Jonathan Cape first edition - 1961
Many, many years ago, I bought a paperback by this author. I still have it (the hinges aided by discreet sellotape) with my name and date of purchase on the flyleaf - Christmas 1961. I had just completed my first term in the Lower Sixth and the History course was The Tudors and Stuarts. The book? The Last Tudor King: A Study of Edward VI (Grey Arrow). I assume I read it, but I have no real recollection of that. I quote the mini biography on the back cover of the paperback as it suggests Chapman had quite a varied life, hardly an 'academic' one! The daughter of the headmaster of Durnford Prep School *, she had a private education and subsequently became a mannequin in Paris; later in London she had several jobs, as a secretary, telephone operator, typist, companion, daily governess and schoolmistress. During the Second World War she worked for the Free French and the American Red Cross and as a waitress in a canteen at Combined Operations. Her interests include historical research, foreign travel, cinema and theatre, dress, and interior decoration. How did she find time to write all her novels and non-fiction books?! Chapman, who was born on 1st January 1899 in Dorset and died on her birthday in 1976, had an unusual middle name - Wolferstan.
Every so often, whilst reading Hester Chapman's historical romance, I had to remind myself that it was fiction rather than factual. Her gift for character drawing and dialogue came across as entirely natural, backed up with realistic narrative. The reader (at least this one) felt as if they really were at the places and events described. As it was a novel, the author had no need to produce her sources; however, four pages from the end, she refers to those interviews with Paléologue. Fortuitously, I have just purchased, through EBay, that very source: The Tragic Empress. Intimate Conversations with the Empress Eugénie 1901-1911. I have already dipped into the book and am looking forward to reading it in due course.
Eugénie, naturally, dominates the story; but it is mainly through the first hand reminiscences of her close, and long-suffering companion, the Bombay born (in 1809) but of English stock, Miss Cordelia Flowers - known to the Empress and others as Flora. She is based on a real governess, # and Chapman weaves her naturally into the various ups and downs of the Empress' life. The Prologue focuses on 1879. Napoleon III and family have been in exile in England since the tragedy of 1870. The Emperor has now been dead six years, the Empress is waiting for news of her son, the Prince Imperial, apparently safely kept away from any fighting in the Zulu War in South Africa. The dreaded news arrives - the Prince has been slain. The Empress sits in a room: the hands were clasped, the eyes open under a coronet of white hair sculpturally, perfectly arranged: not a lock was displaced...then he saw the clear line of the face, the black slope of the eyebrows, the curved mouth. Only the eyes had colour; they were blue, deeply shadowed, and set in the look that he was ever after to associate with a gorgon's stony glare.
The story then retraces Eugénie's life from her youth in Spain as the daughter of the widowed Countess de Montijo and sister of the prettier Paca. Again Chapman draws attention to the future Empress' most marked feature (apart from her golden-red hair; she was teased and called carrots at her English boarding school) - her eyes were as hard and glittering as jewels - the eyes of an idol; they commanded the attention accorded a work of art rather than that roused by a living creature. Napoleon is but one of the scores of men who fall, occasionally unwillingly, under her spell; at least one of whom commits suicide and another goes to his death in Mexico. She felt compassion but not love for Napoleon III; a deep possessiveness for her son; a pleasure but rarely more for the adulation of others; and retained a life-long love, almost passion, for the Marquis de Alcanizes - for whom she had attempted suicide, and to whom she had offered herself before marrying Napoleon.
Chapman has the famous author Prosper Mérimée say, whoever marries Eugénie will have his hands full... and the novel bears this out. The early romantic vision the young Spanish girl has for Bonapartism suffers a rude shock when she actually meets the great Napoleon's nephew, a most unprepossessing figure. She marries him, but is not in love with him. He continues to have his many affairs, particularly after she is told she can never have any more children due to the extreme danger of another childbirth. Chapman exhaustively (almost exhaustingly occasionally) follows the Imperial couple through the heady days of the 1850s and 1860s, developing a fascinating picture of those febrile times. Orsini tries to assassinate them; the disastrous Mexican adventure leads to increasing public hostility at home; and all the while the odious, jealous Plon-Plon, Napoleon's cousin, does his best to destroy the public's liking for the Empress. The latter's birth, on 5 May 1826, coincided with an earthquake, an ill omen by all accounts, though she came to believe it might have meant that she was destined to "convulse the world". Perhaps, both were accurate!
This is a meaty novel - far too detailed to expect a satisfactory appraisal of it in a short Blog. I feel I understand the main characters in the real-life story better, whilst always remembering that the vast majority of dialogue is fiction, superimposed on an historical background.
Hester Chapman's other novels included: To Be A King (1934), King's Rhapsody (1950), Limmerston Hall (1972) and Four Fine Gentlemen (1977).
Non-fiction: Great Villiers (1949), Mary II, Queen of England (1953), The Last Tudor King (1958), Lady Jane Grey (1962), The Tragedy of Charles II (1964), The Sisters of Henry VIII (1969) and Anne Boleyn (1974).
* One of the few respites for Ian Fleming when he boarded at Durnford prep school was on Sunday evenings, when the whole school would assemble in the hall to hear the headmaster’s wife read tales of exploration and derring-do. Her favourite for a long time was John Meade Falkner’s ‘Moonfleet’, a story of diamonds, smuggling, phantoms and shipwreck. Also enjoyed by the boys were ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ and the Bulldog Drummond stories. Best of all for Fleming were Sax Rohmer’s novels with fast-paced plots featuring the ‘Yellow Peril’ archetype of the Chinese criminal genius. Fleming later told Raymond Chandler that he ‘was bought up on Dr Fu Manchu’. Other influences included John Buchan and indeed his first novel ‘Casino Royale’ (1953) was described by one reviewer as ‘super-sonic John Buchan’.
# Miss Flowers belonged to that select band of export nannies and governesses who devoted their lives to reigning over foreign nurseries and schoolrooms and she was to remain in the service of the Montijos until the 1880s. To her Eugenie, even when Empress, was always 'Miss Eugenie'. David Duff, Eugenie & Napoleon III (Collins, 1978)
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