ccupying the box
seat, the rest of the family ensconced in the carriage, "absolument en
bons bourgeois." With the advent of Louis-Napoleon, even before he
assumed the imperial purple, a spirit of change came over the place.
Hortense's second son would probably have made a better poet than an
emperor. His whole life has been a miscarried poem, miscarried by the
inexorable demands of European politics. He dreamt of being
L'Empereur-Soleil, as Louis XIV. had been Le Roi-Soleil. Visions of a
nineteenth-century La Valliere or Montespan, hanging fondly on his arm,
and dispelling the harassing cares of State by sweet smiles while
treading the cool umbrageous glades of the magnificent park, haunted his
brain. He would have gone as far as Louis le Bien-Aime, and built
another nest for another Pompadour. He did not mean to make a Maintenon
out of a Veuve Scarron, and, least of all, an empress out of a
Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo. Mdlle. de Montijo, on the other hand,
was determined not to be a Mdme. de Maintenon, let alone a La Valliere
or a Pompadour. At any rate, so she said, and the man most interested in
putting her assertion to the test was too infatuated to do so. "Quand on
ne s'attend a rien, la moindre des choses surprend." The proverb holds
good, more especially where a woman's resistance is concerned. Mdlle. de
Montijo was a Spaniard, or at least half a one, and that half contained
as much superstition as would have fitted out a score of her
countrywomen of unmixed blood. One day in Granada, while she was sitting
at her window, a gipsy, whose hand "she had crossed with silver," is
said to have foretold her that she should be queen. The young girl
probably attached but little importance to the words at that time;
"but," said my informant, "from the moment Louis-Napoleon breathed the
first protestations of love to her, the prophecy recurred to her in all
its vividness, and she made up her mind that the right hand and not the
left of Louis-Napoleon should set the seal upon its fulfilment." My
informant was an Englishman, very highly placed, and distinctly _au
courant_ of the private history of the Marquise de Montijo y Teba, as
well as that of her mother. Without the least fear of being
contradicted, I may say that the subsequent visit of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert was due to his direct influence. I will not go as far as
to assert that Louis-Napoleon's participation in the Crimean war could
not have been had at th