EUGÉNIE

Life Stories for Young People

EUGÉNIE
EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH

Translated from the German of
Erich Holm

BY
GEORGE P. UPTON
Author of “Musical Memories,” “Standard Operas,” etc.
Translator of “Memories,” “Immensee,” etc.

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910

Copyright
A. C. McCLURG & Co.
1910
Published September 24, 1910

THE · PLIMPTON · PRESS
[W · D · O]
NORWOOD · MASS · U · S · A

Preface

In a recent interview at her villa in the Riviera,the ex-Empress Eugénie is reported to havesaid: “I have lived; I have been; I do not askmore. I ask not to be remembered. Between mypast and my present there exists not half a century,but ten centuries. Men have changed, times havechanged. It is a dream that is dissipated.” It isa fascinating story, as told in these pages, the careerof this granddaughter of a Scotch wine-merchant,who by the power of her personal charm, the incentiveof her ambition, and the boldness of her resolution,achieved her purpose, though stigmatized anupstart and adventuress, and eventually drivenfrom the throne and doomed to spend her remainingdays brooding over the loss of her power andher beauty; over France’s crushing defeat in whatthe short-sighted Empress lightly termed “my war”;over her folly in urging Napoleon into the war;sorrowing over his death, and chiefly, lamenting thedeath of her son at the hands of Zulu savages inthat far-away land whither she had urged him togo. Hers is an adventurous, a romantic, in everyway an extraordinary, life-story. It shows what oneof determined will and fixed purpose may do. Butwas it worth the doing? In these days, lookingback over her career, all she can say is: “I am thepast. I am the distant horizon where exists a mirage,a shadow, a phantom, a living sorrow. I am an oldwoman, poor in everything that makes a womanrich. My husband, my son—that brave boy—theyare gone. My eyes no longer turn to the future.I live only in my youth. There is nothing for mebut to wait. My dreary winter is nearly over.”Poor Eugénie! That she still clings to the hope ofseeing a descendant of Napoleon on the throne ofFrance is evidenced by a letter to an old soldier whorecently appealed to her for help, in which she says:“As her majesty admits that every old soldier ofthe empire has remained faithful to the sacred cause,to the imperial eagles, it is necessary so that hermajesty may be assured of a devotion of which she—orrather the legitimate heir to the throne—willperhaps have need sooner than one thinks, that shereceives from you a letter in which she will find theexpression of your unshakable devotion to thememory of Napoleon III and to the Imperial cause,as well as the expression of your mistrust of thepresent regime.”

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