“There is a great friendship sprung up between us.” 1
—QUEEN VICTORIA, FOLLOWING NAPOLÉON III’S VISIT TO WINDSOR, APRIL 1855
“Her journey here will remain one of the greatest events of our times.” 2
—ON QUEEN VICTORIA’S VISIT TO PARIS, AUGUST 1855
They had been at war with each other and reluctant neighbors off and on for eight centuries, ever since the Norman king of France, William the Bastard, had invaded and defeated the English at the battle of Hastings in 1066. In October 1854, still living in the shadow of this cautious historical heritage, England’s pretty young diminutive queen of German blood, Victoria, sent her German consort, Prince Albert, to Boulogne to meet another historical curiosity, the recently proclaimed emperor of the French, Napoléon III. England, the greatest unchallenged sea power in the world, was about to meet the most powerful country on the continent of Europe. To the surprise of the ever wary Louis Napoléon and the notoriously persnickety Albert, the two men got on very well.
On the sixteenth of April of 1855, the two nervous neighbors met for a state visit when the forty-six-year-old Louis Napoléon Bonaparte and his young empress, Eugénie, were cordially received at the Norman castle of Windsor. To the enormous relief of all parties, that visit had passed off without a hitch, both sovereign couples finding their counterparts sympathique. “I cannot say what indescribable emotions filled me—how much [it] all seems like a wonderful dream,” Victoria confided to her diary. “He [Louis Napoléon] is so very quiet; his voice is low and soft. Nothing can be more civil or amiable, or more well-bred than the Emperor’s manner—so full of tact.” And she agreed fully with Albert that “it is certainly impossible not to like when you live with him, and not even to a considerable extent to admire.” She found him to be “capable of kindness, affection, friendship, and gratitude.”3
Victoria was delighted with Eugénie as well. “Her manner is the most perfect thing I have ever seen,” she was so “gentle and graceful, and kind … so charming and modest.” If Eugénie’s strongly accented English was limited, it did not detract from her character, Victoria noting her to be “full of courage and spirit” accompanied by “such innocence and yet enjouement,” and unexpected “liveliness.” And this was just the beginning of what was to become a close, lifelong friendship between the English queen and the Spanish-born empress, a friendship shared later in decades of widowhood.4
After having been invested with the Order of the Garter, Louis Napoléon had sworn fidelity to the English queen and to the friendship of the two great nations. “These words are valuable [coming] from a man like him, who is not profuse in phrases, and who is very steady of purpose,” Victoria noted in her diary. This resolution she found fully confirmed when he addressed the Lord Mayor of London and a distinguished gathering in Guild Hall. “As for myself, I have retained on the throne those sentiments of sympathy and esteem for the English people which I professed in exile, when I enjoyed here the hospitality of the Sovereign.” These sentiments, he emphasized, extended to the political relations of the two countries. “Indeed, England and France are naturally agreed on the great political and humanitarian questions which are stirring the world … from the Baltic to the Black Sea.” The two nations “are even stronger through the ideas which they represent, than by the battalions and ships … at their command.” As for the situation in the Crimea, “my presence among you today attests to my energetic cooperation in the prosecution of the war” and in securing “an honourable peace.”5 Queen Victoria, the Lord Mayor, Foreign Secretary Lord Clarendon, and French ambassador Walewski could not have been more pleased, and this was echoed by the strong applause of the audience. The two countries shared the same values and the same goals, their intention to see the war through to a successful conclusion together. This would put an end to any rumors of the French signing an early separate peace.
In the meantime the German-speaking Georges Haussmann, who, at Louis Napoléon’s personal request, had accompanied them to England, had made arrangements with the palace and the foreign secretary for a return visit of the queen and her consort to France that August. On the twenty-second of April, Prince Albert escorted their French guests on the royal train to Dover, from where Louis Napoléon and Eugénie sailed for France. The state visit had clearly surpassed all expectations: “I am glad to have known this extraordinary man,”6 Victoria said afterward.
But never very far from the queen’s emotional feelings regarding this new alliance were her more practical down-to-earth political assessments. “He will see,” she commented on her “Brother,” as she now addressed Louis Napoléon in their correspondence, “that he can rely upon our friendship and honesty towards him and his country, so long as he remains faithful to us. Naturally frank, he will see the advantage to be derived from continuing so … if I be not very much mistaken in his character.”7 At the same time Victoria was greatly relieved that between herself and her usual bête-noire, Lord Palmerston, they, with the help of Prince Albert and Eugénie, had finally been able to dissuade a wavering Louis Napoléon from going to take personal command in the Crimea. The thought of his directing a full-scale military campaign frightened the French as much as it did the English. “Strike quickly, and Sebastopol will be ours before May 1,” he had argued with Palmerston; it of course did not fall until September. After Louis Napoléon’s celebrated earlier exploits at Strasbourg and Boulogne, no one took either his military assessments or his abilities seriously, least of all the English.8
* * *
On the twenty-eighth of April, six days after their return from England, Louis Napoléon was riding along the Champs-Élysées with an equerry en route to join Eugénie’s carriage in the Bois de Boulogne when an Italian “patriot” by the name of Giovanni Pianori suddenly lurched out at him and fired two shots, narrowly missing him. As usual, the unflappable Louis Napoléon shrugged it off as yet another attempt on his life. Two years earlier, on July 5, 1853, the situation had been far more harrowing when Prefect of Police Piétri had discovered a plot by fifteen terrorists lying in wait for the emperor and Eugénie at the Opéra Comique, and even more serious threats lay in the future. Nevertheless, the emperor adamantly rejected heavy security escorts for himself, except when attending the theater or an important public function with the empress, when he accepted a full military escort and even an armored carriage.
* * *
And now on August 18, 1855, the newly launched 2,470-ton, 360-foot royal steam yacht Victoria and Albert, making its maiden voyage from the Isle of Wight accompanied by a royal naval squadron of warships, was about to enter Boulogne, this harbor excavated by hand on Napoléon I’s orders fifty years earlier in preparation for his invasion of England. Lord Palmerston for one had strongly encouraged these current arrangements in 1855, even as the siege of Sebastopol was continuing. Never quite trusting the French completely (any more than they did the English), the elderly and still impressive Lord Palmerston nevertheless felt this diplomatic bridge over the channel reinforcing their alliance was fundamental to lasting good relations between the two countries. He had personally known a much younger Louis Napoléon as a neighbor in London since the late 1830s. If their relationship had never been close or warm—both men were capable of considerable political reserve—it had been cautiously, modestly successful. He had taken the risk of having been the first to congratulate Louis Napoléon as head of state following his successful coup d’état, without the approval of either the prime minister or the queen, for which he had been dismissed from the foreign office. After the upheavals of 1848, he had felt that Louis Napoléon was the best solution for France and ensuring European peace and made it an integral part of his foreign policy.
Louis Napoléon, for his part, never forgot that loyal act and the price it had cost the foreign secretary. After the French imperial couple’s warm reception at Windsor by Victoria and Albert, Palmerston strongly felt this new wartime alliance in the Crimea could work. As for Louis Napoléon, this very alliance avenged some of the bitter memories of a defeated post-Napoleonic France at the Congress of Vienna back in 1815. The arrival of this magnificent yacht—larger even than Admiral Lord Nelson’s glorious HMS Victory—flying the tricolor, the Union Jack, the royal standard, and the royal ensign, dramatically symbolized the immensity of this fundamental historical sea change. England needed a strong, reliable ally on the Continent as much as France needed a friendly neighbor on the other side of the English Channel. What was most curious, if seemingly incidental, was the role of the German language, and Louis Napoléon, like Prince Albert, spoke English with a German accent.
* * *
Just before two o’clock on Saturday, August 18, 1855, a battery of guns roared out from the heights of Boulogne the traditional twenty-one-gun salute, as Captain Smithen brought the royal yacht alongside the quay, with most of her 240-man uniformed naval crew standing smartly at attention on deck. Of those present Louis Napoléon alone was aware that this was the very quay where his hired yacht had been seized along with its arms following his failed coup here back in August 1840.
“On the right jetty, along the lower stage near the water, was an unbroken line of infantry.… the whole port was gay with streamers, flags and garlands.… [Attended by] an immense multitude.… Her Majesty then appeared at the ship’s side.… a stage [gangway] was thrown on board and the emperor quickly ran up the platform, and after respectfully kissing Her Majesty’s hand, saluted her upon both cheeks,” the Times reporter described. “The Emperor then cordially shook hands with Prince Albert, the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales.” As the emperor stepped across, “I met him halfway and embraced him twice,” Queen Victoria recounted in her diary, “after which he led me on shore amidst acclamations, salutes, and every sound of joy and respect. The road was kept [open] by French infantry, whose drums and bugles made military music as the royal cavalcade slowly proceeded through the dense crowds to the port’s railway station.…” Before them on a seventy-five-foot ceremonial arch decorated with flowers and flags hung a scroll bearing in large gold letters, “WELCOME TO FRANCE.” “This event, fraught with so much interest to the destinies of Europe, has this day set the seal to an alliance consecrated by the blood already shed [in the Crimea],” the London newspaper appended.9
The queen of England was cordially welcomed by the French emperor, Lord Cowley, and the mayor and prefect of Boulogne, as Marshal Baraguay d’Hilliers’s troops maintained order among a crowd of 40,000 sightseers and well-wishers, and the military band struck up “God Save the Queen.” Following an embarrassingly lavish reception, the coal-fired imperial train left for Paris via Montreuil, Amiens, and Abbeville, where further receptions were laid on, complete with speeches, flowers, and bands.
“The Queen finally arrived at Paris this evening at half-past 7 o’clock,” The Times reporter continued, as the imperial guards’ band played “God Save the Queen” for the fourth time since reaching France.
The Gare du Nord being still under construction, they were rerouted to the Gare de Strasbourg (Gare de l’Est), where they were greeted by the band of the Imperial Guard playing “God Save the Queen” yet again. “The crowds along the new Boulevard de Strasbourg were greatly excited … myriads of foreigners from all over the world were mixing with the population of Paris, and spilling into the surrounding streets,” the official Moniteur Universel reported.10
“The Emperor in full [military] uniform … gave his hand to the Queen as she alighted,” followed by Prince Albert and their teenage children, Edward, the Prince of Wales, and Princess Victoria, the future wife of King Frederick of Prussia and later empress in her own right. Beneath a cloudless sunny sky, “General Lowenstein presented a bouquet en behalf of the 9th Battalion of the National Guard,” as enthusiastic “Vive la reine d’Angleterre!” “Vive l’Empereur!” and “Vive the Prince Albert!” filled the air. The queen and Louis Napoléon, Prince Albert, and the Princess Royal entered the first carriage, drawn by four horses, followed by the Prince of Wales and Lord Clarendon, as the cortège took them to the heart of the city, avoiding the areas encumbered by the massive construction works in progress.
In fact, given the traditional animosity of the French to “Perfidious Albion” and fearful of the worst, Louis Napoléon had ordered the most extensive security operation in the history of the French capital, involving hundreds of plainclothes secret police and some 100,000 troops. Infantry and national guardsmen closely lined every foot of both sides of the entire route. “Her Majesty was greeted all along the route by the enthusiastic cheers of the population,” which the Prefect Piétri put at 800,000. At eight forty-five that evening, the cortège finally arrived at St. Cloud, the event announced by salvos of artillery. “In all this blaze of light from lamps and torches, amidst the roar of cannon, and bands, and drums, and cheers, we reached the Palace,” Victoria wrote.11
The thirty-six-year-old English queen was, as she frankly confessed, quite unprepared for the elaborate preparations made on her behalf, far surpassing anything she had laid on for Louis Napoléon during his earlier visit that April. After alighting, Victoria took Louis Napoléon’s arm as they entered the palace. “The Empress [Eugénie], Princess Mathilde and the ladies, received us at the door,” she noted, “and took us up a beautiful staircase, lined with the splendid Cent-Gardes, who are magnificent men, very like our Life Guards.” She found her own apartments “charming … I felt quite bewildered [by the luxurious accommodations] but enchanted,” for everything was “so beautiful.”12 At nine-thirty that first evening at St. Cloud, “their Majesties entered the Gallery of Diana for dinner”; but they retired at eleven p.m. to their spacious state apartments. Even for the indefatigable English queen, who had left Osborne on the Isle of Wight at four-thirty that morning, it had been a very long day indeed.13
* * *
An intimidatingly exhausting schedule of events had been arranged for this eight-day state visit. On Sunday, Louis Napoléon permitted his guests time in which to recuperate, however, beginning with religious services in the morning and a leisurely tour of the grounds in the afternoon in his phaeton. “The Emperor drove us about in the charming cool avenues of the park, of this most enjoyable, delightful palace of St. Cloud. There are a good many roe-deer running wild … and [he] says there is good pheasant-shooting. While we were driving I talked to the Emperor of Prince Napoleon [Plon-Plon] who had scowled when meeting us at the railway station the previous day and of my fear that he was bien méchant [really most unpleasant].” Louis Napoléon acknowledged that his cousin “had the unhappy talent of saying everything that was most disagreeable, and offended everyone.”14
The next day, the official party set out for the International Exhibition’s Palais des Beaux-Arts, where they were received by that same “most unpleasant” Plon-Plon, this event’s president, and the more gracious Auguste de Morny, the president of the jury judging the hundreds of international works of art entered for this event, including those of artists present today, including Ingres, Delacroix, and Horace Vernet. Louis Napoléon had prepared every step of their visit with an idea to personal detail that would please his guests, and for Prince Albert he had also arranged for a special display of German paintings. It was Horace Vernet’s works on Algeria that seemed to draw special attention, however, including his “Razzia,” and the “Battle of Isly.” And “Arab chiefs”—“Algerian visitors, in white or red bournous, were conspicuously included as guests here.” As for the visiting queen, Louis Napoléon had a special surprise in mind: “A beautifully executed bust of Her Majesty stood on a pedestal in the center of the reception room.”
Queen Victoria was wearing a white bonnet and gown while both the emperor and Prince Albert were dressed in “plain clothes,” suits, as their open carriages, each drawn by four horses, “escorted by the Cuirassiers of the Imperial Guard,” took them next to the Ile de la Cité to visit the newly restored Sainte-Chapelle, the Palais de Justice—Louis Napoléon pointing out his former cell in the austere towering Conciergerie—and Notre Dame Cathedral. At five-thirty the exhausted tourists returned to St. Cloud. After restoring themselves and dining, the royal couple was whisked off to the opera. The redoubtable Queen Victoria showed no signs of slowing down, despite the oppressive heat and unrelenting schedule.
Over the following days under a sweltering August sun, the royal parties visited the long gallery of the Exposition Universelle, including Léon Foucault’s mysterious new pendulum registering the effect of the earth’s rotation, and French farming equipment, both of which fascinated Prince Albert. Throughout the summer of 1855 this vast exhibition, inspired by the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, displaying the products of most European countries, attracted ultimately five million visitors, the wealthiest putting up at Pereire’s luxurious new Grand Hotel du Louvre and sipping champagne, while the remorseless war in the Crimea and Baltic continued, forgotten by most.
A picnic in the St.-Germain Woods and a hunt followed, while Victoria stopped to sketch. Then on to Versailles to tour the State Apartments of Louis XIV, and the vast formal gardens, fountains, and pools, completing the day’s tour in the gardens behind the Petit Trianon, which captivated Queen Victoria today as much as it had the unfortunate and even younger Marie Antoinette. Another day Louis Napoléon discreetly took Queen Victoria and her daughter, incognito—“in bonnets and veils” in an unmarked carriage—on a separate tour of the monuments of Paris. Baron Haussmann and his elegant wife then hosted the official state ball of this visit for the queen given in the enormous glittering palace of the Hôtel de Ville, almost outshining St. Cloud in luxury and elegance, with its several orchestras, dancing, and reception for 8,000 invités, followed by a fabled midnight dinner. At the same hour hundreds of kilometers to the south, at the naval base of Toulon, crews were preparing warships and troop transports to sail with reinforcements for Sebastopol.
* * *
Above all, however, this state visit brought the two monarchs together for long talks. Louis Napoléon and Prince Albert found that they shared many common interests, which in turn pleased Victoria enormously. “He [Louis Napoléon] is so fond of Albert [and] appreciates him so thoroughly, and shows him so much confidence.”15 But it was the many talks between Louis Napoléon and Victoria, some long and leisurely, others while en route to events, that were to prove the most valuable results of this royal–imperial visit. The queen, though not finding him a handsome man, certainly not in comparison with Prince Albert, nevertheless was almost hypnotized by him, and intrigued by what she found, in spite of his habit of speaking only in brief phrases and rarely in long, complete sentences.
Albert was generally more cautious than Victoria in making friends, and “he quite admits that it is extraordinary, how very much attached one becomes to the Emperor,” she noted. “I know few people, whom I have felt involuntarily more inclined to confide in and speak unreservedly to,” she admitted, “I should not fear saying anything [whatsoever] to him.” And then she added something she would later say of only one other national leader, Prime Minister Disraeli—“I feel—I do not know how to express it—safe with him.” He most certainly has “a most extraordinary power of attaching people to him! The children [too] are very fond of him; to them also his kindness was very great.”16 Everyone noted his special fondness of children.
The surprisingly easy, affable relationship that developed quite naturally between Louis Napoléon and Prince Albert certainly was attractive to Victoria. Albert’s manner, so arrogant, impatient, and conceited, so lacking in “English amiability,” had in fact distanced the German prince from Victoria’s English subjects, who found him the proverbial outsider. If Albert’s closest friend was a German, Baron Stockmar, he had found no one equivalent in England. Therefore it was all the more to Victoria’s pleasure when she found someone she not only liked and approved of, but had her choice endorsed warmly by Albert himself. And that this Louis Napoléon also genuinely liked Victoria’s children, which they reciprocated, helped deepen this new relationship. The impressionable fourteen-year-old Edward, the Prince of Wales, in particular was quite captivated by the charming French emperor. Louis Napoléon, unlike the strict disciplinarian Albert, showered the prince, the future Edward VII, with attention, including long sightseeing drives alone together through Paris in Louis Napoléon’s favorite two-wheeled curricle drawn by two horses. Edward, who spoke fluent French and German, immediately fell under the spell of the easygoing, unpuritanical French emperor.
Albert and Louis Napoléon enjoyed “all sorts of old German songs,” Victoria recorded in her diary. And then “he [Louis Napoléon] is very fond of Germany … and there is much that is German, and very little—in fact, nothing—markedly French in his character.” Although Albert was disappointed to find that his guest had no interest whatsoever in classical music, at least they both enjoyed Schiller and Goethe. Not only that, Albert shared his host’s enthusiasm for artillery, with Louis Napoléon driving him across Paris to Vincennes to see some field demonstrations.17
Behind everything, so far as Victoria was concerned, however, remained the necessity of establishing closer, permanent relations between France and England. They had signed a military alliance before entering the war in the Crimea and were now fighting there side by side. “The Emperor is full of anxiety and regret about the campaign,” she noted one day, referring to Louis Napoléon’s decision to forgo leading his army in person. But she was in an extraordinarily happy mood in Paris, and was determined to divert her host from such morbid thoughts. “We talked most cheerfully together, and he was in high spirits.”18
“Another splendid day! Most truly do the heavens favour and smile upon this happy Alliance,” Victoria wrote at St. Cloud before setting out on another excursion. This was a Victoria rarely seen in England, where she spent much of her time playing the ever watchful mother of their large family.19 More intelligent and observant than her husband, Victoria was most impressed by the elaborate preparations Louis Napoléon had made for their visit. “Everywhere everything is ready!” She was quite staggered by the vast amounts of money he was spending to entertain her. “No one can be kinder or more agreeable than the Emperor,” she remarked, greatly flattered by his many tokens of esteem. She also found him to be “so quiet, which is a comfort,”20 in comparison with the constant instructive commentaries of Albert.
At a ball given at Versailles, Eugénie had arrived later than the others because, as Albert had put it, the empress was “in expectation of an heir.”21 When Eugénie made her appearance at the ball that evening, Victoria was in admiration, finding her “looking like a fairy queen or nymph in a white dress, it trimmed in diamonds” complete with a diamond belt and “her Spanish and Portuguese orders.” Taking sight of his wife, Louis Napoléon broke his habitual silence with a delighted “Comme tu est belle!” (How lovely you look!).22 Victoria was equally impressed, when Louis Napoléon not only remembered Albert’s birthday on the twenty-sixth of August, but arranged to celebrate it in his own inimitable manner, by summoning three hundred drummers under the prince’s balcony to play “some music of his own composition,” which consisted of a “splendid roll of drums!” “It was very fine, and very kind of the Emperor to think of it. He is himself particularly fond of it,” she noted diplomatically. 23
The last big event of the royal sojourn took place on Friday, August 24, when the emperor of the French was due to review the garrison, followed by a private viewing of Napoléon I’s tomb. Originally planned for an earlier date, this historic event had been delayed because Louis Napoléon’s pouting Uncle Jérôme Bonaparte had left town, taking the keys to the Hôtel des Invalides with him. Other keys were found, but not Uncle Jérôme, the father of the notorious Plon-Plon, who had declined the honor of bowing before her and of appearing today.24
This vast military review of several battalions, forty thousand strong, extended from the banks of the Seine all the way up to the Invalides.
Ignoring a heavy gray, lowery sky, at five o’clock Louis Napoléon, with Prince Albert sitting across from him in his phaeton, began the long review. “The troops rent the air with their acclamations as the Emperor took his guests along the front, battalion after battalion, squadron upon squadron.” While at the south end of the immense field, Victoria and Eugénie watched the whole scene from the balcony.
Just as the review came to an end two hours later, “the rain descended in torrents, and it was in the midst of a thunderstorm that the emperor took his guests into the Hospital of the Invalides to visit the tomb of the first Napoléon,” the valiant Times correspondent continued. “Well might nature show signs of elemental agitation while such an act of homage to the ashes of the mighty dead was in progress!” General Count d’Ornano, acting on behalf of the still absent governor, a brooding Uncle Jérôme, had torches lit as they entered the Invalides. The vault being built to serve as Napoleon’s final resting place having not yet been decided on, his coffin, “covered with black velvet and gold and the emperor’s orders, hat and sword … placed at its foot,” lay on a dais in the small adjoining chapel here. The four torches flickered violently as the jarring thunder reverberated, while the chapel’s organ played “God Save the Queen.” Nothing seemed real as the queen of England, Prince Albert, and Princess Victoria looked on as the Prince of Wales knelt before the remains of Napoléon I.
“There I stood,” Victoria recorded in her diary, “on the arm of Napoléon III, his nephew, before the coffin of England’s bitterest foe; I the granddaughter of that King who hated him most … and this very nephew, who bears his name, being my nearest and dearest ally!… Strange and wonderful indeed,” she thought, as the thunder crashed. With this “tribute of respect to a departed and dead foe,” she felt “old enmities and rivalries were wiped out, and the seal of Heaven placed that bond of unity, which is now happily established between two great and powerful nations. May Heaven bless and prosper it!”25
* * *
Before leaving, the English monarch was invited back to the Hôtel de Ville by Prefect Haussmann for one final ceremony, the inauguration of the Avenue Victoria in her honor, Louis Napoléon’s way of commemorating a very special relationship. On Monday the twenty-seventh of August, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, accompanied by Louis Napoléon, boarded the train. A festive crowd of some 45,000 greeted them at Boulogne with a deafening “Vive la Reine!” “Vive le Prince Albert!” “Vive l’Empereur!” Two hours later, a twenty-one-gun salvo saluted Queen Victoria as the royal yacht and the escorting Royal Squadron set sail for Dover.26 The degree of genuine enthusiasm experienced throughout this state visit astonished even Louis Napoléon, momentarily banishing all thoughts of the war in the Crimea.
“I am deeply grateful for these eight very happy days,” Victoria confided to her diary, “… and for the reception which we have met with in Paris, and in France generally. The union of the two nations, and of the two Sovereigns—for there is a great friendship sprung up between us—is of the greatest importance. May God bless these two countries, and He specially protect the precious life of the Emperor!”27 And then less formally: “I shall always look back on this visit to France … as one of the pleasantest and most interesting periods of my life!”28
Nor was the notoriously phlegmatic, usually tongue-tied Louis Napoléon left unmoved by this state visit. He acknowledged his “delight” with “the remembrance of the gracious and amiable lady, of the distinguished man, and of such charming children, in whose sweet intimacy I passed days I shall never forget.”29
Never in living memory, and well beyond, had relations between England and France been so close and confident. But although personal loyalties and friendships may resist the severe shocks of time, relationships between nations are rarely built on such firm foundations … as the events of the ensuing years would reveal.