The Senate has shared my joy on learning that Heaven has given me a son; and you have hailed, as a propitious event, the birth of a child of France. It is intentionally that
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of England met in the palaces of the British kings, and France left a kiss upon the cheek of England.
The kiss was given and received in perfect sincerity.
On both sides it expressed the hope that war should be no more,--that henceforth France and England should live in peace, in cooperation, in friendship.
This visit of the emperor and empress to the court of England's queen is said to have been the first instance in the world in which a reigning French monarch set foot upon the soil of his hereditary foes.
Not long after this Queen Victoria and Prince Albert returned the compliment, and England's queen became the guest of Eugenie at the Tuileries, St. Cloud, and Fontainebleau.
Victoria was received by the Parisian population, in the Champs Elysee and along the Boulevards, with the same enthusiasm, with the same tumultuous and joyful acclaim with which Eugenie had been received in the streets of London.
There is no city in the world so well adapted to festal occasions as Paris.
All the resources of that brilliant capital were called into requisition to invest the scene with splendor.
The pageant summoned multitudes to Paris from all the courts of Europe.
On the 16th of March, 1856, the Empress Eugenie gave birth to her first and only child.
The young prince received the baptismal name of Napoleon Eugene Louis Jean Joseph.
His birth caused great joy throughout France, as it would leave the line of succession undisputed.
This gave increasing assurance that France, upon the decease of the emperor, would be saved from insurrection and the conflict of parties.
From all parts of France congratulations were addressed to the emperor.
In the emperor's reply to the Senate he said:--
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