The Empress is of a stubborn, scoffing disposition, which adapts itself with difficulty to all the fictions of her imperial existence. Some are privileged to arouse her spirit of fun. She laughed heartily when she was informed of M. de Persigny’s report and the imperial decree regulating her privileges, and it was with a gaiety ill according with the event that she signed the documents. As she scribbled her name she turned towards the Emperor with the remark: “You see, sire, that I somewhat imitate your Corps Législatif--I sign blindly.”
In the years that were before Chislehurst the name “Empress Eugénie” signified the most radiant incarnation of beauty under which a woman could appear in order to dazzle, to touch and captivate, assemblies of men; it signified generosity of heart, inexhaustible charity, virtue, modest serenity in bearing the weight of fortune’s favours, an elevated intelligence open to the comprehension of all great things, a free and tolerant mind, a sweet and pitying piety. It was no secret that she was pleased by heroic deeds, but, as Providence had not as yet afflicted her with the heaviest trials which the human heart can bear, she was not thoroughly known. To-day the same name signifies patriotism even unto sacrifice, chivalrous abnegation, courage, disinterestedness unexampled in history, dignity supreme in misfortune, resignation to unhappiness, and never-failing patience in the woes and duties of exile.
This double character of her destiny has stamped upon the physiognomy and the person of the Empress a pathetic expression which strikes those who have not seen her often of late years. It is with a tender and sympathetic respect that one contemplates the widow of Napoleon III. and mother of the Prince Imperial, enveloped in sombre vestments, but, in the winter of her days, more beautiful than ever, if the supreme expression of beauty is that of the ideal. She evokes in our imagination the picture of Marie Stuart at Holyrood or on the banks of Lochleven. The look of melancholy, which has become a second nature, cannot efface the sweetness and charm which will be always hers. It is her tranquil and touching majesty which reveals the
Lord Kitchener. The Hon. Charlotte Knollys. The King of Denmark. King Edward. Queen Alexandra. The Empress. Princess Beatrice of Coburg.