THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 97, 9 August 1879, Page 2

THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE.

No living woman has had such a chequered career as that most charming of women, tin. Empress Eugenie. In future times her history will tempt many a novelist, poet, and playwright; but I doubt whether any rouiancist will be able to weave fictions about her so marvellous as the tacts of her real life. In the year 1845, or thereabouts, the Parisian Prefecture of Police turned its attention to the Countess do Montijo, who was then residing with her two daughters on the third floor of a House in the Rue St. Antoine, Paris and asked the oommissairc of the quarter to mako inquiries about luis lady. The request was not an unusual one, for the police of Continental cities are accustomed to pry into the affairs o£ strangers; so the comuiissaire sent in a report, which ran substantially thus: —" Tiie Countess de Montijo, divorced wife of a Spanish grandee, seems to live iu cosy, but not affluent circumstances. She receives few ladios, but many distinguished foreigners of her own and other countries. She gives occasional tea parties, at which eards are played. Her daughters, ouo aged nineteen, and the other eighteen, arc renowned for their great beauty. It is said that the eldest is going to ninr.iy the Duke 1)' Aibe," &«., &e. My object in quoting this is to recall the impressions which existed in the official mind as to the respectability of the Countess de Montijo. Sho was rated in police books, as a lady whom society rather cut, and whose drawing room was a little' better than a polite gambling saloon. Tho truth isthatthoie was nothing against Madume do Montijo except her separation from her husband After this unfortunate domestic event she went travelling about the world with her two daughters, who received a kind of flying education in Germany, in England, and finally iu Paris. The Countess enjoyed a handsome allowance, and her daughters were taught by tho best masten ; but of course there was a tinge of Bokoiniuuism iu tho existence of a lady roaming from city to eity with her children, and never remaining in one place more than a year at a time. One can make some allowance therefore, for tho pious horror of M. Fialin, )botter known under the name of De Porsigny,) which he had usurped] when, on hearing of Napoleon HI. 's intended marriage with lid lie. Eugenie de Montijo, he threw himself on his kuees and besought his master not to do this rash thing. Napoleon had tried to contract marriage with a princess iu Bavaria, but had been rebuffed. He had then mado au offer of his hand to tho Princess Barola Wosa, of Sweden, but had failed in this quarter also. With a proper spirit, he resolved that ho would havo nothing more to do with manages do eovonances, but would make a lovo match. He had repeatedly noticed Mdlle. do Montijo, who used to attend the balls at the Elysee witli her mother and her sister, who "hud become Duchess D'Albr. Ho gave the countoss an invitation to spend a week at St Cloud, and at the expiration of the visit nnnouueed abruptly to his Ministers that ho was going Ho raise Mdlle. Eugenie to the throne. Count do Momy was tho fink to understand the situation, aid Biter warmly congratulating the! I. ipenr on bis admirable choice, ran Off "■ V »- oorapliiaente to the future

Empress. Her Majesty never, iu after time, forgot this act of chivalry and presence of mind. France took the thing very cooly. Littlo time was given for objections, as the marriage was solemnised eight (lays after the notification appeared in the Mouitonr; and the Mnnieipal Council had to vote their gift of £24,000 to the Empress with a-> much haste as good speed. Millie, de Montijo was then 27 years old, and there is no harm in saving, since the matter is notorious, that lite had already had several offers of marriage. Her reason for refusing some of these is said to huve lain in a little pique which she hud experienced at the very brilliant marriage which her sister had made. Somehow she had got to think that the Duke D' Albe was paying his court to herself. When she discovered her mistake she bore the disappointment (if it was one) very good-naturedly, but vowed that, since her sister had wedded a .Spanish grandee of the first class, she tix> would marry nobody under the rank of a duke. One of Mdllc. Eugenie's suitors was a Scotch officer of the British army, a young man of good family, who met her at Brighton in 1846 and proposed out of hand. One would have liked to see the face of this worthy fellow when ho subsequently learned to what high destinies his cruel one had come. He is now, like the hero of " Locksley Hall," the vary cheerful father of a grown-up family Mdlle. de Montijo was also sued by a French nobleman, who sat on the legitimist benches in the Constituent Assembly of 1848 ; and by a famous and witty French author, who lived to congratulate the Empress frequently and laughingly on her good sense in having rejected him. He remained single though, and cherished to his life's end the most knightly reverence for the lady whom ho believed to be peerless among women.

The Empress Eugcilie is indeed, tlic most delightful of women. Her beauty, which she still retains, was at one time splendid; butsbekadalsowhatLaFoutaine called. La grace plus belle encore quo la beauto. I have seen her repeatedly in State pageants, at Court receptions ou occasions when she was travelling or receiving visitors in semi-privacy, and 1 have never seen any woman in the circle around her who could vie with her in beauty. Her manner; are exquisite. Sho lias dignity without stiffness, and affability without vulgarity. In the days when slur helped to rule the most restive people ou earth, she was ever kind anil merciful, happy to render service to people in trouble, generous with her money, faithful in keeping promises. No act of spite imputed to her patience though her patience was often sorely fried. She had not the instincts of statesmanship, for bur heart was too warm, her impulses to quick, and her wit too lively to make her brook the delays anil tortuous methods by which men are managed. At ono time she begged that *.ho Emperor would let her attend the Cabinet Councils over which he presided, and bis Majesty consented; but he soon had to withdraw the permission, for the- Empress startled steadyMing politicians like MM. llouhor and Buroehe out of their senses. She was, to begin with, a n>ost fervent Catholic, and could never be made to understand thai the French people were not so after the same fashion as Spaniards. Sho woidd not have restored the Inquisition, but she had an idea that soldiers should be made to attend mass whether they liked it or not. and used to vex souls of go. - rals and colonels by asking them whether they discharged their religious duties properly. There is no denying that she often gave the Emperor very impracticable advice, and sometimes mado his Ministeis shiver under brief squalls of that ill-temper to which all pretty women are liable ; hut on the other hand, she was cheerful, brave, and most helpful in the hours of trouble. When Orsini made his cowardly attempt on the Emperor's life outside the opera in 1858, the Imperal couple only escaped by a miracle, but the Empress neither fainted nor scivamed, and on alighting from the smashed carriage, she insisted on goiiv into her box to show tho audience that sho was not hurt or afraid. As soon as sho appeared on the Empcrpr's arm tho audience rose en masse, and she received their acclamations with brimming eyas, but no other sign of weakness. Again, in 18G5, when she visited the hospital of Amiens during tho cholera epidemic, her inspection of the fever wards was something very different from an official ceremony. She went courageously from bed to bed, talking to the patiouts, oomi'jrting) then', promising the.u oid when they get cured, and leal - - ing| uoney m.'i n.vhile forthiir wives aid for their children. With admirable dovotion she risked even the contagion of small-pox, to go and carry hopeful words to some poor women who were recovering from the hideous disease, by and by—that is in 1870—when calamities had commenced, and the Emperor's throne was tottering, the Empress showed herself equally brave for herself and considerate for others. She did not indeed ovince that queenly, anuiOU spirit which would have impelled a woman like Elixabuth of England to get on horseback and overage tne revolutionary mobs, by placing herself at the head of the army, and vowing to lend the defence of Pari* like a second Jean Huchetto or Joan of Arc. Such an attitude might perhaps have saved the crown : but, Licking tho warrior uorve, Eugenie at least displayed the Bufter feelings of womanhood, for

I she refused to let a single drop* of blood be shed in guarding the Tuilleries. There »a< something at once touching and graud in her behaviour on thai total Sunday afternoon of the 4th of September, "when the rabble were marching upon tho palace. Hearing that some hot-blooded courtiers had brought revolvers and talked of using them, she tent to beu' tbum for her sake not to offer resistance; and the command which sin- sent down to tho otlicers Of the Palace guard was that they should " let the people pass." At a o'clock, when Mr. Ferdinand de Leasepe toM her that, the Second Empire wiis virtually at an end, anil that she had best leave Franco the Empress turned to the faithful band of adherents —some three hundred in number—who were gathered in the reception saloon ami mode them her .stateliest courtesy before retiring. On going to her private apartments to put on her bonnet she found that some servants had absconded with a small travelling jewel case and a purse that had been prepared for her journey, so that on lauding at Weymouth two days afterwards, she had only a valise full of linen and twenty Napoleons in gold which had been lent her by tho Chevalier Nigra. As an iustanco of tho confusion which prevailed at that epoch, I may mention that M. Woliner, tho Emperor's cashier* assured mo that he had, on the 4th of September, £<io,oUo belonging to the Civil List,.whioh the Empress might have drawn by choquee, but she quite rorgct to do so. Many have laid on tho Empress Eugenie the responsibility of the FrancoPrussian war; and to such an extent as a lady may be held answerable for such a great affair sho nodoubt was so. When the Hohen/.ollern difficulty had reached it< critical pass Marshal Lebujuf, tho War Minister, was summoned to the Tuilleries, and ho plainly told the Emperor and Empress in private that the army was not ready. The Empress fired up, and with-flashing eyes, exclaimed, " A French Marshal ought to bo ashamed to use such" craven language! !" The Marshal bowed and left the room. In the auto-chamber ho asked for pen and paper, ami wrote out his resignation ; but before he had signed it, the Emperor came out and begged him not to quarrel with a lady. LTmperatrice a sea noil's were His Majesty's textual words, and he added the request that the Marshal would stay at his post and do his best. This is Lebceufs own version of the matter, and he eon plains to this day that he weut to war against his will. The Empress cannot be blamed however, for having been indignant to hear that the army was unready. It speaks rather to hor credit that sho trusted her husbands advisers sufficiently to think they had dune their duty i':i making tho troops efficient. In a country like France, to say that a queen or empress has been irreproachable as a wife means something more than that she had virtuous; it signifies that shi> has kept such watch over her condm t that not a breath of scandal could touch her. Napoleon 111. had so many millions of enemies continually peering at his court that, had the Empress committed herself to a single imprudent act or word, tho thing would have boon trumpted forth with a thousand exaggeration in all lands. As it was malice could in vent nothing against the Empress. Since the Empress's exile in England, her Majesty has been alluded to more than once as intenteuding to re-marry but she is a woman of nobler mode than Napoleon I.'s wife, Marie Louise, and she will certainly retuin her title of Emperor's widow to the end.—Truth.