n to rule -- She presumes to teach Princess Clotilde the
etiquette of courts -- The story of two detectives -- The hunts
at Compiegne -- Some of the mise en scene and _dramatis personae_
-- The shooting-parties -- Mrs. Grundy not banished, but
specially invited and drugged -- The programme of the gatherings
-- Compiegne in the season -- A story of an Englishman
accommodated for the night in one of the Imperial luggage-vans.

I was a frequent visitor to Compiegne throughout the Second Empire. I
doubt whether, besides Lord H---- and myself, there was a single English
guest there who went for the mere pleasure of going. Lords Palmerston,
Cowley, and Clarendon, and a good many others whom I could name, had
either political or private ends to serve. They all looked upon Napoleon
III. as an adventurer, but an adventurer whom they might use for their
own purpose. I am afraid that the same charge might be preferred against
persons in even a more exalted station. Prince Albert averred that
Napoleon III. had sold his soul to the devil; Lord Cowley, on being
asked by a lady whether the Emperor talked much, replied, "No, but he
always lies." Another diplomatist opined "that Napoleon lied so well,
that one could not even believe the contrary of what he said."

Enough. I went to the Compiegne of Napoleon III., just as I had gone to
the Compiegne of the latter years of Louis-Philippe--simply to enjoy
myself; with this difference, however,--that I enjoyed myself much
better at the former than at the latter. Louis-Philippe's hospitality
was very genuine, homely, and unpretending, but it lacked
excitement--especially for a young man of my age. The entertainments
were more in harmony with the tastes of the Guizots, Cousins, and
Villemains, who went down en redingote, and took little else; especially
the eminent professor and minister of public education, whose luggage
consisted of a brown paper parcel, containing a razor, a clean collar,
and the cordon of the Legion of Honour. There were some excellent hunts,
organized by the Grand Veneur, the Comte de Girardin, and the Chief
Ranger, the Baron de Larminat; but the evenings, notwithstanding the new
theatre built by Louis-Philippe, were frightfully dull, and barely
compensated for by the reviews at the camp of Compiegne, to which the
King conducted his Queen and the princesses in a tapissiere and four, he
himself driving, the Duc and Duchesse de Montpensier o