The first of what came to be known as “the Compiègnes” dates from December 18, 1852, six weeks before the marriage, and the Comtesse de Montijo and her daughter were of the party. The Emperor of a fortnight had arrived at the château a few days previously amidst the roar of cannon; he had passed under triumphal arches and between rows of troops and the local firemen; his unmusical ears had been amused by the “tralalas” of the peasantry gathered from the countryside for miles around. With him came his cousins, Prince Jérôme Napoleon (not yet married to Princesse Clotilde, one of the survivors of to-day) and Princesse Mathilde (who had been long separated from her impossible husband, Prince Anatole Demidoff), Ambassadors and Imperial Ministers, and, of course, many ladies--Mme. Drouyn de Lhuys, Mme. de Persigny, and Mme. de Contades, to mention a few.
[Illustration: THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE IN SPANISH COSTUME.
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE IN CIRCASSIAN COSTUME.
Her Imperial Majesty represented these characters at costume balls given at the Palace of the Tuileries. The illustrations are from private photographs, and are reproduced by permission of the proprietors of _Femina_, the popular illustrated Paris paper, in which they originally appeared.
The Emperor knew what was expected of him. He had not been four years President without learning the métier. The festivities began with a ball on the 18th; on the 20th there was a great “meet,” attended by two hundred ladies, all mounted, and in Louis XV. costume--“casaque à basques” and “chapeau mousquetaire.” Of course, “the Montijos” were among the “dames chasseresses,” and provoked criticism as well as admiration at the “meet” at the carrefour Bourbon and in the evening at the curée, by torchlight, in the court of the château. At this stag-hunt the first of the “boutons” made their appearance; these were favoured persons allowed by the Sovereign to wear the green uniform and three-cornered hat, which, to unæsthetic British “pursuers,” smacked of the theatrical, just as scarlet coats may have seemed to Frenchmen who were occasionally seen in our shires.
The two “foreign ladies”--Mme. and Mlle. de Montijo--were ardent sportswomen. They rode boldly in the stag-hunts, and they appeared at the “shoots” with guns--delicately-made weapons--“jolis joujoux,” M. Bouchot calls them. They tramped through the coverts alongside the Emperor; no other ladies shared this privilege. This alone was enough to set envious tongues wagging. Nobody admitted the possibility of what actually happened; nobody believed in an “engagement”; but many believed in “adventures” which never occurred. In reality there was played in the alleys and coverts of Compiègne a final act of diplomacy, in which Spain wasted less powder and shot than the spectators imagined.