Eugénie’s grief at her husband’s death was deep and sincere. Over his bier she wept far bitterer tears than those she had shed during those dreadful days following her flight from the capital. Indeed she was so prostrated as to be unable to appear at the funeral. Human nature is elastic, however, and it was never the Empress’s way to fold her hands and brood over her troubles. She found one source of consolation, moreover, in the constant proofs of attachment that reached her, not only from the friends that had remained faithful to her through all the changes of fortune, but also from many others who had long seemed to have forgotten their vows of allegiance. As death had removed all possibility of the restoration of Napoleon the Third to the throne, his old adherents rallied to the support of his son; and as there was still a large Bonapartist party in France, it seemed not improbable that with the exercise of courage and patience the Empire might one day be revived. In 1873, by uniting with the Legitimists and Orleanists, they succeeded in deposing Thiers, who had been President of the Republic since 1871, and electing Marshal MacMahon in his place, a change greatly to the advantage of the Bonapartists, who now entered the political arena once more as a regular party. In the Autumn of 1872 the Prince Imperial entered the military academy at Woolwich, where he studied hard and made gratifying progress; and on the death of his father he was generally recognized as heir to the imperial throne, in spite of all the efforts made by his cousin Napoleon to prevent it. Eugénie now lived only in this son and his future; no stone was left unturned to smooth his pathway to the throne. As yet he had a hard struggle before him; but her faith in his ultimate victory was supreme; and supported by ex-Minister Rouher, the leader of the Bonapartists, then as ever one of Eugénie’s stanchest friends, she carefully but firmly gathered up the threads by which she hoped to guide the course of events.