292 THE FLIGHT OF EUGENIE. ria will be at once recalled, as well as the visit which the Queen and Prince Albert made to Paris in return. Both these occasions were marked by expensive festivities and much interchange of compliment. At the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, she was present in the yacht VAigle, and played a chief part in the celebration. It was proba- bly at this time that she acquired the friendship of M. de Lesseps, who in her hour of danger proved a friend indeed. The Aigle formed one of the " inauguration fleet" of forty-five vessels, and took the lead in making the passage to the Red Sea, where, with the Empress on board, it arrived on the twenty-second of November, return- ing the next day to the Mediterranean. Twice during the absence of her husband, once in 1865, while he was in Algeria, and again in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Eugenie was left the nominal head of the state with the title of Regent. Her political feelings were influenced by her religion, for she was a Spanish Catholic. In the struggle which ended so disastrously for herself and her family, she took the liveliest interest, and it is even said that she was accustomed to refer to it as " my war." The last four weeks of her abode in Prance, Eugenie spent at the Tuileries. Of those days of confusion and distress the public has recently learned many details through a gentleman who was at that period an attache* of an important personage connected with the court. His position enabled him to observe all that took place, and he was afterwards one of the trusted few who assisted the empress to escape. The series of defeats which culminated in Sedan had already begun, and a proclamation had appeared declar- ing Paris in a state of siege. Still Euge'nie was hopeful. She thought " with a lady's romantic ideas about mili-
