Part 23 (1/2)
Spain was at that time in want of a king. Several princes were proposed, and the most acceptable one would have been the Duc de Montpensier; but Napoleon III., who dreaded the rivalry of the Orleans family, gave the Spaniards to understand that he would never consent to see a prince of that family upon the Spanish throne. Then the Spaniards took the matter into their own hands, and possibly stimulated by a wish to make a choice disagreeable to the French emperor, selected a prince of the Prussian royal family, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The Emperor Napoleon objected at once.
To have Prussia on the eastern frontier of France, and Prussian influence beyond the Pyrenees, was worse in his eyes than the selection of Montpensier; and it was certainly a matter for diplomatic consideration. M. Benedetti, the French minister at Berlin, was instructed to take a very haughty tone with the king of Prussia, and to say that if he permitted Prince Leopold to accept the Spanish crown, it would be a cause of war between France and Prussia. The king of Prussia replied substantially that he would not be threatened, and would leave Prince Leopold to do as he pleased. Prompted, however, no doubt, by his sovereign, Prince Leopold declined the Spanish throne. This was intimated to M. Benedetti, and here the matter might have come to an end. But the Emperor Napoleon, anxious for a _casus belli_, chose to think that the king of Prussia, in making his announcement to his amba.s.sador, had not been sufficiently civil.
A cabinet council was held at the Tuileries. The empress was now admitted to cabinet councils, that she might be prepared for a regency that before long might arrive. She and Marshal Le B?uf were vehement for war. The populace, proud of their fine army, shouted with one voice, ”A Berlin!” and on July 15, 1870, war was declared.
Let us relieve the sad closing of this chapter, which began so auspiciously with the emperor and empress in the height of their prosperity, by telling of an expedition in which the glory of the empress as a royal lady culminated.
The Suez Ca.n.a.l being completed, its opening was to be made an international affair of great importance. The work was the work of French engineers, led by M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, in every way a most remarkable man.
England looked coldly on the enterprise. To use the vulgar phrase both literally and metaphorically, she ”took no stock” in the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and she sent no royal personage, nor other representative to the opening ceremonies; the only Englishman of official rank who was present was an admiral, whose flag-s.h.i.+p was in the harbor of Port Sad.
The Emperor Napoleon was wholly unable to leave France at a time so critical; but he sent his fair young empress in his stead. He stayed at Saint-Cloud, and took advantage of her absence to submit to a severe surgical operation. The empress went first to Constantinople, where Sultan Abdul Aziz gave a beautiful fete in her honor, at which she appeared, lovely and all glorious, in amber satin and diamonds. She afterwards proceeded to Egypt as the guest of the khedive, entering Port Sad Nov. 16, 1869, and returning to Paris on the 5th of December.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _EMPRESS EUGeNIE._]
The opening of the ca.n.a.l across the isthmus of Suez, which was in a manner to unite the Eastern with the Western world, caused the eyes of all Christendom to be fixed on Egypt,--the venerable great-grandmother of civilization. The great work had been completed, in spite of Lord Palmerston's sincere conviction, which he lost no opportunity of proclaiming to the world, that it was impossible to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The sea-level, he said, was not the same in the two seas so that the embankments could not be sustained, and drift-sands from the desert would fill the work up rapidly from day to day. Ismal Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, had made the tour of Europe, inviting everybody to the opening, from kings and kaisers, empresses and queens, down to members of chambers of commerce and marine insurance companies.
Great numbers were to be present, and the Empress Eugenie was to be the Cleopatra of the occasion. But suddenly the khedive was threatened with a serious disappointment: the sultan, his suzerain, wanted to join in the festivities; and if he were present, _he_ must be the chief personage, the khedive would be thrust into a va.s.sal's place, and all his glory, all his pleasure in his fete, would be gone.
The ancient Egyptians, whose attention was much absorbed in waterworks and means of irrigation, had, as far back as the days of Sesostris, conceived the idea of communication between the Nile and the Red Sea. Traces of the ca.n.a.l that they attempted still remain. Pharaoh Necho, in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, revived the project.
Darius and one of the Ptolemies completed the work, but when Egypt sank back into semi-barbarism, the ca.n.a.l was neglected and forgotten.
It does not appear, however, that the Pharaohs ever thought of connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The ca.n.a.l of Sesostris and of Pharaoh Necho was a purely local affair, affecting Egyptian commerce alone.
Some modern Egyptian engineers seem first to have conceived the project of a Suez ca.n.a.l; but the man who accomplished it was the engineer and statesman, M. de Lesseps. In spite of all manner of discouragements, he brought the ca.n.a.l to completion, supported throughout by the influence and authority of the khedive. The first thing to be done was to supply the laborers and the new town of Ismalia with drinking water, by means of a narrow freshwater ca.n.a.l from the Nile. Till then all fresh water had been brought in tanks from Cairo. Next, a town--called Port Sad, after the khedive who had first favored the plan of the ca.n.a.l--was built on the Mediterranean.
The ca.n.a.l was to run a straight southerly course to Suez. At Ismalia, the new city, it would connect with the railroad to Cairo; between Port Sad and Ismalia it would pa.s.s through two swampy lakes.
In seven years Port Sad became a town of ten thousand inhabitants.
The total length of the ca.n.a.l is about ninety miles, but more than half of it pa.s.ses through the lakes, which had to be dredged. The width of the ca.n.a.l is a little over one hundred yards, its depth twenty-six feet. About sixty millions of dollars were expended on its construction and the preliminary works that it entailed,--these last all tending to the benefit and prosperity of Egypt.
The grand opening took place Nov. 16, 1869. The sultan was not present; he had been persuaded out of his fancy to see the sight, and the khedive was left in peace as master of ceremonies. The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria was there in his yacht, and the Empress Eugenie, the ”bright particular star” of the occasion, was on board the French war-steamer ”L'Aigle.” As ”L'Aigle” steamed slowly into the crowded port, all the bands played,--
”Partant pour la Syrie, Le brave et jeune Dunois,”
the air of which had been composed by Queen Hortense, the mother of the emperor, so that it was dignified during his reign into a national air.
That afternoon there was a religious ceremony, which all the crowned heads and other great personages were expected to attend. Two of the sovereigns or heirs-apparent present were Roman Catholics, one was a Protestant, and one a Mohammedan. The Crescent and the Cross for the first time overshadowed wors.h.i.+ppers joining in one common prayer. The empress appeared, leaning on the arm of the Emperor of Austria. She wore a short pale gray silk, with deep white Brussels lace arranged in _paniers_ and flounces. Her hat and veil were black, and round her throat was a black velvet ribbon.
The Mohammedan pontiff who officiated on the occasion was understood to be a man of extraordinary sanct.i.ty, brought from a great distance to lend solemnity to the occasion. He was followed by the chaplain of the empress, a stout, handsome Hungarian prelate named M. Bauer.[1]
[Footnote 1: Blackwood's Magazine.]
Even up to the morning of November 17, when the pa.s.sage of the fleet was to be made through the ca.n.a.l, there were persons at Port Sad who doubted if it would get through. The s.h.i.+ps-of-war had been directed to enter the ca.n.a.l first, and there was to be between each s.h.i.+p an interval of a quarter of an hour. They were ordered to steam at the rate of five miles an hour. ”L'Aigle” entered first.
”La Pelouse,” another French s.h.i.+p, had the greatest draught of water; namely, eighteen or nineteen feet.
The scenery from the Suez Ca.n.a.l was not interesting. Lakes, then undrained, stretched upon either side; the banks of the ca.n.a.l being the only land visible. But as evening fell, and the sun sank, a rich purple light, with its warm tones, overspread everything, until the moon rose, touching the waters with her silvery sheen.
Before this, however, the foremost s.h.i.+ps in the procession had safely reached Ismalia. There the khedive had erected a new palace in which to review his guests. They numbered about six thousand, and the behavior of many of them did little credit to civilization.
The khedive had arranged an exhibition of Arab horsemans.h.i.+p and of throwing the _Jereed_; but the sand was so deep that the horses could not show themselves to advantage. The empress, wearing a large leghorn hat and yellow veil, rode on a camel; and when an Italian in the crowd shouted to her roughly, ”Lean back, or you will fall off, heels over head,” the graceful dignity with which she smiled, and accepted the advice, won the hearts of all beholders.
That night a great ball was given by the khedive in his new palace.
”It was impossible,” says an English gentleman, ”to overrate the gracious influence of the empress's presence. The occasion, great as it was, would have lost its romance if she had not been there.
She it was who raised the spirit of chivalry, subdued the spirit of strife, enmity, and intrigue among rival men, and over commerce, science, and avarice spread the gauzy hues of poetry.”