Besides her generosity Eugénie possessed a thousand ways of attracting and winning people to her. The Emperor’s love had raised her to the throne; it depended solely on herself and her tact to maintain her position on it. With her inborn dignity, her beauty, and her queenly grace, she was as well equipped by nature for the part as any royal princess; indeed many a sovereign born might well have envied her, as, sparkling with jewels, she stood beneath the canopy of the throne to receive the foreign diplomats and nobles of the Empire. When she appeared on horseback beside the Emperor at grand reviews, or rode through the city in the imperial coach, bowing in response to the shouts of the dazzled crowds, nothing could have been more beautiful. It was plain to all that the Empress well knew how to play her part.
Seldom have two persons better suited to one another than Napoleon and Eugénie, or more completely in accord, been united. In all the pomp and power of her sovereignty she never forgot that it was to him she owed it all; and in proportion as the sense of her own importance rose, her love and admiration for him increased also. In the eyes of the world he had taken a step downward in his choice of a bride; it was now her task to prove that “the adventuress” could be as useful to the dynasty as a consort born in the purple.
“I would rather be spoken ill of than not be spoken of at all!” Louis Napoleon had exclaimed when his first attempts to bring about a political revolution had only excited pity and derision. Even at that time he had studied the French people well, and knew their weak spot was vanity. To flatter the national vanity therefore became one of his principal agencies for maintaining his power; and while in private life he loved an almost plebeian simplicity, in public no effect was too striking or too spectacular to keep up his imperial state.
No one knew better than Eugénie how to arrange these brilliant effects. Ever since the days when she was the companion of toreadors and the heroine of the Corso, love of display and notoriety had been her ruling passion. She may not have been conscious of this in the beginning, but what was at first a habit became by degrees a necessity; and just as the actress thirsts for applause, so Eugénie craved the admiration and approval of the populace. As the actress eagerly searches the newspaper columns after each appearance for the notices of her performance, so Eugénie, after every public entertainment or review or excursion, devoured the descriptions published of her costumes and appearance, revelling in the praises lavished on her person, and spurred on thereby to fresh efforts to win public favor. She studied the question of her _toilettes_ as if it were a religion and she its high priestess. Most of the fashions of that brilliant period were set by her, and the lists of guests invited to court entertainments were subjected to her personal supervision. Even ladies of high rank were sometimes refused admission to the Tuileries should their costumes not suit Her Majesty.