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of Napoleon III (who himself was Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew). He had fled from France to avoid a duel, although this was not known in the North. No one had informed the administration that Plon-Plon was coming, which led to an unintended snub when Baron Mercier accompanied the prince to the White House. The doorbell was rung, the knocker pulled, and yet the front door remained closed. The royal party waited impatiently to be let in until “an employee, who happened to be passing by, took care of this duty,” recalled an aide.

The prince had his revenge on Lincoln by not uttering a word after the initial introduction. The president and Seward, who was also present, were both overcome with confusion. Lincoln bought some time by inviting the prince to sit down, which required the fetching and repositioning of several chairs. “But once these new positions were acquired,” wrote the aide, “the two parties sat opposite each other … the Prince, impatient because he had had to wait, took a cruel pleasure in remaining silent. Finally, the President took the risk of speaking.” He tried to ask the prince about his father, but mistakenly referred to a childless uncle. “This incident made him lose his confidence still further.” Mercier stepped in with a comment about the weather in general, and then about the rain of a few days past. Lincoln resorted to another round of handshaking that used up just enough time to allow the party to be shown to the door without undue haste.8

Lord Lyons took advantage of the temporary froideur between France and America to give a dinner in the prince’s honor. Seward, Charles Sumner, and General McClellan were all invited, but not William Howard Russell, to the latter’s disgust.9 Lyons had intended the event to be a grand demonstration of the Anglo-French alliance, and though he admired Russell, he considered the dinner far too important to include a mere journalist. The next morning Lyons wrote proudly to his sister, “It went off very well,” despite the appalling heat, “as it was not hotter in my dining room than everywhere else.”10 The French had unwittingly scored a blow for England in the battle of wits between Lyons and Seward. McClellan had glowed with pleasure under the flattery lavished on him by the prince’s military aides. Sumner, too, had been the recipient of extravagant compliments. But to Seward they displayed a Gallic aloofness that was noticeable and embarrassing. The French considered him uncultured, unpolished, and profoundly nonintellectual. Seward “does not speak any language but English,” wrote one of the aides contemptuously, “and knows Europe very little, though he customarily declares in a comically emphatic way that he has travelled throughout Europe for several years.”11

Seward was not amused when Prince Napoleon requested a pass to visit the Confederate headquarters. He pretended at first not to understand his hints and forced him to make a direct application. The French party, once again accompanied by Baron Mercier, traveled to General Beauregard’s headquarters, where they listened with great respect to the Confederate version of Bull Run.12 As word spread through the camps of the prince’s arrival, French volunteers, including some who had fought in Garibaldi’s army, stopped by to pay their respects. “Such strange and romantic personalities!” recorded the aide, surprised that even members of the French aristocracy were coming across the Atlantic to fight for the Confederacy. Beauregard had appointed as his assistant inspector general Lieutenant Colonel Prince Camille de Polignac, whose father, Jules de Polignac, had served as prime minister under Charles X and whose grandmother Yolande had made the family rich and powerful through her notorious friendship with Marie Antoinette.13

The prince returned to Washington unconvinced by the South’s arguments or its military confidence, although his aides, he confessed with a laugh to Lord Lyons, “seemed to think that they would rather command the Southern soldiers.” Baron Mercier escorted the prince and his party to New York on August