From the outset the Empress displayed no little fickleness, now lavishing attentions upon those who pleased her, then suddenly dismissing them with a word or a gesture, and henceforth ignoring them. She appeared to act upon uncontrollable impulses, the most glaring temperamental defect in her otherwise generous nature. It was one of the “defects of her qualities,” calling less for censure than for record in an impartial narrative. With all this, however, the Empress was loyal and susceptible of great devotion to her friends, and one sought without finding anything approaching egotism or vaingloriousness in her many inconsistencies. When she gave her hand to a woman or a man she was perfectly sincere, and when she sealed a friendship, or an attachment, with some signal mark of her approbation, she did so in all good faith and in all honour. The Emperor deplored, and with reason, the waywardness displayed by his consort in the choice of her friends, and had often to allay the bitter enmities and discontent which she heedlessly, and perhaps unconsciously, aroused.
The cynical saying of François I., “Souvent femme varie,” might have been applied to the Empress, who was as fickle in her sensations as in her sentiments. She was a Spaniard, and to that fact may be attributed her somewhat eccentric manner. Her character was truly remarkable; she took all sorts of fancies into her head: was very romantic even while remaining practical, prosaic, and mistress of herself. In her romantic disposition the Empress, strange to say, found a certain strength, as letters written by her in the first year of her marriage confirm. One of these epistles may be cited in proof of this view of her character.
The Empress, much pressed by Mme. de M., one of the leading members of the Legitimist party, to obtain for her husband a diplomatic post, did not rest until she had gratified the applicant’s wishes. It should not be forgotten that the Emperor always cherished the idea of rallying to his dynasty the notabilities of the Faubourg St. Germain, and showed every courtesy to those Legitimists who attended the Court of the Tuileries. It is doubtful if the Empress seconded his efforts in this direction, but in the matter alluded to she certainly laid herself out to do a kindly action.