Of these, Prince Napoleon was the most bitter. Quite as firmly as Napoleon the Third believed it his mission to be sovereign of France, did this Prince feel himself destined to the throne; but while the former supported his ideas with Napoleonic tactics, the latter based his claims chiefly on a remarkable likeness to the first Emperor. Louis Napoleon had worked hard to attain his goal. His cousin contented himself with spending hours before his mirror, arranging the Napoleonic lock of hair upon his forehead—a sign that he should one day wear the crown of France. As long as the Emperor was without issue he regarded himself as certainly the heir. The birth of the Prince Imperial therefore was a bitter blow to him; and when the law was passed giving Eugénie the power of Regent, his rage and chagrin knew no bounds. He had never been able to endure the Spaniard, but had hidden his dislike at first under a mask of cold politeness. Now that he no longer had any reason for concealing his true feelings, he gave full vent to his malice, annoying the Empress constantly by petty personal attacks, and circulating the most shameful reports concerning her private life.
Eugénie returned the Prince’s hatred with all her heart. His dissolute life, evil tongue, and above all, the cowardice he had shown on more than one glaring occasion, made him detestable to her. She retaliated by exposing this side of his character on every possible occasion, thus provoking him constantly to fresh attacks. The relation between them was not improved by the Prince’s marriage in January, 1859, to Clothilde of Savoy, the lovely young Princess to whom the people of Paris gave the name of St. Clothilde. He knew that his marriage to a royal princess would enrage the Empress. While Clothilde had yielded to her father’s wishes in the matter, personally she felt nothing but aversion for the cynical, dissolute free-thinker, for many years the avowed lover of the actress Rachel; nor was he a person likely to capture the fancy of Victor Emanuel’s innocent young daughter.
At court, as in her own household, Clothilde stood well-nigh alone, therefore. She excited the jealousy rather than the sympathy of Eugénie—while in her own heart the Princess of royal birth felt little but contempt for the adventurous Empress. She absented herself from court as much as possible and gathered about her a little circle of her own, those aristocrats who had scorned to pay homage to the Countess Montijo. Yet whenever obliged to appear at the Imperial Court, she fulfilled all the requirements of her position with charming dignity. Once when Eugénie, who found court etiquette most tiresome and fatiguing, asked if it did not weary her, she replied innocently, unconscious of the sting that lay within the words, “Certainly not! I have been accustomed to it all my life.”