The Comedy & Tragedy of the Second Empire. Edward Legge
the Terrible Year a “Times” leader-writer took as his text for a powerful essay some extracts from the Reports of Colonel Stoffel, French Military Attaché at Berlin (1866–1870), to his Government; and in the course of his article he did not hesitate to assert that it was a puzzle how anyone who had read those documents could ever have dreamt of plunging France into a war with Prussia. After reading M. Franceschini’s letters to Stoffel the puzzle would appear greater still were it not now, thanks to M. Émile Ollivier, matter of common knowledge that the Emperor and his Government were goaded into a declaration of war by the French Press and by the nation en masse. These letters (from which, by the great courtesy of the director of the “Revue de Paris,” I have been able to give extracts) are in every way remarkable, but their main importance lies in the fact that they were written by M. Pietri. In 1866, as later, he was the mouthpiece of Napoleon III. When he wrote to Colonel Stoffel he expressed not only the Emperor’s views, but his own. He shows us that Stoffel’s opinions were highly valued by the Emperor and by Marshal Niel, then Minister of War. Both Sovereign and War Minister set special store upon the Military Attaché’s Reports. The Emperor could not hear too often from him. M. Pietri was always urging the Colonel to write. The Emperor dictated to M. Pietri questions which Stoffel was required to answer. The Prussians, in their campaign against Austria, in 1866, used the needle-gun for the first time in warfare, and M. Pietri sent Stoffel funds wherewith to purchase one of the new rifles for the Emperor. These lettres révélatrices are further remarkable for their ardent patriotism and wide knowledge of political and military affairs. It is hardly too much to say that in these epistles M. Franceschini Pietri shines as the Admirable Crichton of Bonapartism. Sometimes he is amusingly audacious and delightfully humorous, but always he is “the Emperor’s man” to the backbone. With a few hundred of such letters it would be possible to construct a history of the Second Empire which only the publication of the Empress Eugénie’s Memoirs could rival. And perhaps the Secretary’s letters would be the more historically interesting of the two.
Proof-sheets of the chapter, “Prince Napoleon’s Policy,” were sent to His Imperial Highness’s Secretary, M. Beneyton, and returned to me by that gentleman with his wonted courtesy. If I mention these incidents, it is simply to show that I have always taken the utmost pains to secure absolute accuracy in all which I have written concerning the Imperial Family. Similarly, I based my exposé of the forged “Mémoires de l’Impératrice Eugénie” on the written statements courteously furnished me by M. Franceschini Pietri in January, 1910.[15]
I have been honoured by the letter of M. Pietri conveying the Empress Eugénie’s thanks, and also by these gracious communications:
Sandringham, Norfolk, June 29, 1911.
Dear Sir,
I am commanded by Queen Alexandra to thank you very much for the excellent photograph of the Emperor Napoleon the Third’s Bust, which Her Majesty is very glad to have.
Believe me,
Yours truly,
Charlotte Knollys.
Paris. 10, Avenue d’Ièna, 30 juin, 1911.
Cher Monsieur,
J’ai recu votre aimable lettre du 27 ct., ainsi que la photographie du buste de l’Empereur Napoléon III. et les paragraphes sur la représentation de la Maison Bonaparte aux fêtes du couronnement de S.M. le Roi Georges V.
Je me suis empressé de remettre le tout à S.A.I. Monseigneur le Prince Roland Bonaparte, qui me charge de vous en remercier vivement, et de vous dire combien Elle a été sensible à cette délicate attention.
Veuillez agréer, cher Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distingués.
G. Faussez des Mares.
Translation.
Paris, 10, Avenue d’Ièna, June 30, 1911.
Dear Sir,
I have received your amiable letter of the 27th inst., and also the photograph of the bust of the Emperor Napoleon III. and the paragraphs referring to the representation of the House of Bonaparte at the Coronation fêtes of H.M. King George V.
I hastened to hand the whole to H.I.H. Monseigneur Prince Roland Bonaparte, who directs me to warmly thank you, and to tell you how sensible he is of your delicate attention.
Accept, dear sir, the expression of my most distinguished sentiments.
G. Faussez des Mares.
I have selected for detailed treatment 1867. In that year the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugénie entertained three Emperors, eight Kings, one Viceroy, five Queens, nine Grand Dukes, two Grand Duchesses, two Archdukes, twenty-four Princes, seven Princesses, five Dukes, and two Duchesses. The Prince of Wales (King Edward VII.), the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Duke of Connaught were of the party. While 1867 is generally considered to have been the “great year” of the Imperial Reign, M. Hanotaux[16] inclines to the opinion that “the climax of Napoleonic glory” came in November, 1869, when the Empress Eugénie inaugurated the Suez Canal—ten months before Sedan.
CHAPTER I
THE EMPRESS’S GIRLHOOD
It is August, 1840, and from the balcony of the Delesserts’ house a fair-complexioned, golden-haired girl of fourteen looks down on a man escorted by two gendarmes. Dishevelled, unkempt, in his shirtsleeves, the prisoner, who has been fished out of the salt water, passes out of sight, unaware of the child’s wistful looks and the sympathetic glances of her sister and their mother. Perchance he sees Goldenhair wave her handkerchief.
Mme. Delessert’s husband is Préfet of Paris. The ladies on the balcony are the Comtesse de Montijo and her daughters. The man in custody is Prince Louis Napoleon, the derided, but unabashed, hero of the Boulogne “attempt”; and he is two-and-thirty.
The daughters of the Comte and Comtesse de Montijo made their acquaintance with Paris when they were not more than four or five. It was about 1830 or 1831 when the family went to reside there for a while. Prosper Mérimée, whose name can no more be kept out of the history of the Empress than could Mr. Dick suppress the mention of King Charles’s head, was there, and his friend of the British Museum, Dr. Panizzi, was kept informed of the strolls on the boulevards of the little Eugénie, and of her liking, not only for the author of the story of “Carmen,” which Bizet was later to set to music, but for the sweets given to her by Mérimée.
The Montijos seem to have been then in only fairly easy circumstances. Three or four years later their fortunes improved, the head of the family having died.
Eugénie’s education begins at a celebrated convent school, on whose books she figures as Eugénie Palafox, a name used by her for a score of years.
At the Sacré-Cœur, Rue de la Varenne, the little Montijo is supremely happy. Her holidays and those other days when she is allowed “out” she spends with her mother’s friend, the Comtesse de Laborde, at a country house at Passy, where a park runs down to the Seine. Mme. de Laborde has promised Madame mère to make Eugénie’s school life as pleasant as possible, and she fulfils her promise to the letter. The Comtesse de Laborde has three daughters, all well married, all charming mondaines: Mme. Delessert—who, as the wife of the Préfet, is a personage—Mme. Bocher, and Mme. Odiar. Eugénie is in the good graces of this captivating trio. But the lady to whom she is particularly attached is the Comtesse de Nadaillac, daughter of Mme. Delessert, and grand-daughter of the Comtesse de Laborde.
At the age of eleven (in 1837) she makes the vows imposed upon communicants, in the stereotyped phrase, “La fille de la Comtesse de Téba (Montijo) fit sa première communion,” in the chapel of the convent school. Soon—in