The story of Napoleon III Emperor of France from 1852 to 1870 is well told through the life story of Eugenie, his Empress, whom he married for love, rather than political connections. Although their 20 year reign included many triumphs, it ended disastrously as a result the Franco-Prussian War. Eugenie outlived her husband by nearly 50 years and saw France through a difficult and tumultuous half-century. Show All     Download:     PDF       EPUB

EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH.

Translator's Preface

In a recent interview at her villa in the Riviera, the ex-Empress Eugenie is reported to have said: "I have lived; I have been; I do not ask more. I ask not to be remembered. Between my past and my present there exists not half a century, but ten centuries. Men have changed, times have changed. It is a dream that is dissipated."

It is a fascinating story, as told in these pages, the career of this granddaughter of a Scotch wine-merchant, who by the power of her personal charm, the incentive of her ambition, and the boldness of her resolution, achieved her purpose, though stigmatized an upstart and adventuress, and eventually driven from the throne and doomed to spend her remaining days brooding over the loss of her power and her beauty; over France's crushing defeat in what the short-sighted Empress lightly termed "my war"; over her folly in urging Napoleon into the war; sorrowing over his death, and chiefly, lamenting the death of her son at the hands of Zulu savages in that far-away land whither she had urged him to go. Hers is an adventurous, a romantic, in every way an extraordinary, life-story. It shows what one of determined will and fixed purpose may do.

But was it worth the doing? In these days, looking back over her career, all she can say is: "I am the past. I am the distant horizon where exists a mirage, a shadow, a phantom, a living sorrow. I am an old woman, poor in everything that makes a woman rich. My husband, my son—that brave boy—they are gone. My eyes no longer turn to the future. I live only in my youth. There is nothing for me but to wait. My dreary winter is nearly over."

Poor Eugenie! That she still clings to the hope of seeing a descendant of Napoleon on the throne of France is evidenced by a letter to an old soldier who recently appealed to her for help, in which she says: "As her majesty admits that every old soldier of the empire has remained faithful to the sacred cause, to the imperial eagles, it is necessary so that her majesty may be assured of a devotion of which she—or rather the legitimate heir to the throne—will perhaps have need sooner than one thinks, that she receives from you a letter in which she will find the expression of your unshakable devotion to the memory of Napoleon III and to the Imperial cause, as well as the expression of your mistrust of the present regime."

G. P. U.

CHICAGO, July, 1910.

Appendix

The following is a chronological statement of the principal events during the career of Empress Eugenie and Louis Napoleon:

1808	Birth of Louis Napoleon.
1826	Birth of Eugenie.
1815-30	Napoleon in exile.
1831	Revolt against the Pope.
1840	Descent upon France and Capture.
1848	Member of the National Assembly.
1851	Coup d'Etat.
1852	Elected Emperor.
1853	Marriage of Eugenie and Napoleon.
1854—56	Crimean War.
1856	Birth of the Prince Imperial.
1859	War with Austria.
1862	Interference with Mexico.
1870	War with Germany.
1870—71	Capture and Imprisonment.
1873	Death of Napoleon.
1879	Prince Imperial killed in Africa.