France in the Nineteenth Century Part 16

After the pa.s.sage of this measure it was submitted by another _plebiscite_ to the people. The _plebiscite_ is a universal suffrage vote of yes or no, in answer to some question put by the Government to the nation. The question this time was: Shall the prince president become emperor? There were 7,800,000 ayes, and 224,000 noes.

When the news of this overwhelming success reached the elysee, Louis Napoleon sat so still and unmoved, smoking his cigar, that his cousin, Madame Baiocchi, rushing up to him, shook him, and exclaimed: "Is it possible that you are made of stone?"

Having thus secured his elevation by the almost universal consent of Frenchmen, the new emperor's next step was to insure his dynasty by a marriage that might probably give heirs to the throne. He chose the t.i.tle Napoleon III. because the son of the Great Napoleon had been Napoleon II. for a few days after his father's abdication at Fontainebleau in 1814. The next heir to the imperial dignities (Lucien Bonaparte having refused anything of the kind for himself or for his family) was Jerome Napoleon, familiarly called Plon-Plon.

He was the only son of Jerome Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine of Wurtemberg. But Prince Napoleon, though clever, was wilful and eccentric, and made a boast of being a Red Republican; moreover, his father's Baltimore marriage had made his legitimacy more than doubtful,--at any rate, Louis Napoleon was by no means desirous of pa.s.sing on to him the succession to the empire; and being now forty-four years old, he was desirous of marrying as soon as possible.

When a boy, it had been proposed to marry him to his cousin Mathilde, and something like an attachment had sprung up between them; but after his fiasco at Strasburg he was no longer considered an eligible suitor either for Princess Mathilde or another cousin who had been named for him, a princess of Baden. Princess Mathilde was married to the Russian banker, Prince Demidorff; but when Louis Napoleon became prince president, he requested her to preside at the elysee.

The new emperor, or his advisers, looked round at the various marriageable princesses belonging to the smaller courts of Germany.

The sister of that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern whose selection for the throne of Spain led afterwards to the Franco-Prussian war, was spoken of; but the lady most seriously considered was the Princess Adelade of Hohenlohe. She was daughter of Queen Victoria's half-sister Feodora; and to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as heads of the family, the matter was referred. A recent memoir-writer tells us of seeing the queen at Windsor when the matter was under discussion.

The queen and her husband were apparently not averse to the alliance, hesitating only on the grounds of religion and morals; but it is doubtful how far the new emperor went personally in the affair.

His inclination had for some time pointed to the reigning beauty of Paris, Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo.

This young lady's grandfather was Captain Fitzpatrick, of a good old Scottish family, which had in past times married with the Stuarts.

Captain Fitzpatrick had been American consul at a port in southern Spain. He had a particularly charming daughter, who made a brilliant Spanish marriage, her husband being the Count de Teba (or Marquis de Montijo, for he bore both t.i.tles). The Montijos were connected with the grandest ducal families in Spain and Portugal, and even with the royal families of those nations.

The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were young, and they were left under the guardianship of their very charming mother.

The elder married the Duke of Alva; the younger became the Empress Eugenie.

Eugenie was for some time at school in England at Clifton. She was described by those who knew her there as a pretty, sprightly little girl, much given to independence, and something of a tom boy,--a character there is reason to think she preserved until it was modified by the exigencies of her position.

Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned Madame de Teba to his friends as a singularly charming woman. In 1818 he wrote home to a friend in America:

"I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw of her there and at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most cultivated and interesting woman in Spain. Young, beautiful, educated strictly by her mother, a Scotchwoman,--who for this purpose carried her to London and kept her there six or seven years,--possessing extraordinary talents, and giving an air of originality to all she says and does, she unites in a most bewitching manner the Andalusian grace and frankness to a French facility in her manners and a genuine English thoroughness in her knowledge and accomplishments. She knows the chief modern languages well, and feels their different characters, and estimates their literature aright. She has the foreign accomplishments of singing, painting, playing, etc., joined to the natural one of dancing, in a high degree. In conversation she is brilliant and original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, and as full of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture."

Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing to his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba.

"I believe I told you," he says, "that I knew the grandfather of the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick. In 1827 I was in the house of his son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant, intelligent gentleman, much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye and been maimed in a leg and hand. Some years after, in Madrid, I was invited to the house of his widow, Madame de Montijo, one of the leaders of _ton_.

She received me with the warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She claimed me as the friend of her late husband. She subsequently introduced me to the little girls I had known in Granada, _now_ fashionable belles in Madrid."

In some lines of Walter Savage Landor, Madame de Montijo was addressed as a "lode-star of her s.e.x."

The Marquis de Montijo had been an adherent of Joseph Bonaparte while the latter was king of Spain, and his eye had been put out at the battle of Salamanca. He was a liberal in politics, and his house was always open to cultivated men.

Such was the ancestry of the beautiful young lady who, tall, fair, and graceful, with hair like one of t.i.tian's beauties, was travelling with her mother from capital to capital, after the marriage of her sister to the Duke of Alva, and who spent the winters of 1850, 1851, and 1852 in the French capital. Mademoiselle Eugenie had conceived a romantic admiration for the young prince who at Strasburg and Boulogne had been so unfortunate. Her father had been a stanch adherent of Bonaparte, and she is said to have pleaded with her mother at one time to visit the prisoner at Ham and to place her fortune at his disposal.

This circ.u.mstance, when confided to the prince president, disposed him to be interested in the young lady. She and her mother were often at the elysee, at Fontainebleau, and at Compiegne. Mademoiselle de Montijo was a superb horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's especial personal accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost together in the forest at Compiegne, and then society began to make remarks upon their intimacy.

The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with Mademoiselle de Montijo. It is said, on the authority of M. de Goncourt, that in one of their rides he asked her, with strange frankness, if she had ever been in love with any man. She answered with equal frankness, "I may have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten that I was Mademoiselle de Montijo."[1]

[Footnote 1: Pierre de Lano. La Cour de L'Empereur Napoleon III.]

Such a project of marriage was not approved by the emperor's family, it was not favored by his ministers, and the ladies of his court were all astir.

At a ball given on New Year's Day, 1853, by the emperor at the Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and insulting to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she looked troubled, the emperor inquired the cause; and when he knew it, he said quietly: "To-morrow no one will dare to insult you again." There is also a story, which seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks before this, at Compiegne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on her head, saying: "I hope soon to replace it with a better one."[2]

Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it prophesied to her in her girlhood that she should one day wear a crown.

[Footnote 2: Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.]

The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, the Duc de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a letter from the emperor, formally requesting her daughter's hand.

The ladies, after this, removed to the elysee, which was given to them, and preparations for the marriage went on apace.

In less than a month afterwards Eugenie de Montijo was empress of France.

Here is the emperor's own official announcement of his intended marriage:--

"I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in announcing my marriage to you. The union which I am about to contract is not in harmony with old political traditions, and in this lies its advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, has been widely sundered from the rest of Europe. A wise Government should so rule as to bring her back within the circle of ancient monarchies. But this result will be more readily obtained by a frank and straightforward policy, by a loyal intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often create false security, and subordinate national to family interests.

Moreover, past examples have left superst.i.tious beliefs in the popular mind. The people have not forgotten that for sixty years foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the throne only to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution.

One woman alone appears to have brought with her good fortune, and lives, more than the rest, in the memory of the people; and this woman, the wife of General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. We must admit this much, however. In 1810 the marriage of Napoleon I.

with Marie Louise was a great event. It was a bond for the future, and a real gratification to the national pride.... But when, in the face of ancient Europe, one is carried by the force of a new principle to the level of the old dynasties, it is not by affecting an ancient descent and endeavoring at any price to enter the family of kings, that one compels recognition. It is rather by remembering one's origin; it is by preserving one's own character, and a.s.suming frankly towards Europe the position of a _parvenu_,--a glorious t.i.tle when one rises by the suffrages of a great people. Thus impelled, as I have been, to part from the precedents that have been hitherto followed, my marriage is only a private matter. It remained for me to choose my wife. She who has become the object of my choice is of lofty birth, French in heart and education and by the memory of the blood shed by her father in the cause of the Empire. She has, as a Spaniard, the advantage of not having a family in France to whom it would be necessary to give honors and dignities. Gifted with every quality of the heart, she will be the ornament of the throne, as in the hour of danger she would be one of its most courageous defenders. A pious Catholic, she will address one prayer with me to Heaven for the happiness of France. Kindly and good, she will show in the same position, I firmly believe, the virtues of the Empress Josephine."

The State coaches of the First Empire were regilded for the occasion, the crown diamonds were drawn from the hiding-place where they had lain since Louis Philippe's time, and were reset for the lady who was to wear them, while her apartments at the Tuileries were rapidly prepared.

The emperor was radiant. He had followed his inclination, and now that his choice was made, it seemed to receive universal approval.

The London "Times" said: "Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the character of France than any princess who could have been fetched from a German princ.i.p.ality. She combines by her birth the energy of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the opinion we hold of her be correct, she is, as Napoleon says, made not only to adorn the throne, but to defend it in the hour of danger."

The Munic.i.p.al Council of Paris voted six hundred thousand francs to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding present. Very gracefully she declined the necklace, but accepted the money, with which she endowed an Orphan Asylum.

The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined the streets as the bride and her _cortege_ drove to the Tuileries, where they were received by the Grand Chamberlain and other court dignitaries, who conducted the bride to the first _salon_. There she was received by Prince Napoleon and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced her into the _salon_, where the emperor, with his uncle, King Jerome, surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals, marshals, admirals, and great officers of State, stood ready to receive her. Thence, at nine o'clock, she was led by the emperor to the Salle des Marechaux and seated beside him on a raised throne. The marriage contract was then read, and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all the princes and princesses present.

The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alencon point lace, clasped with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the Empress Marie Louise, and she looked, said a beholder, "the imperial beauty of a poet's vision." The emperor was in a general's uniform. He wore the collar of the Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used to wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece that had once belonged to the Emperor Charles V.

The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair and the wedding guests pa.s.sed into the theatre, where a _cantata_, composed by Auber for the occasion, was sung. The empress, robed in lace and glittering in jewels, seemed, says an eye-witness, to realize the picture presented of herself in the composer's words:--

"Espagne bien aimee, Ou le ciel est vermeil, C'est toi qui l'as formee D'un rayon de soleil."[1]

[Footnote 1: Ah, beautiful Spain, With thy skies ever bright, Thou hast formed her for us From a ray of sunlight.]

When the _cantata_ had been sung, the Grand Master of the Ceremonies conducted the bride, as yet only half married, back to the elysee.

The next morning all Paris was astir to see the wedding procession pa.s.s to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Early in the morning the emperor had repaired to the elysee, where, in the chapel, he and the empress had heard ma.s.s, and after making their confession, had partaken of the Holy Communion. There were two hundred thousand sightseers in Paris that day, in addition to the usual population.

The empress wore upon her golden hair the crown that the First Napoleon had placed upon the head of Marie Louise. The body of the church was filled with men,--amba.s.sadors, military and naval officers, and high officials. Their wives were in the galleries.

As the great doors of the cathedral were opened to admit the bridal procession, a broad path of light gleamed from the door up to the altar, adding additional brilliancy to the glittering scene. Up the long aisle the emperor led his bride, flashing with the light of jewels, among them the unlucky regent diamond, which glittered on her bosom. After the Spanish fashion, she crossed her brow, her lips, her heart, her thumb, as she knelt for the nuptial benediction. The ceremony over, the archbishop conducted the married pair to the porch of the cathedral, and they drove along the Quai to the Tuileries.

The first favor the empress asked of her husband was the pardon of more than four thousand unfortunate persons still exiled or imprisoned for their share in the risings that succeeded the _coup d'etat_.

When Washington Irving heard of the marriage, he wrote: "Louis Napoleon and Eugenie de Montijo,--Emperor and Empress of France!

He whom I received as an exile at my cottage on the Hudson, she whom at Granada I have dandled on my knee! The last I saw of Eugenie de Montijo, she and her gay circle had swept away a charming young girl, beautiful and accomplished, my dear young friend, into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugenie is on a throne, and the other a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the most rigorous Orders." This convent is near Biarritz, where the nuns take vows of silence like the monks of La Trappe.[1] The empress when at Biarritz never failed to visit her former friend, who was permitted to converse with her.

[Footnote 1: Sat.u.r.day Review, 1885.]

The beautiful woman thus raised to the imperial throne[2] was a mixed character,--not so perfect as some have represented her, but entirely to be acquitted of those grave faults that envy or disappointed expectations have attributed to her. Her character united kind-heartedness with inconsideration, imprudence with austerity, ardent feeling with great practical common-sense. Probably the emperor understood her very little at the time of his marriage, and that she long remained to him an enigma may have been one of her charms. With the impetuosity of her disposition and the intrepidity that had characterized her girlhood, she found it hard to submit to the restraints of her position, and the emperor had occasion frequently to remonstrate with her on her indifference to etiquette and public opinion. It was not until after her visit to Windsor in 1855 that she could be induced to establish court rules at the Tuileries, and to prescribe for herself and others, in public, a strict system of etiquette. But in her private hours, among her early friends, in the circle of ladies admitted to her intimacy, the empress was less discreet. Her impressions were apt to run into extremes; she indulged in whims like other pretty women; yet she was never carried by her romantic feelings or her enthusiasm beyond her power of self-control. Though careless of etiquette in private life, whenever a great occasion came, she could act with imperial dignity.

[Footnote 2: Pierre de Lano.]

Although she often experienced ingrat.i.tude, she was always generous.