France in the Nineteenth CenturyLatimer, Elizabeth Wormeley
History
France in the Nineteenth Century
Latimer, Elizabeth Wormeley
France -- History -- 1789-1900
The news of the capitulation at Sedan and of the decree deposing the
emperor, roused the Parisian populace. By one o'clock on September 5
the mob began to threaten the Tuileries. Then the Italian ambassador,
Signor Nigra, and the Austrian ambassador, Prince Richard Metternich,
insisted that the empress must seek a place of safety. As it was
impossible to reach the street from the Tuileries, they made their
way through the long galleries of the Louvre, and gained the entrance
opposite the parish church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.[1] The
street was blocked with people uttering cries against the emperor.
A _gamin_ recognized the fugitives, and shouted, "Here comes the
empress!" De Nigra gave him a kick, and asked him how he dared to
cry: "Vive l'Empereur?" At this the crowd turned upon the boy,
and in the confusion the empress and her lady-in-waiting were put
into a cab, driven, it is said, by Gamble, the emperor's faithful
English coachman. If this were so, the empress did not recognize
him, for after proceeding a little way, she and Madame le Breton,
her companion, finding they had but three francs between them, and
dreading an altercation with the cabman if this were not enough
to pay their fare, got out, and proceeded on foot to the house of
the American dentist, Dr. Thomas Evans. There they had to wait
till admitted to his operating-room. The doctor's amazement when
he saw them was great; he had not been aware of what was passing
at the Tuileries, but he took his hat, and went out to collect
information. Soon he returned to tell the empress that she had not
escaped a moment too soon.
[Footnote 1: Temple Bar, 1883.]
His wife was at Deauville, a fashionable watering-place in Normandy.
The doctor placed her wardrobe at the disposal of the empress,
who had saved nothing of her own but a few jewels. It is said she
owned three hundred dresses, and her collection of fans, laces,
etc., was probably unique. Her own servants had begun to pillage
her wardrobe before she left the Tuileries. It is said that she
would have gone forth on horseback and have put herself at the head
of the troops, but that no riding-habit had been left her, except
a gay green-and-gold hunting dress worn by her at Fontainebleau.
That morning no servant in the Tuileries could be found to bring
her breakfast to her chamber.
The next day Dr. Evans, in his own carriage, took her safely out
of Paris, in the character of a lady of unsound mind whom he and
Madame le Breton were conveying to friends in the country. Two
days later they reached Deauville after several narrow escapes,
the empress, on one occasion, having nearly betrayed herself by
an effort to stop a man who was cruelly beating his horse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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