II. THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF NAPOLEON III. 7
XI. THE FOREIGN LEGION; AND SOME GREAT LADIES 137
XV. “THESE THINGS ARE LITTLE; BUT, THEN, THEY’RE ALL” 240
XVI. THE EMPEROR AND THE COMTESSE DE MERCY-ARGENTEAU 245
XXI. FINANCING THE EMPEROR AND “THE CAUSE” 308
XXII. THE MAN WHO GAVE THE WARNING--M. PIETRI’S LETTRES RÉVÉLATRICES 21
XXIII. PRINCE NAPOLEON--THE EMPRESS IN 1910-11 339
THE PRINCE IMPERIAL (THE POET LAUREATE’S SONNET) 400
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE ON BOARD THE ROYAL YACHT, AUGUST, 1902, AT THE REVIEW OF THE FLEET BY KING EDWARD 64
GUESTS OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH IN THE “GREAT YEAR,” 1867 72
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE IN SPANISH COSTUME 128
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE IN CIRCASSIAN COSTUME 128
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE AS AN ODALISQUE (TURKISH DANCING-GIRL) 136
THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE AS MARIE ANTOINETTE 136
MISS JOSEPHINE CARTER (SISTER OF MRS. RONALDS) 176
H.I.M. THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE IN THE EMPRESS JOSÉPHINE’S BEDROOM AT LA MALMAISON IN 1910 368
H.R.H. PRINCESS GEORGE OF GREECE (_née_ PRINCESSE MARIE BONAPARTE, ONLY DAUGHTER OF H.H. PRINCE ROLAND BONAPARTE) 376
THE LATE MARQUISE DE VILLENEUVE (_née_ PRINCESSE JEANNE BONAPARTE, ONLY SISTER OF PRINCE ROLAND, AND AUNT OF H.R.H. PRINCESS GEORGE OF GREECE) 384
_It is August, 1840, and from the balcony of the Delesserts’ house a fair-complexioned, golden-haired girl of fourteen looks down on a man escorted by two gendarmes. Dishevelled, unkempt, in his shirtsleeves, the prisoner, who has been fished out of the salt water, passes out of sight, unaware of the child’s wistful looks and the sympathetic glances of her sister and their mother. Perchance he sees Goldenhair wave her handkerchief._
_Mme. Delessert’s husband is Préfet of Paris. The ladies on the balcony are the Comtesse de Montijo and her daughters. The man in custody is Prince Louis Napoleon, the derided, but unabashed, hero of the Boulogne “attempt”; and he is two-and-thirty._
The daughters of the Comte and Comtesse de Montijo made their acquaintance with Paris when they were not more than four or five. It was about 1830 or 1831 when the family went to reside there for a while. Prosper Mérimée, whose name can no more be kept out of the history of the Empress than could Mr. Dick suppress the mention of King Charles’s head, was there, and his friend of the British Museum, Dr. Panizzi, was kept informed of the strolls on the boulevards of the little Eugénie, and of her liking, not only for the author of the story of “Carmen,” which Bizet was later to set to music, but for the sweets given to her by Mérimée.