My Paris Diary of 1870 395 



servants, a cook and a bonne. Julie cited as a sign of the misere in which 

 they lived, that these women wore handkerchiefs on their heads instead of 

 caps. Aguado, elder brother of the Comte and Vicomte, kept a one-horse 

 remise for her, and provided for them in other ways. Julie declares that, 

 Eugenie had other worshippers, too, ' mime des Allemands! Aguado was 

 married to an Englishwoman, who is now remarried to his brother, the 

 Vicomte. He went mad when Mademoiselle Monti jo married the Emperor, 

 and afterwards died. She lived on in the Place Vendome till the week 

 before her marriage, when she was taken to the Tuileries to be married 

 from there at Notre Dame. Such is Julie's account. Julie and M. Perrier, 

 Howard's valent, used to talk these over together, ' Ce pawure M. Perrier 

 qui est mort.' History is written from such intimate talk. 



" My own recollections of the Emperor are not very many. I saw him 

 for the first time in 1851, on the day of his coup d'etat, when he became 

 President for life. We, my brother Francis and I, with our mother, were 

 passing through Paris on our way to Italy, and we were staying at the 

 Hotel Wagram, only two doors from my present apartment here in the 

 Rue de Rivoli. Francis and I went out with our tutor, Edmund Coffin, to 

 see what was going on in the streets. The Rue de Rivoli was full of 

 people, and there was a cordon of gendarmes between it and the Place de la 

 Concorde. ' Liberte, Egalite, et Fratemite ' was still written up every- 

 where on the walls. The President rode by close to us with his Staff, and 

 passed up the Rue Royale. This was a very early recollection, before he 

 was Emperor. When I next saw him it was at Biarritz in 1863. He used 

 to walk about there leaning on the arm of his Chamberlain, Tascher de la 

 Pagerie, moving slowly like an old man. I went one evening to a ball at 

 the Pavilion, and was presented to him and the Empress. The Empress 

 reminded me that she had seen me at Madrid some months before, which 

 was true, for I had been to an audience of the Corps Diplomatique when 

 she was paying her visit to Queen Isabella. At the ball the Emperor 

 walked about looking bored, not at all as if he was in his own house. He 

 is a thick-set, coarsely made man (with legs too short for his body), and 

 in his uniform might be taken for a sergeant. He has nothing remarkable 

 in his face, except his cold green eyes, which have a strangely fascinating, 

 but repellent power. They give him a certain distinction. I have since, 

 while at the Embassy, been to balls at the Tuileries, but have never had 

 personal speech with him. I have listened to him, however, talking once 

 for twenty minues at a time with Lord Cowley, at one of the receptions 

 while the Empress was finishing her cercle. They were discussing on that 

 occasion a review there had been of the English and French fleets, and his 

 remarks were the essence of commonplace. He has none of the ease of 

 manner, the lightness of thought, the esprit Gaulois which go so far in 

 France, a heavy, slow-thinking man, talking French with a provincial 

 accent. It is strange that such a man should have ruled the French for 

 twenty years. If he had died a month ago he would have left a great 

 name in history. Now who knows? He may be ranked on a level with 

 Louis Philippe. Such are the chances of a man's glory. 

 " \oth Aug. — I have drawn £40 in five-franc pieces for the siege. It is 



