Excerpt from Women of the Second Empire: Chronicles of the Court of Napoleon III, Compiled From Unpublished Documents

He lays no undue stress on the central figure of the picture, but deals out pretty equal measure to all. He feels that the time has not yet come for a serious judgment on characters and events. With all this, being but human, he cannot conceal his envy of posterity. What wonderful memoirs are now being written for that spoiled child of the ages; what precious files of correspondence already lie in many a chateau of Europe! Much of it is no doubt devoted to the personality of the Empress. She was not exactly a woman of culture, and she knew it, but she aspired to be a woman of affairs. She was necessarily a woman of fashion, as the fount of honour in that com manding interest, not for France alone, but, through France, for all the world. What she wore one day London, Vienna, and New York would be wearing the next, and Kamchatka as soon as possible. The late Mr. Worth has given us an impressive account of his deliberations on the issue of a new costume. It was first excogitated by the great man as a sort of Minister of the Robes without portfolio, and then submitted to a council of ladies-in waiting. When it had passed that critical ordeal it was submitted to the Empress, to be again modified according to her commands. Then it was launched experimentally by the fairest of the bevy, who took public Opinion on it by a drive in the Bois or a visit to the opera. With this plebiscitary appeal in its favour, it was finally adopted by the throne and it acquired the validity of a decree.

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