The welcome co-operation of the Vicomte de La Chapelle--a popular figure in legal, City, and social circles--has enabled me to print a number of letters written by his aged father to the Emperor Napoleon. I have given an outline of the Comte de La Chapelle’s career, and I will not dwell upon it further here except to say that he was the trusted and valued collaborator of the august Exile from 1871 until the unexpected happened on January 9, 1873. But I must mention the invaluable services which he rendered to Napoleon III. at a time when His Majesty did not know where to turn for money. I noticed this question in my previous volume,[14] and in proof of the correctness of my assertions quoted a letter written by the great house of “Barings,” and published in the “Times,” denying the absurd statements that they had invested immense sums on the Emperor’s account. The accuracy of what I wrote in 1910 is now further confirmed by my valued friend the Comte de La Chapelle, whose letters to the Emperor on the subject of his financial embarrassment I am now privileged to make public. It was the Comte de La Chapelle who, by his influence, energy, and devotion to Napoleon III., succeeded in raising large sums for the personal use of the Emperor and to keep the Bonapartist cause going. The name of one of these generous helpers is very well known to me, and in the early seventies it was familiar to the commercial world generally. These letters form a most interesting chapter in the Emperor’s amazing career.
The Comtesse Edmond de Pourtalès, with the most charming and kindly grace, sent me, at my earnest request, a very rare photograph of herself, taken in the later period of the imperial reign. The Empress Eugénie will, I am confident, be gratified at seeing the portrait of this great lady--the most lovely of all the belles dames who surrounded Her Imperial Majesty in the years of her splendour, and one of the very few surviving intimate friends of the still radiant châtelaine of Farnborough Hill.
The proprietors of the well-known and deservedly popular Paris illustrated paper, “Femina,” have been exceedingly generous in this important matter of pictures. But for their good offices I could not have given the delightful and piquant portraits of the Empress Eugénie in various costumes, or the large picture of Her Imperial Majesty at La Malmaison, with portraits of M. Franceschini Pietri and Comte Joseph Primoli. Certain difficulties arose in the preparation of these historically valuable pictures, but these obstacles were overcome by the great goodwill and liberality of the proprietors of “Femina,” to whom I shall always be grateful for their kindness.