Louis-Napoléon and Mademoiselle De Montijo;
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library DC 276.132 1897 3 1924 028 266 959 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028266959 LOUIS NAPOLEON AND MADEMOISELLE DE MONTIJO LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE President if the French Republic LOUIS NAPOLEON AND MADEMOISELLE DE MONTIJO BY IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND TRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH GILBERT MARTIN WITH PORTRAITS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NotiDOOtI ^tttt }. a. Cuahing & Co. —Berwick k Smith NsiTOod Mill. U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTSB PASZ Intboduction 1 I. Tee Childhood OF Louis Napoleon 15 II. The !Fibst Restoration 28 in. The Hundred Days 39 rv. The First Years op Exile 50 V. Rome 62 VI. The Birth op the Empress 69 Vn. 1830 77 VIII. The Italian Movement 90 IX. The Insurrection op the Romagna 97 X. Ancona 107 XI. The Journey in Erance 115 Xn. Arenenbeko 128 Xin. Stbasburg 142 XIV. The Childhood op the Empress 154 XV. The " Andromeda " 161 XVI. New York 170 V Vi CONTENTS OHAPTEE PAGB XVII. Some Days in London 179 XVIII. The Death op Queen Hoktensb 187 XIX. A Year IN Switzerland 197 XX. Two Years in England 211 XXI. Boulogne 222 XXn. The Conciehgerie 233 XXm. The Court OP Peers 240 XXIV. The Fortress op Ham 247 XXV. The Letters prom Ham 261 XXVI. The Prisoner's Writings 274 XXVII. The End op the Captivity 281 XXVIIL The Escape 292 XXIX. The Death of King Louis 301 XXX. Louis Napoleon Deputy 312 XXXI. The Presidential Election 321 XXXn. The Elys^e 336 XXXIII. The Preliminaries op the Coup d'Btat 352 XXXIV. The Coup d'I^tat 365 XXXV. The Beginning OP 1852 377 XXXVI. The Journey in the South 387 XXXVII. The Re-entrance into Paris 397 XXXVm. Abd-el-Kader at Saint-Cloud 404 CONTENTS vii CHAPTER FAOB XXXIX. Paris 411 XL. Mademoiselle de Montijo 421 XLI. FONTAIKEBLEAU 433 XLn. The Empire 441 XLin. CompiAgnb 448 XLIV. The Eirst Days op 1853 463 XLV. The Announcement op the Marriage 472 XLVI. The Civil Marriage 483 XLYn. The Marriage at Notre Dame 492 PORTRAITS Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, President op the French Republic Frontispiece The Empress EuG:feNiE at the Age op Twenty-six Face page 432 LOUIS NAPOLEON AND MADEMOISELLE DE MONTIJO INTRODUCTION rriHIS is the fifteenth of November, 1895. At- tended only by a warden, I am visiting the palace of Compi^gne, where, thirty years ago to a day, I wished the Empress Eugenie many happy returns of her fSte. Everybody offered her a bou- quet and kissed her hand, and received in acknowl- edgment a gentle and majestic smile. I pass through every room of the chateau. Here is the large gallery which was used as a dining-hall, the salon where the sovereign drank her afternoon tea in company with some privileged guests to whom a verbal invitation had been conveyed in the morning by the lady of the palace ; there is the card-room where they spent the evening ; yonder the drawing-room where people met before setting out on a hunt. I walk about in rooms which no one used to enter: the Emperor's study and his bedroom, the chamber and dressing- room of the Empress. What a contrast between this furniture, these objects of art, these pictures which LOUIS NAPOLEON have remained absolutely the same, and the royal- ties, the empires, whose very ruins exist no longer! A pale autumnal sun, which is like a vague reflection of vanished splendors, lights up the deserted halls. I remember that among the invited guests of the Compiegne series of thirty years ago there figured Ferdinand de Lesseps, Prosper M^rim^e, Baron Haussmann, and Leverrier the astronomer. One day this famous discoverer of a planet gave a little lect- ure on astronomy to the visitors at the ch§,teau. He spoke of the plurality of worlds and demon- strated that ours is but a barely perceptible atom in the immensity o| the universe. I seem still to hear the Emperor saying slowly, in a melancholy " voice, at the end of this lesson : Great God ! what petty things we are!" Napoleon III. was quite right, and it is above all in palaces, abodes as instructive as churches and cemeteries, that this saying needs to be repeated. Close to the chapel in the chS,teau of Compiegne there is a small salon which is known as the Salon of the Reviews, because it contains two pictures representing the shade of the victor of Austerlitz passing phantom soldiers in review. For the Second Empire, as for the First, there are already phantasmal reviews and many an evocation from beyond the tomb. What has become of the statesmen, the generals, diplomats, literary men, and scientists who shone in this ch&teau once so animated, to-day so tranquil ? I recall some verses from the Imita- INTRODUCTION tion of Jesus Christ: "Tell me, where are those masters whom you have known, and whom in their lifetime you have seen flourish by their doctrine? To-day their place is occupied by others, and I know not whether they think of their predecessors. So long as they lived they counted for somewhat, and now they are forgotten. Oh! how quickly passes the glory of the world!" It was while passing through the apartments of the palace of Louis XTV., when the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of which I was a mem- ber, were stationed there in 1871, that the idea of writing the Women of Versailles occurred to me. It was while contemplating the ruins of the Tuileries that I determined to recount the lives of the sover- eigns and princesses who inhabited that fatal palace. The visits which in these latter times I have made to the chS/teaux of Fontainebleau and Compi^gne are what have decided me to occupy myself with the Second Empire. After terminating with the death of Queen Marie-Am^lie, the thirty-sixth of the vol- umes which I had consecrated to the Women of Ver- sailles and the Womeri of the Tuileries, I was inclined to consider my task ended, and feared to weary the patience of a public which, to my great surprise, had remained faithful to me during twenty-five years. Some possibly too kindly persons have per- suaded me to resume the pen and to study the Second Empire as I had studied the preceding epochs. I objected that it is perhaps too soon to speak of the LOUIS NAPOLEON reign of Napoleon III. They reply that, on the con- trary, the time has come to approach this period and to profit by the testimony which can be given by those of the Emperor's contemporaries who are still living. History could wait before steam and elec- tricity. Nowadays it makes haste. Possibly this precipitation may be a test of verity. When speak- ing of recent events one cannot state facts inexactly without being immediately contradicted. It is dif- ferent when one studies remote periods ; the errors committed could in that case be pointed out only by a very small number of the learned, who are usually too much occupied by their own labors to have lei- sure to consider those of others. One might say that the history of our days is made instantaneously. It is like a judicial inquiry to which ocular and auricular witnesses are summoned. Under the pretext that I had seen the Court of the Second Empire near at hand, some of my friends have advised me to write my memoirs. Not for an instant did I entertain the notion of following this counsel. My humble career is far too obscure to tempt me to interest the public in it. Nothing in my life merits description. I have been a mere spectator. The only thing I can do is to relate what I have seen, and speak of illustrious persons with whom I have found myself in relations. But I will never blend my personality with my stud- ies. It suflSces me to reconstruct in thought the scenes, by turn dazzling and sombre, which have so INTRODUCTION greatly impressed me. I have been present at all the acts of the drama, I have witnessed apotheoses as well as overthrow and ruin. I saw the Empress Eugenie going to Notre Dame on the day of her marriage. I was very near her in the same church when she went with her son to hear the Te Deum chanted for the victory of Solferino. The little prince was then three years old. I think I see him still with his white dress and his blue sash. Watching closely every movement of his mother, he rose, knelt, and seated himself whenever she did. The carriage in which the Empress and her child returned to the Tuileries was filled with flow- ers. I have been invited to the public and the private entertainments of the Court, to those fancy balls where the sovereign appeared in resplendent costumes, and at other times hid her beauty under mask and domino. I saw the Universal Exposition of 1867, splendid zenith of a reign, and the crush- ing disasters that came after. I was present at the birth of the Empire, I witnessed its last agony, and from the terraces, surmounted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I watched the crowd crossing the Pont de la Concorde to invade the Corps L^gislatif and proclaim the downfall of Napoleon III.