It is due to the readers of “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910,” that they should know how that volume was received by the British and American Press. Leading critics like Mr. Courtney, “Daily Telegraph”; Mr. Richard Whiteing, “Manchester Guardian”; and Mr. Tighe Hopkins, “Daily Chronicle,” devoted much space to their analyses of the volume, as did the able reviewers of the work in the “Morning Post,” “Daily Mail,” “Evening Standard,” “Scotsman,” “Illustrated London News,” “Observer,” “Athenæum,” “Church Times,” “Catholic Times,” “Onlooker,” and many other influential and widely-circulated journals. Two editions were exhausted in this country and the United States. A remarkable, and severely-critical, article appeared in “La Grande Revue” (Paris), from the pen of the celebrated author and publicist, M. Gérard Harry, a strong anti-Bonapartist, who deprecated what he considered the excessive praise bestowed upon the Empress Eugénie. I had a distinctly “good Press,” and to that fact I attribute the success of the work, a French edition of which will be issued by the eminent Paris firm of Pierre Lafitte et Cie. The written words of Napoleon III., hurriedly jotted down at the hazard of the pen on his way from Sedan to Wilhelmshöhe; of General Fleury by the side of the captive; of the Empress, and those about her, addressed to Mgr. Goddard--all these documents, it was agreed by the Press, threw new light upon the period of the Second Empire.
One of several appreciative American critics did not appear quite satisfied with the evidence authenticating the Empress’s “Case,” the elaborate statement justifying Her Majesty’s severely-criticized political and domestic acts. If any doubt existed on that point I will now remove it. The assertions contained in that document were indeed those of the Empress herself, and would never have been published without her express approval and sanction.
Sovereigns who have been traduced do not “rush into print” with signed denials of accusations published to their discredit. They adopt other means of repelling attacks upon their honour, and sometimes upon their morality. Thus, the Emperor Napoleon, during his captivity at Wilhelmshöhe, wrote with his own hand a detailed explanation of his policy as the Ruler of France. It would not have been convenable--not in accordance with his dignity or with the rigid etiquette which guides Sovereigns even in their most trivial actions--for the Emperor (who had not then been formally deposed) to have issued that statement with his signature appended to it. The Duc de Persigny refused to “father” the document, and it was sent forth as “by the Marquis de Gricourt,” although, as General Count von Monts assures us, the Emperor was the actual author of the pamphlet,[1] and gave the General a copy of it. Some extracts from the Emperor’s “Case” are printed in the present volume.
The Emperor’s letters to the late Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau display the workings of his mind during the crisis of his life as only intimate correspondence could do. This gifted and charming woman’s letters to Napoleon III. are in the Empress’s possession, and will probably, like all other correspondence, remain unpublished “until fifty years after Her Majesty’s death.” The Emperor’s letters came into the possession of Herr Paul Linderberg, of Berlin, by whose kindness I am privileged to print them in this volume.
English people who had held the Emperor in holy horror took a different view of him when they made his personal acquaintance. Lady Westmorland, for instance, “had always felt a great antipathy for Napoleon III.; to her he was a clever ‘scoundrel.’ In 1863 her son was a guest at Compiègne, and there he became seriously ill. She went over to bring him home, and not only did she acknowledge the Emperor’s kindness, she was won by his personal charm, and recognized, as Queen Victoria had done, the evidence of his high-bred instinct: ‘He tried to put others at their ease, and he is always himself a perfect gentleman.’”[2]
The Emperor, who lavished millions of francs upon others, was himself very economical. The bills of his fournisseurs show that he had his hats done up for four francs and his coats for fourteen francs. “Napoleon III.,” says M. André Lefèvre, “entering France with one or two million francs of debts, left it with twenty, thirty, or fifty millions owing to France.... We must not allow even the mummy of Chislehurst to sleep in peace.” A beautiful sentiment, essentially French.
I have essayed, with the help of others, to paint the Pale Emperor as he was, and the Empress as she was, and is, and Paris Society as it was. Of those who knew both, some will agree, others will disagree, with me; but it is not for this little coterie that I write. I write for the English-speaking peoples all over the world.
As in my first volume, “The Empress Eugénie: 1870-1910,” the object primarily aimed at was to narrate the lives of the Imperial Family in England, I was precluded from dwelling upon the Reign. In the following pages I have endeavoured to portray some aspects of the Court and of Paris Society between 1852 and 1870. These are necessarily only bird’s-eye views; brief, however, as are these parts of the imperial story, I hope they will convey an idea of the real life of the period. It was very gay--not a doubt about it. Was it an “orgy”? One can hardly think so. Everything was New. To the severe critics--the “sea-green incorruptibles”--the Emperor was an “adventurer,” the Empress an “adventuress,” Society “rotten.”
The descriptions of Fontainebleau and Compiègne are mainly derived from a work by M. Bouchot,[3] whose encyclopædic knowledge is only equalled by his fascinating style. Other details of life at Compiègne are from the brilliant pen of the Marquis de Massa, whose unexpected death in 1910 robbed Paris Society of one of its wittiest and most delightful figures. (The Marquis furnished the Imperial Theatre at Compiègne with many humorous saynètes, and was in great favour with the Emperor and the Empress.) From a lecture delivered in 1910 by the Marquis,[4] and from his entertaining and always reliable “Souvenirs,” I have selected some amusing items. The telegrams sent by the Emperor and Empress in August, 1870, form a history of the war up to the eve of Sedan. These despatches are taken from the fifth volume of M. Germain Bapst’s remarkable historical work, “Le Maréchal Canrobert,” the eminent publishers of which, MM. Plon-Nourrit et Cie., have very generously authorized me to reproduce them. M. Bapst’s running commentary on the dissensions of the Generals, Ministers, and politicians is deeply interesting, and I have quoted largely from it, convinced that it will be as fresh to English as it was to French readers. The picture of the Empress, so vividly sketched by M. Bapst, reveals her in a new light. Although critics are against me, I hazard the assertion that throughout that month of August she displayed most of the qualities of a competent Regent--qualities possessed by no other Empress or Queen of the period, with the single exception of Queen Victoria. But she strove to accomplish the impossible. No human power could convert inept Generals into strategists and tacticians, nor double the strength of the French forces, nor remedy the defects of organization. Every factor that makes for success was lacking, or we should not have a distinguished French soldier writing in 1910:
The authors of most of the works inspired by the war of 1870 have too willingly yielded to the temptation of looking for the guilty, and fixing them with the blame for all our reverses. In turn they have chosen for scapegoats the Emperor Napoleon III., that dreamer, straying into the field of politics, that idéologue, punished in excess of his faults by the pitiless decrees of destiny; Marshal Lebœuf, so fatally lacking in foresight; the Corps Législatif, so badly inspired in its contests with Marshal Niel; the Generals who succeeded each other in the command of our troops, from MacMahon to Bourbaki; and, finally, the Government of National Defence, especially its Delegates. How few have recognized the fact that the French army and our rulers in 1870-71 were purely and simply, with their qualities and their defects, the representation, the faithful image, of the nation![5]
It was a Frenchman, again, who wrote: “The German schoolmaster was the real conqueror of France in 1870, for he it was who had for years developed in the hearts of the children the idea of Teutonic greatness.”[6]
I recall, without in any way endorsing, a quaint reason seriously advanced for the French defeats: “Don’t blame your late Emperor because the Germans thrashed you; the cause lies far deeper: it is due to the sneakishness of your male population.”[7]
Quite recently I read in the Press that only two or three days before the outbreak of war Count Bismarck declared that he had no idea there would be a conflict. If he really said so (I do not credit it), he spoke in a very different strain in January, 1868, to a prominent German socialist. “War,” he is alleged to have said, “is inevitable.” And he continued:
It will be forced upon us by the French Emperor. I say that clearly. He is an adventurer, and will be forced into it. We have to be ready. We are ready. We shall win, and the result will be just the contrary to what Napoleon aims at--the total unification of Germany outside Austria, and probably Napoleon’s downfall.[8]
That prediction--assuming it to have been made--was fulfilled to the letter. Germany was ready--France was not. It is to be noted that M. Émile Ollivier’s new volume--the fifteenth!--is devoted to this question of preparedness or unpreparedness, for the work is entitled “Were we Ready?”[9] The veteran Prime Minister (the last) of Napoleon III. deals with three points--the military preparations, the diplomatic preparations, and the first war operations, down to the morning of August 6 (before the Battles of Wörth and Spicheren):
The conclusion is that, from the military point of view, we were sufficiently ready to conquer, and that, despite formal promises, no alliance was concluded by August 6. Finally, that if, from July 31 until August 6, we had adopted a vigorous offensive on the side of the River Sarre [_i.e._, at Saarbrücken] we should have gained that first victory which would have changed the conditions of the struggle.
This will strike many as a splendidly-audacious proposition; yet it is neither audacious nor new. The two hours’ fighting at Saarbrücken on August 2 was entirely to the advantage of the French force (overwhelmingly superior in numbers) under Frossard; but the “victory” was not followed up, and thus proved wholly fruitless. M. Ollivier is, therefore, entitled to this expression of opinion, over-sanguine as some war critics may deem it; and his view must be received with respect, even by those who differ from it.
The “great years” of the Reign were 1855, when Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort (the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales with them) returned the visit paid to them by the Emperor and Empress of the French; and 1867, when “all the Sovereigns” were the guests of the imperial pair. The events of the latter year were brilliantly and amusingly recorded by that most vivacious chronicler, M. Adrien Marx, in “Les Souverains à Paris,”[10] from which I have translated some salient passages.
