The “great” balls at the Tuileries were given before Lent; the “little” balls, otherwise known as the Empress’s “Mondays,” after Easter. At the larger of these entertainments all the men were in uniform. The Emperor, the Generals, and the officers of the household wore white cashmere breeches, silk socks of the same colour, and pumps with buckles. Civilians were in Court dress, with embroidered collars and cuffs, and swords; the crush hat (clÂque) was carried under the arm. One person only wore buckskin breeches and high riding-boots of varnished leather: this was the Écuyer on duty.

At the “Mondays” the guests were restricted to those who had been previously “presented”; they were selected in rotation from a list—this was the “sÉries.” Court functionaries and a few of their Majesties’ most intimate friends were invited to all the “Mondays.” The regulation garb for men on these occasions was either “shorts,” or very tight-fitting trousers, and black tail-coats. The Emperor and the officers of the household were in evening dress, the coat being of a dark blue cloth, with velvet collar, the lapels lined with white satin, and gilt buttons bearing a crowned eagle.

Each ball was preceded by a family dinner, the guests being Prince Napoleon and his wife, Princesse Clothilde; Princesse Mathilde, the Murat Princes and Princesses, Prince Charles and Princesse Christine Bonaparte, the Marquis and the Marquise de Roccagiovine, and Comte and Comtesse Primoli.

About ten o’clock the Emperor and Empress entered the salon of the First Consul. Here the guests had previously assembled, here new presentations were made by the First Chamberlain, Comte Bacciochi, and their Majesties made the tour of the room, saying a few words to all before the dancing began. The Empress, who seldom danced, took up her position in an adjoining salon, whither she was generally followed by diplomatists like Lord Cowley (H.B.M. Ambassador), Prince de Metternich, and Chevalier Nigra, and by intimate friends like Prosper MÉrimÉe, Édouard Delessert, OnÉsime Aguado, and a few others.

During the dancing the Emperor chatted for an hour or so with his Ministers; then, reappearing in the ballroom, chose a partner, and himself led a “boulangÈre,” or formed a set of the “lancers,” preferring either of these to quadrilles, which he found lacking in “go.” Then came the cotillon, led by Princesse Anna Murat and the volatile Marquis de Caux (both unmarried at the time, and both in high favour with the Sovereigns), who took up their position in chaises volantes in front of the fireplace. In the cotillon forty couples took part, including on one occasion (the Marquis de Massa noted) Mlles. de Heeckeren, de Seebach, de Bassano, Harvey, de Errazu, Magnan, Haussmann, Hamelin, and Bouvet, whose cavaliers were MM. Davilliers, Castelbajac, Poniatowski, d’Espeuilles, DuperrÉ, du Bourg, Clermont-Tonnerre, des Varannes (all of whom were either Écuyers or officiers d’ordonnance), Arthur de CossÉ-Brissac (the Empress’s Chamberlain), etc. The cotillons at the Tuileries were very simple affairs, the presents distributed being merely flowers and coloured rosettes. The guests supped standing at a buffet, and by one o’clock the ball was over.

At one of the first of the grand balls given at the Tuileries before the marriage the Emperor danced in the quadrille of honour with Lady Cowley, wife of the British Ambassador. “He danced another quadrille with Mlle. de Montijo, who,” Baron Imbert de Saint-Amand has told us, “was assuredly the most beautiful of all the women present. Her resplendent beauty and extreme elegance excited general admiration.... How she would have shuddered could she have foreseen the state in which she would find this supper-room in 1870, at the beginning of the fatal war! Then she would instal an ambulance there. Instead of women loaded with jewels, there would be sisters of charity with their white cornettes.”

At one of the “small” dances, or, as they were called, “Mondays,” at the Tuileries—entertainments which always took place before Lent—after the author of “Colomba”[50] had regaled the chosen few who had been invited to join the “circle” with some tales drawn from the chroniques chevaleresques of ancient Spain, the Empress volunteered to tell a little story of herself when she was still Mlle. de Montijo. The scene was Estramadura. She was riding a richly-caparisoned mule, and, with her little party, stopped for a few minutes at an auberge, in front of which, taking a rest, was a man, shod in espradilles—

Plus dÉlabrÉ que Job, et plus fier que Bragance

—one of those lithe mountaineers, with flashing eyes, the type of Victor Hugo’s Don CÉsar de Bazan and Hernani. The young lady was parched, and asked for a vaso de agua. Struck by her beauty, the mountaineer resolved that none but himself should have the honour of serving the fair traveller, and, snatching from the landlord’s hands the jug of fresh water and the glass, he filled the latter and offered it to Mlle. de Montijo, but not until he had knelt a moment in homage. “Muchas gratias,” said the future Empress, returning to the gallant caballero the glass, in which some water still remained. Raising the glass to his lips, he slowly drained it, keeping his gaze fixed upon the lady all the while, and finally breaking the glass into fragments, in order that no one else should ever use it!

Of the score or more of those who have essayed to depict the imperial vie intime during the first years of the reign—from the marriage in January, 1853, to the “attempt” by Orsini in January, 1858—none has surpassed M. Gaston Stiegler.[51]

It is early morning, and the Emperor’s toilette is being completed by his faithful valet, Charles ThÉlin. The carpet is littered with opened telegrams and newspapers. His Majesty is tired, and rubs his dull eyes, while ThÉlin waxes the large fair moustache which covers the master’s mouth, and draws it into two fine points. After his sparse locks have been artistically combed and brushed, “washes” and pomades applied, and the pale cheeks brightened with rouge—after everything has been done as scrupulously as the most elegant petite maÎtresse could have desired—Napoleon III. rises and puts on the severely cut frock-coat in which he is almost invariably seen, save when he is in uniform or hunting or shooting garb. His faithful companion, his meerschaum pipe, beautifully coloured, smiles upon him from a little table. He lights it, and joins his secretary (M. Mocquard) and Dr. Conneau, both blindly devoted to him. These morning moments were generally the best parts of his day. Mocquard and Conneau were the friends of his youth, the friends of his mother, who, on her death-bed, made the doctor promise never to leave her son.[52]

“Has your Majesty slept well?” asks Conneau.

“Not badly, thank you; but not enough, my good friend,” came from the thick voice, which did not harmonize with his air of natural distinction.

“Yes, yes; I know. You returned late—always too late. It is telling upon you.”

The Emperor took this scolding every morning very amiably. The solicitude for his health pleased him.

“Youth will have its fling,” said Mocquard, smiling.

“You chaff, Mocquard,” replied the doctor. “I am uneasy until I know the Emperor is here, in this chÂteau, with the doors locked, under the eyes of the sentinels.”

“I chaff faute de mieux, mon cher. I am entirely of your opinion. But morality—that is not in my line. We knew nothing about it in my time. You have taken charge of it, and it could not be in better hands.”

“Well, well,” said Conneau; “let us leave him to kill himself—or to get killed!” And, growling, he put on his glasses, opened a large book which he had just received, and plunged into its pages as if he had had enough of the conversation.

“Charles,” said the Emperor, “tell FÉlix to send the Prince down and inquire after the Empress.”

Smoking his pipe, he paced up and down, his head sunk in his shoulders, balancing his massive body on his short, little legs, which seemed not to have been made to bear him. He stopped before the mantelpiece; the blazing fire absorbed his whole attention. He seemed to see in the red and blue sparks the reflection of the tricks played upon him by that fortune of which he was himself the most remarkable example, and he asked himself how long those petits follets would last. Suddenly a huge log broke into halves, littering the hearth. The beautiful flames were extinguished, and in their stead came a disagreeable volume of smoke. He grasped the tongs, carefully picked up the pieces of half-burnt wood, and, while amusing himself in this patriarchal manner, asked:

“What are you reading, Conneau?”

“I am not reading, Sire.”

“And this great book?”

“It is a Bible, which I bought yesterday.”

“Ah, yes, for your collection,” said the Emperor laughingly. “What language is it?”

“Hebrew, Sire.”

“Nonsense, Conneau! You don’t know Hebrew, and you are not the man to go into ecstasies over a Bible, even a French one. Well?”

“It is a magnificent edition, published at Venice in 1551—printed by Giustinani.”

“Well?”

“Sire, do I laugh at you when, at Champlieu, or elsewhere—in some camp of CÆsar or other—you pick up old tiles, Roman or pretended Roman; antique things without form or colour, broken vases which have been used for Heaven knows what purpose? However, you put them carefully in glass cases or in the museums, and you like people to look at them. Everybody has his own hobby.”

“Oh, my poor potteries!” sighed the Emperor. “How they abuse you!”

He laid down the tongs, and, after rolling a cigarette, took up a fragment of an amphora which had been found during the excavation of a Merovingian tomb near Soissons. It was a common-looking piece of clay, without a vestige of decoration. But he held it up to the light, and examined it with all the tenderness of a connoisseur, while Conneau, with loving hands, turned the leaves of his beautiful Bible, in which some amateur had intercalated several rudely-executed pictures.

Less than three years after the imperial nuptials a very distinguished Englishwoman was the guest of their Majesties. Her son, Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, wrote:

In the great year 1867 Lord Ronald, like thousands of English people, went to Paris for the Exhibition. “It was the apogee of the Second Empire—of the Empire that smelt half of gunpowder and half of patchouli. Maximilian’s death was not then known at the Tuileries. Napoleon III. was then host to all the Sovereigns of the Continent, and yet within three short years all was in the dust.”

Later (in January, 1868) he was invited to a ball at the Tuileries:

The Duchess of Sutherland was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria when the Empress paid Her Majesty a visit at Windsor.[54] Lord Ronald, then at Eton, was sent for by his mother, who was in attendance on the Queen. He says:

When the Duchess of Sutherland was in Germany in 1864, accompanied by Lord Ronald, the then Crown Princess (afterwards the Empress Frederick) invited her to dine at Potsdam, and the Duchess observed that in the royal lady’s sitting-room the furniture was covered with Gobelin tapestry, the gift of the Empress EugÉnie.[55]

Among the diplomatists accredited to the Court of the Tuileries until his retirement in 1867 was Mr. John Bigelow, United States Minister, who has put on record this not very complimentary appreciation of the Emperor and Empress of the French:[56]

In the sous-sols of the Pavillon de Flore were the kitchens of the Tuileries.[58] This annexe of the Palace was constructed, from the modified plans of Visconti, by Lefuel, who was interrupted in his work by the war. He had, however, just time to finish the great staircase, which is decorated with a beautiful ceiling by Cabanel and four bas-reliefs by EugÈne Guillaume.

In this immense and sumptuous temple—such as Brillat-Savarin and Grimod de la ReyniÈre could not have dreamt of—all the meals required for the imperial family and the household were prepared by an army of cooks, male and female. We can see, in the magnificent nave, the goings and comings of the officiers de bouche, the patissiers, and the marmitons. At the entrance of each section was a large marble slab, inscribed, in gold letters, Vestiaire, ContrÔle, Porcelainerie, Lavoir de l’Argenterie, PÂtisserie, Lavoir de la Cuisine, and so on. All the walls were oak panelled, finely carved.

On great tables the silver and porcelain vessels were ranged—thousands of pieces. The most marvellous sight of all—after the kitchens (all separate) for sauces, for grills, for soups, for pastry, and for stews—was the huge kitchen in which the roasting was done. This occupied the whole of the sous-sol of the “Flora” wing. Between two immense stoves, each having three compartments, each compartment capable of receiving two sheep and five or six dozen fowls, was the Brobdingnagian fireplace, of wrought iron and varnished tiles. Each stove measured nearly fourteen feet in width and about sixteen feet in height, and each had two solid, movable beams, from which hung spits. Of the latter there were twenty, with steel racks. Here whole oxen could be roasted. Above the fireplace was a gigantic central motor, with a clockwork arrangement, for turning the spits. It was a complicated piece of machinery, subdivided, and furnished with devices for turning joints at various speeds. The fuel was naturally wood, with which only can meat be properly roasted. The logs used were more than twelve feet in length. The table on which the meat was cut before roasting was of dimensions which suggested to the more imaginative lookers-on a “village green”! The wine-cellars sloped downwards beyond the kitchens and their annexes under the pavilion of the Salle des États, which extended to the entrances to the Carrousel.[59]

Among the newspapers which found their way into the Tuileries, or wherever the Court happened to be—St. Cloud, CompiÈgne, or Fontainebleau—was a very curious, very audacious, and very amusing little sheet, published in London only during the season and the Parliamentary Session. It was called The Owl. Much of its most diverting matter (1864-1869) had reference to Napoleon III. and his Ministers. The most amazing diplomatic “despatches” were concocted, so closely resembling the real article that it was sometimes difficult even for experts to discriminate between the two. To prevent mistakes I must quote the words of the editor of The Owl, Mr. Algernon Borthwick:[60]

Early in June, 1865, M. Drouyn de Lhuys presented to the Empress Regent, in the name of the Paris Cricket Club—an English institution—a box containing a complete cricketing outfit for the Prince Imperial, then a little over nine. The Empress sent the following reply: