Five or six lifeboats were launched, but another four or five, including at least two Engelhardt collapsibles, detached themselves when the ship sank and were used by people in the water.
This is why a total of eleven or twelve lifeboats of the Empress were recovered afterwards.
As for the number of people in each lifeboat, this is almost impossible to tell. Because everything happened so quickly, very few survivors could remember in which lifeboat they were saved.
