“EVERYTHING happens in France,” says La Rochefoucauld; and indeed it would seem so. The history of no other country of modern times presents such a series of rapid changes, decided extremes, and strange incongruities. Monarchies, empires, republics, follow each other in rapid succession. Yet through it all—in base servility or in fierce revolt, in licentiousness or prudery, in anarchy or order, in despotism or demagogy; under Valois, Bourbon, or Bonaparte; from Versailles and Louis XIV. to Malmaison of the First, and CompiÈgne of the Second Empire—we see the same thoughts, the same ideas, the same traits of character, though veiled under different garbs.

In 1685 the House of Bourbon was at the zenith of its glory. France, crushed with oppression, bowed beneath its yoke. One hundred and fifty thousand souls rioted in luxury. Twenty-five millions toiled to administer to their luxury. The people cried for bread, and proud, licentious nobles bid them “eat grass,” while the monarch, from his gilded palace, thundered forth his arbitrary dictum, “L’État c’est moi!”

“The kingdom is in a deplorable state,” said Mirabeau. “It can only be regenerated by some great internal convulsion. But woe to those who live to see that. The French people do not do things by halves.” The convulsion comes. The French people do not do things by halves. The throne falls with a crash, and the guillotine stands in the Place de la Concorde.

Then comes the Empire. Glory is the object sought, and glory is attained. France is ablaze with glory. Rivoli. Austerlitz. Waterloo! And the First Empire—with its glories and its triumphs, its crowns and its sceptres, its stars and its crosses—fades like a dream, and is gone. The Bourbons return to the homes of their ancestors. Again the storm arises, and the Republic is proclaimed. The Republic becomes the Empire. Laurels, crowns, triumph! Glory is sought, but ’tis pacific glory. “The Empire is peace.” France prospers. But a dark cloud gathers on the horizon. The thunder peals. War rages fast and furious. Defeat, disaster, ruin! The Empire has fallen to pieces! Bourbon and Bonaparte wander through Europe.

’Tis the height of the Paris “season,” and with its gayly dressed crowds and splendid equipages, the Avenue des Champs ÉlysÉes wears a festive, smiling air. Bright shines the sun, gilding with its rays the dome and turrets of the Tuileries, the terraces and statues, the obelisk of Luxor, and sending back the waters of the fountains in showers of glittering diamonds, while far in the distance the massive outline of the Arc de Triomphe looms lofty against the clear blue sky. Carriages, horsemen, and pedestrians, a countless throng, are on their way to and from the Bois de Boulogne; but one alone attracts universal attention. A tall and graceful figure clad in a dark green habit, and above whose head there floats a snow-white plume, she sits proud and erect upon her splendid thoroughbred. Paris sees with admiration, and in every mouth there is but one question, “Who is yonder fair equestrienne, who sits so splendidly, who rides so fearlessly?”

“Tis EugÉnie de Montijo, Comtesse de TÉba.”

Born in Spain in 1826, in the province of Granada, her early days were passed among the picturesque scenery with which the pen of Irving has made us familiar. Her father, the Count de Montijo and TÉba, was a grandee of Spain, and from him she inherited many titles of nobility. Washington Irving, who was then in Spain, knew her mother, Maria Manuela Kirkpatrick, and was a frequent visitor at her house, where he soon made friends with the little EugÉnie; and in later years, when she was dazzling Europe with the costliness of her costumes and the splendor of her court, he recalled with interest and amusement the many times he had held upon his knee the future empress of the French, “when she was an alert, dark-eyed little girl, doubtless very happy to be entertained with such stories of her native land as he could tell her.”

From Spain she was sent to Toulouse, and afterwards to Bristol, to pursue her education; and when she left school, beautiful and accomplished, easy in manners and fluent in conversation,—which she could carry on with apparently equal ease in Spanish, English, or in French,—possessing more than average information, and displaying a readiness and aptness of repartee approaching the brilliancy of wit, with a beauty striking and exceptional, a form slender and perfectly moulded, a complexion brilliantly fair, and black eyes, large and expressive, it is not surprising that she became successively the belle of the season in London, Paris, and Madrid.

While in London she was introduced to Louis Napoleon, then an exile from France, and distinguished chiefly for the disastrous failure of his first attempt to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe. In 1851 she met him again. He was then called Napoleon III., and she was regarded as one of the leaders of fashion in Paris. His attentions to her gradually became marked and suggestive, and finally he offered to share with her his throne. On the 22d of January, 1853, the approaching nuptials were announced publicly to the Senate. In this communication, Napoleon thus expressed himself:—

“I come, then, gentlemen,” he said, “to announce that I have preferred the woman whom I love and whom I respect, to one who is unknown, and whose alliance would have had advantages mingled with sacrifices. She who has been the object of my preference is of princely descent. French in heart, by education, and the recollection of the blood shed by her father in the cause of the Empire, she has, as a Spaniard, the advantage of not having in France a family to whom it might be necessary to give honors and fortune. Endowed with all the qualities of mind, she will be the ornament of the throne. In the day of danger she will be one of its courageous supporters. A Catholic, she will address to Heaven the same prayers with me for the happiness of France. In fine, by her grace and her goodness, she will, I firmly hope, endeavor to revive in the same position the virtues of the Empress Josephine.”

On the 29th of January, the civil marriage of Louis Napoleon with Mademoiselle de Montijo took place at the Tuileries, and on the following day the religious ceremonies were celebrated at the cathedral of NÔtre Dame. Never had the arches of that venerable pile looked down upon a more brilliant assemblage. The imperial couple sat on two thrones erected in front of the high altar, and the representatives of the army, of the Senate, of the municipal authorities, and of the diplomatic corps surrounded them. All the pomp and splendor of the Catholic service, all the opulence of France’s great capital, all the beauty and brilliancy of the court, all the grim majesty of the military; science, art, and lavish luxury,—all were united and exhausted on the incidents and displays of this momentous occasion.

At last all was over, and to the echoing shouts of “Vive l’ImpÉratrice!” EugÉnie de Montijo returned with her imperial consort to the palace of the Tuileries.

The career of the great Napoleonic dynasty is without a parallel either in ancient or modern times. Long since, the universal judgment of mankind has decided that its founder, Napoleon I., was in every respect as great a hero, and probably a greater, than Alexander, CÆsar, or Charlemagne, the three most renowned representatives of ambitious daring in the world’s history. The variety and extent of Napoleon’s abilities, both as a commander, a legislator, and a ruler, place him above all his rivals; while the splendor of his victories, the extent of his conquests, and the grandeur of his elevation, exceeds theirs in an eminent degree.

“But in addition to all these elements of superior greatness, the family of Napoleon I. add an unequal attraction to his career. None of his illustrious rivals could boast of a wife as graceful and bewitching as Josephine, or as high-born and nobly descended as Maria Louisa. None could claim brothers as sagacious as Joseph, as gallant as Murat, as capable as Lucien, as romantic as Jerome. None could point to as many relatives who were sovereign princes and princesses, and who owed their lofty elevations to his own powerful arm. And none had a successor equal in talent and in desperate, successful daring, to Napoleon III.”

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, son of Louis Napoleon, king of Holland, and Hortense, daughter of the Empress Josephine and of her first husband, the Viscomte de Beauharnais, was born at Paris, on the 20th of April, 1808. Along the whole line of the grande armÉe, and throughout the entire extent of the Empire, from Hamburg to Genoa, and from the Danube to the Atlantic, salvos of artillery announced the happy event. This was an honor which fell to the lot of only two members of the imperial family, Louis Napoleon and the king of Rome, for they only were born under the imperial rÉgime. It is not our purpose, in this short sketch of the life of the Empress EugÉnie, to trace the career of Napoleon III., except in so much only as it bears upon her own.

The Revolution of 1848 was over, and France needed a monarch skilled to rule in a reign of peace. Three very poor specimens of that article had been tried, in the persons of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe, and had proved miserable failures. They did no great harm, because they did nothing at all.

“Providence wrested the useless sceptre from the last, and bestowed it upon Napoleon III.”

Truly “there is nothing so successful as success,” and never has it been more clearly illustrated than in the history of Louis Napoleon. All writers who have narrated the events of his life, when in the full plentitude of his power he sat upon his throne at the Tuileries, have extolled him as a demi-god, and praised in most extravagant terms his wonderful abilities; but those who have written since the fall of the Empire denounce him as a cold and selfish conspirator and revolutionist, rouÉ, and libertine; and declare “that among the rulers of Christendom in modern times there is not one whose record is so utterly devoid of any redeeming act, so entirely dictated by selfishness, lust, and sordid greed, as that of Charles Louis Napoleon.”

Between these two extremes lies the truth, and among the defeats and disasters of 1870 we must not forget the glories and triumphs of 1855. This much is certain, that from the time of his attainment of the supreme power, Louis Napoleon exhibited administrative talent of the first order. France was governed with the regularity and system of a gigantic piece of machinery. More vigor, energy, and harmony had never before pervaded the administration. It was said of Augustus, that he found Rome brick and left it marble. That saying would not be exaggerated if applied to Louis Napoleon and Paris. The gay capital of the Empire was the special object of his care, and Paris seemed to have thrown off the dingy and faded habiliments of past ages, which still clung to her, and to have assumed the freshness, beauty, and energy of youth. Public monuments, palaces, temples, and boulevards were, by his orders, embellished, enlarged, renovated, and repaired. Old Paris disappeared, and new Paris started up in its place. Dark, dirty, ill-paved, and worse-drained streets were replaced by noble boulevards full of palaces. He completed the Louvre, reconstructed the Tuileries, regenerated the Palais Royal, and interminably prolonged the Rue de Rivoli.

“His acts and deeds speak for themselves, and they prove, on undeniable evidence, that France was never better governed than by him. A people as fickle as the wind, as restless as the sea; a people as whimsical as women, as fanciful as children; a people with whom novelty is a mania and faction a disease; a people brave, intelligent, and generous by fits, and treacherous, frivolous, and vindictive by starts,—such a people could have been governed at that crisis only by such a ruler. And single-handed, by the sheer force of his genius, and the moral power which is the body-guard of genius, he governed them wisely and well. In spite of almost invincible opposition, in the face of almost unsurmountable obstacles, he raised them, step by step, to be regarded as the most enlightened nation of Europe; he unsparingly promoted their national welfare, he perceptibly diminished their national evils; in short, for nearly twenty years he was the glory of France and the wonder of the world.”

The alliance between France and England having terminated so gloriously for the arms and diplomacy of both countries, the emperor and empress of the French, in 1855, visited Queen Victoria in her own dominions, probably the first instance on record in which a reigning French monarch set foot upon the soil of his hereditary foes. The rejoicings on this occasion were prodigious, and Louis Napoleon, who had once paced the streets of London a penniless wanderer, was received in the same capital with universal greetings, with flying banners, with military salutes, with the congratulations of the sovereign and nobility, and with the joyful acclamations of the millions. Albert and Victoria in a short time returned the compliment, and the scene was transferred from London to Paris. “On that memorable occasion France’s gay and brilliant capital, that great centre of the world’s civilization and luxury, assumed unwonted hues of splendor, exhibited scenes of unusual festivity and rejoicing, and exhausted her varied and infinite resources to impress, delight, and charm her august visitors.”

The felicity of Louis Napoleon was now about to receive a further augmentation, and his sudden and vigorous empire to be strengthened by an additional element of perpetuity and power. On the 16th of March, 1856, a son was born at the palace of the Tuileries. On that occasion, the emperor thus addressed the Senate: “The Senate has participated in my joy on hearing that Heaven has given me a son, and you have hailed as a happy event the birth of a child of France. I intentionally make use of that expression. In fact, the Emperor Napoleon, my uncle, who had applied to the new system created by the Revolution all that was great and elevated in the old rÉgime, had resumed that ancient denomination of the children of France. The reason is, gentlemen, that when an heir is born who is destined to perpetuate a national system, that child is not only the scion of a family, but also in truth the son of the whole country, and that appellation points out to him his duties. If this were true under the old monarchy, which represented exclusively the privileged class, how much more so is it now, when the sovereign is the elect of the nation, the first citizen of the country, and the representative of the interests of all? I thank you for the kind wishes which you have expressed for this child of France and for the empress.”

The birth of the Prince Imperial realized national hopes long deferred. And never was title more perfectly representative of truth and fact, than that of “Fils de France.” The son of France,—the son of the nation,—the gift of Providence to the people. It was in this sense that the title was bestowed, and in this sense that it was interpreted by the country. Throughout France the joy manifested was excessive, and the municipal authorities and public bodies of all kinds came forward with affectionate eagerness to manifest their sympathy in the happiness of their sovereign. What prophet could then have foretold that Napoleon EugÈne Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial, and Fils de France, whose birth was now so proudly hailed, whose future seemed so brilliant, and who was heir to the grandest throne in Europe, would, in a few years, be an exile in a foreign land, and that ultimately, at the early age of twenty-three, the javelins of hostile savages would terminate his career amid the wilds of Africa?

It is a bright May afternoon in the year 1857, and every avenue leading to the vast area of the Champ de Mars is crowded with endless masses of troops, marching with stately tread and martial music to the grand rendezvous. For his Majesty Napoleon III. is to hold, in honor of the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, one of those public reviews by which he exhibits, to such great advantage, the strength and majesty of his army. As far as the eye can reach, along both banks of the Seine, and through the immense perspective of the adjacent boulevards, glittering arms of cavalry and infantry flash brightly in the rays of the refulgent sun. As the hour of two tolls from the lofty towers of the Invalides, seventy thousand men, disposed so as to produce the most sublime and impressive effect, stand motionless in military array, awaiting the approach of that single man who has so heroically grasped and maintained the sceptre of dominion in France.

The noble faÇade of the École Militaire, the splendid dome of the Hotel des Invalides, the towering mass of the Arc de Triomphe, and a hundred other monuments of architectural beauty and historic celebrity, are within the view, combining, with the majesty of military power assembled in their centre, a coup d’oeil of unrivalled magnificence.

At length the graceful waving of red and white plumes, and the gleam of polished silver helmets on the Pont de Jena, the roll of a thousand drums and the music of a thousand trumpets indicate the approach of Louis Napoleon and his illustrious guest.

Surrounded by his magnificent État Major, composed of the chief officers of all the regiments, the emperor rides with military precision into the centre of the gorgeous array. The Champ de Mars, familiar as it has been with the glories of the First Empire, has never seen the conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz surrounded with a halo of greater martial grandeur than this which now encompasses this man who has never seen a solitary conflict of arms or commanded a single battalion in the field.

On the right of the emperor, in the costume of a Russian admiral, rides the Grand Duke Constantine, and on his left the Prince Napoleon and the Duke of Nassau, while behind them, in a sumptuous carriage, arrayed in the most gorgeous and elegant of toilettes, the very picture of loveliness and beauty, comes the Empress EugÉnie.

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.”

But then came the news of the emperor’s surrender at Sedan. EugÉnie was up all night; council after council was held, as new reports and scraps of information arrived. Finally it was decided that she should ride on horseback through the streets of Paris, and herself proclaim to the unpopular legislature its dissolution. This resolution, however, was never carried into effect, for lack of a riding-dress! A plain, black habit, with the cross of the Legion of Honor pinned upon her breast, was what she had decided to wear. Was it a fatality that out of the three hundred and sixty dresses then hanging in their wardrobes at the Tuileries, the needed one was missing? A few days before there had been a general stampede of servants, who had gone off, carrying great quantities of imperial property, and the dark riding-dress, which the empress now sought, had probably been among the spoils of her domestics. There was only one habit to be found, and that was neither black nor plain. It was a dress of gorgeous green, embroidered with gold, and designed to be worn with a three-cornered Louis XV. hat, the costume of the imperial hunt at Fontainebleau. This was pronounced, with evident justice, to be too theatrical, and the enterprise was consequently abandoned.

“What grotesque mischances mar great destinies and shift potent purposes!” The lack of a spur by the messenger whom Louis XVI. had sent to call M. de Machault to the post of prime minister, delayed his departure, and thus—by giving Madame Adelaide time to write, in favor of her friend the Count de Maurepas, to that feeblest of monarchs who, not being able to withstand the strongly worded appeal of his strong-minded aunt, recalled his messenger as he was mounting his horse,—caused an entire change in the policy of the ministry of the kingdom.

And now “the lack of a petticoat—on the testimony of Thiers himself, who spoke of it afterward—brought about the expulsion of a dynasty; for had the woman, pathetic in her misfortune, ridden out among the multitude, like Elizabeth to Tilbury fort, the chivalrous sentiment of Paris would have acclaimed her, and the history of a people would have been written in less lurid colors.”

Upon the fourth of September, the mob so long feared made its appearance. The infuriated insurgents to the number of one hundred and fifty thousand crowded the Tuileries gardens, the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs ÉlysÉes, shouting, “Down with the Empire! down with Bonaparte! death to the man of December!”

At two o’clock in the afternoon, Signor Nigra, the Italian ambassador, entered the empress’ apartment, to tell her that the time for flight had come. “You have not an instant to lose,” he said. “The revolutionists are entering the palace by the Place du Carrousel.”

And now for the first time EugÉnie’s courage wavered; but she mastered her emotion, and giving her hand to the ambassador, with a melancholy flash of her old imperial grandeur, said calmly, “I will take leave of our friends.”

“The door of the white drawing-room was thrown open, and the empress appeared for a moment on the threshold—an inexpressibly touching figure, in her simple black dress and white collar. She made a courtesy and waved her hand, trying hard to smile, while many—not all of them women—were sobbing aloud. Then, with gentle persuasion, Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian ambassador, drew her back, and the door was closed again.”

Through the magnificent galleries of the Louvre, hung with the masterpieces of Rubens, Van Dyke, Leonardo, Poussin, Claude, and the imperishable dynasties of art, fled the Empress EugÉnie and her few faithful followers.

The square of St. Germain L’Auxerrois was empty. A cab stood by the curb. The veiled empress and Madame Carette, her lady-in-waiting, escorted by Signor Nigra, Prince Metternich, and M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, approached it.

Sinking back upon the cushions, EugÉnie for an instant raised her veil to catch a last glimpse of the Louvre. As her eye rested on that fatal colonnade, where Catherine de’ Medici and the king had stood on the night of St. Bartholomew, a little ragamuffin, seated on the stone foundation of the golden railing, started up, shouting, “There is the empress!”

A group of artisans, lounging at the corner, vaguely caught the cry and came forward. But M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, with admirable presence of mind, caught the urchin, whirled him round and sent him sprawling in the roadway, saying furiously:—

“Ah, you are crying ‘Vive l’Empereur,’ are you? That will teach you to hurrah for the Bonapartes, when the Republic is proclaimed.”

The group on the sidewalk approved this laudable sentiment. M. de Lesseps sprang inside, with the empress. The cab was whirled away; and thus ended for EugÉnie de Montijo the empty dream of greatness, by which she had been so long beguiled.

Leaving Paris, she embarked on board the yacht Gazelle, and was conveyed to England, where Victoria and the royal family received her with great kindness, and placed at her disposal the beautiful country residence of Camden Place, Chiselhurst. Here she was joined by the Prince Imperial, and later by Louis Napoleon.

“Camden Place, Chiselhurst, 1871. A gentleman sixty-three years of age, a lady, and a youth of fifteen are resting in the pleasure grounds of an English rural mansion. This does not seem much. But this gentleman is he who, a twelvemonth since, was emperor of the French nation, and the most powerful monarch in Europe. He is a student and a writer—as well as an actor—of history, which must have taught him the value of an imperial title. Can he think it worth the pursuit or possession, having once sat upon a throne which was perhaps not so agreeable as his present seat on the Chiselhurst garden-chair? If he desires, for himself or for his son, to leave Camden Place, or a similar abode, and go back to the Tuileries Palace, we can only say it is a matter of taste.”

But Louis Napoleon was not destined to behold again the Tuileries Palace. On the 9th of January, 1873, he died, consoled by the presence of the empress, but not of the Prince Imperial, who, summoned from Woolwich, arrived too late to see him alive.

All the hopes and affections of the widowed empress then centred in her son, and his recent fate cannot but be remembered. He joined the expedition to Zululand, and on the first of June, 1879, perished by the javelins of the savages while scouting with a few companions. On the 10th of July, the body arrived in England, and on the 12th the final ceremony took place at Chiselhurst. It was a soldier’s funeral, but there was no glare and glitter of martial splendor.

Mind rather than matter was pre-eminent in giving voice to the public sorrow. At the head of the military pageant, whose every feature was pervaded with a genuine pathos, marched the cadets of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, with arms reversed; then, to the solemn strains of the “Dead March,” the Royal Artillery Band; then the cross before the gun; and then the gun, drawn by six dark-brown horses by whose sides rode mounted artillerymen. The coffin above the gun was wrapped in the English and French flags. The sword of the prince, his belt, and sabre-tache were placed upon it; while on a cushion were the great cross and ribbon of the Legion of Honor.

By the side of the coffin walked the pall-bearers, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Connaught, the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, and M. Rouher on the left. The Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, Prince Leopold, and the Duke of Bassano on the right. Behind the coffin came the prince’s favorite horse, “Stag,” caparisoned in the white and silver starred trappings of the imperial stable, and led by M. Gamble, the faithful retainer who had attended the baptism of the prince, and who now followed his coffin. Next came the chief mourners, Prince Napoleon and his sons, Prince Victor and Prince Louis; Prince Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Joachim Murat, Prince Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, and Prince Louis Murat.

After these came the great officers of the imperial crown, and many personages of princely rank not related by kindred.

So mournful a ceremony was not regarded in the light of a spectacle, and even the elements accorded with the nature of the scene. There was no sun to flash from the polished helmets of the Lancers, or linger on the gold of the splendidly mounted Horse-Artillery.

“It was an unusual and impressive sight to see that strangely and variously composed line of soldiers on horseback, and priests and mourners on foot, moving slowly along the serpentine road across the great, uneven plain of the common, with thousands of spectators stationary on either hand.”

To those who thought of the widowed, childless empress in her lonely house, and knew that the chief mourners were princes, and that the queen was watching the procession from her black tribune, unless she had left it to console the sorrowing mother, the sight was much more than impressive.

“The tragic elements which prevailed at the death of the prince, the inexpressible desolation of the imperial mother, the lessons of mutability in human affairs which the case enforced upon the mind, the remembrance of the virtues of the departed young man, and the tale of broken hopes, baffled aspirations, and defeated purposes, which the circumstances so clearly exhibited, preoccupied the thoughts and feelings of the mourners, and shut off for the time being all interest in the mere external traits of the scene. The realities to which it pointed stood out so clearly from the outward semblances in which they were pictured, that the latter were forgotten, and the overpowering force of the former were exclusively recognized.

“Seldom in recent times has any public ceremonial so closely touched the hearts of those who took part in it.”

And now in the little Roman Catholic church at Chiselhurst, by the side of the emperor his father, lies all that was mortal of Napoleon EugÈne Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial.

Requiescat in pace.

Under the elms at Chiselhurst, at the close of a mild spring afternoon, we may see a lady walking. Her figure, once so straight and graceful, is slightly bowed with age, and her fast-whitening hair is covered by a widow’s cap. And as she turns toward us her sad face, still retaining the traces of its former loveliness, we recognize her whom we have seen seated, amid the pomp and pageantry of a court, upon the throne at the Tuileries Palace, and flying with her scanty escort through the galleries of the Louvre,—EugÉnie de Montijo, Comtesse de TÉba, the once brilliant empress of the French.