She was tireless in her quest for novelty. With each change of season, quantities of models and materials were brought to her to choose from, and numberless conferences were held with Madame Virot, the court milliner, as well as Worth, the famous ladies’ tailor, whose reputation she founded. He would often send her costumes costing one or two hundred thousand francs, and once he made her pay as much as fifty thousand francs for a simple cloak. Even these works of art met with no mercy in their original form, but were always remodelled and altered according to her orders, until her own carefully cultivated taste produced the desired effect of perfect harmony. All the artistic talent she possessed was devoted to the study of dress, and under her sway fashion rose into the realm of art. Inseparable from the image of the beautiful Spaniard is the energy with which for eighteen long years she wielded its sceptre. Her greatest interest in life, it constituted at once her strength and her weakness—weakness because from it sprang the charge of folly and extravagance justly made by France against its former sovereign; strength, because of the art with which it enabled her to hold her place on the pedestal to which she had been elevated, and gave her the power to dazzle and fascinate not only the masses but also her equals and contemporaries.
As yet there had been no sign of change in Eugénie’s fortunes. The sun of empire was still apparently at its zenith. France deemed herself invincible. The throne seemed secured to the present dynasty for all time. The Emperor’s policy had received some severe blows, however, and disquieting rumors floated over from the ill-fated Empire he had founded in Mexico.
Maximilian and Carlotta had often visited the Tuileries in their younger days, and it was only by Napoleon’s urgent persuasion and promise of support until his throne should be firmly established that the Austrian Archduke consented to accept the fatal crown. Mindful of this promise, in his hour of need Maximilian sent his wife to Europe to seek Napoleon’s aid. She arrived in Paris at night, and without pausing a moment to rest after the long wearisome sea voyage she hastened to St. Cloud, her disordered dress and distracted appearance betraying her terrible agitation. She had brought over the letters Napoleon had written to her husband, promising his support. Handing these to the Emperor, she flung herself at his feet imploring him to keep his word. But all in vain. Even had he wished, he could have done nothing; and sobbing aloud, half senseless with despair, Carlotta is said to have left St. Cloud with a curse on her lips, crying: “Louis Philippe’s granddaughter should never have trusted her fate to a Bonaparte!”