Madame the Duchess d’Orleans is a rare woman, of great wit and common sense. I do not think that she is fully appreciated at the Tuileries. The King, though, holds her in high esteem and often engages in long conversations with her. Frequently he gives her his arm to escort her from the family drawing-room to her apartments. The royal daughters-in-law do not always appear to act as kindly towards her.
“My son is not what one would call an amiable child. He is not one of those pretty little prodigies who are an honour to their mothers, and of whom people say: ‘What a clever child! What wit! What grace!’ He has a kind heart, I know; he has wit, I believe; but nobody knows and believes this save myself. He is timid, wild, uncommunicative, easily scared. What will he become? I have no idea. Often at his age a child in his position understands that he must make himself agreeable, and, little as he is, sets himself to play his role. Mine hides himself in his mother’s skirt and lowers his eyes. But I love him, just as he is. I even prefer him this way. I like a savage better than a comedian.”
The Count de Paris has signed the birth certificate of the Princess Françoise de Joinville. It was the first time that the little prince had signed his name. He did not know what was wanted of him, and when the King handed him the certificate and said “Paris, sign your name,” the child refused. The Duchess d’Orleans took him on her knee and whispered something to him. Then the child took the pen, and at the dictation of his grandfather wrote upon the certificate L. P. d. O. He made the O much too large and wrote the other letters awkwardly, and was very much embarrassed and shy.
He is charming, though, and adores his mother, but he hardly knows that his name is Louis Philippe d’Orleans. He writes to his comrades, to his tutor, and to his mother, but he signs his little missives “Paris.” It is the only name he knows himself by.
This evening the King sent for M. Regnier, the prince’s tutor, and gave him orders to teach the Count de Paris to sign his name.
The Count de Paris is of a grave and sweet disposition; he learns well. He is imbued with a natural tenderness, and is kind to those who suffer.
His young cousin of Wurtemberg, who is two months older, is jealous of him; as his mother, the Princess Marie, was jealous of the mother of the Count de Paris. During the lifetime of the Duke d’Orleans little Wurtemberg was long the object of the Queen’s preferences, and, in the little court of the corridors and bedchambers, it was the custom to flatter the Queen by comparisons between the one and the other that were always favourable to Wurtemberg. To-day that inequality has ceased. The Queen, by a touching sentiment, inclined towards little Wurtemberg because he had lost his mother; now there is no reason why she should not lean towards the Count de Paris, seeing that he has lost his father.
Little Michel Ney plays with the two princes every Sunday. He is eleven years old, and the son of the Duke d’Elchingen. The other day he said to his mother:
“Wurtemberg is an ambitious fellow. When we play he always wants to be the leader. Besides, he insists upon being called Monseigneur. I don’t mind calling him Monseigneur, but I won’t let him be leader. One day I invented a game, and I said to him: ‘No, Monseigneur, you are not going to be the leader. I will be leader, for I invented the game, and Chabannes will be my lieutenant. You and the Count de Paris will be soldiers.’ Paris was willing, but Wurtemberg walked away. He is an ambitious fellow.”
Of these young mothers of the Château, apart from the Duchess d’Orleans, Mme. de Joinville is the only one who does not spoil her children. At the Tuileries, everybody, even the King himself, calls her little daughter “Chiquette.” The Prince of Joinville calls his wife “Chicarde” since the pierrots’ ball, hence “Chiquette.” At this pierrots’ ball the King exclaimed: “How Chicarde is amusing herself!” The Prince de Joinville danced all the risquée dances. Mme. de Montpensier and Mme. Liadères were the only ones who were not decolletees. “It is not in good taste,” said the Queen. “But it is pretty,” observed the King.
At the Tuileries the Prince de Joinville passes his time doing all sorts of wild things. One day he turned on all the taps and flooded the apartments. Another day he cut all the bell ropes. A sign that he is bored and does not know what to do with himself.
And what bores these poor princes most is to receive and talk to people ceremoniously. This is almost a daily obligation. They call it—for princes have their slang—“performing the function.” The Duke de Montpensier is the only one who performs it gracefully. One day the Duchess d’Orleans asked him the reason. He replied: “It amuses me.”
He is twenty years old, he is beginning.
When the marriage of M. de Montpensier with the Infanta was published, the King of the Belgians was sulky with the Tuileries. He is an Orleans, but he is a Coburg. It was as though his left hand had smitten his right cheek.
The wedding over, while the young couple were making their way from Madrid to Paris, King Leopold arrived at Saint Cloud, where King Louis Philippe was staying. The King of the Belgians wore an air of coldness and severity. Louis Philippe, after dinner, took him aside into a recess of the Queen’s drawing-room, and they conversed for fully an hour. Leopold’s face preserved its thoughtful and *English* expression. However at the conclusion of the conversation, Louis Philippe said to him:
“See Guizot.”
“He is precisely the man I do not want to see.”
“See him,” urged the King. “We will resume this conversation when you have done so.”
The next day M. Guizot waited upon King Leopold. He had with him an enormous portfolio filled with papers. The King received him. His manner was cold in the extreme. Both were reserved. It is probable that M. Guizot communicated to the King of the Belgians all the documents relative to the marriage and all the diplomatic papers. No one knows what passed between them. What is certain is that when M. Guizot left the King’s room Leopold’s air was gracious, though sad, and that he was heard to say to the Minister as he took leave of him: “I came here greatly dissatisfied with you. I shall go away satisfied. You have, in fact, in this affair acquired a new title to my esteem and to our gratitude. I intended to scold you; I thank you.”
These were the King’s own words.
The Prince de Joinville’s deafness increases. Sometimes it saddens him, sometimes he makes light of it. One day he said to me: “Speak louder, I am as deaf as a post.” On another occasion he bent towards me and said with a laugh:
“J’abaisse le pavillion de l’oreille.”
“It is the only one your highness will ever lower,” I replied.
M. de Joinville is of somewhat queer disposition. Now he is joyous to the point of folly, anon gloomy as a hypochondriac. He is silent for three days at a time, or his bursts of laughter are heard in the very attics of the Tuileries. When he is on a voyage he rises at four o’clock in the morning, wakes everybody up and performs his duties as a sailor conscientiously. It is as though he were to win his epaulettes afterwards.
He loves France and feels all that touches her. This explains his fits of moodiness. Since he cannot talk as he wants to, he keeps his thoughts to himself, and this sours him, He has spoken more than once, however, and bravely. He was not listened to and he was not heeded. “They needn’t talk about me,” he said to me one day, “it is they who are deaf!”
Unlike the late Duke d’Orleans, he has no princely coquettishness, which is such a victorious grace, and has no desire to appear agreeable. He rarely seeks to please individuals. He loves the nation, the country, his profession, the sea. His manner is frank, he has a taste for noisy pleasures, a fine appearance, a handsome face, with a kind heart, and a few feats of arms to his credit that have been exaggerated; he is popular.
M. de Nemours is just the contrary. At court they say: “There is something unlucky about the Duke de Nemours.”
M. de Montpensier has the good sense to love, to esteem and to honour profoundly the Duchess d’Orleans.
The other day there was a masked and costumed ball, but only for the family and the intimate court circle—the princesses and ladies of honour. M. de Joinville appeared all in rags, in complete Chicard costume. He was extravagantly gay and danced a thousand unheard-of dances. These capers, prohibited elsewhere, rendered the Queen thoughtful. “Wherever did he learn all this?” she asked, and added: “What naughty dances! Fie!” Then she murmured: “How graceful he is!”
Mme. de Joinville was dressed as a bargee and affected the manner of a street gamin. She likes to go to those places that the court detests the most, *the theatres and concerts of the boulevards*.
The other day she greatly shocked Mme. de Hall, the wife of an admiral, who is a Protestant and Puritan, by asking her: “Madame, have you seen the “Closerie des Genêts”?”
The Prince de Joinville had imagined a nuisance that exasperated the Queen. He procured an old barrel organ somewhere, and would enter her apartments playing it and singing in a hoarse, grating voice. The Queen laughed at first. But it lasted a quarter of an hour, half an hour. “Joinville, stop it!” He continued to grind away. “Joinville, go away!” The prince, driven out of one door, entered by another with his organ, his songs and his hoarseness. Finally the Queen fled to the King’s apartments.
The Duchess d’Aumale did not speak French very fluently; but as soon as she began to speak Italian, the Italian of Naples, she thrilled like a fish that falls back into the water, and gesticulated with Neapolitan verve. “Put your hands in your pockets,” the Duke d’Aumale would say to her. “I shall have to have your hands tied. Why do you gesticulate like that?”
“I didn’t notice it,” the princess would reply.
“That is true, she doesn’t notice it,” said the Prince to me one day. “You wouldn’t believe it, but my mother, who is so dignified, so cold, so reserved when she is speaking French, begins gesticulating like Punchinello when by chance she speaks Neapolitan.”
The Duke de Montpensier salutes passers-by graciously and gaily. The Duke d’Aumale does not salute more often than he is compelled to; at Neuilly they say he is afraid of ruffling his hair. The Duke de Nemours manifests less eagerness than the Duke de Montpensier and less negligence than the Duke d’Aumale; moreover, women say that when saluting them he looks at them in a most embarrassing way.
Donizetti’s “Elixir of Love” was performed at court on February 5, 1847, by the Italian singers, the Persiani, Mario, Tagliafico. Ronconi acted (acted is the word, for he acted very well) the role of Dulcamara, usually represented by Lablache. It was in the matter of size, but not of talent, a giant in the place of a dwarf. The decoration of the theatre at the Tuileries was then still the same as it had been in the time of the Empire—designs in gold on a grey background, the ensemble being cold and pale.
There were few pretty women present. Mme. Cuvillier-Floury was the prettiest; Mme. V. H. the most handsome. The men were in uniform or full evening dress. Two officers of the Empire were conspicuous in their uniforms of that period. Count Dutaillis, a one-armed soldier of the Empire, wore the old uniform of a general of division, embroidered with oak leaves to the facings. The big straight collar reached to his occiput; his star of the Legion of Honour was all dented; his embroidery was rusty and dull. Count de Lagrange, an old beau, wore a white spangled waistcoat, black silk breeches, white, or rather pink, stockings; shoes with buckles on them, a sword at his side, a black dress coat, and a peer’s hat with white plumes in it. Count Dutaillis was a greater success than Count de Lagrange. The one recalled Monaco and Trenitz; the other recalled Wagram.
M. Thiers, who the previous day had made a somewhat poor speech, carried opposition to the point of wearing a black cravat.
The Duchess de Montpensier, who had attained her fifteenth birthday eight days before, wore a large crown of diamonds and looked very pretty. M. de Joinville was absent. The three other princes were there in lieutenant-general’s uniform with the star and grand cordon of the Legion of Honour. M. de Montpensier alone wore the order of the Golden Fleece.
Mme. Ronconi, a handsome person, but of a wild and savage beauty, was in a small box on the stage, in rear of the proscenium. She attracted much attention.
There was no applause, which chilled the singers and everybody else.
Five minutes before the piece terminated the King began to pack up. He folded his programme and put it in his pocket, then he wiped the glasses of his opera-glass, closed it up carefully, looked round for the case which he had laid on his chair, placed the glass in it and adjusted the hooks very scrupulously. There was a good deal of character in his methodical manner.
M. de Rambuteau was there. His latest “rambutisms” (the word was Alexis de Saint-Priest’s) were recounted among the audience. It was said that on the last day of the year M. de Rambuteau wrote on his card: “M. de Rambuteau et Venus,” or as a variation: “M. de Rambuteau, Venus en personne.”
Wednesday, February 24, the Duke de Nemours gave a concert at the Tuileries. The singers were Mlle. Grisi, Mme. Persiani, a Mme. Corbari, Mario, Lablache and Ronconi. M. Aubert, who conducted, did not put any of his own music on the programme: Rossini, Mozart, and Donizetti, that was all.
The guests arrived at half-past eight. The Duke de Nemours lives on the first floor of the Pavilion de Marsan, over the apartments of the Duchess d’Orleans. The guests waited in a first salon until the doors of the grand salon were opened, the women seated, the men standing. As soon as the prince and princess appeared the doors were thrown wide open and everybody went in. This grand salon is a very fine room. The ceiling is evidently of the time of Louis XIV. The wails are hung with green damask striped with gold. The inner window curtains are of red damask. The furniture is in green and gold damask. The ensemble is royal.
The King and Queen of the Belgians were at this concert. The Duke de Nemours entered with the Queen, his sister, upon his arm, the King giving his arm to the Duchess de Nemours. Mmes. d’Aumale and de Montpensier followed. The Queen of the Belgians resembles the Queen of the French, save in the matter of age. She wore a sky-blue toque, Mme. d’Aumale a wreath of roses, Mme. de Montpensier a diadem of diamonds, Mme. de Nemours her golden hair. The four princesses sat in high-backed chairs opposite the piano; all the other women sat behind them; the men were in the rear, filling the doorway and the first salon. The King of the Belgians has a rather handsome and grave face, and a delicate and agreeable smile; he was seated to the left of the princesses.
The Duke de Brogue sat on his left. Next to the Duke were Count Mole and M. Dupin senior. M. de Salvandy, seeing an empty chair to the right of the King, seated himself upon it. All five wore the red sash, including M. Dupin. These four men about the King of the Belgians represented the old military nobility, the parliamentary aristocracy, the pettifogging bourgeoisie, and moonshine literature; that is to say, a little of what France possesses that is illustrious, and a little of what she possesses that is ridiculous.
MM. d’Aumale and de Montpensier were to the right in the recess of a window with the Duke of Wurtemberg, whom they called their “brother Alexander.” All the princes wore the grand cordon and star of Leopold in honour of the King of the Belgians; MM. de Nemours and de Montpensier also wore the Golden Fleece. The Fleece of M. de Montpensier was of diamonds, and magnificent.
The Italian singers sang standing by the piano. When seated they occupied chairs with wooden backs.
The Prince de Joinville was absent, as was also his wife. It was said that lately he was the hero of a love affair. M. de Joinville is prodigiously strong. I heard a big lackey behind me say: “I shouldn’t care to receive a slap from him.” While he was strolling to his rendezvous M. de Joinville thought he noticed that he was being followed. He turned back, went up to the fellow and struck him.
After the first part of the concert MM. d’Aumale and de Montpensier came into the other salon where I had taken refuge with Théophile Gautier, and we chatted for fully an hour. The two princes spoke to me at length about literary matters, about “Les Burgraves,” “Ruy Blas,” “Lucrèce Borgia,” Mme. Halley, Mlle. Georges, and Frédérick Lemaitre. Also a good deal about Spain, the royal wedding, bull-fights, hand-kissings, and etiquette, that M. de Montpensier “detests.” “The Spaniards love royalty,” he added, “and especially etiquette. In politics as in religion they are bigots rather than believers. They were greatly shocked during the wedding fetes because the Queen one day dared to venture out afoot!”
MM. d’Aumale and de Montpensier are charming young men, bright, gay, gracious, witty, sincere, full of that ease that communicates itself to others. They have a fine air. They are princes; they are perhaps men of intellect. M. de Nemours is embarrassed and embarrassing. When he comes towards you with his blond whiskers, his blue eyes, his red sash, his white waistcoat and his melancholy air he perturbs you. He never looks you in the face. He always casts about for something to say and never knows what he does say.
Four years ago the Duke d’Aumale was in barracks at Courbevoie with the 17th, of which he was then colonel. During the summer, in the morning, after the manoeuvres which took place at Neuilly, he frequently strolled back along the river bank, alone, his hands behind his back. Nearly every day he happened upon a pretty girl named Adele Protat, who every morning went from Courbevoie to Neuilly and returned at the same hour as M. d’Aumale. The young girl noticed the young officer in undress uniform, but was not aware that he was a prince. At length they struck up an acquaintance, and walked and chatted together. Under the influence of the sun, the flowers, and the fine mornings something very much like love sprang up between them. Adele Protat thought she had to do with a captain at the most. He said to her: “Come and see me at Courbevoie.” She refused. Feebly.
One evening she was passing near Neuilly in a boat. Two young men were bathing. She recognized her officer.
“There is the Duke d’Aumale,” said the boatman.
“Really!” said she, and turned pale.
The next day she had ceased to love him. She had seen him naked, and knew that he was a prince.
Yesterday, February 22, I went to the Chamber of Peers. The weather was fine and very cold, in spite of the noonday sun. In the Rue de Tournon I met a man in the custody of two soldiers. The man was fair, pale, thin, haggard; about thirty years old; he wore coarse linen trousers; his bare and lacerated feet were visible in his sabots, and blood-stained bandages round his ankles took the place of stockings; his short blouse was soiled with mud in the back, which indicated that he habitually slept on the ground; his head was bare, his hair dishevelled. Under his arm was a loaf. The people who surrounded him said that he had stolen the loaf, and it was for this that he had been arrested.
When they reached the gendarmerie barracks one of the soldiers entered, and the man stayed at the door guarded by the other soldier.
A carriage was standing at the door of the barracks. It was decorated with a coat of arms; on the lanterns was a ducal coronet; two grey horses were harnessed to it; behind it were two lackeys. The windows were raised, but the interior, upholstered in yellow damask, was visible. The gaze of the man fixed upon this carriage, attracted mine. In the carriage was a woman in a pink bonnet and costume of black velvet, fresh, white, beautiful, dazzling, who was laughing and playing with a charming child of sixteen months, buried in ribbons, lace and furs.
This woman did not see the terrible man who was gazing at her.
I became pensive.
This man was no longer a man for me; he was the spectre of misery, the brusque, deformed, lugubrious apparition in full daylight, in full sunlight, of a revolution that is still plunged in darkness, but which is approaching. In former times the poor jostled the rich, this spectre encountered the rich man in all his glory; but they did not look at each other, they passed on. This condition of things could thus last for some time. The moment this man perceives that this woman exists, while this woman does not see that this man is there, the catastrophe is inevitable.
Fabvier had fought valiantly in the wars of the Empire; he fell out with the Restoration over the obscure affair of Grenoble. He expatriated himself about 1816. It was the period of the departure of the eagles. Lallemand went to America, Allard and Vannova to India, Fabvier to Greece.
The revolution of 1820 broke out. He took an heroic part in it. He raised a corps of four thousand palikars, to whom he was not a chief, but a god. He gave them civilization and taught them barbarity. He was rough and brave above all of them, and almost ferocious, but with that grand, Homeric ferocity. One might have thought that he had come from a tent of the camp of Achilles rather than from the camp of Napoleon. He invited the English Ambassador to dinner at his bivouac; the Ambassador found him seated by a big fire at which a whole sheep was roasting; when the animal was cooked and unskewered, Fabvier placed the heel of his bare foot upon the neck of the smoking and bleeding sheep and tore off a quarter, which he offered to the Ambassador. In bad times nothing daunted him. He was indifferent alike to cold, heat, fatigue and hunger; he never spared himself. The palikars used to say: “When the soldier eats cooked grass Fabvier eats it green.”
I knew his history, but I had not seen him when, in 1846, General Fabvier was made a peer of France. One day he had a speech to make, and the Chancellor announced: “Baron Fabvier has the tribune.” I expected to hear a lion, I thought an old woman was speaking.
Yet his face was a truly masculine one, heroic and formidable, that one might have fancied had been moulded by the hand of a giant and which seemed to have preserved a savage and terrible grimace. What was so strange was the gentle, slow, grave, contained, caressing voice that was allied to this magnificent ferocity. A child’s voice issued from this tiger’s mouth.
General Fabvier delivered from the tribune speeches learned by heart, graceful, flowery, full of allusions to the woods and country—veritable idylls. In the tribune this Ajax became a Némorin.
He spoke in low tones like a diplomat, he smiled like a courtier. He was not averse to making himself agreeable to princes. This is what the peerage had done for him. He was only a hero after all.
The Marquis de Boissy has assurance, coolness, self-possession, a voice that is peculiar to himself, facility of speech, wit occasionally, the quality of imperturbability, all the accessories of a great orator. The only thing he lacks is talent. He wearies the Chamber, wherefore the Ministers do not consider themselves bound to answer him. He talks as long as everybody keeps quiet. He fences with the Chancellor as with his particular enemy.
Yesterday, after the session which Boissy had entirely occupied with a very poor speech, M. Guizot said to me:
“It is an affliction. The Chamber of Deputies would not stand him for ten minutes after the first two times. The Chamber of Peers extends its high politeness to him, and it does wrong. Boissy will not be suppressed until the day the whole Chamber rises and walks out when he asks permission to speak.”
“You cannot think of such a thing,” said I. “Only he and the Chancellor would be left. It would be a duel without seconds.”
It is the custom of the Chamber of Peers never to repeat in its reply to the speech from the throne the titles that the King gives to his children. It is also the custom never to give the princes the title of Royal Highness when speaking of them to the King. There is no Highness in presence of his Majesty.
To-day, January 18, the address in reply to the speech from the throne was debated. Occasionally there are flashes of keen and happy wit in M. de Boissy’s nonsense. He remarked to-day: “I am not of those who are grateful to the government for the blessings of providence.”
As usual he quarrelled with the Chancellor. He was making some more than usually roving excursion from the straight path. The Chamber murmured and cried: “Confine yourself to the question.” The Chancellor rose:
“Monsieur the Marquis de Boissy,” he said, “the Chamber requests that you will confine yourself to the question under discussion. It has saved me the trouble of asking you to do so.” (“Our colleague might as well have said ‘spared me!’” I whispered to Lebrun.)
“I am delighted on your account, Monsieur the Chancellor,” replied M. de Boissy, and the Chamber laughed.
A few minutes later, however, the Chancellor took his revenge. M. de Boissy had floundered into some quibble about the rules. It was late. The Chamber was becoming impatient.
“Had you not raised an unnecessary incident,” observed the Chancellor, “you would have finished your speech a long time ago, to your own satisfaction and that of everybody else.”
Whereat everybody laughed.
“Don’t laugh!” exclaimed the Duke de Mortemart. “Laughter diminishes the prestige of a constituted body.”
M. de Pontécoulant said: “M. de Boissy teases Monsieur the Chancellor, Monsieur the Chancellor torments M. de Boissy. There is a lack of dignity on both sides!”
During the session the Duke de Mortemart came to my bench and we spoke about the Emperor. M. de Mortemart went through all the great wars. He speaks nobly of him. He was one of the Emperor’s orderlies in the Campaign of 1812.
“It was during that campaign that I learned to know the Emperor,” he said. “I was near him night and day. I saw him shave himself in the morning, sponge his chin, pull on his boots, pinch his valet’s ear, chat with the grenadier mounting guard over his tent, laugh, gossip, make trivial remarks, and amid all this issue orders, trace plans, interrogate prisoners, decree, determine, decide, in a sovereign manner, simply, unerringly, in a few minutes, without missing anything, without losing a useful detail or a second of necessary time. In this intimate and familiar life of the bivouac flashes of his intellect were seen every moment. You can believe me when I say that he belied the proverb: ‘No man is great in the eyes of his valet.’”
“Monsieur the Duke,” said I, “that proverb is wrong. Every great man is a great man in the eyes of his valet.”
At this session the Duke d’Aumale, having attained his twenty-fifth birthday, took his seat for the first time. The Duke de Nemours and the Prince de Joinville were seated near him in their usual places behind the ministerial bench. They were not among those who laughed the least.
The Duke de Nemours, being the youngest member of his committee, fulfilled the functions of secretary, as is customary. M. de Montalembert wanted to spare him the trouble. “No,” said the prince, “it is my duty.” He took the urn and, as secretary, went the round of the table to collect the votes.
At the close of the session of January 21, 1847, at which the Chamber of Peers discussed Cracow and kept silent concerning the frontier of the Rhine, I descended the grand staircase of the Chamber in company with M. de Chastellux. M. Decazes stopped me and asked:
“Well, what have you been doing during the session?”
“I have been writing to Mme. Dorval.” (I held the letter in my hand.)
“What a fine disdain! Why did you not speak?”
“On account of the old proverb: ‘He whose opinion is not shared by anybody else should think, and say nothing.’
“Did your opinion, then, differ from that of the others?”
“Yes, from that of the whole Chamber.”
“What did you want then?”
“The Rhine.”
“Whew! the devil!”
“I should have protested and spoken without finding any echo to my words; I preferred to say nothing.”
“Ah! the Rhine! To have the Rhine! Yes, that is a fine idea. Poetry! poetry!”
“Poetry that our fathers made with cannon and that we shall make again with ideas!”
“My dear colleague,” went on M. Decazes, “we must wait. I, too, want the Rhine. Thirty years ago I said to Louis XVIII.: ‘Sire, I should be inconsolable if I thought I should die without seeing France mistress of the left bank of the Rhine. But before we can talk about that, before we can think of it even, we must beget children.’”
“Well,” I replied, “that was thirty years ago. We have begotten the children.”
The Chamber of Peers is discussing a pretty bad bill on substitutions for army service. To-day the principal article of the measure was before the House.
M. de Nemours was present. There are eighty lieutenant-generals in the Chamber. The majority considered the article to be a bad one. Under the eye of the Duke de Nemours, who seemed to be counting them, all rose to vote in favour of it.
The magistrates, the members of the Institute and the ambassadors voted against it.
I remarked to President Franck-Carré, who was seated next to me: “It is a struggle between civil courage and military poltroonery.”
The article was adopted.
The Girardin* affair was before the Chamber of Peers to-day. Acquittal. The vote was taken by means of balls, white ones for condemnation, black ones for acquittal. There were 199 votes cast, 65 white, 134 black. In placing my black ball in the urn I remarked: “In blackening him we whiten him.”
I said to Mme. D—: “Why do not the Minister and Girardin provoke a trial in the Assize Court?”
She replied: “Because Girardin does not feel himself strong enough, and the Minister does not feel himself pure enough.”
MM. de Montalivet and Mole and the peers of the Château voted, queerly enough, for Girardin against the Government. M. Guizot learned the result in the Chamber of Deputies and looked exceedingly wrath.
In his hand was a prospectus for champagne signed by the Count de Mareuil, and stamped with a peer’s mantle and a count’s coronet with the de Mareuil arms. He had shown it to the Chancellor, who had replied: “I can do nothing!”
“I could do something, though, if a mere councillor were to do a thing like that in my court,” said Franck-Carré to me. “I would call the Chambers together and have him admonished in a disciplinary manner.”
Discussion by the committees of the Chamber of Peers of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
I was a member of the fourth committee. Among other changes I demanded this. There was: “Our princes, your well-beloved children, are doing in Africa the duties of servants of the State.” I proposed: “The princes, your well-beloved children, are doing,” etc., “their duty as servants of the State.” This fooling produced the effect of a fierce opposition.
The Chamber of Peers prevented Alton-Shée from pronouncing in the tribune even the name of the Convention. There was a terrific knocking upon desks with paper-knives and shouts of “Order! Order!” and he was compelled almost by force to descend from the tribune.
I was on the point of shouting to them: “You are imitating a session of the Convention, but only with wooden knives!”
I was restrained by the thought that this mot, uttered during their anger, would never be forgiven. For myself I care little, but it might affect the calm truths which I may have to tell them and get them to accept later on.
As I arrived at the Chamber of Peers—it was 3 o’clock precisely—General Rapatel came out of the cloak-room and said: “The session is over.”
I went to the Chamber of Deputies. As my cab turned into the Rue de Lille a serried and interminable column of men in shirt-sleeves, in blouses and wearing caps, and marching arm-in-arm, three by three, debouched from the Rue Bellechasse and headed for the Chamber. The other extremity of the street, I could see, was blocked by deep rows of infantry of the line, with their rifles on their arms. I drove on ahead of the men in blouses, with whom many women had mingled, and who were shouting: “Hurrah for reform!” “Hurrah for the line!” “Down with Guizot!” They stopped when they arrived within rifle-shot of the infantry. The soldiers opened their ranks to let me through. They were talking and laughing. A very young man was shrugging his shoulders.
I did not go any further than the lobby. It was filled with busy and uneasy groups. In one corner were M. Thiers, M. de Rémusat, M. Vivien and M. Merruau (of the “Constitutionnel”); in another M. Emile de Girardin, M. d’Alton-Shée and M. de Boissy, M. Franck-Carré, M. d’Houdetot, M. de Lagrenée. M. Armand Marrast was talking aside with M. d’Alton. M. de Girardin stopped me; then MM. d’Houdetot and Lagrenée. MM. Franck-Carré and Vignier joined us. We talked. I said to them:
“The Cabinet is gravely culpable. It forgot that in times like ours there are precipices right and left and that it does not do to govern too near to the edge. It says to itself: ‘It is only a riot,’ and it almost rejoices at the outbreak. It believes it has been strengthened by it; yesterday it fell, to-day it is up again! But, in the first place, who can tell what the end of a riot will be? Riots, it is true, strengthen the hands of Cabinets, but revolutions overthrow dynasties. And what an imprudent game in which the dynasty is risked to save the ministry! The tension of the situation draws the knot tighter, and now it is impossible to undo it. The hawser may break and then everything will go adrift. The Left has manoeuvred imprudently and the Cabinet wildly. Both sides are responsible. But what madness possesses the Cabinet to mix a police question with a question of liberty and oppose the spirit of chicanery to the spirit of revolution? It is like sending process-servers with stamped paper to serve upon a lion. The quibbles of M. Hébert in presence of a riot! What do they amount to!”
As I was saying this a deputy passed us and said:
“The Ministry of Marine has been taken.”
“Let us go and see!” said Franc d’Houdetot to me.
We went out. We passed through a regiment of infantry that was guarding the head of the Pont de la Concorde. Another regiment barred the other end of it. On the Place Louis XV. cavalry was charging sombre and immobile groups, which at the approach of the soldiers fled like swarms of bees. Nobody was on the bridge except a general in uniform and on horseback, with the cross of a commander (of the Legion of Honour) hung round his neck—General Prévot. As he galloped past us he shouted: “They are attacking!”
As we reached the troops at the other end of the bridge a battalion chief, mounted, in a bernouse with gold stripes on it, a stout man with a kind and brave face, saluted M. d’Houdetot.
“Has anything happened?” Franc asked.
“It happened that I got here just in time!” replied the major.
It was this battalion chief who cleared the Palace of the Chamber, which the rioters had invaded at six o’clock in the morning.
We walked on to the Place. Charging cavalry was whirling around us. At the angle of the bridge a dragoon raised his sword against a man in a blouse. I do not think he struck him. Besides, the Ministry of Marine had not been “taken.” A crowd had thrown a stone at one of the windows, smashing it, and hurting a man who was peeping out. Nothing more.
We could see a number of vehicles lined up like a barricade in the broad avenue of the Champs-Elysées, at the rond-point.
“They are firing, yonder,” said d’Houdetot. “Can you see the smoke?”
“Pooh!” I replied. “It is the mist of the fountain. That fire is water.”
And we burst into a laugh.
An engagement was going on there, however. The people had constructed three barricades with chairs. The guard at the main square of the Champs-Elysées had turned out to pull the barricades down. The people had driven the soldiers back to the guard-house with volleys of stones. General Prévot had sent a squad of Municipal Guards to the relief of the soldiers. The squad had been surrounded and compelled to seek refuge in the guard-house with the others. The crowd had hemmed in the guard-house. A man had procured a ladder, mounted to the roof, pulled down the flag, torn it up and thrown it to the people. A battalion had to be sent to deliver the guard.
“Whew!” said Franc d’Houdetot to General Prévot, who had recounted this to us. “A flag taken!”
“Taken, no! Stolen, yes!” answered the general quickly.
M. Pèdre-Lacaze came up arm-in-arm with Napoleon Duchatel. Both were in high spirits. They lighted their cigars from Franc d’Houdetot’s cigar and said:
“Do you know? Genoude is going to bring in an impeachment on his own account. They would not allow him to sign the Left’s impeachment. He would not be beaten, and now the Ministry is between two fires. On the left, the entire Left; on the right, M. de Genoude.”
Napoleon Duchâtel added: “They say that Duvergier de Hauranne has been carried about in triumph on the shoulders of the crowd.”
We had returned to the bridge. M. Vivien was crossing, and came up to us. With his big, old, wide-brimmed hat and his coat buttoned up to his cravat the ex-Minister Of Justice looked like a policeman.
“Where are you going?” he said to me. “What is happening is very serious!”
Certainly at this moment one feels that the whole constitutional machine is rocking. It no longer rests squarely on the ground. It is out of plumb. One can hear it cracking.
The crisis is complicated by the disturbed condition of the whole of Europe.
The King, nevertheless, is very calm, and even cheerful. But this game must not be played too far. Every rubber won serves but to make up the total of the rubber lost.
Vivien recounted to us that the King had thrown an electoral reform bill into his drawer, saying as he did so: “That is for my successor!” “That was Louis XV.‘s mot,” added Vivien, “supposing reform should prove to be the deluge.”
It appears to be true that the King interrupted M. Salandrouze when he was laying before him the grievances of the “Progressists,” and asked him brusquely: “Are you selling many carpets?” *