An Autobiography

CHAPTER XIX

ALDERSHOT

AND now our Irish home under the glorious Wicklow Mountains broke up, and I was to become acquainted with life in the great English camp. The huts for officers were still standing at that time, wooden bungalows of the quaintest fashion, all the more pleasing to me for being unlike ordinary houses. The old court-martial hut became my studio, four skylights having been placed in it, and I was quite happy there. I worked hard at “The Réveil,” and finished it in that unconventional workshop.

To say that Aldershot society was brilliant would be very wide of the mark. How could it be? But to us there was a very great attraction close by, at Farnborough. There lived a woman who was and ever will be a very remarkable figure in history, the Empress Eugénie. She hadn’t forgotten my husband’s connection with her beloved son’s tragic story out in South Africa, nor her interview with him at Camden Place, and his management of the Prince’s funeral at Durban. We often took tea with her on Sundays during our Aldershot period, her “At Home” day for intimate friends and relatives, at the big house on the hill. She became very fond of talking politics with Sair William, and always in English, and she used to sit in that confidential way foreign politicians have, expressive of the whispered divulgence of tremendous secrets and of occult plots and plans in various parts of the world. She talked incessantly with him, but was a bad listener; and if a subject came up in conversation which did not interest her, a sharp snap or two of her fan would soon bring things to a stop.

Entries from the Aldershot Diary:

“January 9th, 1894. – We went to the memorial service at the Empress’s church in commemoration of the death of Napoleon III. After Mass we went down to the crypt, where another short service was chanted and the tombs of the Emperor and Prince Imperial were incensed. Between the two lies the one awaiting the pathetic widow who was kneeling there shrouded with black, a motionless, solitary figure, for whom one felt a very deep respect.

“March 14th. – Delightful dinner at Government House, where the Duke and Duchess of Connaught proved most cheery host and hostess. He took me to dinner, and we talked other than banalities. All the other generals’ wives and the generals and heads of departments were there to the number of twenty-two.

“March 25th. – To a brilliant dinner at Government House to meet the Duke of Cambridge. Good old George was in splendid form, and asked me if I remembered the lunch we gave him at Alexandria. It was a most cheery evening. We sat down about twenty-eight, of whom only six were ladies. Grenfell, our old friend of Genoese days, and Evelyn Wood were there.

“May 17th. – A glorious day for the Queen’s Review, which was certainly a dazzling spectacle. Dear old Queen, it is many a long year since she reviewed the Aldershot Division; nor would she have come but that her son is now in supreme command here. Old people say it was like old times, only that she has shrunk into a tinier woman than ever she was, and by the side of the towering Duchess of Coburg in that spacious carriage she looked indeed tiny, and nearly extinguished under a large grey sunshade. A good place was reserved for my little carriage close to the Royal Enclosure, and I enjoyed the congenial scene to the utmost. Was I not in my element? The review took place on Laffan’s Plain, a glorious sweep of intense green turf which I often take little Martin to for our morning walk, and no Aldershot dust annoyed us. I was very proud of the general commanding the 2nd Brigade riding past the saluting base at the head of his troops on that mighty charger, ‘Heart of Oak,’ that fine golden bay, set off to the utmost advantage by the ceremonial saddle-cloth and housings of blue and gold. That general gives the salute with a very free sweep of the sword arm. The march past took a long time. As to the crowd of officers behind the Queen’s carriage, my eyes positively ached with the sight of all that scarlet and gold. I must say this scarlet is pushed too far to my mind. It must have now reached the highest pitch of dyeing powers. It was a duller tone at Waterloo; and certainly still more artistic when Cromwell first ordered his men to wear it. But I may be wrong, and it is certainly very splendid. The Duke of Cambridge and Prince of Wales were on huge black chargers, and wore field marshals’ uniforms. It was pretty to see the Duke of Connaught – who, at the head of his staff, in front of the division drawn up in line, had sat awaiting the Queen’s arrival – canter up to his mother and salute her as her carriage drove into the enclosure. Then he cantered back to his place, a very graceful rider, and the review began. I managed to do good work at ‘The Réveil’ in forenoon. What a contrast and rest to the eyes that picture is after such glittering spectacles as to-day’s. War versus Parade! It was pathetic to see the Queen to-day with her soldiers. She cannot pass them in review many more times.

“The Empress Eugénie has returned, and we had a long interview with her the other day at her beautiful home at Farnborough. She is by no means the wreck and shadow some people are pleased to describe her as being, but has the remains of a certain masculine power which I suppose was very masterful in the great old days of her splendour. She is not too tall, and has a fine, upright figure. She lives apparently altogether in the memory of her son, and is surrounded by his portraits and relics, including drawings showing him making his heroic stand, alone, forsaken, against the savage enemy. I feel, as an Englishwoman, very uneasy and remorseful while listening to that poor mother, with her tearful eyes, as she speaks of her dead boy, who need not have been sacrificed. There is no trace in her words of anger or reproach or contempt, only most appealing grief. She has one window in the hall full to a height of many feet of the tall grass which grows on the spot where her treasured son was done to death by seventeen assegai wounds, all received full in front. I remember his taking us over some artillery stables, I think, at Woolwich once. He had a charming face. The Empress rightly described to us the quality of the blue of his eyes – ‘the blue sky seen in water.’

“We often go to her beautiful church these fine summer days. Her only infirmity appears to be her rheumatism, which necessitates some one giving her his arm to ascend or descend the sanctuary steps when she goes to or comes from her prie-Dieu to the right of the altar. Sometimes it is M. Franceschini Pietri, sometimes it is the faithful old servant Uhlmann who performs this duty.

“August 13th.– We have had the Queen down again for another review in splendid (Queen’s) weather. The night before the review Her Majesty gave a dinner at the Pavilion to her generals, and for the first time in her life sat down at table with them. Will gave me a most interesting account. In the night there was a great military tattoo, which I witnessed with C. from General Utterson’s grounds. Very effective, if a little too spun out. Will and the others were standing about the Queen’s and the Empress Eugénie’s carriages all the time, in the grass soaked with the heavy night dew, and felt all rather blue and bored. In the Queen’s carriage all was glum, while the Empress with her party chatted helpfully in hers to fill up the time. It was pitch dark but for the torches carried by long lines of troops in the distance.

“To-day was made memorable by the review held of our brilliant little division by the German Emperor on Laffan’s Plain, in perfect weather. He wore the uniform of our Royal Dragoons, of which regiment he is honorary colonel, and rode a bay horse as finely trained as a circus horse (and rather suggestive of one, as are his others, too, that are here), with the curb reins passing somewhere towards the rider’s knees, which supply the place of the left hand, half the size of the right and apparently almost powerless. The poor fellow’s shoulders are padded, too, and one sees a hiatus between the false, square shoulder and the real one, which is very sloping. But the general appearance was gallant, and the young man seemed full of gaiety and martial spirit. He took the salute, of course, and was a striking figure under the Union Jack which waved over his British helmet. Then followed a little episode which, if rather theatrical, was enlivening, and a pretty surprise. As the Royal Dragoons’ turn came to pass the saluting base the Kaiser drew his sword and, darting away from his post, placed himself at the head of his British regiment, the Duke of Connaught replacing him at the flagstaff pro tem. The Kaiser couldn’t salute himself, of course, so saluted the Duke, and, when the Dragoons were clear, back he came at a circus canter to resume his post and continue to receive the salute of the passing legions, as before. We all clapped him for this graceful compliment. It was smartly done. The detachment (seventy-five in number) had been sent over from Dublin on purpose for this little display. In the evening Will dined at Government House in a nest of Germans, who seemed afraid to sit well upon their chairs in the august presence of their Emperor, and sat on the very edge. One particularly corpulent general was very nearly slipping off. I went to the evening reception, no wives being asked to the dinner, as the dining-room is so small and the German suite so voluminous.

“I was at once presented to H.I.M., who talked to me, like a good boy, about my painting and about the army, which he said he greatly admired for its appearance. He is just now a keen Anglo-maniac (sic)! We shall have him dressing one of his regiments in kilts next. He is not at all as hard-looking as I expected, but not at all healthy. His face, seen near, is unwholesome in its colour and texture, and the eyes have that boiled look which suggests a want of clarity in the system, it seems to me. He is nice and natural in his manner and in the expression of his face, with light brown moustache brushed up on his cheeks. He wore the mess dress of the Royal Dragoons, and his right hand was twinkling with very ‘loud’ rings on every finger, coiled serpents with jewelled eyes.

“August 14th.– A glorious sham fight in the Long Valley and heights for the Kaiser. I shall always remember his appearance as, at the head of a large and brilliant staff of Germans and English, he came suddenly galloping up to the mound where I was standing with the children, riding, this time, a white horse and wearing his silver English Dragoon helmet without the plume. He seemed joyous as his eye took in the lovely landscape and he sat some minutes looking down on the scene, gesticulating as he brightly spoke to the deferential pickelhauben that bent down around him. He then dashed off down the hill and crested another, with, if you please, C. on her father’s huge grey second charger careering after the gallant band, and escaping for an anxious (to me) half-hour from my surveillance. The child looked like a fly on that enormous animal which overtopped the crowd of staff horses. Adieu to the old gunpowder smoke. It has cleared away for ever. One sees too much nowadays, and that mystery of effect, so awful and so grand, caused by the lurid smoke, is gone. How much writers and painters owe to the old black powder of the days gone by!

“September 23rd.– Had a delightful evening, for we dined with the Empress Eugénie. I seemed to be basking in the ‘Napoleonic Idea’ as I sat at that table and saw my glass engraved with the Imperial ‘N,’ and was aware of the historical portraits of the Bonaparte Era that hung round the room. The Empress was full of bright conversation and chaff; and I find, as I see her oftener, that she has plenty of humour and enjoys a joke greatly. We didn’t go in arm in arm, men and women, but Sa Majesté signed to me and another woman to go in on either side of her. She called to Will to come and sit on her right. I was very happy and in my element. Oh! how the mind feels relieved and expanded in that atmosphere. We had music after dinner, and I had long talks on Egypt with the Empress, whose recollections of that bright land are particularly brilliant, she having been there during the jubilant ceremonies in connection with the opening of the Suez Canal. One year before the great calamities to her and her husband! She told me that just for a freak she walked several times in and out between the two pillars on the Piazzetta at Venice, that time, to brave Fate, who, it was said, punished those who dared to do this. ‘Then les évènements followed,’ she added. Well might she say that life is an up and down existence. She waved her hand up and down, very high and very low, as she said it, with a very weary sigh. Her face is often very beautiful; those eyes drooping at the outer corners look particularly lovely as they are bent downwards, and her white hair is arranged most gracefully. She is always in black.

“Will has accepted the extension of his command here to my great pleasure; the chief charm to us in this place is the neighbourhood of the Empress. That makes Farnborough unique. Not only is she so interesting, but now and then there are visitors at her house whose very names are sonorous memories. The other day as we came into her presence she went up to Will and asked him to let Prince Murat, Ney (Prince de la Moscowa) and Masséna (duc de Rivoli), see some of the regiments in his brigade at their barracks. When the inspection was over these three illustrious Names came to lunch with us, and I sat between Murat and Masséna, with le Brave des Braves opposite. What’s in a name? Everything, sometimes. I thought myself a very favoured creature last Sunday as I sat by Eugénie at her tea table and she sprinkled my muffin with salt out of her little muffineer. I am glad to know she likes me and she is very fond of Will. One Sunday she and I and the Marquise de Gallifet were sitting together, and the Empress was talking to the latter about ‘The Roll Call,’ pronouncing the name in English, but Madame, who looked somewhat stony and unsympathetic, could not pronounce the name when the Empress asked her to, and made a very funny thing out of it. The Empress tried to teach her, making fun of her attempts which became more and more comic, combined with her frigid expression. At last the Empress turned to me and asked me to show how it ought to be said in the proper way; but, as she had just given me an enormous chocolate cream, I was for the moment unable to pronounce anything with this thing in my cheek, and she went into fits of laughter as I made several attempts to say the unfortunate name. So it was never pronounced, and Madame la Marquise looked on as though she thought we were both rather childish, which made the Empress laugh the more. The least thing, if it is at all comical, sends her into one of her laughing fits which are very catching – except by Gallifets.

“Talking of camel riding (and they say she rode like a Bedouin in the desert) I sent her into another fit which brought the tears to her eyes by saying I always forgot ‘quel bout de mon chameau se lève le premier’ at starting. But she sent me into one of my own particular fits the other day. I was telling her, in answer to her enquiry as to insuring pictures on sending them by sea, that I thought only their total loss would be paid for, and what the artist considered an injury of a grave nature amounting to total loss might not be so considered by the insurance company. ‘And if,’ she said, ‘you have a portrait and a hole is made right through one of the eyes?’ Here she slowly closed her left eye and looked at me stolidly with the right, to represent the injured effigy, ‘would you not get compensation?’ The one-eyed portrait continued to look at me out of the forlorn single eye with every vestige of expression gone, and I laughed so much that I begged her to become herself again, but she wouldn’t, for a long time.

“There has been a great deal of pheasant shooting, particularly at the De Worms’ at Henley Park, where a chef at £500 a year has made that hospitable house very attractive; but there has been one shoot at Farnboro’ made memorable by Franceschini Pietri distinguishing himself with his erratic gunnery. Suddenly he was seen on a shutter, screaming, as the servants bore him to the house. Every one thought he was wounded, but it turned out he was sure he had hit somebody else, which happily wasn’t true. People are shy of having him, after that, at their shoots, especially Baron de Worms, who showed me how he accoutred himself by padding and goggles, one day, bullet-proof against that excitable little southerner, who was a member of the party at Henley Park.”

After one of the Empress’s dinners at Farnboro’ Hill, a small dinner of intimate friends, we had fun over a lottery which she had arranged, making everything go off in the most sprightly French way. What easy, pleasant society it was! One admired the courage which put on this brightness, though all knew that the dead weight on the poor heart was there, so that others should not feel depressed. Even with these kind semblances of cheeriness no one could be unmindful of the abiding sorrow in that woman’s face.

“January 9th, 1895.– The anniversary of the Emperor Napoleon’s death come round again. There was quite a little stir during the service in the church. The catafalque, heaped up with flowers, was surrounded with scores of lighted tapers as it lay before the altar. A young priest, in a laced cotta, went up to it to set a leaf or flower or something in its place, when instantly one of his lace sleeves blazed. Almost simultaneously the General, in full uniform, springing up the altar steps without the smallest click of his sword, was at the priest’s side, beating out the fire. Not another soul in that crowded place had seen anything. That was like Will! We laid wreaths on the tombs in the crypt.”

An entry in March of that year records good progress with “The Dawn of Waterloo,” and mentions that we had the honour of receiving the Empress Frederick and her hosts, the Connaughts, and their suites, who came to see the picture. I found the Empress still more like her mother than when I first saw her, when she and the Crown Prince Frederick dined at the Goschens’ – a memorable dinner, when the fine, serious-looking and bearded Frederick told my husband he would desire nothing better for his sons than that they should follow in his footsteps. The Empress was beaming – that is exactly the word – and a few minutes after coming into the drawing-room she showed that she was anxious to get on to the studio, to save the light. So out we sallied, walking two and two, a formidable procession, and we were nearly half an hour in the little court-martial hut. They all had tea with us afterwards, quite filling the tiny drawing-room. The Empress was very small, and as she talked to me, looking up into my face, I thought her the most taking little woman I ever saw. She had what I call the “Victoria charm,” which all her sisters shared with her – absolutely unstudied, homely, and exceedingly friendly. At least it so appeared to me in a high degree in her that day. But what a sorrow she had had to bear!