[Illustration:  EMPEROR NAPOLEON III.]

CHAPTER XI.

THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.

The visit paid by the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie to
Queen Victoria at Windsor in 1856 was returned in 1857.

It was on the 18th of August that the queen, her husband, the Prince of Wales, then a boy of fourteen, and the Princess Royal landed at Boulogne.  The royal yacht had been in sight since daybreak, the emperor anxiously watching it from the shore; but it was two P. M. before it was moored to the quai.  There can be no better account of this visit than that given by Queen Victoria.  The following extracts are taken from her journal:—­

“At last the bridge was adjusted, the emperor stepped across.  I met him half-way, and embraced him twice, after which he led me on shore amid acclamations, salutes, and every sound of joy and respect.  The weather was perfect, the harbor crowded with war-ships, the town and the heights were decorated with gay colors.”

The delay in getting up to the wharf postponed the queen’s entrance into Paris, and greatly disappointed the crowds who waited for her coming.  They were also disappointed that the greatest lady in the world exhibited no magnificence in costume.  But the queen herself was greatly impressed by her first view of Paris:—­

“The approaching twilight rather added to the beauty of the scene; and it was still quite light enough when we passed down the Boulevard de Strasbourg (the emperor’s own creation) and along the Boulevards by the Porte Saint-Denis, the Madeleine, the Place de la Concorde, and the Arch of Triumph, to see the objects round us.”

They drove through the Bois de Boulogne in the dusk to the palace of Saint-Cloud; but all the way was lined with troops, and bands playing “God Save the Queen,” at intervals.  The queen was particularly impressed by the Zouaves, “The friends,” she says (for the Crimean War was then in progress), “of my dear Guards in the Crimea.”

The birth of the Prince Imperial being an event in prospect, the empress was not allowed to fatigue herself, and first met the queen on the latter’s arrival at Saint-Cloud.  “In all the blaze of lamps and torches,” says the queen, “amidst the roar of cannon, and bands, and drums, and cheers, we reached the palace.  The empress, with Princess Mathilde and the ladies, received us at the door, and took us up a beautiful staircase, lined with magnificent soldiers....  I felt quite bewildered, but enchanted.”