The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

Three times the splendid cortège passes through the field; after which the emperor, the empress, and the grand duke take up their positions under the central pavilion of the École Militaire, and the defile begins. During three hours seventy thousand men, composed of seventy-four battalions of foot, sixty squadrons of cavalry, and a hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, all arrayed in new uniforms, with untarnished arms and accoutrements, march by to the inspiring notes of martial melody, and beneath a bright and propitious sky. “Many of the regiments bear immortal names upon their banners, which must forcibly remind the Grand Duke Constantine of those far-famed and bloody struggles in which the colossal power of the First Empire strove with desperate energy and effort to crush forever the throne of the Muscovite kings. Nevertheless, the grand duke looks on complacently, and utters nothing but polite phrases of praise and commendation.”

With such pageantries Louis Napoleon regaled and impressed the splendor-loving Parisians. All the pacific splendors of the First Empire were restored, and he neglected no means of impressing upon his subjects and upon the world the greatness of his power and the security with which he sat upon his throne.

In the early part of the month of January, 1858, as the carriage of the emperor and empress was approaching the Italian Opera House, three bombs were aimed at their persons, and exploded beneath the wheels. Many persons were wounded, and some of those forming the imperial escort were killed; but Napoleon and Eugénie escaped unharmed.

The chief conspirators were Italian refugees, some of whom suffered the well-merited penalty of death for their sanguinary but unsuccessful purpose.

In an address, soon after, to the legislature, the emperor mentioned the event. “I thank Heaven,” he said, “for the visible protection which it has granted to the empress and myself; and I deeply deplore that a plan for destroying one life should have ended in the loss of so many. Yet this thwarted scheme can teach us some useful lessons. The recourse to such desperate means is but a proof of the feebleness and impotence of the conspirators.

“And again, there never was an assassination which served the interests of the men who armed the murderer. Neither the party who struck Cæsar, nor that which slew Henry IV., profited by their overthrow. God sometimes permits the death of the just, but he never allows the triumph of the evil agent. Thus these attempts neither disturb my security in the present nor my trust in the future. If I live, the Empire lives with me; if I fall, the Empire will be strengthened by my death, for the indignation of the people and of the army will be a new support for the throne of my son. Let us, then, face the future with confidence, and calmly devote ourselves to the welfare and to the honor of our country. Dieu protege la France!”

Alas! that Louis Napoleon, the prudent and sagacious administrator of 1858, and the wise and powerful monarch of 1867, should have become the short-sighted and inefficient general of 1870.

And when, upon the ensanguined field of Sedan, the star of the Second Empire fell to rise no more, and the bloody demons of the Commune were carrying destruction and death through the streets of beautiful Paris, Europe and America – in short, the civilized world – re-echoed the sentiment, exclaiming in the fulness of their anxious minds, “Dieu protege la France!”

The year 1867 was a memorable one in the annals of the Second Empire, for in it was held the Exposition Universelle, in which the arts, the sciences, and industries of the whole world were displayed with unequalled magnificence.

France on that occasion fraternized with all nations, and her resplendent capital was the admiration of eyes of the universe. Here was the culmination of the happy reign of Louis Napoleon and Eugénie. “The Empire was peace,” and nations of every clime beheld the marvellous progress of France under the administration of her sagacious rulers. Unclouded happiness pervaded the land, and untarnished glory shed a lustre over the Empire.

The first of July, 1867, a lovely day. The sun shone brightly in a clear sky, and beautiful Paris never looked so fair. The Exposition was at its height, and the gay capital was crowded with distinguished visitors. On this day Napoleon III. was to distribute prizes to the successful competitors.

In the most gorgeous of state carriages, blazing with red and gold, drawn by eight horses splendidly caparisoned, and preceded and followed by Cent Gardes, squadrons of Lancers, and officers and servants of the imperial household, the emperor and empress left the Tuileries, and at precisely two o’clock arrived at the Palais de l’Industrie, in the Champs Élysées. The interior of the edifice had been magnificently decorated for the occasion. The semicircular glass roof was lined with a thin white drapery dotted over with golden stars and bordered with a band of pale green.

The galleries were hung with elegantly arranged crimson velvet draperies trimmed with gold lace; while on the fronts of the columns that supported the roof were displayed the armorial bearings of the different nations that had taken part in the Exhibition. All around the floor of the vast hall were ranged, tier upon tier, rows of crimson-colored benches, enough to seat twenty thousand people. In the centre of one side of the hall, and interrupting the terraces of encircling benches, was the imperial throne, gorgeous in crimson and gold, and whose velvet and golden, bee-spotted canopy, surmounted by a massive crown, towered to the very roof. In great folds of velvet of the richest hue, – darker than crimson, and lighter than purple, – and relieved with embroidery of gold, the curtains sloped gracefully to the crimson and black moquette carpet of the dais, filling the eye with a splendid blaze of color.

Here the Emperor Napoleon sat enthroned in the midst of his guests and of his court. On his right was the Sultan of Turkey, in a blue and gold uniform, and wearing upon his breast the ribbon of the Legion of Honor and a diamond star. On his left sat the Empress Eugénie dressed in white, spotted with gold, with a mauve satin train. On her head she wore a green wreath surmounted by diamonds; diamonds in her ears, a diamond necklace which fell in long pendants upon her breast, and a diamond stomacher. This glittering attire, in contrast with the dark draperies of the throne, was very effective.

Next to the sultan sat the Prince of Wales. Then came the Prince of Orange, the Prince of Saxony, and the Prince Imperial; and next to him, the Grand Duchess Marie, the Duke of Aosta, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Princess Mathilde, by the side of whom, in a crimson and gold brocaded petticoat and a black tunic bordered with gold lace, sat the brother of the Japanese Tycoon. On the left of the empress were the Prince Royal of Prussia, the Princess of Saxony, Prince Humbert of Italy, Prince Napoleon, and Abdul Hamed, son of the sultan.

In the second row were the members of the Murat and Bonaparte families, and behind all were the marshals of France, the ministers of state, the officers of the imperial household, and the Turkish beys and pachas in attendance upon the sultan.

Between twenty and thirty thousand people were present at the ceremony, the ladies attired in splendid toilets of the lightest and brightest tints, while the gentlemen were either in evening dress, in some picturesque national costume, or in uniform. Nothing could be more striking than the immense variety of the latter.

“There were Turks in fezes and turbans, surtouts literally covered with gold lace, and in long robes of gorgeous colors; Hungarian magnates in blue velvet tunics bejewelled all over, crimson pantaloons fringed with gold, and felt hats with diamond aigrettes and clusters of feathers; Japanese dignitaries in cloth of gold, with light blue petticoats, scarlet breeches, white stockings, patent leather shoes, and spiked hats fringed with gold or silver lace; Tunisians in green and gold, with diamond ornaments in front of their crimson fezes; Austrian uhlans in their well-known and picturesque uniforms; Persians wearing the tall national head-dress; and Siamese in their flat hats, short brocaded tunics, and baggy satin breeches.

“There were, moreover, the members of the Council of State, senators, deputies, and prefects in their elaborately embroidered costumes; with the lord mayors of London and Dublin, aldermen, sheriffs, councilmen, masters of arts, and doctors of divinity. Beyond these were endless varieties of French, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch, and British military and naval uniforms.

“Stars, crosses, and ribbons of every order under the sun, met the eye in all directions.”

The proceedings were opened with Gluck’s overture to “Iphigenie en Aulide.”

At its conclusion M. Rouher, vice-president of the Exposition, addressed the emperor at considerable length.

The emperor thus replied: —

“Gentlemen, after an interval of twelve years I have come for the second time to distribute rewards to those who have most distinguished themselves in those works which enrich nations, embellish life, and soften manners. The poets of antiquity sang the praises of those great games in which the various nations of Greece assembled to contend for the prize of the race. What would they say to-day were they to be present at these Olympic games of the world, in which all nations, contesting by intellect, seem to launch themselves simultaneously in the infinite career of progress towards an ideal incessantly approached, without ever being able to be attained? From all parts of the earth the representatives of science, of art, and of industry have hastened to vie with each other, and we may say that peoples and kings have both come to do honor to the efforts of labor, and to crown them by their presence with the idea of conciliation and peace. The Exhibition of 1867 may be justly termed ‘universal,’ for it unites the elements of all the riches of the globe.

“Side by side with the latest improvements of modern art appear the products of the remotest ages, so that they represent, at one and the same time, the genius of all nations and all ages.

“It is universal, for in addition to the marvels luxury brings forth for the few, it displays also that which is demanded by the necessities of the many.

“The interests of the laboring classes have never aroused more lively solicitude. Their moral and material wants, their education, the conditions of life at a cheap rate, the most productive combinations of association, have been the object of patient inquiries and serious study. Thus all improvements go forward. If science, by turning matter to account, liberates labor, the cultivation of the mind, by subduing vices, prejudices, and vulgar passions, also liberates humanity.

“Let us congratulate ourselves, gentlemen, upon having received among us the majority of the sovereigns and princes of Europe, and so many distinguished visitors. Let us be proud of having shown to them France as she is, – great, prosperous, and free. One must be destitute of all patriotic faith to doubt her greatness; must close one’s eyes to evidence to deny her prosperity; must misunderstand her institutions, tolerant sometimes even of license, not to behold in them liberty. I thank the imperial commission, the members of the jury and the different committees, for the intelligent zeal they have displayed in the accomplishment of their tasks. I thank them also in the name of the Prince Imperial, whom, notwithstanding his tender age, I have been happy to associate in this great undertaking of which he will retain the remembrance. I hope the Exhibition of 1867 will mark a new era of harmony and progress. Assured that Providence blesses the efforts of all who, like ourselves, desire good, I believe in the definitive triumph of the great principles of morality and justice, which, while satisfying all legitimate desires, are alone able to consolidate thrones, to elevate nations, and to ennoble humanity.”

The names of the exhibitors to whom the chief prizes – gold or silver medals – had been awarded were then read. They had been marshalled in procession, two and two, under the distinctive banners of the various groups into which the Exhibition was divided. The whole number was about nine hundred. One by one, as each name was called, the exhibitors ascended the steps of the throne, and received from the hands of the emperor the ribbon belonging to the decoration of the Legion of Honor. At the close of the distribution, the imperial party, leaving their seats on the throne, and headed by the Corps Diplomatique, passed entirely round the hall, amid the most enthusiastic plaudits, while the orchestra of twelve hundred pieces played the chorus of Handel’s oratorio of “Judas Maccabeus,” – “See! the Conquering Hero comes.”

In the matter of dress, if in no other, the name of the Empress Eugénie will be historical. It was within her province to decide what fashions should prevail in France, in Europe, in America, and in some parts of Asia; and the marvellous modes she introduced among the ladies of all countries have immortalized her. Her own costumes were of the most elaborate construction, and were changed with the greatest frequency. She displayed three or four dresses in the course of each day, and even the most expensive were never worn more than twice. Many writers derived their income from describing in the journals of the day these successive “creations” of the Paris milliner and dressmaker.

She accumulated a collection of fans, furs, laces, and jewels that probably surpassed any other in existence.

During the period that elapsed between her marriage and her flight she received twenty thousand dollars pin-money every month, which sum she never failed to spend to the last cent.

Never in modern times have the fashions been more elaborate and extravagant than while this “queen of fashion” occupied the palaces of France.

Eugénie was fitted by nature to play the part of Lady Bountiful and dwell in the House Beautiful. The city of Paris voted her a large sum for the purchase of jewels; she accepted the money, but requested permission to devote it to founding an institution for the education of young girls of the working classes. She further bestowed in charity twenty thousand dollars of a present of fifty thousand given her at the same time by the emperor; and her reign was marked by many other striking gifts to charitable and scientific objects.

The empress was partial to colored servitors. At one time she had a Nubian page, and on his death took a young Abyssinian into her service, whose daily duty it was to stand immediately behind her chair at dinner, in front of the line of tall, fresh-colored, clean-shaven, powdered lacqueys, in green, scarlet, and gold liveries, who encircled the imperial dining-table.

The empress gave also a great number of splendid and costly entertainments at the Tuileries, Compiègne, Fontainebleau, and elsewhere. State balls were numerous, especially during the latter years of the Empire. These took place usually at the Tuileries. The invitations, having been drawn up by the high chamberlain from a carefully prepared list of some ten thousand persons, were distributed by mounted servants in the imperial livery of green and gold.

The guests arrived at the vast marble vestibule, and, ascending the grand staircase, were received on the landing by a splendidly attired official, who took from them their cards of invitation. The ball took place in the Salle des Marcheaux, the largest and most splendidly decorated salon in the palace, and at its conclusion supper was served in the Galerie de Diane. All the old forms of etiquette in vogue at the court of Louis XIV. were revived; and had the Grand Monarque been present at a ball in the Tuileries Palace, he would no doubt have felt as much at home, as far as all forms and ceremonies were concerned, as in his own Galerie des Glaces, at Versailles.

Twice during the absence of the emperor, once in 1865, when he was in Algeria, and again in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Eugénie was left the nominal head of the state, with the title of Empress-Regent. At the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, she was present in the yacht l’Aigle, and took a chief part in the celebration. The Aigle formed one of the “inauguration fleet” of forty-five vessels, and took the lead in making the passage to the Red Sea, where, with the empress on board, it arrived on the 22d of November, returning the next day to the Mediterranean.

“It was mid-afternoon on such a May day as is seen only under Parisian skies. But the invitation of the sky could not alone account for the multitudes thronging the leafy park, the blooming parterres of the gardens, and the broad ways of the Champs Élysées. The court was about to set out for St. Cloud, and the pleasure-loving Parisians were to be treated to a spectacle.

“Gorgeous lines of soldiery formed in statuesque ranks along the pebbly walks and hot asphalt ways facing the palace. Save for the waving plumes, the glistening wall rested immobile and silent as the granite sphinxes whose solemn eyes blinked sleepily under the ardent sunshine. There was just the perception of a movement in the shining cuirasses as the swelling notes of a cavalry bugle echoed and re-echoed in sonorous blasts through the crowded aisles of the park and died away far over the turrets of the palace. The Imperial Guards, flaming in scarlet and glittering casques, formed in serried ranks from the Rivoli gates and the Place du Carrousel to the borders of the Seine. Outriders in the magenta and gold of the line dashed in excited movement along the gravelled roadways, adjusting the obstacles, for the imperial advent. Squadrons of the guards formed on each side of the wide way through which the procession was to pass to the Champs Élysées. On a signal from the trumpets, they divided, facing their horses inward, and waited immovable as the Egyptian figures at the golden gate. A thin column of smoke curled upward from the Arch of the Carrousel, a loud, cracking detonation of artillery announced that majesty was about to leave the palace, another that majesty was in the vestibule, and the long line of fire made by the red-breeched troopers moved, as with one impulse, into an attitude of respectful attention.” From the central porch of the Tuileries, as the guards came to a salute, a short, stout figure, clad in a gentleman’s walking-dress, appeared, and slowly descended the velvet-carpeted steps. To the salutations of the soldiers and the populace he slightly raised his hat. The crowd in the rear broke into shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” Halting, as the lackeys held the door of the landau open, the emperor half turned.

A lady, tall, slight, and graceful, appeared in the group at the door-way. She was speaking with animation to the chamberlain, with her face to the multitude. Her black eyes were full of life and vivacity, and her hair, coiled in great masses over her shapely head, shone like burnished copper as the sunbeams fall upon it. “She tripped lightly down the broad steps, a sunshade in her right hand serving as a walking-cane, while with her left she upheld with charming daintiness a robe of silver-gray color. As the outlines of her figure became distinct upon the crimson carpet, a tumultuous cry of ‘Vive l’Impératrice!’ resounded far back in the shrubberies of the garden. The lady bowed with gracious recognition, and, giving her hand to the emperor, stepped into the landau. At the same moment a graceful youth of fourteen, mounted on a jet-black pony, shot out from the entrance of the Carrousel, and riding close to the carriage, reined in suddenly, and raising his hat, brought it down to the saddle as he bent to the occupants. ‘Vive le Prince Impérial!’ shouted the crowd; and the emperor, empress, and prince bowed gravely in response.

“The trumpets broke into another long blast, the postilions touched their horses; majesty was en route, the prince riding beside the imperial carriage, the troopers falling into groups of four.

“Who of all that crowd, filling the palace gardens and thronging the banks of the Seine, would have then told Cæsar that he should never again pass those fateful portals in state?

“The Parisians afterwards recalled the event as the Romans had the journey of the great Julius from the tearful pleadings of Calpurnia to the base of Pompey’s statue. But there was nothing of the Ides of March in the emperor’s reception on the present occasion. The acclamations of the multitude were spontaneous and hearty, and all hats flew off when the benignant smiles of Eugénie supplemented the gracious inclinations of Napoleon.”

On the 15th of July, 1870, Louis Napoleon declared war with Prussia. The numerous vicissitudes of his eventful life may have suggested to him the possibility that the war, if long protracted, might prove unfavorable to his hopes; but no seer could have predicted to him that, in seven weeks from that day, he would be defeated, dethroned, and a prisoner in the hands of the one man among all the crowned heads of Europe whom he most hated, and that all the hopes which he had cherished of the perpetuation of a Bonaparte dynasty in France would be at an end.

We cannot, in this short sketch, attempt to portray the progress of this war, which, in its rapid movement, its terrible destructiveness, and its stupendous results, is without a parallel in history. Suffice it that, with the defeat of the French army at Sedan, the star fell. An empire which had progressed through nearly twenty years, ran out in a moment like a reel of thread. Napoleon was sent as state prisoner to Wilhelmshöhe, the Germans entered France, marched to Paris, and William, king of Prussia, slept in the palace of the Grand Monarque.

And now occurred one of those strange anomalies which the history of France so often presents.

It is the 18th of January, 1871. The grand gallery of Versailles is filled with an eager, anxious throng. But it is not such a throng as has been wont to gather here. Where are the cavaliers, with their red-heeled boots and slashed doublets, and the grandes dames, with their lofty plumes and flashing jewels?

The top-boot, the clanking spur, the sword, and sabre-tache, these are the accoutrements of this band of stern, martial men who now stand beneath Le Brun’s gorgeous frescoes. At one end of the gallery a throne is erected, and its presence reminds us of that silver throne erected here in 1685, at whose foot the Doge of Genoa bowed in homage, and upon whose summit, the personification of pompous pride and royal prerogative, stood King Louis XIV. But no king or emperor of France stands upon the throne of the Versailles gallery on this 18th day of January, 1871. A king is there, it is true, but he is William, king of Prussia, who is this day to be proclaimed Emperor of Germany. It seems like fate, like an avenging Nemesis, that in this palace of Versailles, whose marble portals bear the inscription, “To all the glories of France,” – in this Grande Galerie des Glaces, the scene of so many glories, and triumphs of the houses of Bourbon and of Bonaparte, – the crown of United Germany should be placed, with mighty shout and loud acclaim, upon the head of that stern old warrior, William I. of Hohenzollern.

The last four weeks of her abode in France the Empress Eugénie spent at the Tuileries. Those were days of confusion and distress. The series of defeats which culminated at Sedan had already begun, and a proclamation had appeared declaring Paris in a state of siege. Still the empress was hopeful. “She thought with a lady’s romantic ideas about military possibilities,” says a narrator, “that everything could be retrieved by a grand coup.”