Chapter XIV: On the Eve of Exile

Often as the story of the Empress’s escape from the Tuileries on September 4, 1870, has been told--perhaps with more circumstantiality by the late Mr. T. W. Evans than by anyone else--the version now given for the first time differs in some important respects from the Evans narrative.

This account of the episode of September 4 (not the 1st, as erroneously printed in the original French version) appeared in _L’Écho du Parlement Belge_ of January 28, 1871. The writer asserts that his informant was the well-known diplomatist, Mr. Bancroft, who at the time in question was United States Minister at Berlin, and who stated that he had “had it direct from Mr. Evans”; which, to say the least of it, is curious.

This new version of an old story runs thus:

About nine o’clock on the morning of September 4, 1870, the Empress Eugénie was in the Pavillon Marsan, at the Tuileries, anxiously waiting for the domestics to come and assist her in dressing, as Her Majesty was going to hear the grand’messe at the church of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois. The Empress became impatient, and was astonished that no one had obeyed the orders which she had given. At this moment there arrived Mme. Lebreton (sister of General Bourbaki), her devoted friend, who came to report to the Empress the gloomy state of affairs in the capital. It appeared that the people were excitedly demanding the overthrow of the Emperor; everywhere menacing groups had formed; perhaps the Tuileries would be invaded.

With tears in her eyes, Mme. Lebreton entreated the Empress to fly while there was still time to escape. Her Majesty, although much perturbed by what she had heard, tried to soothe Mme. Lebreton with the assurance that General Trochu would watch over her safety--that he had promised to protect her, that he was a man of honour, that he would keep his word, and that if there should be any real danger he would not fail to send someone who would tell her what course it was necessary, in his opinion, for her to take.

Meanwhile the Revolution became more threatening. The clamour of the crowd and the cries of “Vive la République!” were plainly heard by the two ladies. Mme. Lebreton renewed her appeals, but the Empress unheeded them. “I have confidence in Trochu,” she continued to repeat; “he is a soldier, and will not abandon me.”

It was not until about one o’clock that, the Place du Carrousel being by this time invaded, the Empress, now finally convinced of her danger and of Trochu’s defection, listened to Mme. Lebreton. Her Majesty rang for her women--rang several times; no one came. Mme. Lebreton, much alarmed, went into all the neighbouring rooms. Not a soul! All she saw was furniture upside down--the drawers all open.

The Empress was abandoned--abandoned by everybody, even by her servants! Then the poor woman fled, accompanied only by her devoted friend. For a full hour they paced through the galleries, the cabinets, the long passages of the immense, deserted palace, their cheeks paling at every noise which they fancied they heard; not daring to pass in front of the windows for fear that those outside might see them; undecided which way to go. Finally, exhausted, they arrived under the colonnade of the Louvre, at the top of the great staircase.

When, at last, they ventured to look into each other’s face, a cry of terror escaped from them. In their haste and their anguish of mind they had forgotten to put on their hats and mantles; thus they could not take a step without being noticed. The Empress was en peignoir, with a simple piece of gauze thrown over her head. At this moment, before they had got half-way down the stairs leading to the street, someone close to them exclaimed, “The Empress!” Her Majesty turned pale and cried out, “We are lost!” Mme. Lebreton, preserving her sang-froid, turned towards the person who had spoken; he was a gentleman irreproachably dressed. She cast a look of entreaty at him. He understood, and pretended not to see them.

At the foot of the staircase a fiacre was passing. To spring into it was the work of a moment. The driver, astonished, and perhaps suspecting who the two ladies were, had a good look at them. The Empress, conquering her fears, exclaimed brusquely, “Boulevard Haussmann, 30!” and the fiacre moved off. As they were driving through the streets, feeling a ray of hope, Mme. Lebreton asked her mistress if she had any money with her. “Ah, mon Dieu! Did I think of that?” replied the Empress. Mme. Lebreton rummaged her pockets, while the faces of both were bathed in a cold perspiration. “Saved!” cried Mme. Lebreton, who had found in her pockets two five-franc pieces!

The cab stopped at the place indicated. At the same moment another fiacre came up. The driver of the Empress’s cab was given five francs, and when he had disappeared the two ladies engaged the other vehicle. “Avenue de l’Impératrice, 57!” said the Empress. (It was to put the first cabman off the track that the Empress had told him to go to the Boulevard Haussmann.)

At No. 57, Avenue de l’Impératrice lived Mr. Evans, the Court dentist. They rang the bell, and a valet opened the door. “Monsieur is not at home,” said the man; “what do you want?” Then, surprised at the tenue of the ladies, the servant seemed to be about to shut the door in their faces, but the Empress, rousing herself, said: “We are two Americans. Mr. Evans made an appointment with us here at three o’clock.”

They were shown into a room, where they waited an hour. Then Mr. Evans came in. He had returned from the Tuileries, where he had vainly searched for the Empress.

Upon Mr. Evans’s return the servant told him that two ladies, very oddly attired, were waiting to see him, and the dentist at once guessed who they were. “Ah, yes,” he remarked, “they have come to bother me again. We must try to get them across the Atlantic as soon as possible.”

He had previously arranged how the Empress was to escape. While two of his best horses were being harnessed, the Empress and Mme. Lebreton wrapped themselves in some plaid shawls which they found in Mrs. Evans’s wardrobe. Then they were driven off in Mr. Evans’s carriage. They stopped first at Evreux to change horses, which had been telegraphed for in advance; next, at Trouville. Nobody imagined that it could be the Empress of the French who was travelling in this fashion. Happier than Louis XVI. at Varennes, the Empress was not recognized anywhere, not even at the hotel at Trouville, to which Mr. Evans conducted her.

When the Empress and Mme. Lebreton were comfortably installed at the hotel, Mr. Evans hurried off to the harbour, where he found two yachts moored. Sir John Burgoyne, the owner of one of the vessels, when first asked by Mr. Evans if he would take two ladies to England, refused, but relented when, under a pledge of secrecy, he learnt that it was a question of saving the Empress.

In this version of the Empress’s flight from the Tuileries no mention is made of the prominent part played in the episode by the then Austrian Ambassador (the husband of the still-living Princess Pauline Metternich, who gave herself the very uncomplimentary sobriquet, the “singe à la mode”), and the Italian Minister, Chevalier Nigra, who died at Rapolla in July, 1907. When Nigra’s death was announced, the English newspapers published a variety of versions of his share in the Empress’s escape, but I am disposed to think that the vérité vraie is to be found in the subjoined brief narrative, from the pen of M. Maurice Dumoulin.

The gates of the Tuileries were forced open by the excited, exasperated crowd. The déchéance had been pronounced on the steps of the Corps Législatif, and the Republic proclaimed. The Empress must quit. Early on that terrible Sunday afternoon M. Franceschini Pietri half opened the door of the Empress’s salon and exclaimed, “Madame, there is only just time!” Prince Richard Metternich (the Austrian Ambassador) and Chevalier Nigra were with him. “Make haste, Madame!” said Nigra, who watched from the windows the progress of the émeute; “make haste!” The Empress snatched up a waterproof, a hat with a brown veil, and some portraits.

Nigra again exclaimed: “Be quick, Madame! I can hear them; they are coming up!” The Empress took Metternich’s arm. Nigra walked by her side. Like a whirlwind the Empress and the Ambassadors, followed by Mme. Lebreton, M. Conti, and Dr. Conneau, flew across the salles of the Louvre Museum, making for St.-Germain-l’Auxerrois, where Prince Metternich’s carriage had been ordered to wait; but the vehicle was not there, and the Prince went in search of it. Nigra remained alone with the Empress and Mme. Lebreton. Meanwhile the crowd increased. As the little group stood in the street, a boy, who was watching them, recognized the principal figure, and cried out, “Tiens! Voilà l’Impératrice!” Nigra’s presence of mind saved the situation. “What, you little scamp!” exclaimed the Ambassador; “you dare to shout ‘Vive la Prusse!’” Just then, before the bystanders could realize who was in their midst at the most critical moment in her life, an unoccupied fiacre jolted by. Securing it, Nigra pushed the Empress and her companion into the cab, saying: “Get in, Madame. We cannot wait for Metternich’s brougham.”

Not only was Nigra possessed of great intellectual powers, he was the handsomest of men, and that fact contributed in no small degree to his success in diplomacy. Count Cavour had a great friend in the Comtesse de Circourt, née Anastasie de Klustine, whose salon was the resort of many political and literary celebrities. She helped to “launch” Nigra, to whom she wrote: “What strikes one so forcibly is the perfect harmony of your youth with the maturity of your look. M. D---- says your profile reminds him of a Greek statue. And he is right.” Nigra took up his abode at the hotel of the Italian Embassy (formerly the home of the Piedmontese Legation), at the Rond Point of the Champs-Elysées, and was soon made much of, for his reputation had preceded him. Cavour had written to his friends in Paris: “Nigra knows all my thoughts,” and that alone was sufficient to insure the young diplomatist’s success.

Nigra’s rôle was a very difficult one. He had to conciliate French diplomatists, to keep “well in” with the Emperor, and to avoid creating jealousy amongst the foreign Ambassadors and Ministers. Above all, he had to secure the goodwill of the Empress Eugénie, who had no love for a Government which was attacking the temporal power of the Pope. But Nigra succeeded. How he did it is still a mystery. He got on terms of intimacy with the Emperor and Empress, and even stifled the jealousy of Prince Metternich.

Nigra was not only a diplomatist and a handsome man--“beau comme Apollon”--but a poet. One afternoon (it was a soft June day in 1863) the imperial hostess and some of her guests were trying a Venetian gondola on the lake at Fontainebleau. The Empress asked the gondolier to sing something appropriate; but the man declared that Nature had not endowed him with a voice. But Nigra was there, and Nigra would sing. He warbled in those beautiful, seductive tones which had struck responsive chords in the hearts of many before he had bewitched the imperial lady, the favourite “Gondola,” which he had himself written and submitted to Prosper Mérimée, who was pleased to approve it. The singer ended with these daring lines:

Oh femme, si parfois ton lac paisible doit voir voguant sur tes
côtes le muet Empéreur, dis-lui que sur les rives de l’Adriatique,
pauvre, nue, exsangue Venise souffre et languit. Mais elle vit ...
et elle attend encore. (Oh lady, if sometimes thy peaceful lake
sees wandering by thy side the dumb Emperor, tell him that, on the
shores of the Adriatic, poor, naked, bloodless Venice suffers and
languishes. But she lives ... and she is still expectant.)

It has been even said that it was Nigra’s poetic skill as much as anything which impelled the “dumb Emperor” to hand over Venetia to the young Kingdom of Italy. What is more certain is that Nigra made two powerful friends of the Marquis d’Azeglio and the celebrated Signor Manzoni by writing, when he was a humble clerk in the Sardinian Foreign Office, a poem dedicated to d’Azeglio’s daughter on her marriage to Comte Matteo Ricci, the Marquis at the time being Prime Minister. That poem gave Nigra a step in the “F.O.,” but had not Cavour made him his secretary he might have had no opportunity of showing that he could do something better than pen little lyrics, copy despatches, and warble a chanson to the Empress’s eyebrow. In his most poetical moments he could hardly have imagined that a day would come when he would be aiding the subject of his love-song to escape from the fury of the mob by pushing her into a common fiacre and refusing to “wait for Metternich’s carriage.”

In one of his interesting volumes Comte d’Hérisson appears to have narrated the story of the Empress Eugénie’s voyage from Trouville to Ryde after her flight from the Tuileries. A letter to Sir John Burgoyne on the subject brought the French author the following reply:

COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT, _December 27, 1889_.

SIR,

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
December 14, and I beg to express my regret that I am obliged to
reply to it in my own language.

With reference to the statements published in your “Letters of an
Aide-de-Camp” concerning the passage of H.M. the Empress Eugénie
from France to England in 1870, I have never seen the book, but
only an extract from it, concerning myself, sent to me by a friend,
and which statements you now tell me were communicated to you by
Dr. T. W. Evans.

It is difficult to recall details after the lapse of so many years,
but my recollection is that Lady Burgoyne and myself were on board
the Royal Yacht Squadron cutter, _Gazelle_, forty-two tons, in
Deauville (Trouville) harbour during the first week of September,
1870.

On the morning of September 6 Dr. Evans’s card was given to me; I
went on deck, and one of two gentlemen introduced himself as Dr.
Evans. He told me that Her Majesty the Empress was in Deauville,
and he asked me to take her on board the yacht at once, as she was
in danger and in distress.

I acknowledge that at the moment I thought the story so unlikely
that I did not believe one word of it, and I have no doubt that I
expressed myself to that effect.

I asked Dr. Evans to speak to Lady Burgoyne, and she told me that
Dr. Evans was the well-known American dentist in Paris, and that
his statement was probably true. There was but one other yacht in
the harbour, and that was a small schooner, hired by the late Lord
Charles Hamilton. No American yacht was at or near Trouville, and
the statements as to Dr. Evans having had to threaten to embark Her
Majesty the Empress in such a vessel never occurred.

Deauville Harbour is a tidal basin, and vessels can only enter it
and leave it at the time of high water; and the only objection I am
aware of having made was that, as the yacht could only leave the
harbour at about seven o’clock, night and morning, it would be
injudicious to attract attention by endeavouring to embark Her
Majesty the Empress during daylight. Dr. Evans agreed to this
suggestion, and it was arranged that Her Majesty should embark at
midnight, which she did, accompanied by Mme. Lebreton, Dr. Evans,
and a nephew of that gentleman, who left the yacht before we
sailed.

I was captain of my own yacht, and I navigated her myself, and to
the best of my recollection the only conversation I had with the
Empress during the time she was on board was that early in the
morning of September 7 I asked Her Majesty’s permission to get the
yacht under weigh. Once during the night, when there was a great
noise on deck, owing to a boat washing adrift, Her Majesty sent for
me to ask if anyone was hurt; and shortly after we anchored off
Ryde, Isle of Wight. On the following morning I was ordered to
thank the crew for their exertions during an unusually rough
passage across the Channel.

I am much more amused than angry at the account of my tears, fears,
and entreaties to Dr. Evans to put me on shore. The fact is that
that eminent practitioner was seasick in my berth from the time we
left Trouville until just before Her Majesty the Empress landed at
Ryde, and if he had had a little experience of the sea he would
have known that anyone who had to stand for many hours at the
tiller of a small yacht in a gale of wind (and I may mention that
this was the same night that Her Majesty’s ship _Captain_ was lost)
might charitably be allowed to wipe the salt-water out of his eyes
before consulting the chart without being accused of shedding tears
of fear.

I wish to add that any story which may have got abroad implying
what you are pleased to term a “tardy recognition” on the part of
the Empress of the slight service it was my good fortune to render
to Her Majesty is absolutely untrue.

The Empress, on leaving Ryde, went to Hastings for a few days. From
that place she sent Lady Burgoyne an autograph letter of thanks.
This was followed by a magnificent jewel, which will ever be a
cherished heirloom in my family. I may further mention that His
Majesty the Emperor sent for me to Chislehurst a short time after
his arrival in England and thanked me in the kindest manner. From
that day to this Lady Burgoyne and myself have received from the
Empress the most unvarying kindness and hospitality.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

J. MONTAGUE BURGOYNE.

Sir John Burgoyne subsequently made the appended extracts from the logbook of his yacht. With this addition the narrative may, for the first time, be considered complete:

The Empress told Lady Burgoyne how shamefully she had been deserted
by all about her at the Tuileries, and that her very servants had
pilfered things in her apartments.

2.45 a.m.--Ran close in shore off Ryde and let go anchor. At 3
a.m., thanks to smartness of steward and cook, had a capital supper
on the table, and Her Majesty came and joined us at supper in the
main cabin.

The emotions of the previous four-and-twenty hours produced a
natural reaction, and the Empress was very cheerful at table. Her
health was drunk in champagne, and she returned thanks in a few
hopeful words. But now that she was no longer in danger of capture
or death, and that a hundred new possibilities in life presented
themselves to her mind, she was more reserved in talking about
politics. Here might have been a curious study for a psychologist.

The lady who had come on board, abandoned and almost heart-broken,
complaining in the bitterness of her heart of those by whom she had
been forsaken, was transformed once more by hope--and very
rapidly--into an Empress who looked with some philosophical
indifference upon the baseness of men.

The writer to whom Sir John Burgoyne gave these extracts from the _Gazelle’s_ logbook adds, amongst many other piquant details of the terrible voyage from Deauville to Ryde, that the Empress personally thanked the crew who had risked death in order to save her life, and presented them with five pounds.

A story which is told of Louis XVIII., in somewhat analogous circumstances, may furnish a pendant to the above. The King, being compelled to evacuate Courland, engaged the Captain of a Danish merchant ship to convey him and his suite to Prussia. The Captain had a cargo for the Baltic, but, anticipating a handsome reward, he consented to change his course. For this service the King gave the skipper a gold watch and a written promise that, if he regained his throne, he would liberally recompense the Dane. As the Captain did not land his merchandise in time, it could not be disposed of, and the consignees made him pay them heavy damages, with the result that the poor man was ruined. After the King’s restoration the promissory note was presented to His Majesty by the Danish Minister at Paris. Louis XVIII. did not shirk his liability, but handed to the diplomatist what he considered a suitable reward for the Danish Captain who had rendered this service--fifty napoleons and the Cross of the Lily!

If it was an American citizen who, at no little risk, escorted the Empress from Paris to Deauville, it is well to remember that it was a British officer who really saved and brought her to our shores. Sir John Burgoyne, Bart., entered the army in 1850, and retired (Lieutenant-Colonel) from the Grenadier Guards in 1861. Eton should be very proud of its gallant son. Sir John resides at Sutton Park, Sandy, Bedfordshire, and is widely known in clubland as a member of the Carlton, the Travellers’, and the Royal Yacht Squadron (Cowes).

There is yet another version of the Empress’s escape from Paris--that which Her Majesty related at Chislehurst to Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower, who very kindly allows it to appear here:

How well she described the hurried flight through the Palace and
the galleries of the Louvre, followed by only two or three
attendants; the respect with which the guardians of the galleries
received her, and their emotion at seeing her almost a deserted
fugitive in the Palace of which she had been so lately the idol;
her great danger of being recognized while alone with Mme. Lebreton
in the Rue de Rivoli, where for hours they had to remain, the
street being blocked with a mob of mobiles and the rabble forcing
their way to the Hôtel de Ville to proclaim the Republic; and
another terrible long period of suspense when, at some station near
Paris, her only safety from detection while waiting hours for a
train was a newspaper that saved her from recognition and probably
death.

She said such a death as that had terrors for her which, could she
have remained and faced the dangers in the Palace, she would not
have felt; and, indeed, it made one shudder to think what would
have happened had that mob guessed who one of the two ladies in
black was in the cab in the roaring street that bright September
day. I believe the Empress has regretted ever since having left the
Tuileries, and she had almost to be forced to leave the Palace. She
had the courage and the will to stand alone against the mob, but
then her fate might have been that of Hypatia.

In the course of the story the Empress became somewhat excited and brushed off the table an alabaster bust of Marie Antoinette, which she had given Lord Ronald. He picked it up, minus its head!

No one has hitherto told us the precise time at which the Empress quitted the Tuileries on Sunday, September 4, 1870.

She actually left the Palace at 1.30 in the afternoon by the Louvre entrance.

Towards four o’clock all the servants left, the National Guard having previously taken possession of the Palace.

These facts are recorded in his register[103] by M. J. Maillard, chef du service de l’argenterie, who records that the troops did not give him time to “put things in their places.” He did not fail to observe that the National Guard had “written everywhere” the simple words, “Death to the thieves.” It was the parting shot of the gallant “Nationals,” whose commander was that modern Bayard, General Trochu.

PALAIS DES TUILERIES, _Septembre 4, 1870_.

Départ de S.M. l’Impératrice à une heure et demie par le Palais du
Louvre.

Départ de tout le personnel du service vers quatre heures de
l’après-midi, après l’occupation du Palais des Tuileries par la
garde nationale. Ils ont écrit partout, _Mort aux voleurs._ Je ne
pas pu faire remettre le matériel en place--l’on ne m’en a pas
donné le temps.

J. MAILLARD.

[Extract from the register kept by M. Maillard, who had charge of
the silver.]

Baron Imbert de Saint-Amand holds that the Empress would have had less prestige if the Empire had not been overthrown. “The world is most interested, not in the châtelaine of the Tuileries, not the Juno reigning over an Olympus of Emperors and Kings at the Exhibition of 1867, but in the mother who weeps and prays in Zululand on the spot where her son had fallen after fighting like a young lion. What posterity will prefer to contemplate on the brow of the Empress Eugénie is not a crown of Empire, but a crown of thorns.”

“The Empress’s conduct after Sedan,” said an ex-Minister of the Empire, “was heroic. It is impossible to conceive a nobler courage than she showed on September 4, 1870. When she speaks of the Empire or the Emperor it is always with regret that the aims of Imperial institutions had been misrepresented and that the Emperor was misunderstood. On one occasion she observed that ‘English journalists would not understand the democratic basis of the Empire. The Empire wanted to give a direct voice in the government to all Frenchmen, whereas other régimes would give a monopoly of power to the bourgeoisie, and make the people pay the taxes and remain voiceless. If turbulent Frenchmen had only the calm in political matters of the English public!’”

Immediately after the overthrow of the Empire an amazing plot was concocted to defraud the Empress. It was alleged that Her Majesty had abstracted French Crown jewels valued at 6,650,000 francs (£266,000), and had sent them by one Manuel Perez to her mother at Madrid.

M. Franceschini Pietri says:

Swindlers and exploiteurs began in 1870-71 to benefit by our
troubles and grief, and some of them went so far as to produce
forged autograph letters of the Empress Eugénie. I have held those
letters in my hand, and I assure you that the imitation was
marvellous. The object was invariably the same--to attract silly
people or thieves by telling them of the existence of secret
treasure, and asking them to advance money towards the expense of
discovering it, and dividing it among those who had found money for
making the search. As you will see, it was an old and well-known
trick, but it was sometimes so well carried out that many persons
fell into the trap.

I remember the case of a peasant of Metz, who, attracted by the
prospect of gain, sent 3,000 francs to a person from whom he had
heard on the subject, and waited a long time in anticipation of
news concerning the fortune which was promised to him. Tired of the
delay, he had the effrontery to come to Chislehurst and demand to
be reimbursed the 3,000 francs which he had invested! You can
imagine that he was sent away without the least consolation. But
that is only one out of a hundred cases. All who believed in the
existence of a secret treasure were not dishonest people; many of
them, after receiving mysterious letters on the subject, informed
the Empress Eugénie of what had occurred.

To give you an idea of the extent of this swindling affair, and of
the amount of information which we received at Chislehurst, I may
tell you that we had printed forms to answer the communications,
and put an advertisement in the _Times_ warning the public to be on
their guard against these attempts to obtain their money.

It may be pointed out that many of these letters inviting the
credulous to “bite” were dated from the gaol at Madrid, and that
Spain supplied the strongest contingent of these “Imperial
treasure” swindlers. They spread themselves over all Europe--Italy,
France, England, Portugal, and other countries. The story received
so much credence in Portugal that the King sent one of his
Ministers to Chislehurst to confer with the Empress Eugénie on the
subject! As you see, it became a Cabinet affair.

Time passed, and these attempts at swindling decreased; but we
occasionally get wind of timid efforts in the same direction, and
doubtless the photograph which you have shown me comes from the
same quarter as the previous letters.[104]