or the
Italian lakes. No wonder that the soft eyes grew sadder and the
smiles more forced as the years passed on and brought only weariness,
disenchantment and the shadow of the coming end.

Alphonse Daudet has said in _Le Nabab_ that there exists in the life
of every human being a golden moment, a luminous peak, where all of
glory or success that destiny reserves is granted; after which comes
the decadence and the descent. This golden moment in the life of the
empress Eugenie was the occasion of the first French international
exhibition in 1855. She was then in the full pride of her womanhood
and her loveliness. The greatest lady in Europe, Queen Victoria, had
been her guest, had embraced her as an equal and had given her proofs
of real and sincere friendship. Enveloped in clouds of priceless
lace and blazing with diamonds of more than regal splendor, she had
presided, _la belle des belles_, over the opening of the exhibition in
the Champs Elysees. And, above all, the event so anxiously desired by
her husband and by the supporters of his cause was near at hand. She
was soon to become the mother of the heir to the imperial throne. With
every aspiration gratified, every wish accomplished, she did indeed
seem in that year of grace the most enviable of human beings. The
later splendors of the exhibition of 1867 were more apparent than
real, and the gorgeous assemblage of reigning sovereigns brought
with it for Eugenie a subtle and premeditated insult. The kings and
emperors who responded to the imperial invitation and came to visit
the court of Napoleon III., with one exception, that of the king
of the Belgians, left their wives at home. They acted as men do in
private life when they receive invitations to a ball given by a family
of doubtful standing with whom they are unwilling to quarrel.

I have spoken of the birth of the prince imperial. It may perhaps
interest the reader to know how much this auspicious event cost the
French nation. Not less than nine hundred thousand francs (one hundred
and eighty thousand dollars), of which twenty thousand dollars were
paid for the young gentleman's first wardrobe. The whole amount
expended at the birth of the Comte de Paris did not exceed this latter
sum.

The details of the scenes at the Tuileries after the downfall of the
Empire, and those of the flight of the empress, are well known. It
is now generally conceded that after Sedan the fate of the imperial
dynasty was in the