This highly-born and highly-educated woman was, in the opinion of many, the evil genius of the imperial Court, while her husband took no pains to conceal the fact that he “adored” the Empress. A merry lady was Pauline de Metternich in those days, as this story will show. It was at Fontainebleau, and the pretty butterflies of the Court were dying of ennui, when Mme. de Metternich proposed that they should go for a walk in the neighbourhood with shortened skirts. The suggestion found general favour, with the Empress as well as with the ladies by whom she was surrounded. While the majority were arraying themselves in abbreviated drapery, it occurred to one of the suite that the spectacle of the Empress of the French rambling along the country roads in a frock barely covering her knees would be a rather pitiful one, and she ventured to remonstrate with Mme. de Metternich for proposing it.
The “fashionable monkey” was, as may be supposed, equal to the occasion, and, with much naïveté, replied: “What harm can there possibly be in the Empress dressing as we do, and going for a walk with us?”
“There may not be much harm in it, perhaps,” observed the remonstrating lady; “but it strikes me that it is unsuitable for a Sovereign. _We_ might venture out in short skirts, but not the Empress--decidedly not.” She added: “And, besides, my dear Pauline, pray tell me this: Would you advise your own Sovereign, at Vienna, to dress herself up in such a style?”
“Oh,” was Mme. de Metternich’s answer, “that would be quite a different matter. I certainly should not advise the Empress Elisabeth to go out in short skirts; but you must remember that _my_ Empress is a real Princess, a _real_ Empress, while yours, ma chère, is Mlle. de Montijo!”
Some probably regarded this as clever; others may have deemed it impertinent, if not impudent, and doubtless among these latter was included the Empress Elisabeth, who often manifested her friendly feeling for her sister-Sovereign. Let us, however, be perfectly just and fair to the Austrian Ambassadress. She was admittedly more than a little méchante; but it should not be forgotten that she induced some of the most brilliant and beautiful women of the time to attend the Empress’s Court, and that but for her the Palace might never have seen within its walls such grandes dames as the Princesse de Sagan, the Comtesse de Pourtalès, the Comtesse de Beaumont, Mme. de Canisy, e tutti quanti. If she was as “ugly as a monkey,” she was at least, “spirituelle comme un démon et bonne comme un ange,” the most radiant star of the constellation of pretty women which graced the Tuileries.