Thus did Napoleon III. reverse the policy of his uncle, who divorced and abandoned a woman who was loved to espouse a daughter of the Cæsars; the former renounced the possibility of a royal marriage in order to wed a woman whom he loved. The Court of the Tuileries was greatly divided on the subject of the Emperor’s marriage. King Jérôme, Drouyn de Lhuys (Minister of Foreign Affairs), and Persigny (Minister of the Interior) were, with others, in favour of a dynastic alliance; Morny, Fould, and the military party (nicknamed “the clan of the amoureux”), at the head of whom were Edgar Ney, Toulongeon, etc., were for the marriage with the fair daughter of the Montijos. The Emperor had, however, made up his mind, and, despite his hesitating, uncertain character, which presently accentuated itself still more, he resisted all the pressure put upon him by his family. In vain did Princesse Mathilde throw herself, theatrically, at his feet, beseeching him to abandon a marriage which could only lower his prestige; Cæsar was immovable. Drouyn de Lhuys felt so strongly about the marriage that he asked the Emperor’s permission to resign his portfolio; but he must have changed his mind when he went to do homage to Mlle. de Montijo. “I congratulate you,” she said; “I thank you for the advice which you have given to the Emperor relative to his marriage. Your advice was similar to mine.”
“The Emperor has betrayed me, then,” said the Minister.
“No; it is not betraying you to render homage to your sincerity, and to tell me the opinion of a devoted servant--one who has expressed my own sentiments. Like you, I have represented to the Emperor that he ought to consider the interests of his throne; but I have not had to be his judge, and to decide whether he is right or wrong.”
De Morny told one of his colleagues that the Emperor, having once got an idea into his head, could not be disabused of it. More than one of his courtiers said: “He is mad, and this marriage is an act of the grossest stupidity.”
If the Emperor believed in his star, so did Mlle. de Montijo place an implicit reliance upon hers. A gipsy fortune-teller once told her that she would be a Queen. She might have made a good--nay, a splendid--marriage long before she set her cap at the Emperor. The Duc d’Ossuna was madly in love with her, and wished to make her his Duchess. The Duc de Sesto proposed to her, but she declared she would only marry a Frenchman.