This absorbing book tells the story of Empress Eugénie (1826–1920), the wife of
Napoleon III and the last Empress-Consort of France. Today she is remembered
for her physical beauty, for her influence as a taste maker and for her glittering
contribution to the second imperial court – but she outlived the Second Empire by half
a century and lived in exile in England.
The Empress bought the Farnborough Hill estate in 1880, following a decade of personal
tragedy: the collapse of the Second Empire (1852–70), the death of Napoleon III, and the
loss of her only child. The death of the Prince Imperial in 1879, aged 23, ended all hope of
a Bonapartist restoration. With the imperial succession removed to another branch of the
family, Eugénie resolved to create a permanent monument to her husband and son. This
was her primary reason for moving to Farnborough. This book describes the little-known
assemblage of art and architecture that she created there in the 1880s.
Geraghty analyses the principal buildings on the imperial estate: Farnborough Hill
itself, which was extensively remodelled for the court-in-exile that Eugénie maintained
there from 1880 to 1920; and St Michael’s Abbey, the spectacular domed mausoleum
that the Empress built on an adjacent hill in 1883-88. These projects were entrusted to
a French architect, Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-93), whose erudite designs situated the
history of the Second Empire within the longer history of French architecture and design.
Geraghty also provides the fi rst detailed account of the lost interiors of Farnborough
Hill. He traces the origins of the collection back to the Second Empire, and—drawing
upon historic photos, inventories, and sale catalogues—he shows how the collection
was displayed in the principal rooms of the house. Primarily dynastic in purpose, the
display included a major sequence of Bonaparte family portraits, including works by
David, Gérard, Winterhalter, and Carpeaux. Eugénie also had an important collection
of decorative arts, including Gobelins tapestries, Sèvres porcelain, and royal French
furniture.
Composed by the Empress herself, the display at Farnborough Hill was the last
manifestation of the ‘Louis XVI-Impératrice’ mode of interior decoration that she had
popularised in the 1850s. It was also, in its juxtaposition of modern and historic pieces,
the fi nal expression of the nouvelle sociabilité of the second imperial court.
Finally, the book describes the breakup of the estate in 1927, when the house was
sold to a convent school and the collection was dispersed at auction. Today, only the
Mausoleum functions as Eugénie originally envisaged. Geraghty, however, recovers the
totality of Eugenie’s vision for Farnborough. In so doing, he describes how the Napoleonic
ideal, for one fi nal time, was made visible through art, architecture, and collecting.