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members that when Queen Victoria attended the Opera in Paris during the Second Empire, it was noticed that she walked straight up to the front of the box and sat down, without looking round to see what her ladies were, or were not, doing whereas the Empress could not refrain from indicating to both sets of ladies the special chairs they were to sit upon. In later years this undue preoccupation with detail, this conviotion that things had, on the whole, a tendency to go wrong, probably grew on her. Courageous to a fault herself, she was full of terrors for others. If any of her party were motoring, no theory of an ordinary break-down, of a voluntarily extended programme, could prevent her asking every quarter of an hour if they had not yet come back? And though her luncheon visitors from London were invariably taken down to the station in her own car, nothing would persuade her that either they or her chauffeur were capable of calculating time and distance. Half an hour before it was needful she would begin to speed the parting guests, urging that they must not, out of politeness, miss their train; and finally, she would bundle them down to the station, where they were forced to tramp and tramp on the platformfor during war-time waiting. rooms were suppressed-till the train came in. One of the greatest joys of the last year of her life was the visit

VOL. CCVIII.—NO. MCCLXI.

paid to her by her great here, Field-Marshal Lord Haig-she herself having superintended the decoration of the front door with evergreens. But I am sure she will not have oredited her illustrious visitor with sufficient tactical and strategical skill to catch the 3.42 train at Farnborough.

It is perhaps more reasonable that she did not trust English trains to start without giving warning-though this dignified style of departure is practised at the great London termini rather than in the country. I remember once her accompanying me down to Farnborough station, whither I was going to catch a passing glimpse of Lady Ponsonby on her way to Osborne, and how the Empress endeavoured to embrace the traveller from the platform, standing, for safety, so far away from the carriage that my sister and I were privately considering how best to oatoh Lady Ponsonby in our arms when the inevitable disaster should take place. It was a most absurd and touching spectacle, one of them so overwhelmed, both of them so affectionate, and all four of us so frightened, but the scene ended happily.

Of course the Empress was an ardent suffragist. During the fight for the Vote I saw little of her; I think she took two of her long voyages in successive years. Being estentatiously law-abiding in her sentiments, she disapproved, theoretically, of militant methods. All the same, I can

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not but suspect that certain chords in her nature must have responded sympathetically to Militancy. People have said that women's services during the war would have won them the vote without violent methods: the answer to that is, that one could not base one's taotios on an event which none of our most sapient statesmen foresaw. This the Empress allowed, but none the less continued to say: "Moi, je suis contre la violence, Vous savez.' And meanwhile she expressed a strong desire to make the acquaintance of the Militant Leader!

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Never have I seen the Empress more utterly bowled over, if I may use the expression, than by Mrs Pankhurst. The gentle manner, the quiet authority, the immense radioal good sense that veils the violence of that fiery spirit, ... and, I must add, the daintiness and good taste of her clothes, captivated the Empress at first sight, and I was entreated to bring her to luncheon as often as possible. On labour questions she was the Empress's last Court of Appeal, and a dozen times she has said how fantastio it was that under our constitution no use could be made of so statesmanlike a brain. I said that Ministers would doubtless shrink in horror from the idea of anticompromise incarnate seated at the council board; whereupon she shrugged her shoulders and remarked that responsibility begets moderation only too rapidly, . . . "Eux mêmes mettent assez

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d'eau dans leur vin, il me semble!" she said.

I must add that her feelings of respect and admiration were fully reciprocated, and once or twice, when she emitted some view that I knew her visitor disagreed with, I was surprised that Mrs Pankhurst held her hand from ever so gentle a slaughter. "I couldn't dispute with her," she explained afterwards. "She is large-minded and generous enough in argument as it is." And, indeed, I never saw the Empress more utterly adorable with any one than she was with Mrs Pankhurst,

One of the most interesting conversations I ever had with her was last year, about the son of the great Napoleon, the Duo de Reichstadt. Antonia had been showing his deathmask, which is in the museum in the park, to some Spanish visitors, calling their attention to its resemblance with the present King of Spain; and I asked the Empress casually if she really thought the Duc de Reichstadt had been poisoned? This is one of the statements that Count d'Hérisson puts into her mouth in his abominable book 'Napoleon IV.,' and given her cult for the Hapsburgs, I thought it unlikely that she had ever said anything of the kind.

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The question elicited extraordinarily interesting reply, which I will epitomise.

Long ago, in the days of the Empire, the Empress had made the acquaintance of a certain Count Prokesch, then

a very old man, who had been in the Duo de Reichstadt's regiment. He was one of his olosest personal friends, and gave her many details respecting the Dac's life at the Court of the Emperor Francis. Marie Louise was then living in Italy with Count Neipperg, and her son was never allowed to visit her, but occasionally she came to Vienna and saw him there. His name, of course, was Napoleon, but that word was never uttered, and he was supposed not to know that he was the great Emperor's

son.

At this point I asked the Empress if she believed the concealment of such a fact was possible, recalling that a certain illegitimate child at a boarding-school I was at was supposed by our schoolmistress to be ignorant of what was delicately called her "misfortune," but, as a matter of fact, knew all about it. The Empress said she imagined it must have been thus with the Duo de Reichstadt, but Prokesch had told her that not a soul about that Court dared to mention the dreadful name of Napoleon even in a dream, so terrific was the ban placed upon it by Metternich. Strange to say, the young Duke was far more beloved and petted by his grandfather than all the rest of the Imperial children, and, as a concession to his passionate love of soldiering, the Emperor gave him one of his most famous mounted regiments of the Guard, and had it reehristened "The Duo de Reichstadt's Own" (or whatever is

the Austrian equivalent of such a title).

Then came a orisis in the life of the unfortunate Aiglon; he persuaded the Emperor to come and see the regiment manœuvre, after which he rode up to receive his congratulations, and for a while moved along with the Imperial Staff in a line parallel to that which the troops were taking. Turning his horse to resume his post at the head of the regiment, he found that a wide ditoh lay between them. was a very fine horseman.. "Comme l'a été mon petit garçon," said the Empress, with the sad, lingering infleotion her voice took whenever she mentioned the Prince Imperial, . . . and, setting his horse at the obstacle, he cleared it with such dash and grace that, moved to sudden admiration, the regiment shouted as one man—

"Vive Napoléon ! "

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This was almost a penal offence; the regiment was taken from him and bidden to resume its old name. . . . This by order of the all-powerful Minister, Metternich.

From that moment, Prokesch said, the falseness of the young Duke's position, the hopelessness of his fate, seemed suddenly to dawn upon him; it was as if some vital chord had snapped. a snapped. He languished, became a prey to settled melan. choly, and the seeds of tuberculosis, which had always been latent, developed so rapidly, that the world believed he had been poisoned.

Later on in that conversa

tion the Empress told me that, when at the Tuileries, she had seen a diary of Marie Louise that was evidently genuine, and from which one gathered that her nature was romantic and sentimental to the last degree. Moreover, she had been brought up to abjure any characteristics or preferences of her own, even more than are other princesses fashioned, in short, to fit in anywhere; and once she had seen Neipperg, she desired never to hear Napoleon's name mentioned. As for her supposed longing to join him at St Helena-a touching legend which was put about in defence of that least sympathetic of royal ladies, and, as we know, encouraged by the Prisoner of St Helena himself-never was anything farther from the truth!

Speaking of other legends such as posterity is apt to weave around certain crowned heads, the Empress once made me laugh about her own mother-in-law, La Reine Hortense. We outsiders have always imagined that the life of this deeply-tried Queen was a record of unbroken melancholy; but, according to the Empress, a gayer, more pleasure-loving nature never existed. The harps and willowtrees were embellishments added by sentimental commentators: "C'était de son époque," she remarked, "il fallait à ce temps-là que toutes les femmes fondissent en pleurs"; and I must add that the Empress had nothing but sympathy for people who, in spite of slings and arrows,

make the best of things, and get as much distraction out of life as possible.

She herself was one of the most fundamentally serious natures I have ever known, and I cannot imagine that she would ever have found relief from sorrow in what are called "les distractions." Fate drove her back, with blow after blow, upon her ultimate reserves, and fortunately these were many and reliable. Without wishing to appear appear unduly oynical, foremost among these I must place the possession of a very large private fortune. But what must have helped her as much as anything was her inexhaustible interest in life itself, whether abstract questions, history, polities, or the lives of others. She never seemed to me to think of herself at all, not to pity herself, not to consider herself in any way. She endured, . . . and went on. I have seen her in all sorts of situations and in various moods; in what I cannot describe as other than the highest spirits, . . . and in what, with equal sincerity, must be called a bad temper. But never once have I heard her utter a mean or ungenerous thought.

Be her weaknesses what they may-and I have never seen any of the slightest consequence-the extreme nobility of her nature, together with her flawless kindness, remain the master impressions. Her manners were perfect, because she was never thinking of herself, and was quick beyond belief to guess the feelings of

others. If she thought she had given, whether inadvertently or in the heat of argument, the very slightest pain, or even a passing wound to vanity, no trouble was too great for her to take in order to soothe that person's ruffled feelings. And if one had no other friend in the world to whom to turn in trouble, to her one could turn with confidence. All she did was done on grand lines-no hanging back, no half measures, not the faintest desire for commendation or applause, and very little expectation of gratitude. Her generosity in money matters was unbounded, her charities unlimited,1. . . but the world heard nothing of these things. Only the other day I was staggered to learn what immense sums she had given to hospitals in France, both French and Spanish, during the war; but the beneficiaries were sternly forbidden to publish the facts,

. which both my informant and I thought was a pity.

When the Germans invaded Belgium, the head of the Bonaparte family and his wife were bidden to consider Farnborough Hill their home, and there they, their children and their servants, lived till peace was signed. It was only natural; no one could desire that it should be otherwise. Yet I often wondered how many ladies of ninety would accommodate themselves so simply, naturally, and generously to a situation that

changed their habits, root and branch. The Empress spoke freely before those in whose discretion she had complete confidence; but in all those five years the only comment I heard escape her lips was a perpetual fear that her guests were bored to death, and a regret that it was out of her power, given war-time conditions, to do anything to alleviate that boredom.

And all this time a shadow worse than death hung over her, . . . for she was called upon to face the probability of total blindness. She had been one of the most assiduous readers I have known-not of novels, for which she had a contempt as unreasonable as it was adamantine, but of stiff books which most people would have thought twice about tackling. True, she was immensely fond of conversation and of company; but the relations and intimates she was accustomed to receive as guests, year after year, were now out of her reach. For one thing, Governments discouraged private travelling; for another, there was now no room for guests at Farnborough Hill. Even from such distraction as casual English visitors might have afforded her she found herself debarred, . . . for who had time or petrol for visiting in those days? It may be imagined, therefore, what it meant to her to be deprived of books, and unfortunately she could not bear to be read

1 The Empress left one million francs to charities in her Will.

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