Part 17 (2/2)

MON FReRE,--Your Royal Highness knows that putting in practice your own idea, and wis.h.i.+ng to carry out to the end the struggle with Russia that we have begun together, I have decided to form an army between Boulogne and St. Omer. I need not tell your Highness how pleased I should be to see you, and how happy I should be to show you my soldiers. I am convinced, moreover, that personal ties will strengthen the union so happily established between two great nations. I beg you to present my respectful homage to the queen, and to receive this expression of the esteem and sincere affection I have conceived for you.

With this, _mon frere_, I pray G.o.d to have you in his holy keeping.

NAPOLEON.

The prince accepted the invitation, addressing the emperor as ”Sire et mon frere.” The queen entirely approved the visit, and Baron Stockmar predicted much advantage from it, ”inasmuch,” he said, ”as the good or evil destiny of the present time will directly and chiefly depend upon a rational, honorable, and resolute alliance between England and France.”

Prince Albert met the emperor at Boulogne, Sept. 4, 1854. The Duke of Newcastle, who was in attendance on Prince Albert, wrote to a friend that tears stood in the emperor's eyes when he received his guest as he stepped upon French soil; and the prince wrote that evening to the queen:--

”The emperor has been very nervous, if we are to believe those who stood near him and who know him well. He was kindly and courteous, and does not look so old nor so pale as his portraits make him, and is much gayer than he is generally represented. The visit cannot fail to be a source of great gratification to him.... I have had two long talks with him, in which he spoke very sensibly about the war and the _questions du jour_. People here are sanguine about the results of the expedition to the Crimea, and very sensitive about the behavior of Admiral Sir Charles Napier.”

The prince adds in his letter, the same evening:--

”The emperor thaws more and more. This evening after dinner I withdrew with him to his sitting-room for half an hour before rejoining his guests, in order that he might smoke his cigarette,--in which occupation, to his amazement, I could not keep him company. He told me that one of the deepest impressions ever made on him was, when having gone from France to Rio Janeiro and thence to the United States, and being recalled to Europe by the rumor of his mother's serious illness, he arrived in London directly after King William's death, and saw you going to open parliament for the first time.”

Subsequently the prince tells the queen,--

”We discussed all topics of home and foreign policy, material and personal, with the greatest frankness, and I can say but good of what I heard.... He was brought up in the German fas.h.i.+on in Germany,--a training which has developed a German turn of mind. As to all modern political history, so far as this is not Napoleonic, he is without information; so that he wants many of the materials for accurate judgment.”

d.i.c.kens, who was at Boulogne on this occasion, thus tells of Prince Albert's arrival:--

”The town looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday, the whole range of the cliff-tops was lined with troops, and the artillerymen, matches in hand, stood ready to fire the great guns the moment she made the harbor, the sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the prince, in a blazing uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to see,--a stupendous silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as never was heard. It was almost as fine a sight as one could see, under a deep blue sky.”

While the guest of the emperor, Prince Albert expressed to him the queen's hope that they should see him in England, and that she should make the acquaintance of the empress.

The prince, an excellent judge of character, in a subsequent memorandum concerning his impressions, says,--

”The emperor appeared quiet and indolent from const.i.tution, not easily excited, but gay and humorous when at his ease. His French is not without a little German accent, and his p.r.o.nunciation of German is better than of English.... He recited a poem by Schiller on the advantages to man of peace and war, which seemed to have made a deep impression upon him, and appeared to me to be not without significance with reference to his own life. His court and household are strictly kept and in good order, more English than French.

The gentlemen composing his _entourage_ are not distinguished by birth, manners, or education. He lives on a familiar footing with them, although they seemed afraid of him. The tone was rather that of a garrison, with a good deal of smoking.... He is very chilly, complains of rheumatism, and goes early to bed, takes no pleasure in music, but is proud of his horsemans.h.i.+p.”

Speaking again of the emperor's lack of information as to the history of politics, Prince Albert says:--

”But he is remarkably modest in acknowledging these defects, and in not pretending to know what he does not. All that relates to Napoleonic politics he has at his finger's ends. He also appears to have thought much and deeply on politics, yet more like an amateur politician, mixing many very sound and very crude notions together.

He admires English inst.i.tutions, and regrets the absence of an aristocracy in France, but might not be willing to allow such an aristocracy to control his own power, whilst he might wish to have the advantage of its control over the pure democracy.”

The emperor closely questioned the prince about the working of the English government and the queen's relations to her ministers.

Prince Albert writes,--

”He said that he did not allow his ministers to meet or to discuss matters together; that they transacted their business solely with him. He seemed astonished when I told him that every despatch went through the queen's hands and was read by her, as he only received extracts made from them, and indeed appeared to have little time or inclination generally to read. When I observed to him that the queen would not be content without seeing the whole of the diplomatic correspondence, he replied that he found a full compensation in having persons in his own employ and confidence at the different posts of importance, who reported solely to him. I could not but express my sense of the danger of such an arrangement, to which no statesman, in England at least, would submit.”

I have quoted this memorandum of Prince Albert's, because it points out the perils which led to the downfall or the Empire,--the emperor's bad _entourage_; his personal government, a.s.sisted only by private confidential relations with irresponsible persons; his mixture of crude and sensible ideas of government; his indolence; and his tendency to let things slide out of his own hands.

”Upon the whole,” concluded the prince, ”my impression is that neither in home nor foreign politics would the emperor naturally take any violent step, but that he appears in distress for means of governing, and is obliged to look about him from day to day.

Having deprived the people of any active partic.i.p.ation in the government, and reduced them to the mere position of spectators, they grow impatient, like a crowd at a display of fireworks, whenever there is any cessation in the display. Still, he appears the only man who has any hold on France, relying on the name of Napoleon.

He said to the Duke of Newcastle:

'Former Governments have tried to reign by the support of one million of the educated cla.s.ses; I claim to lay hold of the other twenty-nine.'

He is decidedly benevolent, and anxious for the good of the people, but has, like all rulers before him, a bad opinion of their political capacity.”

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