as that of Fashion. The influence of a crowned
Parisian beauty over the social doings of the world can hardly be
over-estimated. Eugenie invented toilettes that were copied by all the
women in the civilized world: she invented crinoline, and added a new
product to the manufactures of the earth. No woman better understood
the art of dress than she. Certain of her toilettes have retained
their celebrity to this day. Never did the art of costly dress reach
so high a pinnacle. She fringed her ball-dresses with diamonds, and
covered them with lace worth two thousand dollars a yard. Then, like
many wise and economical ladies, she undertook to have her dresses
made at home, and installed a dressmaker's establishment in the
Tuileries, where these splendid garments were prepared under her
immediate supervision. The workroom was directly over her private
apartments. By means of a trapdoor, whose mechanism was skilfully
dissimulated among the ornaments of the cornice and ceiling, a
mannikin, arrayed in the garb that was in progress, could be lowered
for the empress's inspection. This singular branch of the royal
household was under the charge of a functionary whose business it
was to purchase silks, velvets and laces at wholesale prices and to
superintend the workwomen. The knowledge of its existence was soon
spread abroad, and did the empress infinite harm. The petty economy of
the proceeding horrified and disgusted the Parisians, who, economical
themselves, have ever scorned that virtue in their sovereigns. Many
of the partisans of the court denied the existence of such an
establishment, but during the period that elapsed between the downfall
of the Empire and the outbreak of the Commune the curious throngs that
visited the Tuileries might trace amid the mouldings of the ceiling in
the empress's boudoir the outline of the famous trapdoor.

It would have been well had she never turned her attention to any less
feminine or more dangerous pursuits. But in an evil hour for France
and for the nation she undertook to dabble in politics. Left regent
during the Austro-Italian campaign, she acquired a taste for reigning,
which was increased by the flatteries of her husband's ministers and
the counsels of her confessor. It was currently said at court that the
Mexican expedition "came ready-made from her boudoir." She hated the
United States, as a true daughter of Spain could not fail to detest
the coveters of Cuba and the friends of progr