And I have not the slightest doubt that, had she lived to return to England, she would have gone up in an aeroplane-not by-and-by, but this very summer.

I fancy hers was one of those natures that love danger for its own sake. Old as she was, and surrounded by people who felt it to be their duty to say "don't," if there was any danger going she wanted to be in it. At one period of the war the Germans were said to be planning to bomb Aldershot, and one objective would certainly be the Royal Aeroplane Factory, just beyond her park. "S'ils viennent," she said, her whole face lighting up with excitement, "au moins nous serons au premier rang!"

and I could not help fanoying that the presence in her house of a guest who made

no secret of her own extreme dread of air-raids, rather enhanced her delight in the prospect.

To one whose physical courage was so flawless, whose sense of honour was so passionate, it must have been torture that among the cruel things said of her in 1870 was the attributing of her flight to fear.. As Empress she had walked the cholera hospitals. Those who at that time said "don't "

and there must have been plenty- were not listened to. But the French would seem to have forgotten the incident. I never heard her allude to that monstrous imputation of cowardice, but in the early days of the late war one was to learn how it had rankled.

When the French Government removed to Bordeaux, Paris became a desert. A former Dame du Palais of hers was among those who took refuge in England, and though, when I saw her in Paris two years later, she did not comment on her reception by the Empress, I can well imagine it! What she did tell me, however, was, that the Empress had instantly announced her own determination to start for Paris then and there. "If I left after Sedan," she said, "it was in order to save bloodshed, . . . but some said it was from fear! Now I will prove to them that that was not the reason!" My informant added that if, after unexampled efforts, she and

the rest of the "don't" party carried the day, it was by insisting that if the Empress were to go to France it might make difficulties for the French Government, . . . which she would rather have Idied than do.

One of the strangest things about her was that, notwithstanding this unquenchable fire within, you felt instinotively that love can never have played a great part in her life. People have said that her skill, as Cæsar's wife, in avoiding the breath of scandal, is a great proof of her "oleverness," but I suspect it was still more a case of absence of temptation from within. She was not tender, for one thing, nor imaginative; and imagination plays a great part, I think, in women's love affairs. Above all, not to beat about the bush, there was no sensuality in her composition. Age has nothing to do with it. There are old women who are far from being that bête-noire of the Empress "de vieilles folles," in whom you none the less feel how great a part that element must have played in their youth. Without their realising it, to the end of their days their whole outlook is thereby coloured. But in her case you felt convinced that it must have been the feeblest string of the lyre from the first.

She was anything but lacking in romance, however, and given a temperament so passionate in other respects, it would be strange indeed had

there been no love episode. Even the least amorously gifted should be able to fall in love once in a lifetime, and that much she accomplished. Unfortunately this was not a subjeot it was possible to broach with her, and her eontemporaries, among whom the story was no secret, are dead long ago. But it is well known in the inner circle, and I think there is no indiscretion in repeating it as it was told to me by a relation of hers-one deep in her confidence, a faithful, ardent admirer, to whom, in a rare and fortunate moment of expansion, she herself communicated the details.

One must begin by saying that the Empress idolised her sister-in my humble opinion this was the strongest emotion of her life-and after the Duo d'Albe married that sister, their house became her home. A certain Duc de S became deeply enamoured of the Duchess, and in order to gain easy access to the house, made love to Mademoiselle de Montijo, who, suspecting nothing, fell desperately in love with him. The truth having dawned upon her, she did exactly what one would expect her to do under the circumstances-took poison; and when the fact was discovered, nothing would persuade her to swallow an antidote. Finally, as a last resource, the man she loved was brought to her bedside to break her resolution, . . . and as he bent over her he whispered, "Where are my letters?" Well can I imagine that his vietim's love thereupon per

urge-only one had to put these things very carefully, so intolerant was she of anything that might be construed into flattery that the self-restraint exercised by her since the fall of the Empire must shed a reflex light on the past. And she herself was surely too sensible, too just, to believe that such testimony could be swept aside as worthless. So, at least, I hope.

I think the Empress cared for politics more than anything, and if you take passionate interest in a subject, it is hard not to believe yourself specially equipped for it. One day I had been asking her who were the most fascinating personalities she had met, and among them, greatly to my surprise, she mentioned Bismarok! "When it was worth his while," she added, with a peculiar look on her face, "no one could be a more adroit courtier." To extol her beauty would have left her indifferent, and suddenly it was borne in upon me that he must have laid himself out to flatter her on the score of her political flair! It was late in the sixties when last he was in Paris, and such flattery would have been well "worth his while!"

Whatever her political action and influence may or may not have been in France, listening to her comments on current English polities, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that seldom was any one more pertinaciously wrong-headed! If black seemed the obvious colour

still

to name, she would say white; if the turn to be taken lay on one hand, she would maintain that salvation was to be found on the the other. And, stranger faot, although, as better judges than myself can testify, her political knowledge was unlimited, her judgment on past events sound and even brilliant, there were certain political factors which she seemed incapable of grasping, because the collective states of mind connected with them escaped her.

The Dreyfus case is an instance. This was a conundrum to which she possessed no clue. People who knew nothing whatever about France might be excused for racking their brains as to what it was all about, though to others who, like myself, had some acquaintance with French mentality, l'Affaire, however regrettable, was comprehensible. But the Empress never get beyond asking how it was possible that a question of justice should be treated in such a fashion? I have said that a sense of justice was among her ruling characteristics. Here it was outraged, and her lack of insight into the spirit of a people did the rest.

She had believed from the first in the innocence of Dreyfus, and was amazed at the storm which this conviction brought about her head. Not that she would have shrunk from proclaiming it in any case, but it is strange that she failed to realise the state of feeling in France. Her earliest intimation of it was the be

The anomalies of her mental equipment were nowhere more baffling than on the field of politics. I am not venturing to speak of her political action in France; nothing save the lapse of time can decide how far it went, and as I have hinted, there were documents in her possession which, te my certain knowledge, would reverse many a settled conviction.

Judging by her character, and in spite of a qualified sympathy with democratic ideals, I imagine she must always have been an absolutist at heart. I remember her saying that though the English monarchical system was undoubtedly the only one suited to England, to be a ruler bereft of real power would not appeal to her personally, nor did she think the position dignified "au fond." At the same time she allowed that to fill it adequately required a rare

As for the verdiot of history on herself, a very sympathetic cover-notice in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' for this month (August 1920) quotes a bitter remark I have heard her make more than onee: "Ma légende est faite; au début du règne, je fus la femme futile, ne s'occupant que de chiffons; et, vers la fin de l'Empire, je suis devenue la femme fatale, qu'on rend responsable de toutes les fautes et de tous les malheurs ! ... Et la légende l'emporte toujours sur l'histoire!" One day, in the last summer she was to spend at Farnborough (1919), she said, "Je déteste les gens qui ont peur de la responsabilité. On veut me rendre responsable pour les événements, . . bien! j'en accepte la responsabilité!... au moins j'ai l'air de l'avoir accepté, puisque je me tais !". Then, after a pause, she added, "C'est l'orgueil," and I shall never forget her accent as she said it-the proud magnificent expression that was on her face.

...

Nevertheless, towards the end of her life, when the Great War, monstrous epilogue of the Bismarck revelations, opened all eyes to Germany's designs of world-dominion, I think she came to believe in the silent depths of her heart that that legend of "la femme fatale" might some day fade out of existence. I would often