the other hand, she had an iron will, and was very handsome. A woman's beauty is rarely capable of being analyzed; he who undertakes such a task is surely doomed to the disappointment of the boy who cut the drum to find out where the noise came from.
I cannot say wherein Mdlle. de Montijo's beauty lay, but she was beautiful indeed.
Her iron will ably seconded the Emperor's attempts at gaining aristocratic recruits round his standard, and when the Duc de Guiche joined their ranks—the Duc de Guiche whom the Duchesse d'Angoulême had left close upon forty thousand pounds a year—Mdlle. de Montijo might well be elated with her success. Still, at the celebration of her nuptials, the gathering was not le dessus du panier. The old noblesse had the right to stay away; they had not the right to do what they did. I am perfectly certain of my facts, else I should not have committed them to paper.
As usual, on the day of the ceremony, portraits of the new Empress and her biography were hawked about. There was nothing offensive in either, because the risk of printing anything objectionable would have been too great. In reality, the account of her life was rather too laudatory. But there was one picture, better executed than the rest, which bore the words, "The portrait and the virtues of the Empress;the whole for two sous;" and that was decidedly the work of the Legitimists and Orleanists combined. I have ample proof of what I say. I heard afterwards that the lithograph had been executed in England.
For several months after the marriage nothing was spoken or thought of at the Tuileries but rules of precedence, court dresses, the revival of certain ceremonies, functions and entertainments that used to be the fashion under the ancien régime. The Empress was especially anxious to model her surroundings, her code of life, upon those of Marie-Antoinette,—"mon type," as she familiarly called the daughter of Marie-Thérèse. If, in fact, after a little while, some one had been ill-advised enough to tell her that she had not been born in the Imperial purple, she would have scarcely believed it. When a daughter of the House of Savoy had the misfortune to marry Napoléon's cousin, the Empress thought fit to give the young princess some hints as to her toilette and sundry other things. "You appear to forget, madame," was the answer, "that I was born at a court." Empress Eugénie was furious, and never forgave Princess Clotilde. Her anger reminds me of that of a French detective who, having been charged with a very important case, took up his quarters with a colleague in one of the best Paris hotels, exclusively frequented by foreigners of distinction. He assumed the rôle of a retired ambassador, his comrade enacted the part of his valet, and both enacted them to perfection. For a fortnight or more they did not make a single mistake in their parts. The ambassador was kind but distant to his servant, the latter never omitted to address him as "Your Excellency." When their mission was at an end, they returned to their ordinary duties; but the "ambassador" had become so identified with his part that, on his colleague addressing him in the usual way, he turned round indignantly, and exclaimed, "You seem to forget yourself. What do you mean by such familiarity?"
Of all the entertainments of the ancien régime lendingthemselves to sumptuary and scenic display, "la chasse" was undoubtedly the one most likely to appeal to the Imperial couple. Louis-Napoléon had, at any rate, the good sense not to attempt to rival Le Roi-Soleil in spectacular ballet, or to revive the Eglinton tournament on the Place du Carrousel. But—
"Il ne fallait au fier RomainQue des spectacles et du pain;Mais aux Français, plus que Romain,Le spectacle suffit sans pain."
No one was better aware of this tendency of the Parisian to be dazzled by court pageants than the new Emperor, but he was also aware that, except at the risk of making himself and his new court ridiculous, some sort of raison d'être would have to be found for such open-air displays in the capital; pending the invention of a plausible pretext, "les grandes chasses" at Compiègne were decided upon. They were to be different from what they had been on the occasion referred to above: special costumes were to be worn, splendid horses purchased; the most experienced kennel and huntsmen, imbued with all the grand traditions of "la Vénerie," recruited from the former establishments of the Condés and Rohans;—in short, such éclat was to be given to them as to make them not only the talk of the whole of France, but of Europe besides. The experiment was worth trying. Compiègne was less than a hundred miles from Paris; thousands would flock, not only from the neighbouring towns, but from the capital also, and the glowing accounts they would be sure to bring back would produce their effect. There would be, moreover, less risk of incurring the remarks of an irreverent Paris mob, a mob which instinctively finds out the ridiculous side of every ceremonial instituted by the court, except those calculated to gratify its love of military pomp and splendour. As yet, it was too early to belie the words, "L'empire, c'est la paix;" we had not got beyond the "tame eagle" period, albeit that those behind the scenes, among others a near connection of mine, who was more than half a Frenchman himself, predicted that the predatory instincts would soon reveal themselves, against the Russian bear, probably, and in conjunction with the British lion,—if not in conjunction with the latter, perhaps against him.
At any rate, les grandes chasses et fêtes de Compiègne formed the first item of that programme of "La France quis'amuse,"—a programme and play which, for nearly eighteen years, drew from all parts of the civilized world would-be critics and spectators, few of whom perceived that the theatre was undermined, the piece running to a fatal dénoûment, and the bill itself the most fraudulent concoction that had ever issued from the sanctum of a bogus impressario. But had not Lamartine, only a few years previously, suggested, as it were, the tendency of the piece, when, in the Chamber of Deputies, he said, "Messieurs, j'ai l'honneur et le regret de vous avertir que la France s'ennuie"? Louis-Napoléon was determined that no such reproach should be made during his reign. He probably did not mean his fireworks to end in the conflagration of Bazeilles, and to read the criticism on his own drama at Wilhelmshöhe, but he should have held a tighter hand over his stage-managers. Some of these were now getting their reward for having contributed to the efficient representation of the prologue, which one might entitle "the Coup d'État." General Magnan was appointed grand veneur—let us say, master of the buckhounds,—with a stipend of a hundred thousand francs; Comte Edgar Ney, his chief coadjutor, with forty thousand francs. History sees the last of the latter gentleman on a cold, dull, drizzly September morning, of the year 1870. He is seated in an open char-à-bancs, by the side of some Prussian officers, and the vehicle, in the rear of that of his Imperial master, is on its way to the Belgian frontier, en route for Cassel. He is pointing to some artillery which, notwithstanding its French model, is being driven by German gunners. "A qui ces canons-là?" "Ils ne sont pas des nôtres, monsieur," is the courteous and guarded reply. Verily, his father's exit, after all is said and done, was a more dignified one. Michel Ney, at any rate, fell pierced by bullets; the pity was that they were not the enemy's. In addition to the grand veneur and premier veneur, there were three lieutenants de vénerie, a capitaine des chasses à tir,—whom we will call a sublimated head-gamekeeper;—and all these dignitaries had other emoluments and charges besides, because Louis-Napoléon, to his credit be it said, never forgot a friend.
The whole of the "working personnel" was, as I have already said, recruited from the former establishments of the Condés at Chantilly, of the late Duc d'Orléans, the Ducs de Nemours and d'Aumale; and such men as La Feuille, whose real name was Fergus, and La Trace could not have failed tomake comparisons between their old masters and the new, not always to the advantage of the latter. For though the spectacle was magnificent enough, there was little or no hunting, as far as the majority of the guests were concerned. After a great deal of deliberation, dark green cloth, with crimson velvet collars, cuffs, and facings, and gold lace, had been adopted. In Louis XV.'s time, and in that of the latter Bourbons, the colour had been blue with silver lace; but for this difference the costume was virtually the same, even to the buckskins, jackboots, and the "lampion," also edged with gold instead of silver.[62]The Emperor's and Empress's had a trimming of white ostrich-feathers. The dress could not be worn, however, by any but the members of the Imperial household, without special permission. The latter, of course, wore it by right; but even men like the Duc de Vicence, the Baron d'Offrémont, the Marquis de Gallifet, the Marquis de Cadore, women like the Comtesse de Pourtalès, the Comtesse de Brigode, the Marquise de Contades, who held no special charge at court, had to receive "le bouton" before they could don it.[63]
The locale of these gatherings differed according to the seasons. Fontainebleau was chosen for the spring ones, but throughout the reign Compiègne always offered the most brilliant spectacle, especially after the Crimean war, when Napoléon III. was tacitly admitted to the family circle of the crowned heads of Europe. The shooting-parties were a tribute offered to the taste of the English visitors, who, after that period, became more numerous every succeeding autumn, and who, accustomed as they were to their own magnificent meets and lavish hospitality at the most renowned country seats, could not help expressing their surprise at the utterly reckless expenditure; and, if the truth must be told, enjoyed the freedom from all restraint, though it was cunningly hidden beneath an apparently very formidable code of courtly etiquette. As one of these distinguished Englishmen said, "They have done better than banish Mrs. Grundy; they have given her a special invitation, and drugged her the moment she came in."
The Court invariably arrived on the first of November, and generally stayed for three weeks or a month, according to the date fixed for the opening of the Chambers. From that moment the town, a very sleepy though exceedingly pretty one, became like a fair. Unless you had engaged your room beforehand at one of the hotels, the chances were a thousand to one in favour of your having to roam the streets; for there were hundreds and hundreds of sight-seers, French as well as foreign, desirous of following the hounds, which every one was free to do. In addition to these, many functionaries, not sufficiently important to be favoured with an invitation to the Château, but eager for an opportunity of attracting the notice of the sovereign—for Napoléon was a very impulsive monarch, who often took sudden fancies—had to be accommodated, not to mention flying columns of the demi-monde, "pas trop bien assurées sur la fidélité de leurs protecteurs en-titre et voulant les sauvegarder contre les attaques de leurs rivales dans l'entourage impérial." What with these and others, a room, on the top story, was often quoted at sixty or seventy francs per day. I know a worthy lieutenant of the cavalry of the Garde who made a pretty sum, for two years running, by engaging three apartments at each of the five good hotels, for the whole of the Emperor's stay. His regiment was quartered at Compiègne, and, as a matter of course, his friends from Paris applied to him.
An amusing incident happened in connection with this scarcity of accommodation. The French railways in those days got a great many of their rails from England. The representative of one of these English makers found out, however, that the profits on his contracts were pretty well being swallowed up by the baksheesh he had to distribute among the various government officials and others. In his perplexity, he sought advice of an English nobleman, who had his grandes et petites entrées to the Tuileries, and the latter promised to get him an audience of the Emperor. It so happened that the Court was on the eve of its departure, but Napoléon wrote that he would see the agent at Compiègne. On the day appointed, the Englishman came. Having made up his mind to combine pleasure with business, he had brought his portmanteau in order to stay for a day or so. Previous to the interview he had applied at every hotel, at every private house where there was a chance of getting a room, but without success. His luggage was in a cab on thePlace du Château. Napoléon was, as usual, very kind, promised him his aid, but asked him to let the matter rest until the next day, when he would have an opportunity of consulting a high authority on the subject who was coming down that very afternoon. "Give me your address, and I will let you know, the first thing in the morning, when I can see you," said the Emperor in English.
The Englishman looked very embarrassed. "I have no address, sire. I have been unable to get a room anywhere," he replied.
"Oh, I dare say we can put you up somewhere here," laughed the Emperor, and called to one of his aides-de-camp, to whom he gave instructions.
The Englishman and the officer departed together, but the Château was quite as full as the rest of the town.
"I'll ask Baptiste," said the officer at last, having tried every possible means.
Baptiste was one of the Emperor's principal grooms, and very willing to help; but, alas! he had only a very small room himself, and that was shared by his wife.
"If monsieur don't mind," said Baptiste, "I will make him up a good bed in one of the fourgons"—one of the luggage-vans.
So said, so done. The Englishman slept like a top, being very tired,—too much like a top, for he never stirred until he found himself rudely awakened by a heavy bundle of rugs and other paraphernalia being flung on his chest. He was at the station. Baptiste had simply forgotten to mention the fact of his having transformed the fourgon into a bedroom; the doors that stood ajar during the night had been closed without the servant looking inside; and when the occupant was discovered he was, as Racine says—
"Dans le simple appareilD'une beauté qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil."
When he told the Emperor, the latter laughed, "as he had never seen him laugh before," said the aide-de-camp, who had been the innocent cause of the mischief by appealing to Baptiste.
The victim of the misadventure did not mind it much. For many years afterwards, he averred that the sight of Compiègne in those days would have compensated for the inconvenience of sleeping on a garden seat. What was more, heand his firm were never troubled any more with inexorable demands for baksheesh.
He was right; the sight of Compiègne in those days was very beautiful. There was a good deal of the histrionic mixed up with it, but it was very beautiful. In addition to the bands of the garrison, a regimental band of the infantry of the Garde played in the courtyard of the Château; the streets were alive with crowds dressed in their best; almost every house was gay with bunting, the only exceptions being those of the Legitimists, who, unlike Achilles, did not even skulk in their tents, but shut up their establishments and flitted on the eve of the arrival of the Court, after having despatched an address of unswerving loyalty to the Comte de Chambord. After a little while, Napoléon did not trouble about these expressions of hostility to his dynasty, though he could not forbear to ask bitterly, now and then, whether the Comte de Chambord or the Comte de Paris under a regency could have made the country more prosperous than he had attempted to do, than he succeeded in doing. And truth compels one to admit that France's material prosperity was not a sham in those days, whatever else may have been; for in those days, as I have already remarked, the end was still distant, and there were probably not a thousand men in the whole of Europe who foresaw the nature of it, albeit that a thirtieth or a fortieth part of them may have been in Compiègne at the very time when the Emperor, in his elegantly appointed break, drove from the Place du Château amidst the acclamations of the serried crowds lining the roads.
On the day of the arrival of the Emperor—the train reached Compiègne about four—there was neither dinner-party nor reception at the Château. The civil and military authorities of Compiègne went to the station to welcome the Imperial couple, the rangers of Compiègne and Laigue forests waited upon his Majesty to arrange the programme, and generally joined the Imperial party at dinner; but the fêtes did not commence until the second day after the arrival,i. e.with the advent of the first batch of guests, who reached the Château exactly twenty-four hours after their hosts.
Society during the Empire — The series of guests at Compiègne — The amusements — the absence of musical taste in the Bonapartes — The programme on the first, second, third, and fourth days — An anecdote of Lafontaine, the actor — Theatrical performances and balls — The expenses of the same — The theatre at Compiègne — The guests, male and female — "Neck or nothing" for the latter, uniform for the former — The rest have to take "back seats" — The selection of guests among the notabilities of Compiègne — A mayor's troubles — The Empress's and the Emperor's conflicting opinions with regard to female charms — Bassano in "hot water" — Tactics of the demi-mondaines — Improvement from the heraldic point of view in the Empress's entourage — The cocodettes — Their dress — Worth — When every pretext for a change of toilette is exhausted, the court ladies turn themselves into ballerinas — "Le Diable à Quatre" at Compiègne — The ladies appear at the ball afterwards in their gauze skirts — The Emperor's dictum with regard to ballet-dancers and men's infatuation for them — The Emperor did not like stupid women — The Emperor's "eye" for a handsome woman — The Empress does not admire the instinct — William I. of Prussia acts as comforter — The hunt — Actors, "supers," and spectators — "La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas" — The Imperial procession — The Empress's and Emperor's unpunctuality — Louis-Napoléon not a "well-dressed man" — The Empress wished to get back before dark — The reason of this wish — Though unpunctual, punctual on hunt-days — The police measures at those gatherings — M. Hyrvoix and M. Boitelle — The Empress did not like the truth, the Emperor did — Her anxiety to go to St. Lazare.
The guests were divided into five series, each of which stayed four days exclusive of the day of their arrival and that of their departure. Each series consisted of between eighty and ninety guests.
The amusements provided were invariably the same for each series of guests. On the day of their arrival there was the dinner, followed by charades, and a carpet dance to the accompaniment of the piano—or, to speak by the card, of the piano-organ. It was an instrument similar to that which nowadays causes so much delight to the children in the streets of London, and, as far as I can remember, the first of its kind I had ever seen. The male guests, and not always the youngest, relieved one another in turning the handle. Mechanical as was the task, it required a certain ear for time, and they were often found sadly wanting in that respect. Itwas rather comical to see a grave minister of State solemnly grinding out tunes, and being called to task every now and again for his incapacity. The worst offender, the most hopeless performer, was undoubtedly the Emperor himself. The Bonapartes are one and all devoid of the slightest taste for music. I think it is De Bourriènne—but I will not be certain—who speaks of the founder of the dynasty humming as he went along from one apartment to another. "Et Dieu sait comme il chantait faux," adds the chronicler in despair. That part of the great man's mantle had decidedly fallen upon his nephew. I remember the latter trying to distinguish himself on that piano-organ one evening. M. de Maupas, who was the prefect of police at the time of the Coup d'État, and minister of police afterwards, was among the guests. The ambulant musician in Paris has to get a kind of licence from the prefecture of police, the outward sign of which is a brass badge, which he is bound to wear suspended from his button-hole. While the Emperor was trying to make the company waltz, one of the ladies suddenly turned round to M. de Maupas: "Si jamais l'empereur vous demande la permission de jouer dans la rue, refusez lui, monsieur; refusez lui, pour l'amour du ciel et de la musique," she said aloud: and the Emperor himself could not help smiling at the well-deserved rebuke. "Madame," he replied, "if ever I am reduced to such a strait, I will take you into partnership: I will make you sing, and I will collect the pence." In spite of his musical deficiencies the Emperor was right; the lady was Madame Conneau, who had and has still one of the most beautiful voices ever heard on the professional or amateur stage.
On the first day following that of the arrival of the guests, there was a shooting-party, or, rather, there were two—one in the home park for the Emperor himself, who was not a bad shot, and a dozen of the more important personages; another in the forest. Those who did not care for sport were at liberty to remain with the ladies, who, under the direction of the Empress, proceeded to the lawn. Croquet, as far as I know, had not been invented then, but archery lent itself to posing and flirtation quite as well, and the costumes worn on such occasions were truly a sight for the gods.
On the evening of that day, there was a performance in the theatre, built for the express purpose by Louis-Philippe, but which had been considerably embellished since. Thecompanies of the Comédie-Française, the Odéon, the Gymnase, the Vaudeville, and the Palais-Royal took it in turns. Only the members of the Comédie-Française had the privilege of paying their respects in the Imperial box. It was during one of the performances of the Gymnase company that the following amusing incident occurred. They were playing "Le Fils de Famille" of Bayard and De Biéville,[64]and the Emperor was strolling in the lobbies before the performance, when he noticed an old colonel of lancers, whom he did not remember to have seen among the guests during the daytime, but who seemed perfectly at home. He had not even donned his full regimentals.
"Voilà un vrai, beau militaire," said the sovereign to one of his aides-de-camp; "allez demander son nom."
The aide-de-camp returned in a moment. "Il s'appelle Lafontaine, sire; et il appartient au régiment du Gymnase."
"Comment, au régiment du Gymnase?"
"Mais oui, sire; c'est Lafontaine, le comédien."
In fact, the assumption was so thoroughly realistic, that even a better judge than Louis-Napoléon might have been deceived by it.
Those performances were really most brilliant affairs, and an invitation to them was only less highly prized than that to the ball which always followed the play on November 15th, the Empress's fête-day.[65]The cost of each performance was estimated at between twenty and thirty thousand francs, according to the company performing. I am repeating the official statement, though inclined to think it somewhat exaggerated. Except the Opéra or Opéra-Comique, there was not then, nor is there now, a theatre in Paris whose nightly receipts, with "the greatest success," exceed seven or eight thousand francs. Allowing for an additional three thousand francs for railway travelling and sundry expenses, I fail to see how the remainder of the sum was disbursed, unless it was in douceurs to the performers. There is less doubt, however, about the expenses of the Château during this annual series of fêtes. It could not have been less than forty-five thousand francs per diem, and must have often risen tofifty thousand francs, exclusive of the cost of the theatrical performances, because the luxe displayed on these occasions was truly astonishing—I had almost said appalling.
The theatre was built on the old-fashioned principle, and what we call stalls were not known in those days. There was something analogous to them at the Opéra and the Théâtre-Français, but they were exclusively reserved to the male sex. Both these theatres still keep up the same traditions in that respect. At Compiègne the whole of the ground floor, parterre, or pit, as we have misnamed it—"groundlings" is a much more appropriate word, perhaps, than "pittites"—was occupied by the officers of all grades of the regiments quartered at Compiègne and in the department. The chefs de corps and the chief dignitaries of State filled the amphitheatre, which rose in a gentle slope from the back of the parterre to just below the first tier of boxes, or rather to the balcony tier, seeing that the only box on it was the Imperial one. The latter, however, took up much more than the centre, for it had been constructed to seat about two hundred persons. Only a slight partition, elbow high, divided it from the rest of the tier, whence the sterner sex was absolutely banished. The display of bare arms and shoulders was something marvellous, for they were by no means equally worthy of admiration, and the stranger, ignorant of the court regulations, must have often asked himself why certain ladies should have been so reckless as to invite comparison with their more favoured sisters. It was because there was no choice. The slightest gauze was rigorously prohibited, and woe to the lady who ventured to disobey these regulations. One of the chambellans was sure to request her to retire. "L'épaule ou l'épaulette" was the title of a comic song of those days, in allusion to the Empress's determination to suffer none but resplendent uniforms and ball dresses within sight of her. If I remember aright, the chorus went like this—
"Je ne porte pas l'épaulette,Je ne puis me décoll'ter,Je ne suis qu'un vieux bonhomme,Donc, je ne suis pas invité."
For even the guests in plain evening dress were mercilessly relegated to the tier above that of the Imperial box, and, even when there, were not permitted to occupy the firstrows. These also were reserved for the fairer portion of humanity.
This fairer portion of humanity, thus ostensibly privileged, embittered the lives of the poor mayor and sub-prefect of Compiègne. The wives of the local notabilities and of the government officials, in addition to those of some of the landed gentry of the Empire, were not only anxious to be present at these gatherings, but generally insisted on having the front seats, at any rate in the second circle. Their applications, transmitted by these dignitaries to the Duc de Bassano, were always in excess of the room at his disposal, and, being an utter stranger to all these ladies, he had virtually to choose at random, or, if not at random, to be guided by the mayor and sub-prefect, who were consulted, not with regard to the greater or lesser degree of opulent charms and comeliness of features of these fair applicants, but with regard to their social status and fair fame. Now, it so happens that in France "L'amour fait des siennes" in the provinces as well as in the capital; he only disdains what Mirabeau used to call "les fées concombres." The Empress, provided the shoulders and arms were bare, did not trouble much about either their colour or "moulded outline;" the Emperor, on the contrary, objected, both from personal as well as artistic reasons, to have the curved symmetry of the two circles marred by the introduction of so many living problems of Euclid; and it really seemed as if the devil wanted to have all the good shapes to himself, for the reputedly virtuous spinsters, widows, and matrons were angular enough to have satisfied a tutor of mathematics. There was a dilemma: if they were put in the front rows, the Emperor scolded Bassano, who in his turn scolded the mayor and the sub-prefect. If the less virtuous but more attractive were put in the front rows, there was frequently a small scandal; for the Empress, at the first sight of them, had them expelled, after which she scolded Bassano, who avenged himself for his having been reprimanded on the mayor and sub-prefect. Furthermore, the contingent from Paris, some of whom were often provided with letters of introduction from influential personages to the latter gentleman, were not always without reproach though ever without fear; but how were two provincial magistrates to know this? Those sirens could almost impose upon them with impunity, and did; so, upon the whole, the magistrates did not have a pleasant timeof it, for in the case of the former damsels or veuves de Malabar both the Emperor and the Empress were equally strict—though, perhaps, from utterly different motives.
Nevertheless, the esclandres were comparatively rare, and the house itself presented a sight unparalleled perhaps throughout the length and breadth of Europe. At nine o'clock, Comte Bacciochi, the first chambellan, in his court dress descended the few steps leading from the foyer to the Imperial box, and, advancing to the front, announced, "The Emperor." Every one rose and remained standing until the Emperor and Empress, who entered immediately afterwards, had seated themselves in the crimson velvet and gilt arm-chairs which the gentlemen-in-waiting (les chambellans de service) rolled forward.
I have spoken elsewhere of the immediate entourage of the Imperial hosts, and may therefore pass them over in silence here. As the Napoleonic dynasty became apparently more consolidated both at home and abroad, this entourage gradually changed—though no truthful observer could have honestly averred that the change was for the better. The décavés and the déclassées of the first period disappeared altogether, or underwent a truly marvellous financial and social metamorphosis: the men, by means of speculations, chiefly connected with the "Haussmannizing" of Paris, the successful carrying out of which was greatly facilitated by their position at court; the women by marriages, the conditions of which I prefer not to discuss. An undoubtedly genuine leaven of names to be found in "D'Hozier,"[66]came to swell the ranks of the hitherto somewhat shady courtiers of both sexes. Unfortunately, their blood was not only thicker than water, and consequently more easily heated, but they presumed upon the blueness of it to set public opinion at defiance.
"Ce qui, chez les mortels, est une effronterieEntre nous autres demi-dieuxN'est qu'honnête galanterie."
Thus wrote the Duchesse du Maine[67]to her brother, of whom she was perhaps a little more fond than even their blood-relationshipwarranted. This privilege of stealing the horse, while the meaner-born might not even look over the hedge, was claimed by the sons and the daughters of the old noblesse, who condescended to grace the court of Napoléon III., with a cynicism worthy of the most libertine traditions of the ancien régime; and neither the Empress nor the Emperor did anything to discountenance the claim. The former, provided that "tout se passait en famille," closed her eyes to many things she ought not to have tolerated. At the Tuileries, a certain measure of decorum was preferred; at Compiègne and Fontainebleau, where the house was "packed" as it were, the most flagrant eccentricities, to call them by no harsher name, were not only permitted, but tacitly encouraged by the Empress. This was especially the case when the first series of guests was gone. It generally included the most serious portion of the visitors, "les ennuyeurs, les empêcheurs de danser en rond,"[68]as they were called. The ladies belonging to, or classed in that category, presented, no doubt, a striking contrast to those of the succeeding series, in which the English element was not always conspicuous by its absence. The costumes of the latter were something wonderful to behold. The cloth skirt, which had then been recently introduced from England, and the cloth dress, draped elegantly over it, enabled their wearers to defy all kinds of weather. And as they went tramping down the muddy roads, their coquettish little hats daintily poised on enormous chignons, their walking boots displaying more than the regulation part of ankle, the less sophisticated Compiègnois stared with all their might at the strange company from the Château, and no wonder. Still, the surprise of the inhabitants was small compared to that of the troopers of the garrison at the invasion of their riding-school by such a contingent, which indulged in ring-tilting, not unfrequently in tent-pegging, and, more frequently still, "in taking a header into space," to the great amusement of their companions.
In those days, Worth was not quite king; the cocodettes of the Imperial circle were still prophesying on their own account. The "arsenal des modes," as Madame Émile de Girardinhad boastingly called Paris but ten years previously, had as yet not been boldly taken by storm by a native of bucolic Lincolnshire. But in a very short time he became the absolute autocrat in matters of feminine apparel. It was not even an enlightened despotism. His will was law. Every different entertainment required its appropriate costume, and the costume was frequently the sole pretext for the entertainment. And when the ingenuity in devising both was in danger of becoming exhausted, the supreme resource of these ladies was to turn themselves into ballerinas; not into ballerinas as King Bomba, or the Comte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, or M. Rouher would have had them, but into ballerinas with the shortest of gauze skirts and pink silk fleshings.
One year, I am not certain of the exact one,—I know that the future Emperor of Germany was there,—the ladies hit upon the idea of giving a surprise to the Emperor and Empress on the occasion of the latter's fête-day. A ballet-master was sent for in hot haste from Paris, and "Le Diable à Quatre" put in rehearsal. Unlike Peter the Great, who had a soldier hanged—he said shooting was too good for him—for having represented a disreputable character on the stage, the Emperor professed himself exceedingly pleased; and the ladies, among whom was Princess von Metternich, were sent for from the Imperial box to be complimented by the sovereign. At the ball which followed the entertainment, they appeared in their theatrical dresses. Every one was delighted. "Après tout," said Napoléon, blinking his eyes, "avec cette manie des hommes de courir après des danseuses, il vaut mieux leur en fournir de bonne maison."