" ... by most historians unfairly characterized as dominated by women, but for the rancid and lurid gossips of radical papers such as those of Jules Valles or Henri Rochefort to find a receptive audience, or for Emile Zola to write '
A Tale of Two Courts' into his Rougon-Macquart series around the subject spoke to the contemporary public perception of the early years of Napoléon IV's reign.
At one end of this legend lied the role of Dowager Empress Eugénie and the very much real power she had held. At the other end, Empress Beatrice and the role she unintentionally played in the downfall of her stepmother. A legend that told a two decades long story of intrigues at court and political schemes.
The prologue of this tale took place in 1872, in the wake of the Prince Impérial's sixteenth birthday, when Empress Eugénie undertook the arduous task of finding her son a bride. Napoléon III's anglophilia and Eugénie's personal friendship with Queen Victoria designated her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, as the natural, desirable choice. If the issue of religion may have complicated negotiations, the most important hurdle to the young couple becoming a reality was Queen Victoria's own attachment to her daughter. In 1872 thus, while it had been widely expected Napoléon Eugène would attend Saint-Cyr, he was instead admitted to the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich, and in close proximity to his bride to be.
It was during those almost two years of English life that the small town of Trouville on the coast of Normandy began to appear in the legend. A frequent guest of Queen Victoria at Osborne House, the Prince and the Princess were often treated there by Empress Eugénie's "impromptu" visits. The prince mother's had disposed of a villa in Trouville whose situation right across the Isle of Wight and just a few hours of train ride away from Paris, had made it a perfect spot to undertake such visits. Eugénie had already turned Biarritz, not long ago a simple little fishing village, into the place to be for European royalty, and slowly, her visits to Osborne House showered Trouville with the same fortunes.
Trouville's chance would then find another turn with the Osborne House Agreement when, in the first days of 1874, Victoria finally caved in to the passion of her daughter for the young Emperor of the French. One of the key concessions that Eugénie assented to was for Beatrice to continue those cross channel visits. Trouville had thus become Beatrice's like Biarritz had been Eugénie's. Innocently enough, the seeds were planted for the war of influence that would be waged around Napoléon IV for the next two decades, between Eugénie's Court of Biarritz, and Beatrice's Court of Trouville.
Napoléon IV, to be sure, was not his mother's puppet like radicals would tell in their papers. At least not after March 16th, 1874, when Napoléon IV and Béatrice were married and coronated Emperor and Empress of the French. The Dowager Empress' regency was at an end, but her influence stayed strong, and her son remained deferential to her many advices and kept '
her' ministers in place.
Beatrice meanwhile was used to stay aloof from politics in a typical British fashion, and keep focused on her marriage and her frequent trips to Trouville. But if the young Empress herself never thought of challenging the Dowager Empress, the same could not be said of those who surrounded her.
In the bagages of Beatrice had arrived to Paris Princess Mary Adelaid, the new Empress'
Grande Maîtresse, that is the senior lady-in-waiting of her household. Queen Victoria had see to it that her daughter would have proper company in Paris and entrusted the task to her cousin, and the Duchess of Teck and her husband, known for their extravagant and luxurious lifestyle, always cash-strapped, were very much happy to oblige. And true to their profligate character, emboldened by their position at court, they began to animate the Parisian society. In a city that had become used to the austerity of Eugénie's court, the parties thrown by the Duchess of Teck had harkened back to the festive spirit that had characterized Napoléon III's early reign, in the euphoria following the victory over China, these marked the return of a "joie de vivre" in French social life and were later considered as one of the starting points of the "Belle Epoque".
Disdained by the Dowager Empress, the joyful atmosphere of Beatrice's court nevertheless constitued the first break in her hegemony over French politics. For over a century, social gatherings had in France often doubled as political ones, and the court of the young Empress was no exception. Among the crowds of those who found more comfort in the Duchess of Teck's parties than at Eugénie's austere and devout court, were many prominent political figures who had not found favor and hoped to reach the Emperor through his young wife. Many of the liberal and reformist followers of Prince Napoléon, frustrated by his impetuous and unpolitical character, had found trips to Trouville much better and rewarding opportunities. More importantly though, a number of right wing, more conservative figures also frequented the Empress' circles and frequently came across their liberal colleagues. The Duchess of Magenta for instance, who brought with along her husband, Marshal de MacMahon, still supreme in his grip over the Imperial Army, the Duchess of Alençon, sister to Empress Elizabeth of Austria but more importantly for French politics, niece of the Duke of Aumale, one of the most important leaders of the Orleans family.
And yet, among all the names flying around Beatrice, the most consequential one would be that of a young and inconspicuous lady-in-waiting in her household. The Duchess of Teck, for all her extravagance was totally uninterested in politics and did not think of the political inclinations of whoever she invited or met, which contributed to the distorted view Eugénie held on her and Beatrice. But hiding behind the "Grosse Maitresse" (
fat mistress) as Eugénie sometimes derided her in private, was a more dangerous, ambitious woman, Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart. Unlike the Grande Maîtresse, the young Duchess of Uzes, and soon to be widow, was very much a political creature, and she did not think twice about trying her hand at it.
It was thus at Dowager Empress Eugénie's great disadvantage that developed under her nose a rival court and that she severly underestimated it until it was too late. For, by the time the knives were out, Napoléon IV, all devout and devoted son he was, was also among those who, when it was time to escape the agitation and insufferable pressure of Parisian life, preferred the serenity of Trouville to the beaches of Biarritz, and with only four hours of train in between, it was not rare that the Emperor would take an impromptu day off on the Norman coast, or whole weekends... "
