To the chÂteau of Bouchout, hard by Laecken, the thoughts of the chÂtelaine of Farnborough Hill must often have wandered. The beautiful avenue of Meysse, which links the royal estates of Bouchout and Laeken, was a favourite walk of the late King Leopold, for it leads to his sister’s house. The Empress EugÉnie has, indeed, reason to bear well in mind this Belgian Princess—Charlotte, Empress of Mexico—whose widowhood is of older date than that of the Emperor Napoleon’s consort, even as her story is still more pitifully tragic. The imperial crown of Mexico, which Napoleon III. placed on the heads of the Archduke Maximilian Ferdinand Joseph and the sister of Leopold II., cost the Emperor of Austria’s ambitious brother his life and the Belgian Princess her reason. The Empress EugÉnie must not, then, absorb all our pity; some of it should be bestowed upon the demented occupant of Bouchout, aunt of Prince Napoleon’s consort, Princesse ClÉmentine.

Seven years before the disruption of the Empire the throne of Mexico was offered to Maximilian by Napoleon III., who guaranteed to leave in the country for three years an army of occupation, 25,000 strong, commanded part of the time by Marshal Bazaine. This engagement Napoleon fulfilled to the letter; then the French troops were withdrawn. Maximilian was in dire extremity, and in 1867 the Empress Charlotte journeyed to Paris to implore help. In her absence the Mexicans executed the man who had been foisted upon them as their “Emperor.”[49]

The Empress Charlotte sailed for Europe full of hope. When she landed at Brest she looked round to see who had come to receive her on the part of the French Emperor. No one was visible. This was her first disappointment. Her suite sought to console her. There must have been a mistake. The official reception would be in Paris. Court carriages would be awaiting her at the railway-station. One of the Emperor’s chamberlains would certainly be there to greet her—perhaps the Emperor himself. “Perhaps not,” she murmured.

As it had been at Brest, so it was at Paris. No one at the station to receive her, no imperial carriage, no bowing court chamberlain to pay her homage and offer her the traditional bouquet, not even a strip of red carpet on the grey asphalte. Yet she was a King’s daughter, a Kaiser’s sister-in-law, and an Empress in Mexico.

Charlotte was taken to the Grand Hotel in a “carriage”—either a cab called “off the rank,” or the hotel ’bus. Miss Howard or Mlle. Bellanger would have fared better.

The Empress Charlotte shut herself up alone in her room, refused to see anyone, and would not touch the food which was placed before her. One of the ladies of her small suite said: “Her Majesty has evidently had a great shock. She has never looked as she now looks since the death of her father, King Leopold. She is like a dead woman.”

The next day passed without any indication from the Court that an Empress had arrived. On the third day an imperial chamberlain brought an invitation to lunch with their Majesties at St. Cloud. Charlotte disdainfully declined it, and bade the official say she would drive to St. Cloud during the afternoon.

She had been weeping all the morning, foreseeing that her petition for help would be addressed to “deaf ears and a callous heart.” In the carriage she worked herself into such a frenzy that her companion, the Comtesse del Bario, was on the point of telling the coachman to return to the Grand. However, they drove on, and entered the courtyard of the chÂteau. Stiffening herself, Maximilian’s wife walked up the great staircase and, with a firm step, her cheeks burning, entered a salon. Napoleon was there, waiting for her. He looked preoccupied and annoyed, and twirled his moustache. By his side were the Empress EugÉnie and the Prince Imperial. There were the usual greetings, official smiles, and presentations. Etiquette being thus satisfied, the Emperor entered his cabinet, followed by the two Empresses. The doors were closed, and Charlotte’s suite resigned themselves to a long wait in an adjoining room.

Presently came a faint sound of talking, then it became louder, betokening an animated discussion, and then a silence. Charlotte’s friends looked at one another anxiously, as they heard the raucous voice of their imperial mistress: “How can I ever have forgotten who I am and who you are! I ought to have remembered that the blood of the Bourbons flows through my veins, and not have disgraced my race by humiliating myself before a Bonaparte and negotiating with an adventurer!”

There was a sound as of someone falling—then dead silence. The door opened. Napoleon III., very pale, stood on the threshold. Glancing at the Comtesse del Bario, he said, “Venez donc, je vous prie.”

In the imperial cabinet the Comtesse saw her mistress, stretched out on a couch, apparently lifeless. The Empress EugÉnie, weeping, had unfastened Charlotte’s corsage, taken off the sufferer’s boots and stockings, and was kneeling by the icy body, rubbing Charlotte’s feet with eau-de-Cologne. Slowly recovering consciousness, Charlotte, seeing the Comtesse, held out her hand, saying tremblingly, “Manuelita, don’t leave me.”

The Emperor, looking bewildered, hovered round the prostrate form on the couch, strode up and down the room, left the apartment, and came back again. He had “lost his head.” He called for a doctor; then ordered a messenger to go as quickly as possible and bring Dr. Semeleder, the Empress Charlotte’s doctor, from the Grand Hotel. Meanwhile the Empress EugÉnie, in words interrupted by sobs, told the Comtesse what had brought about the attack—the Emperor’s refusal to grant Charlotte’s request, her prayers, her entreaties, her tears, her threats, and her wild ejaculations. Whilst speaking soothingly, the Empress EugÉnie had prepared a glass of eau sucrÉe, and tried to make Charlotte drink it. But the Mexican Sovereign pushed it from her with a furious gesture, shrieking, “Assassins! Go away, and take your poisoned drink with you!”

A torrent of tears followed this outburst. Throwing herself into the arms of the Comtesse, Charlotte entreated her not to abandon her to “this race of Borgias, who wanted to rid themselves of her by making her drink a poisonous drug.”

The Emperor, who had been overcome by this agonizing scene, now returned, bringing with him Dr. Semeleder, whose first words were to ask the Emperor and the Empress EugÉnie to leave him alone with Charlotte. The carriage was brought, and the sufferer was taken back to the Grand. As she was borne past them to the landau the terrified courtiers pretended not to have seen or heard anything. Tears were in all eyes, even in the Emperor’s. Charlotte was insane from that moment, and has never recovered, although she is said to have lucid intervals.

This tragic episode remained a secret for a long time.

The next day’s papers stated that the Emperor and the Empress EugÉnie had received a visit from the Empress Charlotte at St. Cloud. “The interview was of a very cordial nature, and lasted two hours.”

* * * * *

If the Empress EugÉnie’s thoughts dwell sometimes on the fates of the occupant of the chÂteau of Bouchout, who will go to her grave happily unconscious of her husband’s execution, she has many a joyous souvenir to gladden her declining years. I will recall only one—that relating to her first meeting with Queen Victoria, at Windsor Castle, in 1855.

In later years, recording this event, the Queen described the Emperor Napoleon’s consort, then only between thirty and thirty-one, and “in full beauty,” as “the very gentle, graceful, and evidently very nervous Empress.” It was on that occasion that, at a “full Chapter,” the Order of the Garter was conferred upon Napoleon III., with whom, on the previous night, the Queen had danced a quadrille. “How strange,” wrote the Queen, “to think that I, the grand-daughter of George III., should dance with the Emperor Napoleon, nephew of England’s greatest enemy, now my nearest and most intimate ally, in the Waterloo Room, and this ally only six years ago living in this country an exile, poor and unthought of!”

Strange was the picture, for since Prince Louis Napoleon had occupied those modest chambers in King Street, St. James’s (now “Napoleon House”), and had been one of the ornaments of the Gore House rÉunions, chance had raised him to the proud position which he occupied until the disaster at Sedan overwhelmed the Empire and consigned him to captivity. His investiture with the much prized Order was marked by all the dignified and grandiose ceremony which made Queen’s Victoria’s Court the world’s envy. The Queen looked magnificent in her purple velvet mantle, crimson velvet hood, and “collar” of the Order. By her side was her illustrious consort, that Prince Albert who, six years later, was to be taken from her at a moment when the nation had learnt to recognize his noble qualities.

The Knights Companions present who answered to their names as they were called out in sonorous tones by Sir Charles George Young, then Garter King of Arms, were the Marquis of Exeter, Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Lansdowne, Duke of Buckingham, Marquis of Salisbury, Duke of Cleveland, Earl de Grey, Marquis of Abercorn, Marquis of Hertford, Duke of Bedford, Earl of Clarendon, Earl Spencer, Earl Fitzwilliam, Duke of Northumberland, Earl of Ellesmere, and the Earl of Aberdeen. All these noble knights have passed away. King Edward VII., who had witnessed the imposing ceremony, long survived them.

Thanks to the “Court Circular” of the period, the scene of April 18, 1855, can be reconstituted. The Emperor Napoleon was conducted from his apartments to the Throne Room by the Prince Consort and the Duke of Cambridge, and took a seat in the Chair of State on the Queen’s right. The Empress EugÉnie witnessed the ceremony, surrounded by the Prince of Wales and the other members of the Royal Family. At the fitting moment the Queen, assisted by Prince Albert, buckled the Garter on the Emperor’s left leg, the Chancellor of the Order (the Bishop of Oxford; the “Prelate” being the Bishop of Winchester) pronouncing the admonition. Then the Queen put the ribbon, with the “George,” over the Emperor’s left shoulder, and the Chancellor pronounced a second admonition. Next the Queen gave the accolade, and Napoleon III. received the congratulations of all the Knights Companions present.

The stately function was over. “As we were going along to the Emperor’s apartments,” wrote the Queen, “he said, ‘I heartily thank your Majesty. It is one bond the more. I have given my oath of fidelity to your Majesty, and I will keep it carefully.’” A little later in the day the Emperor said to the Queen, “It is a great event for me, and I hope I may be able to prove my gratitude to your Majesty and to your country.” And to a friend he observed, “Enfin je suis gentilhomme!” The “parvenu,” as he had styled himself, was making headway, thanks to Queen Victoria.

No need to dwell upon the return visit paid by the Queen and the Prince Consort in the summer of the same year. The English Sovereign and her consort entertained the Emperor and Empress of the French for the second time in 1857. The scene was the Isle of Wight. Although it was a private, “an even most sequestered,” visit, it was said that “matters of high import to the welfare of both nations” were discussed at Osborne, and that “more than one rock which threatened shipwreck to the cordial understanding between the two countries was removed.” The suite accompanying the French Sovereigns was limited to the Princesse d’Essling, Comte and Comtesse Walewski, General Rollin, and General Fleury, whose son, Comte Serge, was in England, lecturing (and this is worthy of note) on the Empress EugÉnie, in the summer of 1908. The imperial yacht, Reine Hortense, reached the island at half-past eight in the morning (August 6), and the Queen and the Prince Consort, accompanied by Prince Alfred, the Princess Royal, and Princess Alice, went down to the pier to welcome the imperial pair. Lords Palmerston and Clarendon enlivened the royal party at the dinner-table that evening. Of all these the solitary survivor is the Empress.

The Empress EugÉnie must often recall those quiet, happy days which she and her consort passed at Osborne—the excursion to Carisbrook Castle, the drive to Cowes to witness the conclusion of the race for the cup, the visit, on the Sunday, to the Catholic Church at Newport, and the gay scene on the Solent as the Reine Hortense threaded her way between the yachts and warships. Nor can the imperial lady have forgotten that while she and her husband were the Queen’s guests three Italians—Tibaldi, Bartolotti, and Grilli—were being tried in Paris for an attempt on the life of the Emperor. Possibly, too, she may remember that so anxious had the Emperor been, on the morning of their arrival, to get a good view of Osborne that he betook himself to the bridge of his yacht, slipped on the ladder, and rolled to the deck. “As we are proceeding to the conquest of England,” he said, smiling, “I ought to have waited until landing before falling.” These were true words spoken in jest, for throughout his reign he never lost sight of one object—the political conquest of England. And here one recalls what the Emperor is asserted to have said on his arrival, with the Empress, at Windsor Castle in 1855: “In seeing again the country in which I lived when I was poor, and which I left to make my fortune, I am reminded of the story of the man who, as a boy, arrived in Paris in wooden shoes, and when he became rich went for a day to his native village and slept in the hovel which had sheltered him in his boyhood.”